Green Business Lights for Forestry and Wood Products Industry Stocks

This part of the economy has lost 60% of its market capitalization during the past 12 months. We cannot do without the Forestry and Wood Products Industry. That is why October 2008 is such an opportune moment in stock exchange history to buy in to the natural wealth of earth.

Stock options are limited. Not many organizations that own large tracts of forests are listed in any stock market. However, it remains difficult to make top stock picks since environmental and social accounting is not mandatory. Usual financial reports are not adequate to appraise the business value of a corporation involved in Forestry and Wood Products. You have to get your boots on and finger-nails dirty. Does the company treat its effluent. Is the re-planting program robust? Are local communities equal partners in the value-addition? 

Sustainability is a new and perhaps somewhat distasteful concept for some stock market veterans. However, people who work the earth have always lived by this credo. Green business comes to the fore in the Forestry and Wood Products Industry. Take your stock picks before the calendar turns to November 2008.

I have no stocks or financial interests in the matter.

Could a Boeing Strike Hit Your Business and Stocks?

No one gains from a strike, except for a trade union. The populist image of vicarious bosses is exaggerated. Strikes have taken place in corporations with the most enlightened of management teams and owners. Here is a link to a matter with which I have had multiple personal experiences:

http://ia.rediff.com/news/jan/18datta.htm

You can never take labor for granted. Neither should Unions hold exclusive sway over opinion-forming by employees. There is no alternative to building a continual process of dialog and grievance-redress. Executives should not shy away from public accountability for their privileges.

A recession is a double-whammy in terms of a strike. The aviation industry is a case in point. Steep falls in demand mark 2008 for this significant part of the world economy. Aircraft manufacturers and airline companies have few choices other than to hand-out pink slips. Executives are caught in clefts of cash crunches and bludgeoning labor costs.

It could happen to you. A Boeing strike is a universal threat for any business, big or small, wherever it may be located. The Human Relations function has tried to distance itself from the heat and dust of a strike, by forming Industrial Relations lackeys under its tutelage. Do not fall for this subterfuge if you are a business owner or a CEO, for a Boeing strike could hit you this Monday morning.

Post below or write to me for an assessment of your labor relations. Take concrete steps starting now to carry your employees through the uncertainty of a world in economic turmoil.

The New Business Management and Stock Investment Models of Amazon.com

Stock prices make for a desolate autumn 2008. That is in general terms. There are stocks which become ever better buys as prices head South.

Take Amazon.com for example. The October 2008 has fallen below half of the 52-week high. The Beta is 2.27. The management has cut guidance. What should stock investors do? Here are my five top reasons to recommend that you buy Amazon.com

1. The web-site is a winner. Take a look for yourself. You will find it hard to stop browsing. It is a Web 2.0 model with plenty of opportunities to express opinions. You could hardly ask for a better place to browse through books and shop for music.

2. The brand is entrenched rock-solid. Ask folks of all kinds. Amazon.com has an amazing top-of-the-mind recall percentage. It is the web site of choice for browsers all over the world. The share in the United States is remarkable.

3. The cost-structure of Amazon.com beats the book-shop format. The entire Retail (Specialty) Industry has suffered drastic Gross Margin reductions. However, Amazon.com has held on to its five-year record for this vital parameter through the looming recession. No one else is as protected against a negative economic cycle.  

4. Amazon.com remains best-poised to leverage a demand upturn. It can add a nearly endless array of products and services to its present platter of books and music. It could be something as mundane as flowers, or a high-value item such as jewellery and handicrafts. I wish the management would diversify sidewards faster though.

5. Liquidity is not an issue with Amazon.com. The Quick Ratio stays below 1. Long-term Debt is less than a fifth of Equity. The Interest Coverage is over 70. Reputed institutions hold most of the stock. You can hardly do better.

Amazon.com is an example, but it is not unique. You can use your disposable cash to build a stock portfolio of extraordinary value during the current market phase. Start right away before others begin to push stock prices northwards.

Assisted Living as a Business Management Response to Stock Market Depression

I feel sorry for my Prime Minister. Dr. Manmohan Singh functioned brilliantly under Mr. Narasimha Rao to pull India from the brink of national bankruptcy. He pledged our country's gold reserves to raise cash. He encouraged all stakeholders to revive economic growth. Diligent financial management was his Mantra. All this was many years ago.

