racemize

Oh, I think Nokia and Microsoft is fine, but AT&T blocking upgrades is a killer.

Looks like AT&T is screwing it up--way to negotiate MSFT! http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/04/the-nokia-lumia-900-a-good-phone-at-a-great-price-that-you-probably-shouldnt-buy.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

As of late, I've been taking the time to catch up on a lot of investment reading (e.g., various investment books, finishing reading old Buffett/Marks/Watsa/LUK letters, etc.). That doesn't stop me from doing some poking around though.

As a patent agent, I can speak with some confidence in this area--patents are incredibly hard to value. While patents have been fetching very high prices as of late, we are currently in very patent-active time, particularly in the mobile space. If these patent portfolios have fundamental patents in the Internet/mobile space, then they are worth a ton. However, to really find out if any particular patent portfolio has a patent (and particularly a valid patent) in that space takes an incredible amount of time. So, in conclusion, it's way too hard--I'd rather value companies than patents honestly.

I thought they would come back strong, but we still haven't gotten to the point where the investments last year have paid off (e.g., above water), at least for Berkowitz. I was really hoping to get invested in the fund last August, but we could never get him to respond for being included in our 401k (sadface).

seems like a pretty odd move. Instagram isn't that much different than most social networking sites/apps, it just has the filter added on, and I guess all the work on the GUI for adding it, but still....

totally with you on that. You could start averaging in--I usually go with this if I want to establish a large position and I know that the investment will be good (but perhaps not heroic) at current levels. That way, if it goes up out of range, you have a small portion of the thing you liked, and if it goes down, you average down. I did this with WFC/BRK over the last 1.5 years (stopped after the August lows).

(Disclosure, I've only watched this by reading this thread, and am just curious). Didn't the lock-up have a period associated with it? Could they have switched over at this point? Is it possible that they think the outcome for FBRK is better under ABH than MERC? Probably true for themselves, but is it possible that they just think the MERC offer is a bad direction to go for the future of FBRK?

Hi All, I recently had my wisdom teeth out and have read through all of Howard Marks' Memos (I was pretty drugged up throughout). I have found his thoughts on risk to be pretty spot in and they resonate strongly with me. In his honor, I thought I would start writing my own essays to solidify my thinking. Here's a link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14968/stevensfund/reports/2012-04-02%20-Stevens%20Fund%20Essay%20-%20Know%20Your%20Graph.pdf I had hoped to make it as easy to read and understandable as Marks or Buffett, but the thrust of this essay is somewhat technical and abstract, so I don't know how well I did on that front. In any event, I hope this is useful for others.

I don't think you have to make very heroic assumptions to get to $60 IV. $5 per share in earnings is equal to the $19 billion they earned this year. 12x that figure gets you to $60. This gives no credit to his belief that they'll hit $23-$24 billion, which should be a layup between winddown of legacy mortgage and growth in the int'l franchise. I need to go back and re-read to be sure, but I think he was using TBV and BV as buyback points to get a good return on the money--if they have some required return on investment, perhaps buying above TBV doesn't reach that return relative to IV (e.g., they could invest it elsewhere to get higher returns). Isn't it the same reasoning that Buffett uses for buybacks (i.e., only buy back at extremely conservative IV values)?

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ONE/1716061408x0x556144/cafb598e-ee88-43ee-a7d3-70673d5791a1/JPM_2011_annual_report_letter.pdf

about an hour long. Edit: Interviewer is kind of annoying at times.

I was thinking physical mail would probably be the way to go, thanks for the advice.

Hi all, I've written an essay on risk that was inspired by Howard Marks. I was thinking of sending it to him (I mention him and his thoughts in the essay), but wasn't too sure of the best way to do so/if it was likely I could even get it to him. Oaktree has a contact us email address, but it is generic. Does anyone have any insight on this or if he is receptive to such contact? Thanks!

That's interesting, though it seems like there's always a base reason to not be in cash, e.g., devaluation of the dollar/inflation.

I kind of like the Kelley bet, which is 2*conviction - 1 for how much to bet/invest. e.g., an assigned 60% chance of success gets a 20% position (120%-1), though I might set the bar a little higher in general. Edit: or have a very high bar for "success"

out of curiosity, did he indicate if he was still bullish on US equities?

Austin, TX

I usually just save a link to the individual portfolio. It works for me--are you using the desktop version of the website?

I'll add that Texas has been doing pretty well in terms of the initial hit and recovery--my cousin does flooring in the Houston area and it has picked up significantly in the last year. Also, while Austin took a minor down turn, a lot of the housing prices have held or increased since, at least in my area.

Airplay was very nice, I must admit, although the inability to play flash videos on the iPad makes it not as useful as I would have liked after actually using the device for the weekend. The Boxee box is intriguing to me because you can also use it to watch broadcast TV in addition to Netflix, HuluPlus, HBOGo, etc. And Boxee apparently supports Airplay, so you can stream music and video to your TV from your MacBook. There's also a watch later function so that if you find a video when you are somewhere else -- say at work -- you queue it up to watch later and then can watch it when you get home. The Roku box is also supposed to be very nice. I am a cord cutter, so I'm trying to figure out the best setup. AppleTV is not it for now. Maybe the iTV will be better. I just use a Mac mini as my htpc, and it works pretty great.

I'm just as happy with either (also own both stocks).

So, when I read the AIG congressional testimony, that is not how any of the witnesses painted it, even with direct questions to that effect (though perhaps they could have been putting it in the best light that they could get away with). Is there somewhere I can get more details on that?

easy hack with a mac is to open in preview, duplicate the file, and then the protection is gone.

updated full set pdf: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14968/Oaktree%20(2012).pdf