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I’m pleased to report I’ve just received a ‘gold star’ from Seeking Alpha!
How come I never got any of those as a kid? All I ever got was regular belts of the ruler… Hmm, who’s getting the most out of this – that SA logo’s pretty big!
Once I began this blog, my intention was to also contribute (at least for US listed stocks) and link my blog to Seeking Alpha. I thought a condensation of my recent Cresud (CRESY:US) posts (I don’t think they’re into Irish farmland commentary) would be a good place to start – here’s the article. It actually survived the SA editors relatively unscathed, although they dumped the new title I’d dreamed up: “Cresud – Pretty Pampas Play!“. Surely that’s the kind of title the meedjya love..?
Anyway, I thoroughly recommend Seeking Alpha – it’s very US-centric, of course, but well worth a daily troll. I also like MarketFolly which is a more dedicated (US) hedge fund tracking site – their weekly What We’re Reading post is particularly good.
I’m also pleased to report that WordPress.com really is idiot-proof! I’ve managed to get this blog up and running this week without a hitch, complete with graphics (ok, had a little help with that bit!). But I was stumped when Seeking Alpha sent me some code and no instructions… What the hell do I do with this? I felt like a kid with a present…and no hands… Finally, out of sheer desperation, I flailed around the Dashboard pretty much clicking random buttons. Then checked the blog and, lo and behold, I see the SA logo. Wow! So I can totally recommend WordPress to everybody – oh, and also ”WordPress for Dummies, 4th Edition”, just released in September.
Wexboy 
El Toro,
Yes, good point re IRSA – something to monitor closely – I didn’t mention in my posts, but the main reason I focus on IRSA’s Market Value is because I’d actually like to see CRESY sell out and focus completely on farmland, so IRSA Market Value (high, or low) is the most relevant metric, I believe.
I’d love to take a closer look at Ledesma, but the English website is not so good..! I know correlations depend on each company’s particular business model, but I’d prefer to invest in a sugar company when sugar is back down at 12 cents or less, I missed it last time ’round.
Cheers,
Wexboy
Fair enough – you may be waiting a while for sugar to get back to 12 cents. Especially in South America, sugarcane (which is what is actually farmed) is trading more and more like an oil proxy because of the significant use of sugar ethanol as a fuel substitute. While ag stocks are nice because the resource is renewable, it does depress the price of most ag commodities relative to the price of oil where once you use it it is gone forever.
I’ve looked at CRESY and the analysis is very complicated. If you value their IRSA and BrasilAgro stakes at market, what convinces you that the market prices for those stakes approximate intrinsic value? In addition, I believe that Argentinian companies mark up the value of their PPE every year to keep pace with inflation, so the PPE is not valued at cost as it is here in the US – which could mean that they are overstating the value of their assets. I don’t think it’s terrible, but have you looked at Ledesma? Ledesma seemed better to me although it seems that none of the global agricultural plays are actually cheap based on current earnings (<10x TTM net income). I like agricultural land in theory for the reasons Passport has espoused, but in practice the earnings of these ag stocks have not responded like I would have expected over a multi-year bull market in ag commodities.