Fletcher House is built on hard times

Fletcher Building Ltd [FBU.NZ] will be one of the biggest recipients of the New Zealand Government pulling out all the stops to get infrastructure built to "stimulate" the economy and whatever your political views on Government economic stimulus', as a shareholder you would have to be pretty pleased with taxpayer dollars coming Fletcher's way.

Fletcher Building made much of the fact earlier this week when releasing their latest profit result that they are now celebrating their 100 year anniversary.

This is clearly significant because over this time the company has weathered countless recessions, a depression and two world wars.

During the Great Depression, Fletcher Building constructed buildings such as the Auckland Civic Theatre, The Auckland University Arts Building and Wellington Railway Station.

In the late 1930s Fletcher's mobilised themselves quickly enough to become the dominant force in the newly created "government housing" sector and when WW2 hit they ameliorated raw material supply problems somewhat by simply manufacturing their own building products.

My point is here that they manged to get through the depression, so far the worst economic downturn in living memory, there is no reason to believe that they cant do the same during this big downturn.

As at 6:15 pm, 13 Feb


To a certain extent the bad times have made the company what it is now and as history repeats itself Fletchers are set to build from this once again and move towards another upturn.

I have pointed out before that every cloud has a silver lining and in Fletcher's case it is infrastructure.

Even before the big downturn that started in September 2008 and the recession that bit in New Zealand in January 2008, Fletchers had a massive backlog of commerical and infrastucture building on their books.

Thanks to cash being thrown at infrastructure in New Zealand, Australia, America and other markets that they operate in, that list of infrastructure is going to grow.

In fact Fletcher Building is somewhat of a barometer when it comes to the health of the economy as a whole.

Building companies are the first to feel the effects of a downturn and the first to show the inevitable turnaround.

Fletcher Building's profit announcement last week was as expected, marked down, and the outlook for the next year looks uncertain at the moment but as I said earlier the money being thrown around in Fletcher Buildings operating markets looks set to push them through the hard times.


Fletcher Building @ Share Investor

Fletcher Building down tools in the short term
Why did you buy that stock? [Fletcher Building Ltd]
A solid foundation for the future
Fletcher Building raises profit through canny management
Fletcher's got game


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Celebrating 100 Years of Fletcher
From neighbourhoods to nations
Click here to learn more about our heritage


Fletcher Building Financials

• Summary
• Charts
• Dividends
• News
• Announcements
• Price History
• Related Securities
• Half Year Results Presentation.pdf ( 1.00 KB )
  

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c Share Investor 2009

Anti PC Hero: Murray Deaker

I have started a regular series called Dipshit of the Week and realise it is negative. The two previous winners of that were Greenpeace and Bob Harvey.

Many of the dipshit awards will be for PC nonsense.

This first in a positive series of Anti PC Hero will be awarded by my good self for individuals and groups who go beyond the call of duty, in the face of unpopularity, with the mung bean eating, tree hugging, whale loving, hairy arm pitted, homo/Lesbian, Maaaori worshipping, Labour/Green voting, kaftan wearing, chardonnay drinking, Prius driving, Global Warming loving, Al Gore types, who try to wipe the floor with their own form of Anit-PC Wet and Forget.

The inaugural winner is Murray Deaker, for risking the ire of his fellow broadcasters and those in the media who will give him hell over the next few weeks for employing Tony Veitch on one of his Sky TV sports shows this Wednesday.

What Veitch did or did not do certainly didn't deserve the treatment he has been handed out by his former employer TVNZ ,the rest of the PC media and the chromosome defficient Ugly Wimins movement.

I'm no big fan of his, I think he is a brain dead moron, but he deserves to work and Deaker is a pure saint for allowing him to.

Good on ya Deaks.

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CSPAN: House & Senate Pass Final Version of 2009 Stimulus Bill (Full Debate & Transcript of Bill)

There is no accounting for stupidity but the Democrats have just passed the final version of the latest US "stimulus" package. Just like the last one it will not work but will in fact make things worse in the future.

Nevertheless, it is an important bill and should be given at least a cursory glance by most of us. Americans and outsiders as well.

It will effect us all.

Here you will find both debates on Video and full text of the bill. Links are below the following video.

