Subject: Re: Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Small-Cap ETF (VSS)
Quite a few of the boards talk about ETFs and funds all the time, but this one is hoping to be about specific single stocks. (directly or ADR or secondary listing or futures or CFD or with your bookie or whatever...)

That would be perfect. ETFs (as excellent as they are), funds and currencies are OT on this board. The focus should be on individual stocks outside of the US (noting the board title has the word 'stocks'). Particularly with the pessimism throughout Europe, there can a few Ben Graham situations there right now. China has been under lot of skepticism for a quite a few years now, with a theme of "China is uninvestable" on the top of many investors' minds. This inspired Howard Marks to recently declare that this precisely makes China a great place to invest (combing with the ramp up of stimulus) as you want to go places where others aren't.

My Alibaba position has doubled in the quote recently, so the IV10/price isn't the super value as it was, but it still trades at a forward PE of 13 with margins on trend to re-expand after a few years of being compressed. Sales have grew at a 15% CAGR over the last 5 years which includes a period in in which consumers in China went from a lower pressure to a higher pressure condition, so normalizing for that their sales CAGR would (and thus likely will be) somewhat higher again. Try to find a PE of 13 with a 15% sales CAGR and expanding margins in the US right now. Alibaba's problem wasn't so much the government's regulation as commonly cited, but rather that they had some mismanagement with underestimating their competition (particularly PDD). Their margins went under huge pressure, and sales slowed down because of this, and nothing else. Alibaba are very much dominant with Cloud in China and US firms will likely increasingly work with their Cloud services (Apple already signed a large deal) because of the lack of trust in storing information about the public of China within USA. Large cash position, which will eventually have to be used to buy back stock aggressively, and good signs that they are learning to be more cautious with acquisition. Original CEO has partly returned recently to influence direction.

- Manlobbi