Hewlett-Packard Revisited: Lowest Tech Valuation in 20 Years

You can bet that there will be a Harvard Business School case study written about the last year in the board room at PC hardware giant Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). A little over a year ago I wrote that I thought the stock was pretty cheap after falling to $38 from a high of $55 per share. Mark Hurd, a cost-cutting guru praised by investors, had just been fired as CEO and the company later filled that position with Leo Apothekar, the former CEO of software-focused SAP, a job he held for about seven months before being ousted. At the time Wall Street was reeling from Hurd's exit and given that H-P is the largest hardware company in the world, most everyone wondered why the Board hired Apothekar of all people. At $38 each, the stock fetched only 8.4 times earnings per share of $4.50, about as low as large tech company valuations ever get. Sure, Apothekar was unproven and hardly an inspiring hire, but unless the company's business really was about to fall off a cliff, there appeared to be minimal downside risk given the single-digit multiple. Or so it seemed.

Here we are a year later and the H-P story has been downright bizarre. Apothekar was fired last night and replaced by former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. If you thought hiring Apothekar, a software guy, was an odd choice for the world's leading hardware company, Whitman's career experiences at eBay, Hasbro, Proctor and Gamble, Disney, Stride Rite, and FTD.com is certainly questionable. Not surprisingly, H-P stock fetches $22 today, the lowest level since 2005 and less than five times earnings. According to an analyst that covers H-P who was on CNBC this morning, a large cap tech stock has not traded at that price in more than two decades.

From an investor's perspective, the most interesting thing is that H-P's business has not actually fallen apart, as the stock price would have you believe. Earnings per share for the current fiscal year will likely grow about 5% to $4.80, on flat revenue. So while large technology companies never usually trade for less than 7-8 times earnings, today Hewlett-Packard trades at 4.6 times earnings, which is simply unheard of. To me, that doesn't make any sense unless H-P's business crashes. And if that didn't happen over the last year, I am not sure it is a wise bet that it will happen now. After all, Apothekar's strategic decisions seem to be correct (focus on growing software and services, dump unprofitable tablet hardware that is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars, etc), even when the leadership and communication to Wall Street and customers was unclear, inconsistent, and confusing.

So where do I stand on Hewlett-Packard stock now, with clients sitting on a loss over the last year? Given that the company remains a major player that is extremely profitable and trades at a valuation not seen in decades in the technology space, I am strongly considering doubling down here. There may not be many catalysts short term to get the stock higher, unless Whitman was to inject strong leadership and clear priorities quickly, but earnings would have to collapse from here to justify anything near a $22 stock price longer term. The selling pressure in recent months appears to be capitulation from investors who are fed up with the sheer incompetence of the prior board of directors, rather than significant weakness in the underlying businesses at H-P.

Assuming that management can't get much worse going forward (seems reasonable), there is little reason to think H-P won't fetch at least a 7-8 P/E in the intermediate term (a higher multiple is certainly possible --- the stock fetched 10 times earnings under Hurd --- but at this point conservative assumptions seem prudent). That would imply significant share price upside even without earnings growth (though I do think EPS growth is coming --- it will be +5% this year even after all that has happened). There are just too many ways to get a higher stock price from here, even without making optimistic assumptions.

In summary, the last year has been brutal for the company and its stockholders, but at its current valuation, the stock price just doesn't make much sense, based on what we know today.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of Hewlett-Packard at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Europe's Woes Crushing U.S. Stocks, Creating Longer Term Opportunities

You can certainly argue whether the TARP program was a good idea or not, but you cannot accuse the U.S. government of dragging their feet. They took decisive action, injected much-needed capital into the banking sector, brought confidence back into the system, and the end result was a well capitalized banking industry and a profit on the U.S. taxpayer's $700 billion investment. Unfortunately, the powers that be in Europe are taking their good ol' time to take meaningful action. Greece may be the size of Ohio, as I have repeatedly reminded investors, but as long as the markets freak out about it anyway, strong action must be taken to settle the financial markets down. We have yet to see that (hence the market's continued concern this morning), but let's keep our fingers crossed that we are getting closer.