Read/Watch it and weep.

Senate debate on Stimulus Bill

House & Senate Pass Stimulus Bill

The House and Senate passed H.R. 1, the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. It now moves to the President, where he is expected to sign it early in the week.
Washington, DC

U.S. House Debate on H.R. 1   

U.S. Senate: Debate on H.R. 1   
House Stimulus Bill H.R. 1 (Updated Ver.) Full Text
CBO Analysis on H.R. 1    Roll Call Vote Tally

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c Political Animal 2009

The Definition of Insanity

The definition of insanity is, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

I have been mulling this opinion over for the last few months and think it is valid, simple and has a charming sort of 3rd form economics (14 yr old thinking for my foreign readers) approach to things.

Here goes.

Just what do Barrack Obama, Gordon Brown, Kevin Rudd and a whole host of other world leaders know that we don't?

I would argue, when it comes to the large sums of taxpayer dollars these imbeciles are doling out quicker than a rotund Wall Street banker in quicksand, that our leaders know very little indeed.

The answer to the Albert Einstein quandary is quite simple really and not as complex as those who dare to represent us might make out.

Why would one hand out very large sums of borrowed money to citizens to spend and "stimulate" economies when it is that very thing that got the globe and especially North America, in the proverbial in the first instance!

We must do the very opposite to this.

While not stopping spending entirely in the German or Japanese extreme, the answer to our current problems is to save.

Well duh !

Sufficient savings allows us to actually give us a real sense of wealth, rather than the plastic fantastic kind that contributed to this mess. That has to be paid back at some time and that time I would argue is now.

It is the same for individuals, business, large corporations and countries.

This is where reality and fantasy go in polar opposite directions and will probably have serious consequences somewhere else in the future.

What happens if you pile this much debt on top of debt to spend your way out of a problem caused by debt?

Well, eventually you have to pay that debt back.

So what Obama, Rudd, Brown et al are doing is postponing the inevitable and when that time comes the problem will be oh so more dire than it is currently.

Perhaps young Albert had something when he uttered those famous words that I posted above.

Here is another poignant ditty to end the lesson:

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction". Albert Einstein

Sorry for the complexity of my simplicity but it had to be said.


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c Share Investor 2009

Graffiti Crimes

A lot of people would strongly agree with me on the following and just as many would strongly disagree.

That doesn't matter, this is my opinion.

Today's decision in the Auckland High Court to sentence Bruce Emery to four years in jail for killing Pihema Cameron last year leaves most thinking people wondering is there any justice in this world.

When an individual such as this poor young 15 year boy is routinely out early in the morning getting high, drinking and destroying property, you have to wonder where his parents are.

When he is dead at 15 from the consequences of his own actions suddenly there are fingers of blame being pointed at everyone but those truly to blame-his parents and himself.

A poor innocent 50 year old mans reputation is ruined, a family in disarray and financially destroyed and he surely cannot return to his neighbourhood for threat of his safety.

It could well have been Emery's life taken instead of the boys, just like half a dozen people who died in the same area shortly before this case, some by the hand of teenage Maori boys.

Emery's sentence was far too tough.

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c Political Animal 2009

Democracy at work: Electoral Finance Act almost gone

Those of you who took the time to March against the Electoral Finance Act in 2007 and last year it is time to pat yourselves on the back (sound of me typing with one finger).

This law was the biggest affrontery against democracy since Labour ditched the Privy Council and before that hater of freedom, we all know who she is, ditched the anti-smacking referendum because she didn't want to lose an election.

We now have the leader of that protest movement John Boscowan, in Parliament and Labour retreating, again, in the face of another one of their laws biting the dust.

It is clear that they still don't get the reasons for their landslide loss last November and this is as far as David Parker, former minister of the fantasy post of "Climate Change" is willing to concede:

"So we do concede that there are imperfections with the existing law, that it did produce an overly complicated regime, that it can be improved."  nzherald.co.nz

That is putting it mildly.

What the EFA did was cause confusion, stifle debate to almost silence and lead to Labour breaking their own law because they thought, as usual that they were above it.

Again, congratulations marchers.

We won!

