Flotsam and Jetsam

Just some stuff that has been asked or run across my desk of late. Tim from UBS is good about sending out a daily package and today's had a nice piece about sectors to lead us into the back part of the year. Keep an eye on the consumer staples, health care, telecom and utilities. Our suggestion would be look for value over growth. Everything I am reading is that growth estimates for the balance of the year are overestimated.
I tripped over a great brand with a .82 price to book with little debt and decent cash flow. With a 2.78% dividend yield, it might be interesting to look at this for a long term 18-36 month hold and see this 30 dollar stock return to the 40.00 range where to probably belongs. ALL Allstate. Yeah the same company that schlepped me on my home owners insurance. Maybe that is how their cash flow is so decent. Another stock with a sexy price to book is GE, General Electric. The price to book is 1.6. That means with its current selling price of 18ish, it is an 11.00 stock.
Now if you go way back to the first posts we did in 2009, you would see where we called GE an 8 dollar stock selling for 12 dollars. NOTE the price to book. Back then it was 1.6. They have lousy financials and are still way too in debt, but the 3.25% dividend and the GE franchise looks appealing at this level.
In the category of linkage, we were unloading a bunch of groceries into our home and could not help but note all the packaging. By the time we got everything put away, we had more bags of trash than we did of groceries. Then I read an article about all the growing middle classes in emerging markets and said they will need this packaging. Who makes it? I found a decent play I am going to put some more work into, but the name is SEE Sealed Air. Their debt is a little high but their cash flow is pretty. They just acquired a company and they themselves are an attractive takeover target. This is a 26-28 dollar stock selling for 22. DO YOUR HOMEWORK.
Somebody asked me about Natural Gas. You know we had some serious money in PNG and UNG and walked away after loosing more than 8%. This may be a time to take another look. They were specifically asking about a Canadian firm CNQ. Have not done the homework, but at quick glance it looks decent. Its debt and cashflow leave a lot to be desired. We are going to look back into the field again as UNG has enjoyed an 11% bump in the last 30 days. Terry from Australia sent me a not sharing a news piece that US congressmen and senators have unusually high stock returns. How could they when they are so busy Twittering their photos of their favorite private places to everyone.
Salve Lucrum