Another strong play from medical stock expert Rob Fannon.

So how can you turn a profit in this turbulent sector? By investing in contract research organisations, or CROs, says biotech expert Rob Fannon. When the big pharmaceutical companies outsource research to CROs they get paid whether or not the new drugs ever make it to market.

The 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrials are trading for 82% of Morningstar.com's estimated fair value, which makes the Dow an undervalued 5-star market. Eleven of the 30 industrials are undervalued 5-star stocks, according to Morningstar.

A nice discussion of "economic moats" and four ways they are created. However, I don't agree that there are only four types of moats. The article missed at least one other type, toll bridges. I'm surprised Sellers didn't mention that one in his article. Are there any others types missing?

A look back at the performance of the Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio. My 12.22% return was pretty respectable given that the S&P 500 delivered less than half that. This post recaps my trades and current holdings.

The Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio outperformed the S&P 500 this month as well as the other major indexes. Read the details to see the latest activity in this portfolio.

I made a nice little profit on Merck even though I bought early after the Vioxx news.

The Fat Pitch Financials Port was up 8.35% in October and is currently up 15.19% over the past 12 months. Merck, Microsoft and Unilever were the most interesting positions this month.

Do you walk the walk of a true value investor

Seems like everyone is talking about this article on how the stock market is at its cheapest point since 1991. I'm not so sure, but it doesn't really matter anyways if you are examining individual companies.

In April, the Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio returned 5.93%. Year-to-date, the portfolio has returned 5.39%. The only major change this month was the addition of Broadridge Financial Solutions to the portfolio on April 10, 2007.

Excerpt: "We define value investing as the buying of stocks that have fallen in price and are now trading at a discount to their intrinsic value. By using simple valuation techniques and knowing when stock prices have suffered at the hands of irrationality, investors can scoop up bargains and watch stock price regress to normal levels."

The Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio has returned 23.41% since inception (Sept. 21, 2004) at an annualized rate of return of 10.01%. Review the trades of this model portfolio focused on purchasing stocks of wide moat companies trading at prices that provide a significant margin of safety.

Followers of the sector know very well that biotech stocks have traditionally traded at premiums to their big pharma counterparts, mainly due to the fact that they tend to be smaller, and therefore one big product breakthrough can have a dramatic effect on the company, and fuel substantially higher earnings growth. It appears in today's market, however, that the two subsets of healthcare have converged as far as valuations go. As a result, I think there are opportunities for investors to capitalize.