The Dividend Investing and Value Network

I posted earlier in the Week that I joined the The Dividend Investing and Value Network (DIV-Net) as a charter member.

This is a new investing network focusing on dividend investing, value investing and a long-term buy and hold philosophy. My inaugural post was today, and I wrote about Barrett Business Services Inc. (BBSI), a company that I have been stalking for some time. The full post is at the DIV-Net site. I will be posting every Thursday on this new network.

Newsflashr

There is too much information circulating out there for anyone to properly digest, and I have found it helpful to use a blog aggregator or some other similar type of site to help organize that information.

There is one I found called newsflashr that I find useful.

One feature is a page dedicated to business blogs that lists the feeds of 50 or so Stock Market blogs ranked by Alexa score. I have two blogs on the page. I am proud to say that I am number 37 on the list today.

The site has the same feature for other categories as well - politics, the election, etc.

I would recommend taking a look at this site.

The Good Ole Days

I just reviewed earnings for Lennar Corp (LEN) and as expected they were atrocious. I don't mean to pick on them since they have enough problems as it is, but while I was on the company web site, I came across a presentation from a sell side conference back in February 2006. The stock was at $60 back then as you can see below:



One of the slides in the presentation detailed the secular bull case for Housing. The reasons given were:

1) Demographics favor continued strong demand.

2) Land supply is constrained.

3) Strong balance sheet & liquidity drive expansion.

4) Market diversification.

5) Professional management teams.

6) Competitive advantage – economies of scale.

It's astounding to me how many institutional investors bought into this thesis. It's very difficult to resist the call of a bubble.

In defense of Lennar, they did present an alternative scenario in the next slide:

1) Rates rise.

2) Economy falters.

3) Unemployment up.

4) Affordability down.

5) Demand weakens.

6) Margins compressed.

Anyhow, I don't have to tell you how it ended and which scenario won out:






If you look at the last housing cycle for Lennar, it also shows a pretty interesting ride, and a great way to make a lot of money if your timing is right.



Disclosure - No Position in LEN.

Charts courtesy of Big Charts.