Value Investing News

The latest 10-K filing by EBAY INC

When I wake up in the morning and check news for the companies I own, I worry. I don’t worry that my companies missed their quarterly guidance by a few pennies – running a business is an art, and things don’t usually work out in a precise, linear fashion. The companies that have a “deliver the quarter” culture often just play their financial statements as a musical instrument.

According to Bill Miller, Large Cap stocks like XOM and KMB represent a once in a life time opportunity and have not been this cheap since 1951.

To either refute or agree with Bill’s claim we will review a simple metric Earnings Yield.

** FCF/Enterprise Value = Cash Return** E Value = Mkt. Capt + LT Debt – Cash

Bud Labitan is a fellow value investor and the author of Valuations – 30 Intrinsic Value Estimations in the Style of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. I recently met with him on the campus of Purdue University Calumet at the School of Management.

Ben: Interesting. What moved you to finally put one together?
Bud Labitan: As a book, "Valuations" came about in my mind after I had posted a few example valuations at seekingalpha.com. I wanted a book that showed cases on how to sensibly value a business.

The latest report on the performance of the Fat Pitch Financials Value Portfolio hosted at Marketocracy.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is scheduled to release financial results for fourth quarter after the market close on Wednesday, January 20, 2010. Analysts, on average, expect the company to report earnings of 40 cents a share on revenue of $2.28 billion.

The FPF Value Port outperformed the market in 2009, returning 42.44% versus just 26.47% for the S&P 500.