This post is a guest contribution by Vitaliy N. Katsenelson*, author of Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets and director of research at Investment Management Associates.

I often start my mornings with egg, cheese and turkey sandwich at Panera Bread. This morning was no different. While reading newspapers on my Kindle, sipping hazelnut coffee (I know I just lost respect of the true coffee drinkers), I started with yesterday’s FT, an article on China piqued my interest. China plays a very important role in the global economy and thus I pay close attention to it. I started reading:

“The benchmark one-year lending rate was cut by 27 basis points to 5.31 per cent, while the one-year deposit rate was lowered by the ...

The once booming business of private equity faces an uncertain future. What’s not uncertain, however, is that many private equity deals are imploding from the weight of leveraged debt and greed. Inevitable bankruptcies will result in higher unemployment and a deeper recession.

Private equity is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded.  The name “private equity”is the rechristened, kinder and more gentile label for what used to be known as leveraged buyouts, or LBOs. But make no mistake about it, while leverage may not be part of the name any more, it remains a big part of every private equity deal.

LBO firms, or “franchises”, as Henry Kravis, co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), likes to call his shop, acquire publicly traded operating companies. Then they streamline management and operations to increase profitability and hope to cash out

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The importance of the Kremlin-controlled piggy bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) is rising during this financial crisis, as the group becomes the government's critical instrument in its efforts to re-nationalize a large slice of the economy from the country's beleaguered elite business class. Eric Reguly at the Globe and Mail takes a quick look: The financial crisis seems to have given the Kremlin the opportunity to reassert at least some control over the industries that were so haphazardly discarded during the Yeltsin era. The agent of influence is a government development agency called Vnesheconombank (VEB). The chairman of its supervisory board is - guess who - Mr. Putin. Some of Russia's most powerful government officials, including the finance and transportation ministers, prop up the rest of the board.

I have been coming across many comparisons between Apple (nasd: AAPL) and Google (nasd: GOOG) lately, especially given that Apple’s market cap surpassed Google’s last week. A recent example is Felix Salmon, who doesn’t think Apple should be worth more than Google as he argues in “Apple vs Google.” Mark Krieger compares Apple to Google and concludes Apple’s valuation is lofty and due for a pullback. The authors do make some great, valid points, yet their conclusion is ultimately flawed due to the failure of comparing on a free cash flow basis. Cash flow, not accounting earnings, determines an asset’s value. For the matter of an Apple-Google comparison, there are significant differences in free cash flow production, hence return on invested capital (ROIC).

I present the following analysis of the similarities/differences between the

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