From 10Q Detective: " In the last month, the stock price of CVS has dropped about 10 percent, as investors fear that retailer Wal-Mart’s $4.00 prescription drug plan—which has been expanded to include popular drugs (like the cholesterol drug Pravachol) exiting their 180 Day Generic Drug Exclusivity Period—will adversely impact the drugstores generic margins and decrease store traffic (and non-prescription sales). Given that cash prescriptions account for a small percentage of CVS’s prescription volume/ profits, we view the sell-off as an irrational over-reaction. Excluding the CareMark acquisition, CVS is selling for about 14.8 times FY 2007 consensus estimates of $1.89 per share. If CVS management can successfully execute on the opportunities of scale presented by the CareMark deal—in terms of EPS and incremental new customer traffic—the current price of its common stock could prove to be attractive to patient investors."

From Value Discipline: " Computer Programs and Systems (CPSI) has an incredibly generic name that sounds like a circa-1960 course at college. However, this is a company with a far from generic or prosaic record. This is a business focused on delivering healthcare information services. I believe that this business has a strong competitive moat given its focus on small community hospitals. One of the important characteristics of businesses with a competitive moat is "serious" profitability. This business has a return on capital of 42% over the last twelve months."

From CHEAP STOCKS PICO Holdings (PICO) Reports a Strong 3rd quarter PICO Holdings, which we’ve referred to in the past as the “poor man’s” Berkshire Hathaway, recently reported third quarter sales of $37.2 million, up from last year’s $8.1 million, with net income of $11.8 million versus last year’s $9.2 million loss. The increase in revenue and net income was due primarily to the sale of the Spring Valley Ranch and related water rights for $22 million, or $18.8 million pre-tax. The company originally acquired Spring Valley out of bankruptcy in 2000. PICO continues to sell off Nevada land, but still has 648,000 acres in inventory, or about 1000 square miles. When we originally purchased PICO, land holdings were about 1.2 million acres, and the company continues to opportunistically convert this land into cash.