TOP 100 TRANSPORTATION AND LOGISTICS SITES
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| Airlines Pair Trade Hao Jin submits:The straight six-week market rally has been accompanied by a drop in the market's volatility. As you can see from the chart below, the Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volatility Index ((VIX)) has come down from its peak at 80 set on Oct 20, 2008, to the current level of 35. Though it is still much higher than the average 10-20 range, at least the market looks much more stable than before. click to enlargeComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Auto MPG: The Economics of CAFE, Part One The Baseline Scenario submits: By James KwakCAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy – the average fuel efficiency that is calculated annually for every manufacturer that sells cars or light trucks in the U.S. and compared to standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transportation. (If you want to know more about how CAFE is measured, see the Appendix to this post.) Tuesday, President Obama proposed new, higher CAFE standards for models years up through 2016, by which point aggregate efficiency should reach 35.5 miles per gallon.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Fed's Sneak Preview of Cash-for-Clunkers Rule TheCarConnection.com submits: In an effort to meet its deadline for releasing the rules of the federal "Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save" initiative (i.e. the official, clunky name of the cash-for-clunkers program), the government has released a 136-page PDF offering more detail than many will want about CARS. However, the document says very clearly at the top, "While we have taken steps to ensure the accuracy of this Internet version of the document, it is not the official version." Naturally the official version will be housed at the fed's thoroughly confusing, impenetrable, Federal Register website. (Last redesign: 1998.) Hopefully, someone will have the smarts to post it to the official CARS website, which is much easier on the eyes.As you might expect from a 136-page document, there's a lot of information here to digest. The good stuff -- as far as most of you are concerned -- is found in section IV, subsections D ("Determining Eligibility of Trade-In Vehicles and New Vehicles") and E ("Requirements for Qualifying Transactions"). Here's a quick rundown on vehicle eligibility, found on page 27:Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Travel Centers of America: Undervalued Stock? Arohan submits: I have started looking into Travel Centers of America (TA) as a possible value play. The stock is currently trading at a little over $3 per share and at its peak a few years ago it had traded as high as $46 per share. The company has suffered the last year and half due to declines in the trucking volumes during the recession. The trick here is to figure out whether the company will be profitable again as the economy rebounds. On the surface, the financials appear to be really good with almost $182 million in cash and about $100 million in debt. As a reference, the current market capitalization of the company is short of $60 million. Its book value also seems to be in the $20 per share range compared to its share price of around $3.25. As you would imagine, this does not always tell the whole story. This company operates in an industry where working capital and cash flow can make or break a company. At first glance, the company appears to have been generating positive or close to zero cash flow every quarter (cash on hand has increased year over year but that could mean anything).Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Is Jeff Matthews' Call for a Growth Surprise Mistaken or Early? Cam Hui submits: The mark of a good fundamental analyst is the ability to dig and look for data points that the rest of the market hasn’t really focused on. So it is with great interest that Jeff Matthews, who often has good fundamental insights, indicated that the economy may be improving or poised to improve because of extremely low inventory levels that he is seeing on a bottom-up basis. In addition, FedEx (FDX) had reported improving volumes back in September, another sign of economic improvement.Matthews concluded that this argues for buying transportation stocks and went on to speculate that this was one of the reasons why Buffett wanted to buy Burlington Northern (BNI):Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |