Five for the Weekend #13

This is the last weekend before the American presidential election. So there will be plenty of reporting throughout the weekend as news organizations remain in full-court-press mode down to the finish line on Tuesday. If you need a diversion, check out the following between now and Monday.

• Via value blogger Sivaram, I came across presentations from Jim Grant's latest investor conference. Sivaram points to presentations by Grant and Jim Chanos, and I'll add the one by Leon Cooperman is interesting as well. Most of my readers would be most interested in Seth Klarman's presentation, but that's not available to non-subscribers to Grant's Interest Rate Observer.

• Portfolio holding CBS (CBS/NYSE) released results this week, and ad spending is of course down. Les Moonves says the dividend is safe. At current prices, CBS stock yields more than 10%. So let's hope Moonves is right.

• Speaking of the portfolio, the lowest-risk holding is probably Capital Southwest (CSWC/NASDAQ), which is down since I bought it last summer. As is everything. The company announced its net asset value of 9/30 is $142.74 a share, and the stock ended Friday at $102.00. That's a discount of more than 28%. Buyers get conservative management (that's been buying back stock) and some interesting assets while waiting for the market to recover and the discount to narrow.

• Retired finance professor Michael Rozeff argues that gold at $735 is overvalued. And suggests $550 seems a more reasonable price. I think his article is thought-provoking, but since I own no gold bullion I don't have a stake in it or the author's view. I simply link to it as food for thought.

• Regular readers know I'm attracted to the concept of an African-wide investment play. The Dark Continent has been growing by 5% or more over recent years, and the right investment could be a neat play contrasting China/India. Lonrho PLC (symbol in London is LONR) has come down in price significantly and would normally be an appealing speculation. But the markets have sold-off completely and there's no need to look outside the developed world for bargains now. Just keep an eye on Africa, which includes reading the lead articles Africa Confidential continues offering free online.

Have a great weekend and don't overdose on political reporting.

Comments

[David]

Regarding the first item (Jim Grant's investment conference): I think the following notes come from an entirely separate investment conference at Columbia Business School, but it seems Jim Grant and Seth Klarman were both speakers there as well.

http://streetcapitalist.com/2008/10/14/seth-klarman-at-the-cima-2008/

Found this at the Street Capitalist blog and thought you might be interested, seeing as it concentrates on Klarman's presentation. I saw this item and thought back to your mention of the Grant conference and the missing Klarman slides (maybe he gave a similar presentation at Grant's?).

[John]

Thanks, David. I'll check it out. Should be similar, since both Klarman presentations are close together, time-wise.