Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Currency

I'm not sure what currency or basket I should benchmark my performance in or hedge my expected expenses. Frankly, I have now idea where I'm going to be in a few years time. I might:
  • Do an MBA in Singapore (Insead - EUR and SGD).
  • Do an MBA in Australia (University of New South Wales - AUD)
  • Look for a job in the US (USD)
  • Continue working in Japan (JPY)
So a split perhaps? 12.5% EUR, 12.5% SGD, 25% AUD, 25% USD, 25% JPY? The thing is those don't even look like currencies any more; they look more like bets. EUR on the PIIGS, USD on Ben, JPY on the bureaucracy, AUD on resources. I'm currently about 50/50 USD and AUD (including having sold next year's expected YEN savings) but extremely uncomfortable with the situation.

HII

I recently read Joel Greenblatt's book after reading Mike Burry's recommendation in The Big Short, so I thought I'd take a look at some spinoffs (Blatt's stomping ground of choice). Huntington Ingalls Industries will be spun out of Northrop Grumman. A quick skim looked appealing - the industry PE ratios were around 10x, restructuring/writeoff charges depressed recent earnings, it's a leveraged transaction, and the transaction required and received Navy approval.

Since the only important customer is the Navy, I figured insider positions were even more important than usual for this transaction. However, I haven't been able to find insider positions! The 224 page information statement simply reported 2010 compensation info. The SEC filings for initial positions show blanks. I thought I read somewhere that the relevant data would be posted on huntingtoningalls.com but the website isn't live yet (despite the stock being tradeable for a couple days). Maybe this is normal but it seems strange to me. If I can find that information in the next few months I'll research this issue more.