Arden

There is such a thing as rigorous analysis in commodities. Since 2011 I've followed an Israeli value investor and blogger called ido meroz, who now lives in China. He analyzed housing supply and demand in China and concluded there is massive housing oversupply. China is the largest consumer of steel, and miners at the time were projecting continued growth in demand and expanding mining. He saw a problem for steel both from supply and demand and bet big against Vale (30$ at the time, 5$ now) and Australian dollar. Steel prices have dropped from 160$ then to around 50$ now.

Why AXP? about BBL- I would stay away from anything related to iron ore and industrial metals, I've been shorting BBL, VALE and RIO. There is oversupply resulting from extreme optimism of the large miners, and at the same time the biggest customer- China, has a serious construction bubble, which has only started to burst . iron ore prices are already down 60-70% from peak. Caveat emptor

Very nice, I tested 9 different sequences before guessing

Hey randomep, In what way is new century absurd? And could you link to your blog?

Happy 4th of July from Israel, Here's a video of a 45 minutes firework display accidently set off in 30 seconds:

I recently learned about 2 nice, free apps I'd recommend: 1. Earningcast- available on IOS, you can easily listen to companies'' webcasts. 2. Filing pro- available on IOS, An app for reading SEC filings and reports, free version doesn't show latest filings, full version costs 2.99$. 3. SEC Live- not really an app to be honest, but one of the most useful websites for following up on companies' latest filings. As an Apple user, I don't really know about Android apps and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of good IOS apps (I just learned about earningcast through a thread here yesterday), so you're welcome to add.

I'd like to propose that ,just like the title of any topic to the "Investment ideas" includes the company's name and ticker, the first post should include some minimal information about the company. The current situation is that often the first post in a new topic is along the lines of "X just posted a q3 report", other times the first post is something like "Has anyone else studied this company?". Sometimes only after following the discussion for a few pages you realize the author intended the topic to be a short idea. In my opinion, the first post should include in the very least why this company is worth discussing, what field it operates in and maybe some numbers. This one change would cost the author a few minutes, but it would save the board many hours and make the discussion more accessible to those of us who haven't heard of the idea before.

I have been waiting for Cormier's title shot for a long time, really looking forward to it!

Good luck for those of you taking the test. I'm considering it myself, but is it worth it to take the exams just for the knowledge? Do I meet their requirement for "expirience" if I manage my and my family's and friend's investments for more than 4 years? Is it possible to get a job in investing by having a CFA?

OUTR as well. frommi, where can I read about the japanese basket you metioned?

I think this clip is more than just funny. When people look at apple products they are TRYING to see the good.

Yep, a naive spectator would say you only need an annual <4% to break even, just don't forget the dividend adjustment kinda suck- so it'll have to be more than that. With about 1$ a year lost because of the lack of adjustment, you'll actually need about 7% just so you don't lose, and more like 9-10% to break even with the stock. Besides- in the last few months the warrants have risen by almost 20% while the stock didn't move much so it kinda makes sense. The BAC warrants indeed make less sense to me though. They have pretty consistently underperformed the stock.

Now that we have some results, I wonder if they're representative of value investing, since people with better results are probably more likely to post them. Nonetheless, the fact that the poll is anonymous and I believe in the honesty of the guys (And, according to another recent poll- girls) here, I think there may just be something to this thing called "value investing. Maybe :)

Hey hy, I mean compounding return, sorry if i was unclear :-)

If you started investing just before the rally of 2009 or somehting, try and normalize your results by comparing them to the market.

In the last decade the market has done pretty much nothing- how have you done? How efficient is the market I wonder.

I guesssed it's something like this.. I do personally know 1 girl who's a value investor but always wondered why there weren't more..

Eric, how long have you been investing? Is a tripling every 5 years what you've come to expect?

Added new option for 55+, underestimated the number of 40+, but I guess this makes sense- it's better to spend your time investing AFTER you've made your fortune the employee way.

If we're already in the mood for (anonymously) giving away info about ourselves :-) I've built the options based on my impression- if you're all 75+, don't take it personally! (if you're in here, sorry warren..)

Renault. Very undervalued, trades below its holding alone, dividend on the way to being ~6% next year and about 10% the year after. No debt. Holds a funding company, similar to a bank, which on its own is worth 50% of the current market value. Car sales in europe are on a 1994 level. I dare them to stay there.

Short is <0 because when you short you get money which is not really yours, and you invest in as well. It's like taking a loan in a different currency and buying stocks. You're right though, it's not >100% long, it's >100% position.

I'd bet if we translated all the warrants and options we hold to the equivilant loan+investment, many of us were in the negative cash territory.

BTW, I find it strange you think the market is not "upset" about Europe. Have you seen the multiples in european countries? The average is way below 10 even though they're in a recession right now. It hasn't been this low since the 80's. My market valuation rule is that as long as there are very cheap stocks the market is cheap enough to invest in. I remember back in 2007, I was looking at stocks and valued them as having a "15-20% upside" because everything was so expensive. For the last few years, including now, I've been thinking of potential returns in the 100s of percent, so I think the market is cheap, at least at some places, and that's enough.

You should have a <0 option, with short selling and all.