In the meantime, there are plenty of strong companies that are being dragged down by this prolonged bailout process. Not surprisingly, most of these opportunities are in the financial sector, but in many ways are not directly in the middle of the European crisis but rather only marginally impacted. In my view, a perfect example is Aflac (AFL), the supplemental health and life insurance company whose two largest markets are Japan and the United States. As you can see from the chart below, shares of Aflac have been crushed from $59 to $33, a 44% drop from earlier in the year.

Now Aflac is not exactly the first company that comes to mind when you think about the European debt crisis. So why the huge sell-off in the stock? As a large insurance company, Aflac collects premiums from its customers and invests that capital to earn income until it needs to pay out claims. Aflac's investment portfolio amounts to a relatively large $90 billion. When investing that much money, and doing so in mostly shorter term fixed income securities, an insurance company will own a little bit of everything, and that includes debt of European countries. And therein lies the problem for the stock in 2011.

Aflac has already sold all of its Greece exposure and over the next year or so will de-risk its holdings in the other smaller European countries that people are worried about (Italy, Portugal, etc). Of course, most of Aflac's investments are outside of the troubled European countries and their underlying business is very strong. But in times of stress investors focus only on the negatives, and if any losses at all are possible from Europe, that will drive the stock down quickly.

Given the health of Aflac's business, any losses should be more than manageable. The company right now is earning more than $6 per share. At $33 per share, that puts the stock's P/E at 5.5. Such territory is nothing new for Aflac stock. During the U.S. sub-prime crisis Aflac stock also got killed, dropping from $68 in early 2008 to $10 in early 2009. The company's sub-prime exposure back then also proved to be very manageable (most of the losses were marked-to-market and never actually realized) and the stock soared nearly 500% over the following two years. I have little reason to think this time around will be much different in terms of how the company can weather the storm in the financial markets and the European debt crisis.

Full Disclosure: No position in AFL at the time of writing, but clients of Peridot Capital have owned the stock in recent years and may again in the near future

Let's Face It, Given All That Has Happened Lately, A Market Correction Makes Sense

In a few short days I leave town for a two-week vacation (interesting timing I know, but it has been planned for months and therefore not market-related) but before I leave these volatile markets behind for some refreshing time away I think a few comments are in order. As I write this the Dow is down 400 points to below 11,500 and the S&P 500 index has now dropped 11% from its 2011 high. In the days of computer-driven trading stock market moves are more pronounced and happen faster than ever before, so it is important to keep things in perspective.

First, given everything that has happened in Europe this year, coupled with our own ugly debt ceiling political debate in Washington DC, it is completely reasonable to have a stock market correction. I would even go a step further and say it was a bit odd that the market held up so well prior to last week's debt ceiling dealings. Historically the U.S. stock market has corrected (by 10% or more) about once per year. The last one we had was a 17% drop in 2010 during the initial Greece debt woes. That we have another one now in 2011 is not only predictable based on history, but especially when we factor in everything going on lately financially, economically, and politically. Let's keep the market swoon of the last week or two in context.

From an economic standpoint, investors need to realize we really are in a new paradigm. The U.S. economy was goosed up by debt, both at the consumer level (credit bubble) and at the government level (tax cuts along with increased spending). As a result, we have to see both groups de-lever their balance sheets. Consumers are reducing debt and saving more, and many don't have jobs. The government is now beginning to cut back as well. Consumer spending represents 70% of U.S. GDP and government spending, at $3.6 trillion per year, makes up another 25%. Corporations are the only bright spot in today's landscape, with record earnings and stellar balance sheets, but their spending is only the remaining 5% of GDP. With both consumers and government agencies cutting back, a slowing economy and lackluster job growth are all but assured.

