mikazo

Thanks for these links. If you don't mind my asking, do you have shares to vote, Liberty?

Thank you for posting these links! I agree with you that the interviewer was a little hostile. I really like the way Ackman handles questions in that situation. I'm not sure why people concern themselves with the nationality of the CEO. The company was founded by Scots, its headquarters are in Calgary, it's listed on the TSX and the NYSE, it has rail lines into the States, and the threat of American ownership is not an issue like it was during the company's founding in the 1880s. If anyone's interested in the history of CP and how it is a part of Canada's history, I highly recommend reading "The National Dream" and "The Last Spike" by Pierre Burton. I'd love to own a piece of this historic company just because of its history, but I'll wait and see how the proxy battle turns out first and then make a decision based on business fundamentals.

I second the "Go Sens Go!" Hopefully they can win tonight and knock out the Rangers before a game 7 is necessary!

On a related note, just out of curiosity: If you don't have enough cash to make a sizable position in any new opportunities and you don't want to sell any current holdings, do you just stop looking for stocks and stop doing research for a while until you are able to take advantage of opportunities again?

Hey, I was just thinking yesterday about an investment and how sure I was of its prospects. Reading pessimistic opinions and reports online can definitely erode at that sure feeling, but I wanted to find out why the business was so down in the first place. So I'm just wondering, how much certainty do you guys establish before placing money on an investment? Do you spend an amount of money proportional to your certainty? I fully believe in the idea of investing within one's circle of competence and knowing that circle's limits. But even within my circle, I have doubts sometimes. I know the whole idea of successful investing is to place big bets on sure things when the market thinks otherwise, but I'm having trouble deciding how big of a bet to make. Thanks for any thoughts on the matter. -Mike

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

An interesting counter-argument to Buffett's case against gold. Although he still never mentions how gold doesn't compound its value.. Personally, it seems to me like gold is a safe haven as long as everyone keeps believing it's a safe haven. I plan on staying away from gold for the foreseeable future. http://barnhartadvisory.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/did-warren-buffet-really-destroy-the-case-for-gold/

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone knew a Canadian equivalent of the Yacktman fund, or any other successful Canadian large-cap value fund, for that matter. Thanks. -Mike

I'm fairly inexperienced at the whole analysis process, and haven't developed my own standard methods yet, but I can say that it has helped me in the past to do some analysis, wait a few days, then review what I read and wrote down. Things you didn't see before will jump out at you unexpectedly. I think the mulling stage is an important part of the analysis process, at least when starting out (like me).

Watched the presentation and I really hope Harrison ends up as CEO. It would be really nice if this historic company could be brought back to a smoothly-run railroad. For those interested in Canadian history and history of Canadian Pacific, I highly recommend the books "The National Dream" and "The Last Spike" by Pierre Burton.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Mixed+message+debt/6280854/story.html I've often wondered why interest rates are kept so low and yet Canadians are warned of over-using credit. Is the housing market being propped up? Is the CMHC one of the reasons Canadian banks do so well? I'm not an expert in this area and I'd be interested to hear thoughts from those who are.

Wow, my number of RSS feeds just tripled! Thanks for asking people to post value blogs! Makes me want to blog more often. In about a month and a half, I'll be done university and won't have to feel guilty in my free time for not doing school work :)

A good value blog I read is http://gregspeicher.com/ I also have my own blog about finance, although it's only just very recently turned in a value direction. It's mainly a log of my successes and failures since I started learning about personal investing so that I can look back on it and see my learning path. http://startingat22.blogspot.com

Agreed, this is why I hate when politicians promise to make education more accessible by increasing student loan funding availability and grants, rather than focusing on lowering tuition.

The iPhone and iPad don't. Check the number of sales of macs vs iPads/iPhones in Apple's 10K and you'll understand the importance of that. Also, there probably aren't many Android or Windows phones that do either. Not saying Intel isn't a good buy, but just make sure you understand where we are and where we're going. And most of all what is Intel's competitive advantage? I realize that Intel hasn't broken into the mobile market yet, but I don't see laptop or desktop or data center computers going away any time soon. Intel has been working on smaller, low-power processors such as the Atom too. The competitive advantage that Intel holds is that they are the inventors and biggest suppliers of the IA-32 and IA-64 architectures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32 If they make changes to the architecture, companies like AMD and others simply have to adapt to whatever changes Intel makes. Intel is also starting to offer complete hardware/software solutions that are tightly integrated with each other. I haven't delved into any annual reports or quarterly webcasts yet, I'm just at the idea phase so far.

I'm just weeks away from finishing a bachelor's degree in computer science, and so my circle of competence essentially consists of technology. I know that a lot of capital expenditure is necessary to stay ahead in the tech industry, but I also have some idea of what makes a good tech company or a bad one, having worked for several. I'm going to start researching Intel, since they have a processor in every PC and Mac. I don't even need to be right about Microsoft v. Google v. Apple, they all use Intel hardware.

Hey, I've been considering buying shares in Hasbro recently (for reasons outlined below), but I'm not sure if their dividend / share repurchase programs are sustainable. I wrote a blog post about it, and wondered what your thoughts are. http://startingat22.blogspot.com/2012/02/giving-cash-back-to-shareholders-is.html Thanks.

To be honest I've only had one subscription to a finance magazine so far, MoneySense in Canada. For what it's worth, it was only $1/month through Rogers, but it's really only of interest to index investors.

[amazonsearch]The Essays of Warren Buffett[/amazonsearch] As a 23-year-old budding value investor, I really gained an in-depth knowledge of the way Warren Buffett thinks, the amount of business knowledge he possesses, and how much there is to learn from reading the best parts of his letters to shareholders. I plan on re-reading this book again in the future, which automatically made it a good buy.

One thing I did find about the company I'm considering: The CEO personally heads the committee for corporate social responsibility, rather than delegating that task to some lower-level manager. Is this a good sign?

Thank you for the good ideas, everyone who replied. The company I'm considering has a consistent history of buying back shares, I just wasn't sure if that was enough to go on for judging the management. I couldn't find any letters to shareholders, but maybe they're contained in the annual reports. I'll have to read them more in depth to find out.

Hi everyone, It's my first post here, so I'd just like to start off by saying hello and that I look forward to some interesting discussions on this message board. I'm a new student of the school of Buffett thought when it comes to investing (I'm only 23), and I'm considering my first real Buffett-style stock purchase. I've owned individual stocks before, but have not completed as thorough an analysis as I'm beginning to do now. I've done the financial statement and valuation portions of a stock that I'm considering, but what I'm now having trouble with is how to assess the quality of management that is running the company. I've read through some annual reports, read some proxy statements, and some investor pamphlets and documents. However, the latter two documents are filled with charts proclaiming the company's bright past and bright future, and the former two are more about the company than the individuals that run it. I've thought of trying to listen to some audio recordings of past conference calls, but haven't had the time lately. Google has revealed little on this subject, so my questions are: How do you, as an individual investor, assess the quality and character of management of a public company? Do you have a process or checklist? Other than actions taken by the company, is there any other way to judge the character of the CEO and other management? Thanks very much, and good luck in your endeavours.