* I thought the picture was appropriate, if not a little gratuitous, but hey I'm a sucker for a pretty face.

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c Political Animal 2009

Cspan Channel: Live & Recorded Video

Watch the Cspan Channel Live here on Political Animal.

Keep up to date with live political analysis, speeches from the President, debates in the house and Senate.

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c Political Animal & Cspan 2009

Dipshit of the Week: Greenpeace

Yes it had to happen.

The fantasy that is "climate change" has been blamed for the devastating Australian bushfire's.

Some of our Green politicians will no doubt share the same view as their heroes in Greenpeace but this weeks dipshit award lays squarely on Greenpeace and their fantasy religion of climate change.

Scientists began warning some years ago that Australians should expect fires of a new ferocious order care of climate change.

The threat of climate change is real and serious. And the unfortunate truth is that unless the world takes strong action on climate change immediately, natural disasters like the Victorian bushfires, and the floods in Queensland, will become more frequent. NZ Greenpeace Blog

Really, using politics(the climate change movement is political NOT environmental) as an excuse for people dying is not only a slap in the face for those who died horrible deaths but it is simply a fallacy and hides the fact that the green movement is partly to blame for the Victorian fires and the deaths that followed.

The green movement in Victoria and other states has stopped the clearing of trees around houses that has provided the fuel for these fires, in fact the green movement have even required that trees be planted! An article in The Australian by David Packham, a former supervising meteorologist for fire weather nationwide at the Bureau of Meteorology point this out.

Greenpeace deserve condemnation.

Their interference in peoples lives has caused more death and it just goes to prove the irrelevance and dangerousness of their lunatic ideas has once again hit home.

Green voters, the New Zealand and Australian Green Party and especially Greenpeace have blood on their hands

Shame.

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Love your Customers; Hate your Competitors

The attitude that your business competition is supposed to be looked at as some remote entity that is supposed to be good for all players in the sector in which you compete is not just untrue it is complete and utter bollocks.

I would go even further than that. If you love your customers -and mostly you should otherwise you shouldn't be running a business -then you should at least loathe your competition.

I hate mine with a passion.

It is not that I don't like to compete, I love competition but unless you treat your competition like your arch enemy you are not approaching your business in the correct manner.

The business world has been full of animosity between the fiercest of market players, from Coke vs Pepsi, Ford vs Holden, Chicago Bulls vs L.A. Lakers, Google vs Microsoft and in New Zealand Telecom vs Vodafone.

Everyday should be a battle against your competitor and every opportunity for you to get one up on them or make it harder for them in some way means you are doing what you should.

For craps sake they are trying to put you out of business, why shouldn't you match like for like?

Competing on price and service are two major factors that make good businesses better but advertising or telling his customers that your product or service is better than XYZ company is a great way to undermine his sales growth.

It is taken as granted that you are of course better. There is nothing wrong with yelling that from the rooftops.

If someone asks you what you think of your competitor, be honest, tell them what they are really like, warts and all.

A little bit of nonconstructive criticism pointed at your competition will be good for you and your business.

You can have respect for your competition, nothing wrong with that, taking your competition seriously is the number one rule in a competitive market but putting the boot in at every opportunity, when it is warranted, is also a requirement of good business practice-that is if you want to stay in business!

Tattoo it on your forehead.

I hate my competition!

Your competition sure as hell does.


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c Share Investor 2009

Key keeps his head while others channel Chicken Little

Nothing could be more appropriate than to say about John Key but "right man right time".

Key's financial and business experience is shining through.

The cool head approach that National are pursuing in relation to the current financial crisis is in stark contrast to the Labour Chicken Little's in opposition who are bleating to rush in poorly planned stimulus packages that simply will not work.

We all know that the US bank bailout from late last year didn't work. Obama is passing a new one in 2009. The first one wasn't planned and was rushed.

Labour playing politics with the current economic situation is nothing but more of the same petty schoolboy tactics that sent New Zealand into recession almost a full year before everyone else.

For Labour to say National must be shouting its "stimulus" intentions from the rooftops to reassure the populace is politics for the brain dead and most of us have one thank you very much.

It should be bloody obvious that National are taking the current crisis seriously.