So are we headed back into a late 2008, early 2009 situation for both the economy and financial markets? While anything is possible, we probably should not make such an assumption. A slowing economy (say, 1-2% GDP growth) is far better than what we had at the depths of the financial crisis with 700,000 jobs being lost per month, negative GDP of several percentage points, and runs on the country's largest banks. The 2008-2009 time period did not reflect a normal recession (which would last 6-9 months and be relatively mild). It was far worse this time and those events typically only happen once per generation, not once every few years.

The best case scenario short term is that the markets calm down and we meander along with 1-2% growth. Not good, but not horrific either. Could we slip back into a garden-variety recession due to government cutbacks, 9% unemployment, and a deteriorating economy in Europe? Sure, but that would likely result in a more typical 20% stock market decline over several quarters, not a 50-60% drubbing. And keep in mind we are already down 11% in a few short trading sessions.

What does this mean for the stock market longer term? Well, believe it or not, there are reasons for optimism once investors calm down and we really get a sense of what we are dealing with. With slow economic growth interest rates are going to stay near all-time lows. Buyers of government bonds today are accepting 2.5% per year in interest for a 10-year bond. Savings accounts pay 1% if you are lucky. The S&P 500 stock index pays a 2% dividend and many stocks pay 3% or more. Given the financial backdrop for U.S. corporations relative to the U.S. government, which do you think is a better investment; lending the government money for 10 years at 2.5% or buying McDonalds stock and collecting a 2.9% annual dividend? Investment capital will find its way to the best opportunities and even with slow growth along with the possibility of a double-dip recession, U.S. stocks will look attractive relative to other asset classes.

As a result, I think there are reasons to believe the current market correction is going to wind up being much more normal than the 2008-2009 period. With interest rates and government finances where they are, equity prices can easily justify a 12-14 P/E ratio. Maybe stock market players before the last week or two were just hoping we could escape all of this unscathed, despite the fact that market history shows that is rarely the case. In any event, while I am looking forward to spending some time away from the markets, I am not overly concerned about this week's market action, especially in the context of global events lately. My hope is that by the time I return markets have calmed down and we can revisit how to play the upcoming 2012 presidential election cycle, even though that thought alone makes me want to take far more than two weeks off. :) 

Link: Apple Now Has More Cash Than The U.S. Government

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-has-more-cash-on-hand-than-the-us-government-2011-7 

E*Trade's Largest Shareholder Pushes for a Sale, Company Hires Bankers to Explore Options

It has only been about three and a half months since I wrote about E*Trade Financial and the strong possibility that at some point the company is sold at a large premium to the then stock price of around $15 per share. Although it makes sense for the company to let its legacy loan book runoff as much as possible before exploring a sale, Citadel, with its 10% stake, urged E*Trade to sell themselves last week. The company has hired Morgan Stanley to looks at its options (though it did the same thing last year and decided to wait), and maybe not coincidentally, TD Ameritrade (long thought to be the most natural acquirer of E*Trade) has a previously scheduled board meeting this week during which buying E*Trade will surely be discussed.

My original post pegged E*Trade's value at between $22 and $27 per share and I stand by that range. E*Trade's loan book continues to runoff as expected and loan losses and delinquencies continue to trend lower every quarter (second quarter earnings were reported last week and delinquent loans fell to $1.4 billion from over $2 billion a year ago). After digging into the details of that mortgage exposure, a buyer such as Ameritrade should realize that there is very little there that should scare them out of making an offer. I don't know if a fair offer will come this year (buyers will obviously try to lowball an offer and point to the loan book as the reason why) but even if management stands by their plan from last year of waiting out a couple more years, investors will only get more for their shares. Any offer not at least in the mid 20's probably isn't in the best interests of shareholders at this time. Nonetheless, this story could get very interesting in the next few months so stay tuned.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of E*Trade at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Spending AND Taxes Got Us Into This Mess, And Only BOTH Can Get Us Out

Since we are right in the heat of the debt ceiling/budget deficit debate, I made a point to devote a section of my July quarterly client letter to the topic, but I also wanted to share some of that publicly as well. As old as these arguments back and forth in Washington are getting, they are important issues for our economic and financial futures. To try and boil it down to something (relatively) simple, below are two graphs I created to help people visualize exactly how we got into this deficit mess, and more importantly, the only way we can get out.

