writser

If you hover your mouse over the cell in question you'll see that 'Google Docs isn't authorized for exchange SGX', or something similar. Same for Japanese stocks, they don't work either. Try something like this: =ImportXML("https://www.google.com/finance?q=SGX:AVM", "//span[@class='pr']") =ImportXML("http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Summary?s=AVM:SES", "/descendant::span[@class='mod-ui-data-list__value'][1]") =ImportXML("https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BOCS:SP", "//div[@class='price']") To import from one of the websites in question.

Sold again.

Usually I am invested in several deals at once, each with a 2%-5% allocation. I personally like to diversify. There is no silver bullet as far as I know.. I guess it depends on how you perceive upside, downside, deal risk and estimated time to completion. For example, a few weeks ago Unilever announced they were retiring their preference shares. Deal was brokered with the largest holder, deal size was very small for Unilever, they expected to complete the deal by year-end and I didn't see any regulatory problems. There was some selling pressure as shares surged ~200% because of the announcement. Preference shares were very illiquid but I managed to build an ~8% position at a ~4% spread. Excellent risk-adjusted IRR as far as I am concerned and I wouldn't have minded to own a bit more. Sometimes microcap deals trade at largish (~4% - ~8%) spreads shortly before completion because of a combination of illiquidity, a lack of information, deal complexity and/or a significant rise following the announcement and because these deals are too small for almost everybody expect for PA's. Questar was an example of such a deal earlier this year and at some point a ~13% position for me. In 2016 Kahala and Glacier Water were similar deals in which I held even larger positions. In 2015 Safeway was, due to deal structure, imho a no-brainer large-cap deal in which I invested 25% of my funds because I didn't have the balls to go bigger. In general, I like illiquidity, a lack of information and/or some uncertainty about the payout because these are risks I am willing to bear and other investors often can't or won't. I don't like regulatory risks as the only way I have to handicap these is a 'common sense' approach. I.e. in this case I think authorities aren't gonna give up easily a company building nuclear reactors, airports and the Vancouver Sky Train to a Chinese bidder. But other investors might be much better 'in the know' about what regulators think so I am not sure whether this is mispriced or not. However, if the spread is large enough I sometimes give it a try. CAB was an example earlier this year where I didn't see why regulators would block the deal. Still I only bought a very small position (<2%). I currently own a few shares of BRCD, similar situation.

In general I disagree. Plenty of deals I'd love to buy at 4%. However, in this case a Chinese state-owned company is trying to buy the largest public Canadian infrastructure company, one that knows how to build and maintain nuclear reactors. Regulators will take a hard look. Tough to handicap.

Maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Enso ? Some old companies are taken over, do you want to include them? E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi .

Very smart move. Lots of suckers willing to hand over their money.

If you use market orders you shouldn't call yourself a value investor ;) .

afaik CIBL has 16.6k shares outstanding, owns 20.9m cash and 166k shares ICTG per the latest 10Q for a ~$1650 NAV with ICTG at $40.

Interesting, looked at it yesterday a bit as I owned CIBY in the past. What is your reasoning? CIBY NAV is ~$1650 with ICTG at $40, every $10 you add to the takeover price adds ~$100 to CIBY NAV. So you expect a takeover at $70 or higher? When I took a quick look at the ICTC financials that's like 10 EV/EBITDA, already taking into account their HQ closing. I don't expect the buyer to pay much more? Maybe I am missing how attractive their business is. Given that CIBY is extremely illiquid and has had a significant idle cash balance for years (and if I remember correctly they even wanted to use it to backstop a SPAC) so I'd only want to buy it at a significant discount. (just my 5 minutes of research, curious about your opinion)

The tendered line (i.e. opted-in shared) is not tradable afaik. As for the shareholder release form, I think that that will be something similar to the opt-in nominee form, i.e. a corporate action that your broker should present to you.

Prepackaged deal approved. I tendered my position, bought a few extra shares today. From the disclosure statement: Buy now at $1.87 and you should receive $2 in a few weeks (assuming your broker doesn't fuck things up). Looks decent.

Thanks, I'll put it on my list. Found my favorite quote so far:

Reading this book now. So far I like it but I studied computer science so might be a bit biased. Author sometimes has a tendency to hype / dramatize the story, which annoys me a bit. FWIW I also read (and enjoyed) the book about Maxwell and Faraday. In both books Lord Kelvin (wikipedia) is a recurring character. Seems like that guy did everything. Physics, math, laying transatlantic cables, building analog computers, improving compasses, building power stations, being a member of the House of Lords, investing, chairing Kodak (the photo company) .. Makes me feel lazy! Maybe his biography should be the next book on my nerd reading list.

He didn't put it into Berkshire Hathaway because being long Berkshire is universally accepted: Honouring Warren Buffett, be proud of your shares. Should not be any debate about it.

