Evil Knievil: Well worth the COST

Last week I noticed that the admirable Questor column in the Daily Telegraph briefly covered Costain (LON:COST), then 184p. Questor noted that the business is going well but that the shares trade at about five times earnings, or eight if one strips out HS2 work that COST hopes for. The yield is 8.3%. Questor’s original source remarks that he understands why the share price is where it is, but that COST is far too cheap to sell. I thought I ought to buy some nonetheless but did not since I was tied up on other matters.

As it happens the price put on 10p and, on reflection, I think that is still very cheap.

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The Japanese horses did very well yesterday in HK. This proves the terrific success that the Japanese have achieved. It heralds a rising empire.

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Peer to Peer lending seems to have gone wrong. That surprises me since I did not believe that anybody could do worse than the high street clearers. However, the boring old clearers have survived, and I suppose that a lender should risk his own money rather than someone else’s.

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I have been sent a copy of a letter to New Civil Engineer by a David Myles, a retired engineer, now living in Matlock in Derbyshire. Mr Myles points out that all this shifting to electric cars produces vehicles that require more carbon footprint than petrol driven jobbies. I can’t audit his calculations, but I doubt if they are wrong. It is a pretty shocking state of affairs.

That something about climate change must be done is not in doubt. But we do not have to go around fooling ourselves claiming a solution when in fact we have not got one.