The first chart shows tax collections and government spending, as a percentage of GDP, in fiscal 2001 (the last year we had a balanced budget in the U.S.) compared with the projections for fiscal 2012 (which begins on October 1st of this year).

You can clearly see how we have gone from a surplus of 1% of GDP to a deficit of 7% of GDP; taxes went down by 4% of GDP and spending went up by 4% of GDP. If there was ever a question of whether the federal government has a spending problem or a taxation problem, this should end that debate. We have both, and each has contributed equally to our budget deficit woes over the course of the last decade.

To counter one of the most common rebuttals to this conclusion (that taxes are too high) consider that federal taxes (payroll taxes, income taxes, gift and estate taxes, etc) today are at their lowest point since 1950 (again, as a percentage of GDP). In order to balance the budget, we need to close an annual deficit of $1.4 trillion, the product of $3.6 trillion in spending versus just $2.2 trillion in tax collections. If we do not raise taxes at all, government spending would have to be cut by that $1.4 trillion figure, which would be a cut of 40% (and is impossible).

The second chart below shows the sources of our budget deficit, by comparing our finances in 2001 to those that the CBO projects for fiscal 2012. It shows in another way how increased spending and tax cuts are equally responsible for the fiscal problem we have, but it goes a step further by showing that nearly half of the increase on the spending side is due to huge increases in defense spending (which has more than doubled since 2001, from $300 billion in 2001 to $700 billion today).

So not only do we have to get taxes up and cut spending, but we have to cut defense spending meaningfully within that context. If we don't increase taxes and we don't cut defense spending, a balanced budget would require we cut the non-defense portion of the government's budget by a whopping 50% (again, impossible).

If you weren't ticked off at the childish crap going on now on Capitol Hill, you probably should be after reviewing these numbers. The solution to the problem is easy to identify if you want to be honest about it. But without even admitting to that in public, how will our politicians ever actually solve the problem? A depressing thought indeed.

Amazon: The One Overvalued Stock I Wouldn't Mind Owning

"I know you are a value investor, but if you were forced to own one growth stock with a hugely un-Peridot-like valuation, what would it be?"

I recently was posed this question and I have to say, even though it does go against my overall philosophy when it comes to investing, it is an interesting inquiry to ponder. I would actually say Amazon (AMZN) is the one overvalued stock I would not mind owning. Now, long time readers of this blog will recall I have long warned against Amazon shares. The valuation has always baffled me and raised red flags, but for years such caution was wrong, as the stock has done extraordinarily well. So why today, at $213 per share, 50 times trailing EBITDA, and 86 times 2011 earnings would I pick Amazon as an overvalued stock that might make sense owning? Well, it doesn't hurt that they have defied my expectations for years, and I don't think I am the only one.

I never really thought Amazon was going to be anything more than a great online retailer of other people's goods. And while their position in that space will only strengthen as more and more people become comfortable buying online and allocate a higher percentage of their purchases from storefronts to the web, offering low prices keeps their margins minuscule. In fact, Amazon's operating margins in 2010 were 4.1% compared with 6.1% for Wal-Mart and 7.8% for Target. It turns out that Amazon's retail model is not more profitable than bricks and mortar stores, probably because they still need to maintain huge warehouses across the country (fewer bricks, yes, but bricks nonetheless), which is costly, and they have to offer rock bottom prices and free shipping to entice people to buy more online. Amazon has certainly perfected this strategy, but high margin it isn't.

