I have not written too much lately, but the short-term research focus continues on stocks that are generally trading at 52 week lows. If you are into gold mining companies, let me tell you, there is no shortage of research to be conducted.
Fortunately, I do not focus on the gold mining industry and can let other intelligent people harvest opportunities in that category. One would think, however, that large-scale entities like Barrick (TSX: ABX) and Kinross (TSX: K) would have some sort of value, given that they are trading at lows they haven’t seen in a decade. That said, just because a large corporation has traded at a certain level in the past doesn’t mean they will continue trading at that value forever – the market is full of survivor bias, which is why you don’t see Polaroid or Kodak trading anymore.
There is another focus which I have been slowly shifting my attention to, and this is territory that is generally unexplored for me: international stocks, beyond those in English-speaking jurisdictions. My natural investment aversion to non-English speaking jurisdictions is colliding against the general belief that there seemingly are entities trading out there that are at relatively cheap valuations. I can easily see right now, however, that I am the person around the poker table that everybody wants to take a dollar out of, so I am very wary treading into this direction.
I did find a particular investment candidate in the early part of the quarter which I pounced on with two feet and this unexpectedly has boosted the performance of the portfolio considerably and I hope to find others. I might write a report on this one after year-end.