Reason Enough September 12, 2007March 8, 2017 THE HONDA AD Reason enough to buy one – or at least to hire their ad agency. Click here. (Thanks, Roger!) GOLD Reason enough to buy some – or a least to read or listen to this piece from last Valentine’s Day on where it comes from. (Thanks, Del!) GOLF It can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle, followed by a good bottle of beer. (Or so sayeth an email circling the World Wide Web.) Reason enough to play 18 holes. Well, not really, but people do seem to enjoy it. EATING MEAT IS WORSE THAN DRIVING Certainly from a cow’s perspective it is; but consider this, from the New York Times. (‘In late November, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.’) So whatever your feelings about the ethical treatment of animals, you’ll save money and the planet and live longer if you have a nice bowl of pasta. Oil, garlic, some salt, ground pepper – how can you go wrong? Be on the lookout for a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit who’ll be showing up for the cameras to make this point. DON’T SELL YOUR FMD My guru weighs in on the latest news: ‘A 55% year-over-year increase in volume. I would expect the margins of this month’s securitization to be reasonably good. If so, that means another year of over 50% earnings growth, in which case it’s currently selling at roughly 5.7x forward earnings. [Fast growers usually sell at more like 20 or 30 or 40 times earnings.] The analyst panning FMD in that New York Times assassin piece was anticipating a securitization volume of $1.25 billion. Instead, it came in at $2.8 billion.’ ☞ So the stock has bounced up to $34.94, a modest profit from where we bought it (adjusted for the subsequent split) – but well below the $57 it was in January. The shorts are convinced it will blow up at some point, and maybe it will. But for all the reasons laid out by Tom Brown and my guru, I’m betting that it won’t. Indeed, if they keep raising the dividend – which the shorts have to pay – they might at some point wonder whether it’s worth it to stay short.