The part of the story I missed, frankly, was how strong they could be in new markets that they essentially help build from scratch. The Kindle e-reader was Amazon's first real big venture outside of just trying to beat bricks and mortar stores at their own game. They successfully created a new market and more importantly, one that has the potential to be higher margin than traditional book printing (digital books). Sure, today they don't make much money on each e-book sold, or the Kindle device itself for that matter (publishers are still setting prices for the most part and keep most of the revenue) but Amazon has the potential to eliminate the middleman in the years ahead. They could become the publisher and help millions of regular authors publish electronically. This is not unlike what Netflix is trying to do by funding their own original tv series now that they have millions of subscribers.

Next up for Amazon is an entrance into the tablet market sometime in the fall. With such a huge library of streaming music, movies, and television shows, there is nothing stopping Amazon from being a heavyweight in digital music and streaming video. Frankly, Amazon can offer a lot more to consumers with a web-enabled Kindle or Amazon-branded tablet versus the Barnes and Noble Nook or yet another me-too Android tablet like the Motorola Xoom or Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Other than Apple, Amazon appears to be the only consumer electronics player that could offer its customers differentiated products. The margins on commoditized Android tablets will head towards zero as everyone cuts prices to the bone to try and grab market share. Amazon seems well positioned to offer more with their products. As a result, they could easily be a formidable competitor to Apple in the tablet and e-reader markets. I'm not saying they pass Apple, but they certainly can pass Samsung, Motorola, HP, and whomever else to be the clear number two player, and I feel good about that prediction even before they have launched many of the products they have in the pipeline.

So what about the stock? Why could it go higher even at its current valuation? Look, at its current market value of $96 billion, I can't possibly make a valuation case for Amazon stock based on cash flow and earnings in the near-term. However, if you simply look at their addressable market opportunity over the next 5-10 years and compare their market value with other leading technology and retail companies, you begin to see how a bullish argument could be made longer term. Apple is worth $330B. Google $170B. Wal-Mart $185B. Facebook could fetch $100B after its IPO. If Amazon continues to innovate like they have what would stop them from being worth $125B, $150B, or even $200B in five years?

I know I have completely changed my negative tune on Amazon as a stock investment (and don't get me wrong, as a value investor I am not going to go out and buy it), but since I was asked the question, if I had to own one seemingly grossly overvalued stock, that would be the one I would pick. Given what they have done in the last five years, coupled with what they are planning and compared with the values of other companies they compete with, $96B seems a lot more reasonable if you ignore the fact that such a figure is 50 times trailing cash flow, or 86 times this year's profits.Thoughts? 

Full Disclosure: No position in Amazon at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

CEO Hire from Apple Gives New Life to JC Penney

I can't recall another time when a stock has risen 17% the day the company announces the hiring of a new CEO. But that is exactly what happened Tuesday after department store chain JC Penney (JCP) landed Apple retail head Ron Johnson to lead the company. Johnson's track record building up Apple's retail store network over the last 11 years, plus a 15-year stint at Target prior to that, has investors clambering for JCP shares, which jumped from $30 to $35 as soon as the news was announced. So should we go out and buy some JC Penney stock too? Maybe, at the right price (not after a $5 jump).

There are a few things that one should point out when evaluating this management change. First, while the stock price increase indicates that JCP has become more valuable overnight, this will be a long term turnaround story, if it materializes at all. Johnson doesn't even start his new job until November 1st. After that it will likely take him six to twelve months to assemble a hand-picked team, review JCP's operations, and formulate a plan for making changes. Adding on another year for those changes to be implemented company-wide is not an unrealistic assumption. As a result, we might be waiting until 2013 before we really see if Johnson's magic will work at this department store chain. And don't forget, we are not selling MacBook Air's and iPads here. Despite who is running the show, JCP is still in the business of selling Van Heusen shirts and St John's Bay shorts to middle income folks shopping in aging shopping malls, not an easy task for anyone in today's highly competitive retail environment.

