thepupil

But in general I think they cater to a more affluent clientele by offering products with a high fixed costs, where they only make sense if you spend a lot of money, value convenience and benefits like airport lounges and the occasional hotel upgrade over pure costs, travel a lot, etc. plus they have a way of installing anecdotes in people's heads where the customer service really worked out. My roommate broke a recently purchased iPad and Amex replaced it no questions asked. He told all his friends about how the $450/ year payed for itself for a year with that incident. Other cards offer similar services at a lower fee, but when I think of "what credit card company is going to help me out in a jam" I think of Amex.

when i graduated college, i got a nice offer for a platinum card (100,000 points = $1000) so i got one. It costs $450 / year. Every year I call to downgrade to green and they give me $400-$500 in points to stay on. The card is not worth it at my level of spending, but actually offers a compelling value proposition for people who travel and spend a lot of money. Almost everyone on my trading floor had one. Even though I was not paying the fee, i realized the card was costing me a fair bit of money in opportunity costs because of the low rewards rate on purchases so I've since opened an Amex Blue Cash Preferred ($75/ year = 6% cash back on groceries up to $6000 of purchases, 3% gas, 1% everything else), a Citi Double Cash (Mastercard, $0 annual fee, 2% cash back on all purchases), and will probably open a Capital One Quicksilver ($0 annual fee, 1.5% cash back, no foreign transaction fee). I think if you break down all the benefits of the Amex platinum and similar high customer service, high benefits, high fee cards, you can replicate them with no annual fee cards. Plus they significantly diluted the airport lounge benefit (free drinks!!!!) so it just ain't what it used to be.

IBKR?

you are looking at convertible bonds, not common stock. companies in need of capital that have arguably high stock prices relative to intrinsic value and high implied vol monetize both by issuing converts. the co's get an incredibly low cost of capital and defer dilution, the bond buyers get the optionality of the upside/growth story without risking permanent impairment like you would with the equity and can use the bonds to do convert arb. everyone wins unless short rates rise and the stocks fall at the same time.

Winning the Losers Game is a good book on this topic. It is also a great book to recommend to people who are not into finance that want advice on how to manage their money. If they read it, the conclusion is clear: don't pay high fees for diversified tax inefficient mutual funds!

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but a large % of institutions and individuals money in the market is non taxable or tax defered , so there is little pressure on management to be tax efficient.

You know bid-offer and transparency is bad when the king of the illiquid microcap blogosphere himself is complaining :)

I don't understand all the commentary about market timing/bull markets/ whatever. From what I know, Eisman ran a financials focused long/short fund and appears to have not gained traction or put up great returns, so he is shutting down. Is there anything more to it than that? Doesn't this happen everyday? The quote about company fundamentals not being the only thing they care about sounds like a standard statement of philosophy. It makes much more sense when you read the article. He's just saying he thinks the health of the system matters. In a May regulatory filing, the firm wrote it believed that "making investment decisions by looking solely at the fundamentals of individual companies is no longer a viable investment philosophy." Instead, Emrys echoed what many stockpickers have said in recent years about larger factors affecting their ability to invest as they had historically. "While individual company analysis will always be important," it said, "the health, or the change in the health, of the financial system is the starting point of all analysis."

Just looks like an underperforming hedge fund shutting down to me.

Does mark to market/duration risk matter? If not, I would humbly recommend preferred stocks of high credit quality REITs, decent banks, and the safest perpetual instrument I know of: Tri-Continental Corp Preferred which pays 5.3% and is incredibly well covered ($40MM preferred which is in front of $1.3B of common) https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ATY-&hl=en&ei=oLeyU-j4BITKqQH7nICgDA http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/value2/Idea/ViewIdea/94012 Edit: Just reread your post and realized the loan is basically a fixed (at 4%) to floating instrument, making my recommendation of perpetual preferreds inappropriate because of the risk of rising rates

anyone looked into SCTY the stock? Can someone explain to me why this trades for 32X EV / Sales and 10X P/B when it is in a seemingly low return competitive business (and just announced it is getting into another).... I mean I can understand the cult of TSLA (it's a cool car! disruption!) and why that stock trades where it does, but I really can't understand this one. Is SolarCity's offering that much different than its competitors? Haven't read the VIC short pitch in depth, but at first glance this stock appears to be absolutely insane. I mean I understand how Elon is long on vision and short on profits, but 32X revenues for an installer of solar panels? Whaaaa? I've got to be missing something here. Although I do give Mr. Musk credit because he does issue the shit out of his stocks, which is exactly what he should be doing with a currency like that. SCTY has gone from 8.6MM to over 91MM shares according to Gurufocus and this acquisition will add more. Strong! http://www.gurufocus.com/financials/SCTY http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/value2/Idea/ViewIdea/116494?ideaMessageId=84812&page=0#84812

