Sino Grandness (SGX:T4B)

Sino Grandness trades on the Singapore Exchange under the symbol T4B.  VIC has a pretty good writeup on the stock: http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/value2/Idea/ViewIdea/128233  (You’ll need to sign up for a guest account to read it.)  While one-sided hit pieces should be read with some skepticism, the writeup raises a lot of red flags and provides some evidence that revenues are massively overstated.

If I could short Singaporean stocks I’d probably be shorting Sino Grandness.

*Disclosure:  No position because I can’t short it.

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The situation in Egypt

TransGlobe Energy (TGL.TO, TGA) and Centamin PLC (CEY.L, CEE.TO) are two publicly-traded companies that have not been able to get their profits out of Egypt.  The end game may be awful for shareholders if they cannot get any profits out of the country ever.  While I am interested in shorting companies with Egyptian assets, the obvious danger is if the Egyptian government begins to respect foreign capital.

*Disclosure:  No position in either TransGlobe or Centamin.

Great Panther Silver (GPL / GPR.TO)

I have a short position in Great Panther Silver because it seems like the company does not have strong cash flows.

Market cap:  US$156M
Great Panther is listed on both the AMEX/NYSE MKT (symbol: GPL) and the TSX (symbol: GPR).
Cost to borrow:  3.625%

Conn’s originations are very high

Conn’s originations seem to exceed the amount of money lent to its customers.

In FY2014, Conn’s originations were $1,075M.
It provided $757.2M in in-house financing, including down payments and excluding insurance.
The ratio between originations versus in-house financing was ~142%.

(CONN) Financial filings show different numbers

My diagram compares the Static Loss data presented in the Q2 2014 10-Q versus the 2013 10-K.  For some reason the numbers are different and I have no idea why.  I honestly don’t have any good theories.

(CONN) Conn’s lending practices

(This is not a short writeup where I say what I truly think.  I don’t like doing such writeups because I don’t want to get sued.)

In a nutshell, I think that it is worth taking a deep dive into Conn’s lending practices.  In my opinion, the 10-Ks and 10-Qs seem to ignore some important ‘nuances’ of Conn’s lending practices.

SCTY and solar subsidies

There are subsidies specific to residential solar that aren’t available to other forms of solar.  Essentially, homes without solar subsidize the ones with solar by paying higher electricity rates.  I don’t think that this is sustainable in the long run.  For there to be more residential solar, electricity rates will have to go higher and higher.  (Ironically this improves the economics of subsidized residential solar.)  At some point, I think that voters will ask for lower electricity bills.  Eventually, politicians “ought” to reduce residential solar subsidies.

(The analysis in this post is superficial.  I apologize in advance.)