They are taking action rather than talking. Cutting back frivolous spending that Labour has introduced (like fruit baskets daily for all MPs! and a long embarrassing list of other waste) is evidence of that and there will be more considered action introduced as the days, weeks, months and years of this crises play out.

John Key is in his element, he looks comfortable, confident and in Parliament today got the better of the opposition.

He stands out here head above shoulders from other world leaders.

Thank god New Zealand voted him in, the alternative would have been scary.

And catastrophic.

c Political Animal 2009

Scam Watch: Optionetics (UPDATE)

You may have noticed that I use Google advertising on the Share Investor Blog.

I use it because it is easy.

I have now blocked the offending advertising thanks to a reader, please let me know if you can still see them in a URL I haven't thought of.

There is one ad that keeps coming up and I must warn my readers about the company.

It is an options trading package that is over hyped, overpriced and underwhelming.

You can options trade by simply doing it yourself or perhaps buying a book and learning.

The company is called Optionetics and the ad will appear with your local URL depending on the country you are viewing this on.

Long-term readers of this blog might like to know that Philip MacCalister, he of Good Returns and a whole host of other financial websites and a rather underhanded individual when it comes to competing with me, is still spamming me with emails and the latest one was spruiking Optionetics.

Here is the link and the content of the email.

Mind you you cant expect much from a man who endorsed Bridgecorp and a whole host of other failed finance companies.

I DO NOT endorse Optionetics and would advise my readers to take a very wide berth of that company and anyone pushing it.


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c Share Investor 2009

Long vs Short: Pumpkin Patch Ltd

In this fifth installment of the Long vs Short series I am once again going to take look at the chart comparisons for a stock from the Share Investor Portfolio and compare the 4 year return (above chart) (PPL listed June 15 2004, so I cant give you a 10 year period like other stocks in this series) to the turmoil of the last year with a 1 year return chart (large chart at bottom of post).

In this series I want to show the merits of investing, using charts, for the long-term vs short term gains or losses. I will use the longest available data to me for the long-term view (10 years )and will make a comparison against the NZX50.

In the fifth of this segment of Long vs Short I will take a look at Pumpkin Patch Ltd [PPL.NZ]

I currently hold 5000 Pumpkin Patch shares after buying 1000 in August 2006 and have added more since then to take the total to 5000 (see small chart below for detail)

Now this is one of the worst performing shares in the portfolio so I expected a poor result for my shareholding which spans about 2.5 years.

I was right!

My Portfolio
Symbol	Price	Value	Earned
PPL.NZ	$0.900	$4500	$-8200
You own 5000 [PPL.NZ] shares purchased at $2.54 [$12700]

If I had held this stock for a full 4.5 years of company listing (see large chart at top) my return would have been 60%-including dividends, tax credits and minus brokerage, the NZX is a gross index of stocks.

By comparison if I had held the stock for just one year (see large chart below) my return would have been a loss of just under 30%.

My total return after 2.5 years or so is a loss of 64% (see small chart on left) That is after dividends and tax credits are added and brokerage applied.

When I initially started this edition of the Long vs Short Series I was expecting to see the long-term return to be negative because the stock has really been hammered. If you were lucky enough to participate in the June 2004 IPO at NZ$1.25 you would still have had a 60% return after collecting the dividends and tax credits, even though the share price ended at 90c today.

Long is still winning after five editions of Long vs Short.






Pumpkin Patch @ Share Investor

Pumpkin Patch Buyback shows Confidence in the Future
Pumpkin Patch takes a hit
Pumpkin Patch ripe for the picking
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I'm buying
Why did you buy that Stock? [Pumpkin Patch]
Rod Duke's Pumpkin Patch gets bigger
Buyer of large piece of Pumpkin Patch a mystery
Pumpkin Patch a screaming buy
Broker downgrades of PPL lack long term vision
Pumpkin's expansion comes at a cost
Pumpkin Patch vs Burger Fuel
Pumpkin Patch profits flatten
New Zealand Retailers ring up costs not tills


Long vs Short series

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
Mainfreight Ltd
The Warehouse Group
Sky City Entertainment

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Pumpkin Patch financial data

• Summary
• Charts
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• News
• Announcements
• Price History
• Related Securities

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c Share Investor 2009

Follow Share Investor's Portfolio: Edition 2

It is about time we took another look at the Share Investor Portfolio. All this market hurly burly surely must have made a significant difference right? Last time we took a look on November 24 (or see portfolio below the current one).

