mikazo

Dolby Laboratories announced a special dividend of $4/share ($408m) http://investor.dolby.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=726254

Agreed. I did valuations on all of the major publicly-traded railway stocks in North America, and found that all of them were over-valued. Is there some other considerations to take into account besides FCF when valuing a railroad, or is the industry just at the top of a cycle?

I didn't read the entire piece, but I've seen similar ones like it. It strikes me as odd that every graph in the document starts at a different year, with no mention of the significance of that year. I don't deny that government deficits are a problem, by just sayin', a quote about statistics comes to mind...

I'd say Union Pacific is a pretty big competitor: http://pacificbiomassexport.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/USA_UP-BNSF.jpg

I haven't looked into this stock at all, but it looks like it could be interesting. I'll add it to my list of things to look at. One competitor that immediately comes to mind is Entrust. http://www.entrust.com/ Might be worth comparing the two.

That's actually a pretty good idea. I hope for your sake and mine that CSCO goes back up above $66.56 :)

In the two years since I've started playing with stocks and only about 10 months since I started value investing, I haven't had to "pay tuition" yet. Is it only a matter of time?

Not sure if anyone's noticed but there's a little white arrow in the top right that you can use to show/hide the user header. Maybe look for the arrow and click it to expand?

There's also no option for not owning BRK. Is that a requirement for being on this board? ;)

I wonder if it will be listed on the TSX or an American exchange..

I'm near Ottawa on the Ontario side. :)

Hey guys, Just the other day, I received my first-ever proxy statement information in the mail. I own shares of Cisco (CSCO) and their annual shareholder meeting is coming up next month. One of the proposed items to be voted on is whether the combined role of CEO and Chairman of the Board should be split up. The board is recommending that shareholders vote against splitting the roles. Cisco's annual report makes mention of the fact that the combined roles provide "strong leadership" for the company, whatever that means. I did a quick Google search and found that there isn't much empirical evidence in the form of company performance numbers to support the argument for or against the combined roles. All I could find is that since the Chairman and the rest of the board are responsible for selecting, monitoring and compensating the CEO, having a CEO fulfill the role of chairman creates a conflict of interest. I also found arguments stating that it's difficult to find a CEO and Chairman that can work well together, and so having the roles combined eliminates that problem. That may be true, but is the introduction of a conflict of interest really the solution, for no other reason than "because it's hard otherwise"? So without dealing with performance numbers, the question comes down to abstract/moral/ethical reasoning for which opinion one might hold. I'm personally leaning toward the idea of separate roles, but I wanted to get this board's thoughts and opinions on the advantages and disadvantages before making a final decision. Thanks!

Interesting piece. I was just reading this morning, the chapter in Boomerang by Michael Lewis about Germany. It talks about how the rest of the Eurozone is going to have to become as financially responsible and conservative as the Germans, otherwise Germany will have to continue to bail out the less responsible countries (which isn't going to go over well). Hard to say when something will happen, but it's looking like the current situation isn't sustainable...

Hear-hear, this is the way to think. +1

I wonder how many famous value investing male ladies there are...

I'd like to also weigh in as a university grad within the last few months, only ~$2k in my RRSP but gotta start somewhere.

Agreed, I've just been waiting for the stocks on my watchlist to continue falling in price until I decide it's time to jump in!

I've read some books on Austrian economics and as I understand it, their argument against government spending is that when one societal group or profession is subsidized or given funding, all the other groups or professions lose out, and there's no way of knowing whether the government spend the money optimally. But how does anyone else (i.e. the market) know whether they're spending optimally either? There is no actual invisible hand that dictates what each individual should spend their money on. The economy is just an example of emergent behaviour from a collection of simple agents. Let's say there's some private sector businessman that held on to a ton of cash during all these bad times. He sees that now might be a good time to spend it and do his part to help the economy recover. Let's say he chooses to spend it on building a new railway or opening a new university or paying people to dig a ditch from one end of the country to the other. Not he, nor anyone else can really tell what would have been the best way to spend that money (although I'm guessing that digging a ditch across the country won't be all that useful to society). You just can't measure these kinds of things, nor can you see what alternative outcomes would be. With regard to the US dollar and inflation, the topic of Triffin's dilemma is particularly interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma I learned about this and quite a few other interesting things from the book Crisis Economics by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm. I'd highly recommend reading it for a good overview of what's wrong with the economy of today. http://www.amazon.ca/Crisis-Economics-Course-Future-Finance/dp/1594202508

I can attest that not all valuation methods work for all types of companies. For example, I tried using a discounted cash flow model of valuation for 5 different railroad stocks, and came up with all 5 being very over-valued. I suspect there is something more than just cash flows and assets that need to be taken into consideration when it comes to railroads, but I haven't figured it out yet.

I've found through experience that it's worth paying more for a higher quality camera. I've owned a low-end Fujifilm and Sony point-and-shoot, both weren't worth it. Canon is good for point-and-shoot and DSLR, worth paying for.

I look forward to seeing what SpaceX does in the future. I'd buy into the company just because it's so cool!

Something I've been amazed at since joining the forum is the volume of ideas. I've personally decided to live by "invest in what you know", and that limits me to around 10-15 large-cap stocks. Do people around here all have huge circles of competence or they just don't live by the same rule I do? As for posting ideas, I've mostly kept mine to myself and just creeped the forums :)

Apparently someone had the same idea as me and already implemented it: http://www.calcbench.com/

hellsten, thank you for all the info! That's actually more helpful than what I was able to find. Here are some links I came up with before starting this topic: http://www.xbrlwiki.info/index.php?title=Open_Source_and_XBRL http://www.sedar.com/search/search_form_pc_en.htm (Can search for XBRL filings) Ever since a few months ago, I wondered if there was some sort of website where you could create custom queries on the financials of a company, such as searching for a minimum net income or maximum capex or cash & equivalents + inventories less than market cap, etc. The query might search over all companies that filed in XBRL format and produce results that match what you're looking for. My first thought was to implement an XBRL interface, but it looks like xbrlware is one of many that already exist. What doesn't exist (at least that I've been able to find) is a searchable database with some sort of web interface. It seems to me like it could be a very powerful tool over other stock screeners that just focus on P/E ratios and 52-week lows. Would people on this board make use of something like that, if something doesn't already exist?

Hi everyone, I'm not sure how many of you here are technical-minded in terms of computer programming or databases, but I just wondered if any of you have: - Had any experience with eXtensible Business Reporting Language ( http://www.xbrl.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=5 ) - Used any sort of online database that you can query for financial statement data Thanks! -mikazo