Also of note is the pay package that Ron Johnson accepted to come over to JCP. He will receive a base salary of $1.5 million and be eligible for an annual bonus of up to $1.875 million if certain milestones are reached. But the big component of his compensation plan is in stock. Johnson gets $50 million in restricted stock because he was set to have that same amount of Apple stock awards vest in 2012, had he not left the company. And by far the most interesting aspect of his pay plan is that he has agreed to buy 7.25 million warrants with a strike price of $30 per share directly from JCP, for $50 million. The warrants cannot be exercised for six years and he paid about $7 each for them.

That means he is investing $50 million of his own money into JCP stock for the next six years at what is essentially a price of $37 per share. As a result, he loses $7 million for each dollar below $37 the stock fetches six years from now, and if the stock is below $30 at that time he loses the entire $50 million. On the flip side, if the stock goes to $50 per share in the next six years, his $50 million investment will be worth a cool $362 million.

This warrant plan tells us a few things about Johnson's reasons for taking the CEO job at JCP. One, when he says he has wanted to lead a retailer as CEO for a while, he's not kidding. There was plenty of money, job security, and minimal reputational risk by staying at Apple. He really isn't doing it for the money either, because although JCP matched his previous Apple stock grants, he is putting up his own cash to try and profit from his future progress at JCP. The cash salary and bonus payment, while not immaterial to the average person, are fairly meager by today's CEO standards. And JCP isn't paying that much for his services given that the $50 million in restricted stock grants will be completely negated by the $50 million Johnson is paying the company for 7 million warrants.

So should investors buy the stock? As a value investor, I would never want to buy it after a $5 one-day pop, although the shares have dropped to $34. Compared with other department store chains JCP stock is neither cheap nor expensive, at their current multiple of 6.2x trailing cash flow. That valuation compares to Kohls and Macy's at 5.5x, Target at 6.2x, and Wal-Mart at 6.9x. If someone believes JCP is not already a dead retailer, and has enough faith in a guy who helped make Target cool and led the hugely successful Apple retail strategy, then maybe buying the stock makes sense, provided you take a multi-year outlook. What price would be attractive in that scenario? Judging from Johnson's warrant package, I would think $30 (or something close to it) would be an excellent entry point. At that price you can be invested alongside him, at around the same price, without having to fork over $50 million of your own money.

Full Disclosure: No position in JCP at the time of writing but positions may change at any time

Pandora IPO Reminds Us What 1999 Felt Like

We have a long way to go before another bubble in Internet stocks emerges but the recent IPO of LinkedIn (LNKD) and today's debut of Pandora (P) serve as reminders of what the late 1990's brought us. Back when Yahoo! (YHOO) was worth more than Disney (DIS) and AOL (AOL) was worth more than (and bought) Time Warner (TWX) there were plenty of bullish pundits arguing why the dot-com versions were indeed worth more because they had far more growth opportunities. While plenty of Internet companies proved to be worth those sky-high valuations, many more did not, including the aforementioned duo.

This morning Internet radio sensation Pandora has seen its stock jump nearly 50% from an IPO price of $16 per share. As a result, Wall Street is valuing the company at a stunning $3.75 billion despite revenue estimates for 2011 of only about $250 million (and more importantly, no profits). How does that compare with some non-dot-com radio competitors? Both Cumulus Media (CMLS) and Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) are valued at about 3 times revenues (including net debt). Cumulus, the more traditional radio play, has about the same annual revenue as Pandora (but has positive cash flow) and carries an enterprise value of around $700 million, approximately 80% less than Pandora.

Sirius XM may be the more relevant comp given that just a few short years ago they were considered the new age upstart in the radio business (and they adopted the subscriber model that many believe holds the key to Pandora's future success). Sirius XM does have a public market enterprise value of $10.4 billion, three times that of Pandora, but with that comes annual revenue of $3 billion (12 times more than Pandora) and over $800 million in annual operating cash flow. Put another way, Sirius's operating profits trumps Pandora' operating revenue by a factor of three.

