The Shorts Of Whitney Tilson’s Investor Letter: Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NOK) and More

K-12 is a technology-based education company, and provider of proprietary curriculum and educational services for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. K-12 did manage to post last quarter EPS of $0.24, compared to the $0.11 for the same quarter last year.

K-12 currently operates well below historical standards, only further the short thesis.

• Trailing Twelve Months 5.0%
• 5-Year Average 6.3%

• Trailing Twelve Months 4%
• 5-Year Average 8.5%

Nokia is the struggling mobile phone maker that also has a poor outlook for the next few years. Wall Street expects the company to only grow EPS at 5% annually for the next five years. Nokia is looking to refocus, but is still in between the low-end and high-end of the mobile market, where the company is trying to better establish itself in emerging markets with low-end offerings. However, the mobile phone company is also trying to re-break into the high-end market with the Windows Phone. Margins for Nokia have also been under immense pressure of late…

• Trailing Twelve Months -1.4%
• 5-Year Average 6%

Don’t be fooled. Tilson’s recent performance has not been stellar, but over the long-term his 110.6% return (since inception) has managed to beat all other indices including the Dow Jones. While looking at his current shorts, I also checked out his top five long picks here and six through ten here. As far as the shorts are concerned, I don’t think Caterpillar is a useful short, but Chipotle could be. Meanwhile, the InterOil short idea is worth pursing, while the K-12 short could go either way. Nokia has been rapidly losing market share, which may well lead to more share price depreciation.

The article The Shorts Of Whitney Tilson’s Investor Letter originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Marshall Hargrave.

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