Mike, I did not look too deeply into SDM and ISS because I was...

Mike, I did not look too deeply into SDM and ISS because I was unaware of them earlier when I was looking for shares in which to invest, and I now do not have loose change to warrant looking too hard.

I rarely invest less than $20K in a share because I want to limit the number of holdings in my superannuation fund (I have 28 holdings, which is too many). I must extract at least 5% a year of the value of my superannuation fund as a pension, and so I might invest some of this income in a “playpen” to punt on shares that I now do not hold. Consequently, I’ll look at ISS, SDM, ASB and others in anticipation of having oof in October when a number of my share holdings pay dividends.

I agree that SDM is in the right place to do well, and if I had SDM in my portfolio, I would be inclined to keep it. SDM’s business in South Africa and China interests me because many decades ago South Africa developed oil-from-coal technology in which the Chinese are now interested. A Google search using the words “sasol”, “oil”, “coal” “2008” and “china” will find information on this. I wonder if SDM has horned in on this by forming a relationship with Sasol?

As I wrote in my ISS blurb, and probably in the VMG and CXG postings earlier, at this juncture I like firms based in WA and QLD that service the mining and infrastructure sectors. I am temporarily living in WA, so I am more aware of the businesses here, so thanks for bringing SDM to my attention.

My comments on ISS were intended to convey that ISS, a WA small cap, could do incredibly well with BabelFish, because of low marginal costs for each additional licence sold, but software firms and products have historically soon passed into oblivion, often because of superior marketing ability of competitors with products that were not as good. Consequently, one has to weigh both these factors, plus the usual factors, when setting a PER to arrive at a target share valuation.

Pioupiou