Osaka Gas (JP:9532) - Under Review

Gave you a "nice" rating in my first analysis. Looks like I was a little quick on that one.

The myth of Japan's Deflation

This post is one of a series, trying to counterbalance a little the majority view of the financial media and vodoo economists about Japan's so called lost decades.

I'm not trying to give an indebth (macroeconomic) analysis about the state of Japan's economy, but rather scratching a little bit on the surface here.

The Fallacy of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH)

A very famous and reasonably intelligent German marketing guy once made the remark, that blogs are the "loo poetries" of the internet. I think that remark is funny and partially correct. And this blog might or might not be any different (actually its intention is not to come to scientifically based conclusion, but rather to scrutinize things on a common sense basis).

A letter to Mr. Market and corporate Japan

Lately, I have been pounding quite a bit on japanese management teams regarding their attitude towards shareholders (the owners of the company) and their negligence of the prevailing phenomenon of stocks selling well below intrinsic value and/ or even below liquidation value for a prolonged period of time.

Cheap Stocks in Japan - Discrimination in Selecting Japanese Net-Net Stocks

Many people bemoan that for years their screens have been coming up with the same Japanese net-net stocks. Therefore they come to the conclusion that it's not worth buying into Japanese net-net stocks at all, as they will very likely remain net-net stocks forever or will eventually go bust.

Foul Play - Sonton Foods (JP:2898)

• Interesting how fast a poison pill gets pulperized, when the aquirer is japanese
• Management didn't act in the interest of the great country of Japan: Deal was not in best interest of stockholders ==> Management only followed self- interest.
• Market to blame too. Has not worked properly
• MBO terms were inadequate

And now we are three - Ryosan (JP:8140)

After Ryoyo and Ryoden, who gained the ambiguos fame of being a company trading at sub- liquidation value three years ago, Ryosan corp. joined the disreputable club this april (congrats).

All of these stocks operate in the same businessfield (electronic trading company) and have the same major shareholder (Mitsubishi electric). Mitsubishi electric must be rolling in cash, allowing those holdings of theirs trading at such abysmal levels.

Adjusting for different depreciation policy - NTT vs. AT&T

Because I had so much fun yesterday playing around with different depreciation rates and scrutinising the effect on key valuation metrics (P/E, ROE, ROA, etc.) here a little follow up on yesterdays post.

Benjamin Graham on Depreciation

"In some very rare cases the depreciation charges are excessive, either because too high rates are used, or becasue the base values are far above replacement costs."