Yep that's why I bought put spreads that pay you $5 if it's fraud for the premium of 55 cents. I also would t short this for fear of halt risk and borrow risk. Some guys who successfully identified frauds got destroyed by borrow when share were halted for months. Anyways, the base case is obviously thT the deal goes through and I lose my money, but when you see a company that has delayed SEC filings announce a buyout 20 minutes after a seeking alpha article cries fraud and the acquirer is some state owned thing, I think it's a decent bet to taken given the odds the options market is giving you. Obviously to be done in small size. I know people have mixed feelings about tilson, but I think I agree with him that betting against this thing is a good risk reward , and the put spreads make it more appealing.

if you own fewer than 500 shares you'll get cashed out. If you own 500 or more you will end up owning the same number of shares at the same price it is a reverse split $33---> $16,500 but then splits back to the original (forward split) $16500--> $33. what's fun about this one is you don't know what price you will get cashed out if you are a smaller shareholder, because i think that's determined by the closing price on the day before the split. No odd lot arb opportunities here! It's a bit of financial engineering to cash out small guys at a price that is likely lower than intrinsic value. EDIT: Here is confirmation that you just get whatever the stock price is on that day. Cashed Out Stockholders will receive a cash payment from the transfer agent representing a per share price equal to the closing price of the Company’s Common Stock on the date that the Board implements the Reverse/Forward Split.

MONT Jan 2015 20 - 15 put spreads at 55 cents Tilson Right, Chinese company is a fraud buyout not real: 8 Profit Tilson Wrong, Chinese company is a fraud but buyout real: -1 Loss http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MONT?s=mont Why I Just Made Montage Technology Group My Largest Short Position Whitney Tilson • Today, 12:30 PM • 2 Comments China Orders Montage Technology To Cease Production And Sale Aristides Capital • Today, 8:13 AM • 25 Comments Montage's stated set top box revenue is not consistent with its reputation as a very minor player; other brands dominate Montage by 10:1 to 35:1 among suppliers and finished goods. Montage produces the majority of chips in a 5 million chip per month black market; China's government recently ordered them to "stop illegal production and sales activities immediately". Excluding illegal chips, Montage trades at roughly 10x revenue. Neither PDSTI nor anyone else is likely to buy MONT at this price. Any of numerous catalysts could drop MONT precipitously.

Finally! I was waiting for this to be mentioned. I love this book, even if I don't buy Anaconda Copper when the ticker tape looks good. It's so entertaining to read about how things used to be done, how the big operators would squeeze each other, how much margin leverage would be used and Jesse Livermore (or whatever the guy's name in the book was) would go bankrupt and then bring himself back. Would also recommend The Great Game for entertaining Wall Street history. You can read about a very bold attempt to corner the world gold market, all kinds of orchestrated short squeezes, stealth stock issuances to prevent takeovers, etc. http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Game-Emergence-1653-2000/dp/0684832879 Don't have much to add to the investing books discussion, other than I actually don't think Margin of Safety is all that great or that it helped at all with the practice of investing. Maybe I need to reread it, since it gets so much love here. I liked Marty Whitman, so clearly I'm the weird one.

decided to have a look at this. -20% average, 80% hit rate (negative absolute performance). Looking at the baskets i bet a lot of people are doing much better. - Hurricanes (HCI + UVE) doing well on the short side, still think there is more to come - Groceries (NGVC, SFM, TFM) also doing well, think that's pretty much played out, starting to see GARP write-ups on TFM and WFM, SFM is still probably expensive - 3D printing (ONVO, VJET), did well but i think borrow would've hurt you a lot here in the real world - Cool ATV's on steroids (PII), down a bit Losers: AAMC, TSLA EDIT: Russell -0.4% and SPY +4.7% over time period 1/3 --> 5/27

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-10-best-stocks-of-the-past-20-years-1331582653834/print?guid=32c7b3c8-6c71-11e1-add4-07212803fad6 Kansas City Southern is a pretty cool story how it owned Janus (lots of asset managers on these lists) and also a business with enormous operating leverage and reinvestment opportunities.

50x? Unless they buy back a huge amount of shares, that's a $1.3 trillion market cap. By my math, if you paid 8x sales (TSLA's multiple on 2014 estimated sales) for Apple in 2000 (pre-iPod), you would have made 14x and 21% CAGR over 14 years. 50X seems a touch optimistic : )

I'm not sure I'm reading your question correctly, but it sounds like you want a residual income model where you figure out the right price/book to pay given a payout ratio, long term ROE, and required rate of return. Residual_Income_Model-2.xlsx

I like SPLP. Trading at about 70% of my estimated NAV (marks subs at market values, additional upside if SXCL or others are undervalued). Granted that NAV pays full 1.5% and 20%, but Warren recently took in a nice portion of shares (which amounts to a return of full fee paying permanent capital). That tells me he thinks it is undervalued. The discount and the recent aggressive share repurchase are enough for me at the moment. I haven't started to untangle the consolidated financials yet. anyone else own?

