Both
Baidu.com (BIDU) and
Ctrip.com (CTRP) have taken serious whacks this week, showing yet again the risk to holding individual equities in this type of market is simply too great - hence the better focus appears to be ETFs as the "risk" part of risk/reward is overweighted - bad news is not just punishing stocks now, it is obliterating them. The ability to wake up and find news that has you down 30% in any single equity is like no time I've been around markets.
Baidu.com (BIDU) had a
very damning press report yesterday - effectively it is alleged they have been altering search results to push those that pay the highest at the top (effectively blackballing some companies which are not paying from the search results), but that's just the tip of the iceburg considering these are drug companies, many of which are unlicensed. Ah, youthful capitalism.... today the company announced it
is suspending customers worth 10 to 15% of revenue.
- Baidu said Tuesday it has been in contact with CCTV and has suspended customers worth about 10 percent to 15 percent of the company's revenue.
This was one of those stocks legendary hedge fund manager Julian Robertson was buying about 5 weeks ago. (
Oct 13: Julian Robertson Buying Some of Our Names) Showing even the best are being hammered by this relentless market. We
closed our position September 8th @
$275, saying
"$275 could quickly become $225 in this market" - well I guess $275 can turn into $125 in this market. The stock is now down 55% from where we sold it and frankly at some point it gets appealing in terms of valuation - even with a loss of 20% of revenue. This is still a near monopoly or at least the stronger of a near duopoly in the fastest growing online market in the world. If I take next year's analysts estimates of $7.22 and drop if by 25%, we still get $5.41 - so we have 23x 2009 estimates (based on a very serious haircut I applied) for a company growing 50-75%.... that said, I have other companies on my watch lists growing 50% for a 4-8 PE ratio so what is cheap anymore?
- U.S.-traded shares of Chinese search engine operator Baidu.com Inc.
