Trina Solar’s very understanding banks…
Trina Solar is fast becoming a test-piece about just how understanding a Chinese bank can become.
They have just produced some pretty ordinary numbers (as pre-announced) but it the massive changes in their balance sheet that are really interesting.
...
Software eats part of the world
Marc Andreessen's WSJ article about software eating the world caused debate amongst my colleagues at Bronte Capital. It's a view that informs a fair bit of Bronte's portfolio.*
You see I wouldn't want to make guitar tuners.
After all there is a ...
The SEC should do a secondary suspension of Longtop Financial Technology
Puda Coal is a Chinese company already suspended by the Nasdaq and then relegated to the Pink Sheets. Whilst on the Pink Sheets unsupportable and probably false promotion material was circulated about them.
The SEC suspended them again - a secondary s...
Longtop Financial: Andrew Left loses his mind
I have had several emails on a letter from Andrew Left (Citron Research) so I thought I would give my reply publicly:
I no longer have an interest in Longtop Financial Technologies: my clients have covered.
But Andrew Left, the proprietor of Cit...
Trina Solar and the meaning of "strategic partnership"
A couple of days ago Trina Solar announced a "strategic partnership" with the well managed Australian company Origin Energy*.
I think Origin is one of the best managed companies in that space in the world (but it is not exactly cheap...)
Origin also...
Radio National program on failures of the audit profession
Radio National is the earnest national public radio service in Australia. They recently ran an hour program on the audit profession and this blog and my views particularly on China got a mention.
You can find the program here - and it is worthwhile li...
Google and proprietary formats
Day-to-day I use an Ubuntu computer. The problem with open source is that every now and again you need a particular codec (say a way of encoding sound) or some other proprietary piece of software protected by a patent and you just can't do something.&n...
Four days and roughly flat
After four strange days this week we have made some mistakes (including owning a lot of Bank of America), cleverly covered some shorts and bought some longs on Monday (but limited our trading because of blind fear), made a few more mistakes, had some l...
Trina Solar: Somebody got lucky, but it was an accident
Trina Solar has become a minor obsession of mine. I was originally attracted as a fraud short as per many China names and there are plenty of red-flags. However it is not a typical Bronte China short because unlike other names we have been short (China...
Paul Krugman vs Mr Bean
Welcome to the newer readers from Paul Krugman's blog. It is the third time (I think) he has linked me and as per usual he brings a lot of traffic.
My post on margin calls is my second most visited post in the past year.
The most visited post ho...
Who has got the margin call?
Bronte Capital tends - as this blog has said many times - to be long large cap and relatively liquid companies at 10-16 PE ratios.
And we are short the wildest range of frauds, fads and failures you can imagine.
Our shorts are small and relatively il...
Are prospective expenditure matching funds in Trina Solar’s debt covenants?
Trina Solar buys polysilicon and sometimes wafers and sells finished solar panels. They used to talk about polysilicon processing costs and do their manufacturing at a large and impressive factory.
You can get an idea of the processes involved (b...
