Hottest Links: Year of the PIIGS, Short Vol Is Hot, DJs Trading FX

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Hottest links for Saturday – Sunday, March 8th – 9th, the weekend edition. Get our free daily newsletter and never miss a single linkfest. Also, now if you sign up you will get our new e-book on value investing.

Top stories for today are included below. Lots of great stories for the weekend edition including the PIIGs, despite the crises the best performer once again appear to be Greece and other countries, why? Valuation; Steve Mandel of Lone Pine’s check list for shorting and going long; A warning sign flashes as individual investors start trading derivatives from their smart phones during dates; Beyond the obvious, why are Russian equities so incredibly cheap? That and much more in today’s edition of hottest links.

Hottest Links: Stories

Value Investing

Stephen Mandel’s Investment Check-List

One of the keys to Mandel’s success is he gives check-list guidelines for his analysts to follow in what he wants for longs and shorts. Given Lone Pine’s success over the years, I would say the guidelines are working. [firstadopter.com]

Midas Reveals His Touch – The One Rule to Rule Them All?

The quote above is by Warren ‘The Oracle’ Buffett. Chapter 8 of the Intelligent Investor is about Mr. Market – a fellow I assume you all know too well. [The Odd Lot]

Going Beyond Fundamentals to Make Fundamental Investing Work

Deep markets need active trading. A market with ample liquidity provides buyers and sellers with minimal friction in the form of bid-ask spreads and also acts as a strong ballast against volatility. [Institutional Investor]

Funds

Why are Russian stocks so cheap?

Russia, Argentina, China and Norway were cheapest on PE, Greece and Ireland cheapest on CAPE. [Corner of Berkshire and Fairfax]

Hottest Links

Of Brokers and Bankruptcy

The Wall Street Journal’s Jean Eaglesham and Rob Barry have confirmed this correlation between broke brokers and bad behavior in a new story this week. They looked at a rash of missing bankruptcy filings in brokers’ official records. [Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker]

Hottest Links

BFC Financial: A Massively Undervalued Catalyst-Driven Equity

I believe BFC Financial Corporation (OTCMKTS:BFCF)’s org structure pro forma for the BBX Capital Corp (NYSE:BBX) merger will be as follows. Of note, all of the assets and subsidiaries will be 100%-owned by the ultimate HoldCo, BFCF. [Special Situations, Seeking Alpha]

Hottest Links

Year of the PIIGS? Greece leads 2014 stock market league table

The firm runs a number of country specific index funds, which track the performance of a stock market. Out of its sixteen eurozone indices, Greece has returned the most so far this year, up 9.4pc. In second and third place is Portugal and Italy, up 8.5pc and 8.3pc respectively.  [Kyle Caldwell, The Telegraph] Related; German stocks were down approximately 90% during WWII. However, from 1949-1959, the market returned 4,094%, compared to U.S. equities return of 426% during the same time period. [ValueWalk] Related; David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NASDAQ:GLRE) appears to have joined club. According to new information posted on Greenlight Capital RE’s website,  Alpha Bank A.E. (ADR) (OTCMKTS:ALBKY)  is now one of David Einhorn’s top five largest positions. [ValueWalk]

Macro is Becoming the Dominant Financial/Economic Perspective

One of the themes I’ve written about consistently over the last 5 years is how macroeconomics and, more generally, macro perspectives (top down perspectives) are coming to dominate our financial world. [Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism]

A “Captivating” Tax Minimization Structure

In recent years, smaller, closely held businesses have also learned that the captive insurance entities can provide them significant benefits. These include the attractive risk management elements long appreciated by the larger companies, as well as some attractive tax planning opportunities. [Wesley R. Gray, Turnkey Analyst]

An Awful Lot of People Are Shorting Volatility (VIX); VXX; XVIX; XXV)

I’m starting to wonder if Izabella likes posting on volatility because, in addition to talking to Chris Cole who is pretty sharp, the ETP symbols {VOLATILITY S&P 500 (INDEXCBOE:VIX); iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSEARCA:VXX); UBS AG Exchange Traded Access Securities (E-TRACS) Daily Long Short VIX ETN due November 30, 2040 (NYSEARCA:XVIX); iPath Inverse S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSEARCA:XXV)} read like Roman numerals? As to the headline, I mean “awful lot” in both the colloquial and the literal. [Climateer Investing]

AgFeed’s Trusted Advisors Protiviti and Latham & Watkins

Company executives and directors like to believe they can purchase a posse of “trusted advisors”. Instead, they’ve often only bought a gaggle of self-interested auditors, lawyers, and consultants. But to whom does each of those vendors owe loyalty? [Francine McKenna, re: The Auditors]

Are Small Investors a Sell Signal?

David Avery used to keep half his 401(k) account in bonds and cash. Last year, the 35-year-old computer programmer moved his entire portfolio into stocks, with one recent purchase being Enanta Pharmaceuticals, a small biotechnology company that posted a loss last quarter. [Joe Light, The Wall Street Journal]

Obama Administration’s Lawlessness Finally Hits Home With Investors

Most famously President Obama has now made over twenty executive changes to Obamacare that are not allowed under a plain reading the law. In the majority of these changes the administration simply announced that it will not enforce a law duly passed by Congress and signed by the President. [Jeffrey Dorfman, Forbes]

Hottest Links: Not The Onion

Man Sexually abuses Peacock — Poor Bird Found Dead

You have heard of men having sex with sheep, goats, cows, dogs and even horses, but a peacock?  Well it is true.  David Beckman was charged for sexually assaulting a peacock.  The poor bird did not survive the rape. [Al Gore, WaZaap]

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