I’ve grown optimistic for the turmoil taking place in the Middle East.  When the event was contained in Egypt and the local pro-western governments, it really got to me.  But now that I’m watching Ahmadinejad and Qaddafi taking a piece, I suddenly have renewed hopes for humanity.  My original pessimism stemmed from the assumption that Iran would be in a position to play Egypt’s strings.  That is now in question.

Maybe this thing will spread to South America and come knocking on Chavez’ and the Fernandez’s door?

That being said, I’ve gone over my assumptions and positions, and there just isn’t much backlash or gain I can receive from this whole situation.  It’s like a Shakespearian play; I’m in the audience, watching intently, but the actors are all talking in obfuscating ways, and I don’t really care when Mercutio dies.

As for my positions: AWK is already up almost another percent in pre-market trading, and seems to be standing above the water utility crowd.  However, other names may well eclipse this one in the coming months.

I remember someone on my column pumping CWCO because of their water desalination technology.  Jim Jubak over on MSN has also assembled a list of some ideas.  I haven’t checked out CWCO or any of Jubak’s picks; however, I generally agree with the thesis.  Especially with the draughts that have been taking place in the Asian continent, coupled with that region’s notorious lack of cleanliness; you can expect them to be forced to invest in water in a big way, over the next few years, if they hope to avoid the next plague/famine.

That being said, I’ll just stay with AWK.  I like their position within our own country, at this place and this time.

As for work with actual substance to it; I’ll either be releasing some notes on various stocks that have been mentioned in the comments section, finishing the Talir Index (it is very close to being done), or writing on the concept or risk threshold and what it means for stock selection and decoupling.

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47 divided by 137 is .343.

.343 is less than .6.

16 days is less than three weeks.

Stating you own a stock from 25% the stock’s current trading price with no way of authenticating that doesn’t make you a dasling trader; it makes you look retarded.

Pumping a bullshit micro cap stock with a $137M market capitalization and no accompanying research is also dumb.

This service announcement has been provided for the benefit of the arithmetically and intellectually challenged.

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Last year, I decided to part ways with my prior place of business, based on a general disenchantment with the industry coupled with a hatred for the universal healthcare bill and topped off with a general uncertainty about whether there would even be work to do in the next decade.  While it looks like some of those concerns are about to relax thanks to 5 – 4 votes, Supreme Justice style, I still find no desire to return.

However, as I suspected from the onset, this winter was unbearable for me.  Thankfully, I found time to entertain myself by writing a paper on mathematics; but that still isn’t enough.  I need to get back out of this house.

As such, I am pleased to say that I will be returning to work within two weeks, for a consultation company.

This should in no way affect my posts or their frequency, as the market research I was engaging in only takes up a few hours; I’d much rather have a twelve hour work day than a four hour one.

As of this morning, I”m up thanks to my new investments kicking off the year.

Yesterday, AWK announced 4Q profits rose 10%, and offered a strong forward prospectus.  The stock has been up about 3% over the last three days, which for a water utility company is quite a feet.  While utilities are not known for their strong movements, the markets are getting to a point where these kinds of perceptions are necessarily going to be broken.  With strong bull runs in equity, QE histeria, and questions about the security of bonds, there aren’t a lot of places left for cautious investors to put their money.  Utilities are one of the few remaining places.

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MGM sent me a hand selected bouquet of hand grenades this morning, as they widely missed earnings estimates.  I’m used to the love/hate affection that comes with this stock.  One of these days I’ll respond in kind, Rahm Emanuel style with a week old fish wrapped carefully in a newspaper – a business edition that’s highlighting the stock’s returns.

I’ll dig through the company’s latest information, but I expect to find what I’ve been seeing all along.

Outside the realm of absurd variance of that godless stock, my portfolio is doing very well today, with all my other positions except MGM, CLP and AWK broadly outperforming, thus far.

BG is being especially well behaved, running upwards.  Let’s see that position cut through $80, on its path to becoming comparably priced to ADM and other similar operations.