When we compare it with the latest update from Thursday 5th Feb market close we can see that the portfolio is actually mostly marking time, if not slightly up.

The biggest gainer in the portfolio Sky City Entertainment, [SKC.NZ] is up and the biggest loser, Pumpkin Patch Ltd, [PPL.NZ] is even stevens.

I don't look at the Share Investor Portfolio all the time-apart from being depressing you all know that I am a long-term stockholder-but after a 2 month comparison things really don't seem that bad at all.

Share Investor Portfolio @ 5 February 2009

ASB Capital No.2	0.8	0	(0.00%)
Auckland International	1.9	0.02	(1.06%)
Briscoe Group Ltd	0.8	0.03	(3.90%)
Fisher & Paykel Health	3.29	-0.05	(-1.50%)
Fletcher Building	5.52	-0.01	(-0.18%)
Freightways Ltd	2.95	-0.05	(-1.67%)
Goodman Fielder Ltd	1.76	-0.01	(-0.56%)
Hallenstein Glasson	2.16	-0.04	(-1.82%)
Kiwi Income Prop	1.03	0	(0.00%)
Mainfreight Ltd	4	0.1	(2.56%)
Michael Hill Inte	0.53	0.02	(3.92%)
Postie Plus Group	0.3	0.01	(3.45%)
Pumpkin Patch Ltd	0.93	0.01	(1.09%)
Ryman Healthcare	1.37	0	(0.00%)
Sky City Entertainment	3.08	-0.01	(-0.32%)
Steel & Tube Holdings	3.06	-0.04	(-1.29%)
The Warehouse Group	3.6	-0.1	(-2.70%)

Share Investor Portfolio @ 24 November 2008

ASB Capital No.2	0.85	-0.007	(-0.82%)
Auckland International	1.66	0.05	(3.11%)
Briscoe Group Ltd	0.75	0	(0.00%)
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare	3.01	-0.04	(-1.31%)
Fletcher Building	5.55	0.13	(2.40%)
Freightways Ltd	2.9	-0.03	(-1.02%)
Goodman Fielder Ltd	1.8	0	(0.00%)
Hallenstein Glasson	2.28	0	(0.00%)
Kiwi Income Property	1.04	0	(0.00%)
Mainfreight Ltd	4.25	0.04	(0.95%)
Michael Hill International	0.57	0.02	(3.64%)
Postie Plus Group	0.3	0	(0.00%)
Pumpkin Patch Ltd	0.93	0.13	(16.25%)
Ryman Healthcare	1.45	0.05	(3.57%)
Sky City Entertainment	2.98	0.01	(0.34%)
Steel & Tube Holdings	2.7	0	(0.00%)
The Warehouse Group	3.6	0.03	(0.84%)

Go here to see updated prices and refresh your browser to get the latest market price*

* 20 Mins delayed

**The two comparisons above are snapshots of performance for the Share Investor Portfolio on the given dates and have no relevance to its overall performance over the long-term.


You can follow the Share Investor Portfolio now by scrolling down the left hand side of any page of the blog and go to the "Share Investor's Portfolio" module. Each stock in my portfolio is listed there with a 20 min delayed feed of prices from Yahoo Finance and associated charts, news and NZX releases for the day.

See how badly or well it is doing.

You can also follow the daily market value of two individual shareholdings of mine, Sky City Entertainment and Pumpkin Patch, the best and worst performers in my portfolio respectively, just below the Share Investor's Portfolio module on the left-hand column of the blog. These update the dollar values of each stock and return they have given me thus far.


Related Share Investor reading

Why did you buy that stock?