Well done. I was close to buying this before the second offer appeared as the spread was reasonably juicy but unfortunately I never pulled the trigger. At this point in time I think it is very unlikely that Vulcan comes back with a higher offer (if they still wanted to buy this I'd say they would use their right to match in a large % of cases?) but still not the worst idea in the world.

Small stake in BRCD. Down significantly over the past few days as the market seems to be worried about Trump / CFIUS blocking the LSCC deal. However, in this case the buyer is a US / Singapore company. All other regulators have vetted the deal. I see no problems but what do I know. FIG also down quite a bit, might be interesting.

My approach is 'not digging deeper'? Thanks, I guess :P. FWIW I would never buy MRS. Everything screams pump and dump.

I think you are confusing margin of safety with expected value (EV). Suppose you can make the following bet: 75% chance: lose everything. 25% chance: quintuple your money. If you bet $100 you expect to make $25 in the long run. So expected value is positive but it would (most of the time) be idiotic to stake your net worth in this scenario because there is no margin of safety as far as I am concerned. For me personally margin of safety is a fuzzy concept that could be summarized as: "how much do I lose in a reasonable worst case scenario". I use it mostly for position sizing. Large positions in binary bets are bad if you want to compound money (according to the Kelly criterion optimal bet sizing for the above bet is ~6%). I do think that you raise an interesting point regarding 'robustness to valuation assumptions'. I think that that is a concept undervalued by many investors. As an example, compare Valeant and Berkshire in 2015. Berkshire was trading slightly above book at reasonable multiples and had a solid balance sheet. Valeant was heavily leveraged and trading at lofty multiples. If you invested $100 in Berkshire and some of your assumptions were wrong you kinew that you'd probably end up owning something worth $80 - $120. If you did the same with Valeant it would be $10 - $ 190. Similar EV but much riskier bet.

It's difficult because each country has its own regulators with their own websites, etc. For example, for France you can check out this. It's just a lot of hard work I guess. Some cash deals you could look at now: Sapec, Affecto, Astelia, SES-imagotag.

That's the key. And since the positions are small enough, less research. I am fascinated by this approach but you need a certain type of personality to do this churning. I am more like a home run type. If I don't see a lot of potential , I am not interested. To be fair, most of my large positions are bets that are exactly the other way around: risk nothing, gain a little, i.e. cashboxes with a little bit of optionality. I hate losing money! In fact I think a lot of the 'home run' growth stocks are far more dangerous in the sense that if the growth story collapses you are actually losing your capital. See Valeant, Fortress Paper, Horsehead Holdings, etc. But yeah, I think it comes down (at least partially) to personality. I'm a skeptic. Well I would first try to find out why is there a 10% discount? Most likely it is reflecting the time to get the restructuring plan approved. The exhibit only refers to the opt in date which is next month. Not sure if this is a pre pack where the leaseholders are already agreeing to the terms or the company will try to cram up. Either way it'll need a judge's approval. Frankly I think it is dangerous to use market prices as a starting point for your analysis - you are creating a situation where it is extremely likely your analysis is biased. I.e. if PERF trades at $1.96 you think "that's a juicy return for a few weeks" but if it trades at $1.80 your starting point is "let me find out what is wrong with this horribly risky bet". That's why I asked you to estimate the chances of the bankruptcy package deal going through in a vacuum. How would you handicap it if you read it in a newspaper, without any stock prices?

Just curious how do you size your positions? In this case you are risking a complete loss for a 9% return. There is no arbitrage here so this is a binary bet based on the founder's stake . Is that the right way to think about it? I look at your posts but have never pulled the trigger since I just can't justify the risk/return. That's correct. This position is <1%. The market is currently pricing in a 10% chance of failure. I'm willing to bet that that is too high - this is a strategic bankruptcy to take the company private and renegotiate leases. Owners want to preserve NOL's. The cost of throwing a bone to minority holders is relatively low compared to what's at stake for the Nussdorf family yet very nice for minority investors. This should be a done deal (famous last words). What else is going to happen? A trench war between landlords and the company seems like a bad deal for both parties. All the incentives are aligned as far as I can see. Also, especially because the risk/reward seems so terrible I think there is potential for a mispricing. Who wants to risk $180 to make $20? It reminds me of the Mayweather bet. Hard to stomach but if you make 200 uncorrelated bets exactly like that your should do great (assuming you are correct about the odds .. ). In a vacuum, with no money on the line, how would you estimate the chances of the package deal going through?

Small block of PERF. Somebody wrote a nice blog post about it here.

Not much advice, but https://haveibeenpwned.com/ is a legit website to check out if you've been involved in a leak (they can also mail you live updates if leaked data contains your e-mail address). Try entering your e-mail address on the site - scary to see how much data leaks you've been involved in. For me at least .. ::)

Also the NASDAQ crashed 75% a few years later because clueless people were buying all cryptocurrencies internet stocks at any price because the technology would change the world.

PM me if you want to invest in my startup. It is about drones delivering packages efficiently thanks to deep learning strategies controlled by smart contracts on a custom blockchain. First come, first serve.