Narasimha Rao is no more. Dr. Manmohan Singh is now at the helm of affairs. Has leadership weighed too heavily on his shoulders? He conceded yesterday that India must prepare for a reduction in the pace of economic growth. This is the difference between economics and business management. You can look for reasons to justify hopelessness, or you can deploy all resources to further aims.

Corrupt links between regulators and Wall Street have brought the United States to its financial knees. India is large and blessed. It need not hang-on to the skirts of this fading power as Europe so loves to do. That should not prevent anyone from taking leaves from the business management Mecca of the world. 

Talk of recession in the United States is exaggerated and futile as well.  It is more like the eclipse of dinosaurs on earth, even as new phyla took to the land and the sky. There are large swathes of business in the United States that flourish even as I write this post. Economists may not have heard of them, but then that may not be a bad thing.

Assisted Living is a thriving business in the United States. It is just what the doctor ordered for an ageing world. It is a better route to realty development than vacuous shopping malls. It is feasible to train most unemployed people, and to put them to work. Pricing and margins are sensitive issues, but that is why we need professional business managers.

Use Assisted Living to defeat the pessimism of stock market economists. Start an Assisted Living business. Invest in stocks of companies that are in this line of work. This is just one example. There are plenty of cash-generating opportunities if you know where to look. Put aside the newspapers and switch off TV as starts. Post below or write to me at drsbanerji@gmail.com instead.

Does Hocus-Pocus Business Management Threaten Your Stock Investment?

Most stock prices have declined of late. Such an obvious statement hides some extraordinary business performance. The most vocal executives are not necessarily highly skilled. Many self-effacing and low-profile ones produce better cash flows than their celebrity cousins.

It is true that nearly all macro-economic indicators are depressing. However, our concerns are with individual stocks, unless someone is a Head of State. That is why we can continue to garner wealth in the midst of a hostile environment. Steering clear of vagueness and irrelevance is the need of the hour. Focus on numbers rather than on qualitative assertions about what others should do. Here are my five favorite quantitative indicators to top stock picks during the week starting today:

1. The Forward Price to Earnings Ratio, backed by a consistent track record of meeting guidance,

2. Improvements in valid customer satisfaction survey findings.

3. Unequivocal guarantees about working capital valuations.

4. Gross Margins that nudge ever upwards.

5. Restructured operating costs, with deep cuts in the fixed ones.  

Do not accept excuses about these inputs not being in the public domain. Insist on verified answers to these five questions. Take your cash away from people who hide crucial facts under mounds of jargon. I am available to help with your stock picks and business development as well.

Microarrays for Business Success and Top Stock Picks

Microarrays divide the world in to three parts. The first does not know what microarrays are. The second does, but lacks business management and stock investing skills. The third appreciates both microarrays and business. This is a Mantra for stock market success. Microarrays are not alone. All business involves technology. Technology is academic science as long as it does not serve society by generating wealth. A technological route can take investors above market turbulence. 

Microarrays have already changed the face of health care. Diagnostic facilities are entirely different from the days when your physician was in medical school. Microarrays are vital in the fight against biological terrorism, and in the cause of food safety. Microarrays have decades of dividends in their folds because the business applications are nearly without limit. Human ignorance about the business potentials of microarrays is a colossal pity. It is also an immediate advantage for the discerning stock investor in the turbulence of Autumn 2008.

The pharmaceutical industry keeps Gross Margins of microarrays under tight wraps. Diagnostic laboratories are happy to follow suit. It is a mug's game for microarray costing is most sensitive to consumption volumes. Honest and capable regulators can change all that, but what is the use of wishful thinking? The action point is to use microarrays to start dynamic new enterprises. It is also a God-send opportunity for stock investment during the coming week.

Post below or write to me at drsbanerji@gmail.com to know more.

Tight-Credit Business Management Drives Stock Value

Equity makes executives complacent. A cash-crunch is better than any crash diet. Stocks gain while managers writhe in pain. Put the world liquidity crisis to work on your investment portfolio. Buy stocks of corporations that are conservative in leverage, which have Gross Margins many multiples of interest costs, which sell on rigid credit terms, and which excel in just-in-time inventories.

My personal learning curve with liquidity crises has been hard indeed. I had to take lessons in 'Finance for Non-Finance Executives' because I once used liberal credit to generate market and brand shares. I recoil with horror at memories of starting each working day juggling cash flows with my colleagues. However, that set of learning has never left my side. I now view all credit lines with suspicion. I support companies that are mean with cash, even though they are not lean with respect to this resource by any means. 

Write to me at drsbanerji@gmail.com or post below if you would like top stock picks based on excellence in cash-flow management.