ikkyu2 (99.51)

Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

January 09, 2012 – Comments (2) | RELATED TICKERS: GLW

GLoW used to be the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a short-lived idea born in the American 1980's. 

But this post is not about them, sadly; it is about Corning, ticker GLW.  

I posted a few months ago saying they looked like a decent value proposition, depressed cyclical levered to consumer electronics, industrials, and some consumer discretionary/housewares type of things; and that they looked like a buy at 15.  Well, last Friday they closed at 13.25, and so today when GLW bounced off that bottom I picked some up at 13.60.  I'm bullish!

I have since learned that iPhone uses Gorilla Glass, as does iPad; and that in fact Steve Jobs traveled to Corning headquarters to talk their CEO into actually producing this tough glass which they'd invented, but which they weren't selling because they couldn't find a market for it.  Corning is getting ready to roll out Gorilla Glass 2: stronger, clearer, more fingerprint-resistant; everything you want on the surface of your phone; and I expect it to be a good strong product.

To buy this, I sold half my EEM stake.  I am not opposed to the emerging markets, though their performance has been abysmal over the last year and I took a 5% loss on this stake; but I am beginning to feel that I am a better stock picker than an index could be.  Samsung is EEM's #1 holding and I like the look of their business; might just trade the rest of my stake in EEM for a stake in Samsung's ADR, although VOD is another rest-of-worlder that also has my attention.