Corporatism

BFT is in a competitive market, and has few new members and a declining credit rating. On the other hand, they’re the biggest gym network in a big fat country. I think that a lot of people have been cancelling their gym memberships as cost-saving measures, but if the larger economy improves they’ll go back. The way Bally’s handles the post-New-Year’s surge of gym-joining and resolution-making should be a good indicator of their ongoing value.

Commerce Bank is one I should have paid attention to earlier. Great bank, strong growth, and not an oversized conglomerate like Bank of America (bad service, bad acquisitions: dump it). Open weekends, too. Even if the stock sucks (and it is expensive right now) I really recommend their checking account and consumer banking services.

SNE could get back in the saddle. They have great design, great technology, strong innovation, and a great brand. On the other hand, the industry is brutally competitive. But the Japanese economy can’t keep sucking forever, and when it revives, Sony should be able to perk up along with it.

RAD was way low for way long. Mismanagement, overexpansion, and so forth, drove them near collapse. But they’ve restructured their debt and their stores keep doing well, and management seems not to be screwing it up this time around, so I think they’ll keep doing well.