Why did you buy that stock? [Fletcher Building Ltd]
Why did you buy that stock? [Freightways Ltd]
Why did you buy that stock? [Kiwi Income Property Trust]
Why did you buy that stock? [Hallenstein Glasson]
Why did you buy that stock? [Briscoe Group]
Why did you buy that stock? [Fisher & Paykel Healthcare]
Why did you buy that stock? [Pumpkin Patch Ltd]
Why did you buy that stock? [Ryman Healthcare]
Why did you buy that stock? [Michael Hill International]
Why did you buy that stock? [Mainfreight]
Why did you buy that stock? [The Warehouse]
Why did you buy that stock? [Goodman Fielder]
Why did you buy that stock? [Auckland Airport]
Why did you buy that stock? [Sky City Entertainment]

Shareinvestorforum.com- Discuss this Share Investor Post


Long vs Short series

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
Mainfreight Ltd
The Warehouse Group
Sky City Entertainment


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c Share Investor 2008, 2009

Is another Auckland Airport bid likely under a business friendly Government?

Update: Read January 2012 rumour about Airport takeover 

Is Auckland International Airport set for M & A activity?

Its time for some not so idle speculation.

With the new National Government in place and the current relaxing of the rules around the RMA, the major planning law that has stopped economic development of New Zealand, we could expect to see developments in other areas of business in regards to relaxing laws and legislation to allow business to flow quicker and therefore more efficiently and more profitably.

A case in point that I would like to regurgitate is the fiasco that ended last year when it was vetoed by the then Labour administration, after over a year of political wrangling, the Auckland International Airport [AIA.NZ] sale saga.

Two suitors were vying for a slice of New Zealand's largest airport, first Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), then the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Both these bids eventually failed.

Both DAE and CPPIB were knocked back for no other than petty political reasons.

After these two bids failed Lloyd Morrison, through his company Infratil [IFT.NZ] and a partnership with the NZ Super Fund, accumulated around 9% of AIA.

Morrison also owns a majority stake in Wellington Airport and was behind a failed proposal to build a second airport in Auckland.

The thing is, since the relaxing of relevant business legislation one might expect the National Government's attitude to allowing private enterprise to do business freely, therefore opening up the possibility of another bid for the Airport-either by one or both of the spurned suitors or from Infratil.

The only impediment is the obvious funding problems now that credit is difficult to obtain.

However, The one most likely to bid would be DAE, because it is backed by massive oil derived financial backing and because Auckland Airport would be strategic to its global plans to expand its infrastructure.

It is interesting to speculate and this scenario isn't that far fetched.

AIA shares have added around 10% over the last few weeks.


Disclosure: I own AIA shares

AIA @ Share Investor

Is Auckland International Airport set for M & A activity?
Share Investor Q & A: Auckland Airport's Simon Moutter
Auckland Council look set for a Auckland Airport Takeover
Auckland City Council new AIA Policy Doc
Make me an offer I cant refuse: Auckland International Airport Ltd
Long Term View: Auckland International Airport
VIDEO - Simon Moutter on Australian Airport Purchase
Auckland Airport Capital Raising a fair call
Auckland International Airport lands Australian Ports
What Infratil sale of Auckland Airport stake means
Is another Auckland Airport bid likely under a business friendly Government?
Latest Airport coverage
Cullen's move on Auckland Airport has far reaching effects
Cullen's move on AIA tax plan Anti-Business
AIA profit stays grounded
Softening opposition to CPPIB bid for AIA
Directors of AIA bribe brokers not to sell
What is Auckland Airport worth to you?
Second bite at AIA by CPPIB might just fly
AIA new directors must focus on shareholders
Auckland Airport merger deal nosedives
The Canadians have landed
AIA incentive scheme must fly out the window
Government market manipulation over AIA/DAE deal
DAE move on AIA: Will it fly?


Queenstown Airport Buyout @ Share Investor

Queenstown Airport: Queenstown Airport Update
Auckland Airport CEO on Queenstown Airport Fracas
Queenstown Airport: Court Case looks set to Drag
Queenstown Airport: Loud Voices & Loyalty
Queenstown Airport: Air New Zealand's Crocodile Tears
Queenstown Airport: AIA purchase good Long-Term but will cost shareholders Short-Term

Discuss this Stock @ Share Investor Forum - Register free
Download AIA Company Reports

Think Bigger: How to Raise Your Expectations and Achieve Everything
By Michael Hill

c Share Investor 2009