Things Our Man's working on...

Unfortunately, the last few weeks has seen numerous distractions for Our Man (primarily, the small fund he was working out closing down and his US permanent residency interview) and as such he’s a somewhat behind in updating this blog. 

So without further ado, here’s a few of the ideas that Our Man is doing some work on.  Most won’t result in things that will head into the portfolio at this moment, but since Our Man thinks a number of the thematic-orientated ones are secular, there’s a reasonable chance that doing the work now will be somewhat helpful in the future.

Things Our Man is working on: Long Side
- Absolute Value (NCAV) Bucket
One of the strategies that has been consistently successful over time is buying stocks which have a market cap below their Net Current Asset Value (as developed by Benjamin Graham).  Our Man has a few screens, and will do a little qualitative work on each name he comes up with, but the idea is to build up a bucket of these names steadily over the next year.

- Value Idea Bucket
Our Man’s day-job was as an equity analyst, and as such he got to look at all sorts of companies on a bottom-up basis.  As such, expect a few names to potentially appear in this bucket as he goes about researching various ideas that wander across his radar.

- LED Theme
Our Man spent a lot of time studying, and recommending investments in, LED-related names at his old job.  LEDs are starting to become cost competitive in numerous areas (vs. other forms of lighting and backlighting) because they are more energy efficient (more light, less heat than the current forms of lighting).  The first wave of the LED implementation is seeing their use spreading rapidly in electronics devices (think your iPhone, Laptop, TV, etc), with the second wave being the holy grail in LED world (think the light bulb in your office/home, since the one you can see shining brightly outside in Times Square/Vegas is probably already an LED!).

- Lead Acid Battery Theme
Another thing Our Man spent his time working on was Batteries and Energy Storage.  While everyone and their dog, has proclaimed that Lithium-Ion Batteries are the future (all those shiny Plug-In Electric Vehicles), Our Man’s more impressed with their PR than their ability to power future Our Man's car!

- Water Theme
Blue Gold!  Oil was the most precious commodity of the 20th Century, Water will be of the 21st…

- Demographics
Are they destiny?  Our Man doesn’t know, but he does know that having lots of young people (think people entering the work force, starting to pay taxes and buy stuff!) is generally better for a country than having lots of old people (think Japan!).

- Brazil
Of all the BRIC’s, Brazil is the one that Our Man likes the most!  Why?  Demographics and Water (and other Natural Resources) are a good start!

Things to do: Short Side
- Copper/Australia: 
With China’s CPI rate coming in above their expectations, now’s the time to being to dust off the information on Our Man’s preferred instruments of choice, Copper and Australia.

- REITs (especially Hotel and Mall ones)
With cap rates tightening again, hotels having seen both Occupancy and PAR decline in 2009 (and PAR continue to decline in 2010) and Our Man’s concerns about the consumer, we may well be looking a little at the REITs.