Five for Friday

To help get you off to a good start on your weekend reading, here are five links you might check out:

• Templeton's Mark Mobius says South Korean stocks are cheaper than other emerging market equities, and the currency is undervalued as well. Bloomberg reports the Templeton Emerging Markets Fund (I think they're referring to the closed-end fund on the NYSE) is up 23% over the past 12 months.

• Cundill's David Tiley talks to the Financial Times about attractive value opportunities in Italy. Many Italian companies are controlled by families and/or cross-share holding structures (sounds familiar to anyone investing in Japan), yet he says they often pay good dividends. "We are being paid [to wait for change]," he says.

• Bloomberg's Katherine Burton discusses hedge fund managers running 'concentrated" portfolios -- describing Jon Wood's 40-position portfolio as an example. I've seen concentrated --  or "focused" -- portfolios defined as few as 10 and as many as 50 holdings. I believe 20-25 positions is well diversified, but what do I know? Walter Schloss used to hold 100 names, and the guys at Tweedy Browne do, too. You'll find information on Eddie Lampert and Whitney Tilson in the linked article.

• Regular readers know I've been keeping an eye on Lonrho PLC, the pan-African conglomerate trading on the London Stock Exchange. It's not a big company and its hard to find any in-depth analysis of it. But the African sub-continent GDP has been growing at approximately 7% and could be -- note could be -- a great way to play emerging market growth. Especially with everyone and their brother keen on Mainland China and India. Yet as the post-election crisis in Zimbabwe shows (not to mention the earlier political turmoil in Kenya), investors face significant risks and corruption. Undaunted, Lonrho Chairman David Lenigas explains why he wants his company back in the former Rhodesia.

• Among this blog's most-read non-stock-picking posts dealt with building a men's wardrobe. Here's a 2003 article in the same vein by Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute. I especially agree with his point that (assuming you don't have a limitless budget) you should pay up for suits, sport coats and shoes. You can then get plenty of shirts, ties, pants and socks from less expensive sources.

Enjoy and have a great weekend.