Also SIR owns a bunch of very attractive triple net lease Hawaii assets and yields over 6%. It is portnoy/RMR managed but Commonwealth owns 44% of it. Since commonwealth is about to get a new board, SIR is likely to fall out of portnoy hands. GOV yields over 6% but is is completely portnoy controlled so I wouldn't go there unless you think that will change

Can you expand on the liquidity and tax advantages? I don't follow how private REITs can be better than public REITs. Assuming Broadstone can mark property values pretty accurately, it seems that there are probably public REITs trading at greater discounts. I looked at the publics (NNN players like LXP and O) but they all trade at lower yields with no depreciation tax sheltering associated with the distributions at the personal level. If you can find a public NNN with a yield higher than 6.8 percent I would like to know about it. Thx. Packer In order to find that you have to go team up with Nick Scorsch (who is not without controversy) and company at American Realty Capital Properties. ARCP is much cheaper than O and NNN. I think frommi and bmichaud are long and would know more about it than I.

This is one point I disagree with in the article. We should always evaluate performance over a complete cycle, preferably over multiple cycles. We are arguably closer to top of bull market. So the performance even very long term ending at this point would unfairly penalize Fairfax. Vinod I think the fairest way to do these comparisons is to make rolling 3, 5, 10 year periods (perhaps quarterly) and show the distribution of those periods against the benchmark. For good managers, I would expect something like: 65% outperformance for 3 years, 85% outperformance for 5 years, and 99% percent outperformance for 10 years, or something along those lines. Anyone happen to have the data for that? Edit: I'm also curious if anyone disagrees with measurement in that fashion or thinks there is a better way. It seems to me to be the fairest since it is agnostic to particular time frames and the initial years. I have done this for Berkshire stock. Berkshire has outperformed the s&p (inclusive of dividends) in 85% of monthly 5 year rolling periods since 1988, and 83% of those over the last 10 years. If you purchased in the months in which he has underperformed on a trailing basis you outperformed dramatically. If one based his or her stock decisions on this data the choice of which to dollar cost average into is quite clear. I own Berkshire because it is a well managed collection of businesses at a price that is relatively cheap to the s+p (there are obviously higher upside things out there) and not because of some arbitrary stock price performance statistics that i came up with to try to disprove all this "buffett has lost its stuff", but it is interesting. Also in the months that Buffett has underperformed the median trailing performance of the S+P is +117%.

There are many reasons to short, some good and some bad. 1. Institutional allocators are adverse to paying incentive fees without big hurdles to long only managers. So people run long short to reduce volatility, isolate more of their alpha, and convince those paying them that they should pay 10-20% of gross profits because they are taking less market risk by running lower net exposure ( a typical l/s fund runs 40-60% net, 130 by 70 is pretty standard long short fund). So lots of good stock pickets ( even those who are not adept short sellers) run jones model hedge funds because they can make more money in incentive fees, which means they can buy yachts, hire more expensive analysts, build out infrastructure etc. 2. It allows you to run levered long while taking less general market risk and more security specific risk. This is a matter of debate as to what exactly is risk. Many people (and I presume many here, because this board tends to attract a certain breed of fundamental long only concentrated investor) will argue that having a book that is 130% long and 70% short is twice as risky a book that is 100% long, because you are taking on a form of leverage, you are borrowing at an unknown rate (like selling insurance). Others will say the short book should have negative correlation to the long book over time and reduces risk. There is no right answer, but the bottom line is shorting generated cash, in most cases reduces volatility and can allow one to lever his or her long book. Refer to the chanos thread where I argued his returns of 2% per annum were excellent for a short only because the market did 12%. Short books cannot be viewed in isolation but as part of a broader strategy. If you had the chance to borrow at -2% for many years, you'd obviously take it. Making absolute returns (even if low) over time is the holy grail of short selling because when paired with an outperforming long book, you can make a lot of money (see greenlight, third point, etc.) 3. Shorting doubles your ways to make money. You can look at more things. It also (in my opinion) helps you be more intellectually honest, if every stock you look at is a potential long or short, you fight the generally positive parts of human nature and look at everything more skeptically. 4. It allows for stub trades, or to hedge out an unwanted risk, ie if you find a cheap oil stock but don't want too much oil risk. 5. incentive fees 6. Incentive fees 7. Did I mention the incentive fees ? 8. It's fun and just as if not more intellectually stimulating than finding longs. I've had a few short successes and it is a special kind if enjoyment to watch stocks blow up and make money while others are losing it, particularly if bad people are involved. In all seriousness there is definitely too much money in long short strategies out there. Many should be long only. But the demand for higher gross exposure, lower net exposure funds is out there and many people will pay too much for it so the demand gets filled. It's tough to lose a big portion of your beta because even the best will admit the general upward surge of corporate profits comprises a big piece of their return. I wouldn't calm shorting stupid. I'd call it hard and you have to be good at picking longs to fight the negative carry if being short. AND most people pay way too much in fees for long short strategies. *i short stocks but have made much more money in my longs over time.

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-amexshort-highlites.html#shortF http://seekingalpha.com/article/2060273-s-and-p-1500-most-heavily-shorted-stocks http://www.highshortinterest.com/