In my own life, I have something interesting in the works, which shall come to fruition later today.  I will be tied to that matter throughout the afternoon.

Now if you can excuse yourself from the 9^th floor; I’m rather busy.

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I am up over 1% today, giving the metrics a good trouncing.  This is largely thanks to my new positions, and rebounds in some of my remaining, older ones.

BG is rallying up over 3%, likely thanks to the rest of the world realizing that an agricultural company selling at a discount to its book value, in this atmosphere, is quote –  retarded – end quote.

Meanwhile, my REIT positions in CLP and AEC are also doing well.  Going into the year, remember what I said.  Residential REITs are pathetically undervalued and will surprise investors, be they common retail or institutional.  The same people who were assuming at the start of last decade that housing could never go down are the same idiots who are now assuming at the start of this decade that housing related investments will never go up.

Don’t listen to them.

In fact, the only position I have which is down for the day is MGM.  But, MGM will be MGM, after all.  There is just no reasoning with it.  It will stay at these distressed valuations until a buying panic goes into effect.  That’s when I’ll be making the real money from the business.

At weeks end, my positions remain: AEC, AWK, BG, CLP, MGM, NRP, TLP, and silver.

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Fare thee well, Mubarak.  You’ll probably have the last laugh.

Look, between you and me, I hate authoritarianism and I am glad for the Egyptians that they’re taking the route to democracy.  But be realistic here; democracy is not coming to Egypt.

The country has to import almost half of all its food, it has dwindling known oil reserves, decreasing output in those fields it does have, and a shit ton of hot sand and sprawling deserts.

Unless Egypt becomes the glass making capital of the world, there really isn’t much to be had there.

All this in my book spells starvation.  And now, thanks to crippling the quasi-elected individual, the Egyptians have succeeded in empowering the military.  That’s a funny relationship – if protestors start throwing shoes at a freelance military government, I wonder how long it’ll be before the military starts “throwing” bullets.

And meanwhile, the US under the “inspiring” leadership of the Obama administration has managed to completely befuddle both friends and allies alike into second guessing what it is we want.

That’s not healthy.  People don’t like to see a country which has global operations and a thousand plus warhead strong nuclear arsenal waffle like a pancake.  If you think people hate the US when we’re determined, well – at least we’re predictable.

But the US with its head up its ass is probably more concerning to global governments.  The Wikileaks documents that I’ve bothered to read have painted a fairly clear picture that no one likes unstable nuclear forces.  That’s what the Iran situation is really all about: nut jobs don’t get that kind of power.

So in a few weeks, the current administration has succeeded in completely upending the policy of three decades, right out from underneath the feet of people who have backed us for at least that long, while creating an atmosphere that is ideal for other foreign dictators (namely ones who aren’t as kind to us as Mubarak) to get a footing in the country.

Brilliant…

But ultimately, this is going to come to rest at the feet of the protestors.  If they had waited until September, their economy probably could have been saved.  It should be obvious that we wouldn’t have backed Mubarak again, what with the turmoil that he started.  A kinder, gentler, and decidedly fanatic free alternative may have been found.

But they wouldn’t have that, so now they’re going to get a military led government crackdown, Iran-backed Sharia proponents, economic turmoil as foreign investments flee the country, riots over remaining scarce resources, and wavering and indecisive support from the world’s largest and most disciplined armed forces.

Yes, altogether, Mubarak will be smiling and fine, off on a beach somewhere.  Before the end, many of those who protested against him these past weeks will regret that choice, as the greater of evils reveals that Mubarak’s government was actually the lesser.

Watch closely, as the all the ingredients are here for one of the greatest tragedies we’ve ever witnessed.  Will it come to pass?  Who knows?  But with a country like Egypt which is decidedly not self sufficient, you can bet that if things swing the wrong way, many of the people you saw on television over the last days will be starving to death soon.  If the country should isolate itself like with what the Gaza strip residents did, well…just remember Egypt’s population is much, much greater than Gaza.

This isn’t going to be pretty.  Thankfully, I don’t have any investments that are directly sensitive to this bullshit.  I’m going to stay that way.

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