As was the case back in the late 1990's, some of these new Internet companies will grow into their valuations and not leave early public market buyers hanging out to dry. That said, nearly $4 billion for Pandora seems more excessive than even LinkedIn, which is currently valued at $7 billion. I would not buy either one at current prices, but given their addressable markets, business models, and competitive landscapes, LinkedIn seems to have more relative promise at current valuations. Time will tell.

Full Disclosure: No positions at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Goldman Sachs Targeted Again, Entire Rebound Post-SEC Settlement Gone

So much for nailing that call on Goldman Sachs (GS) after the company settled with the SEC last year. The investment bank agreed to pay a $550 million fine last year on charges that the company engaged in fraud while selling mortgage-related investment products. The stock fell to around $130 per share at the height of the scare last July before rebounding nicely to the $175 area early in 2011. And yet here we are nearly a full year later and other lawyers are looking to get into the game. Unrelenting articles in the financial media from publications such as Rolling Stone don't help either.

Unfortunately, I thought we had gotten past this issue, at least to the same magnitude as in 2010. Wishful thinking on my part. Most of the GS stock I bought for clients last year remains in their accounts, so this latest sell-off related to additional fraud investigations by the New York U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Justice Department has been painful. And with the 2012 election cycle ramping up, what better time to go after the big Wall Street banks yet again?

The interesting thing is, the issues haven't changed much since last year. It is still fairly difficult to proof Goldman Sachs committed fraud because the clear evidence that they lied directly to those buying their mortgage-related products in 2007 and 2008 is scarce. People assume that since Goldman identified a bubble about to burst, while others didn't, means that Goldman must have broken the law. And maybe they did, although the evidence I have seen is flimsy (even experts agreed that the SEC didn't have a strong case). It could just be that Goldman Sachs is smarter than most of the other players in the marketplace (a theory that has been born out for years, by the way). Every transaction requires a willing buyer and a willing seller, which means there will be a winner and a loser in every trade. Just because Goldman was the winner does not mean that they defrauded the other party in the transaction.

As was repeated numerous times during the Congressional hearings prompted by the SEC investigation last year, Goldman Sachs acts as a market maker and a securities underwriter in these deals, not as a fiduciary. As a result, they are not required to put their customers' interests ahead of their own when selling securities. All they must insure is that the investors know what they are getting and how much they are paying. Whether or not it is a good investment for them is up to the buyer to decide, not Goldman Sachs to advise them on. If there is evidence that Goldman lied to the buyers about what they were getting, then clearly the legal issue is only going to get worse for them, but again, there is hardly any evidence of that.

Even the SEC case, which resulted in Goldman agreeing to a large settlement, revolved around Goldman omitting data pertaining to which people structured the deal. All of the details of the security, including what exactly the buyer was getting, were disclosed and known by all parties involved. There has to be personal responsibility, right? If you choose to buy something and are told exactly what it is ahead of time, it should be your responsibility to decide if it is a good investment or not, and if it turns out not to be, you should expect to lose money.

Now, I am not going to pretend to know exactly what evidence will lead to what legal outcomes over the next year regarding these mortgage-backed security transactions. All I can say is that Goldman stock is now all the way back to where it was during the height of the SEC worries last year. It has given back the entire 40-point gain that was recouped after that case was closed. The company continues to have the smartest people in the investment banking universe and be the premiere firm to do business with. Their profits remain strong and the stock trades near tangible book value after the recent correction. Goldman Sachs since their IPO in 1999 has proven again and again they can create shareholder value in all market cycles. Consider the chart below, which shows GS's book value per share growth since the company went public more than a decade ago. As you can see, the company is run superbly well, which usually warrants a sizable premium to book value.

For long term investors it appears to be a great buying opportunity, the same conclusion I made at about this time last year. Of course, if the stock should rebound 40 points again after more lawsuits are resolved, perhaps it would be wise to take some more money off the table, as this issue doesn't seem like it will be going away anytime soon.

Full Disclosure: Clients of Peridot Capital were long shares of GS at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time