writser

I have a paid account at Bamsec. It is basically what EDGAR should have been. A watchlist, conference call transcripts, a good search function, comparing filings, insider transactions, highlighting and saving snippets and best of all, all very easy to use and navigate. I think it is like $30 per month? If somebody makes a similar site but: 1. For all (or at least most) developed markets: Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Australia. 2. With not only filings and insider transactions but also, like Yahoo Finance, news from all major newswires, and some options to filter news (i.e. remove all retarded Zacks, Motley Fool, etc. robo-articles). 3. With historical financials like Morningstar. I'd be willing to pay $100+ / month easily. I agree that right now it is a mess to keep track of everything. I'm using a mix of SeekingAlpha, Yahoo Finance, the Interactive Brokers newsfeed, Bamsec, hkexnews, sgx.com, ceo.ca, hotcopper.au, Morningstar, Kajinet, Rocketfinancial.com, twitter, pacer and otcmarkets.com .. I feel like I cannot justify a Bloomberg account for my amateur home office though it has basically everything I want. I have no experience with CapitalIQ, FactSet or Eikon. My guess is they are like Bloomberg but shittier. It tilts me that for all 'professional' options the pricing and offering is super opaque, but I guess that is because they are not really tailored to retail clients. You can either have a free Yahoo finance account or a ~$20k professional terminal. I feel like there is nothing in between. I guess the universe of investors willing to pay $2000+ per year but not $20k+ isn't large enough?

A cool blog post about a peculiarity of the Japanese stock market: http://undervaluedjapan.blogspot.com/2019/09/getting-by-on-yuutai.html

Or you can open 20 accounts and ditch the 19 worst ones after a year. All the focus on short-term track records on an anonymous message board might be fun but is counterproductive. Just focus on the actual content of the threads opened and the subsequent discussion, mostly regardless of who is posting.

Yeah... e.g. Cardboard on the top-performing users. His performance was entirely driven by Amazon. But he suggested that as a short idea, calling it a fraud. Oops. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/amzn-amazon-com-inc/ So that makes him the poster with the worst track record? I feel like that should've been researched too. Who are the worst contributors to this forum? Maybe topping that list is a reachable goal for me. Also I should have been nicer to yadayada. His star burned bright but short.

Agreed. Already had a decent position but couldn't resist adding yesterday. Now one of my larger positions. Some potential tax issues due to me living in Europe (FIRPTA) but yeah, management estimates seem conservative. Now we'll see where they will burn some money to get distributions in line with their estimates .. Bought some SYRCF today. Similar story.

I still like the Morningstar key ratios page (example) for a first look. However their site revamp was terrible. The new way they present financials is basically unreadable. I still use it though for a quick peek; the next step being the original filings. Kajinet is nice for Japan indeed. rocketfinancial.com has good historical financials for US companies. And it is free. You do need an account though. If somebody has something similar (and free) for international stocks that would be greatly appreciated. I am not aware of such a thing.

More SMTA. As far as I can see all looks good. Vote passed, portfolio sale expected to close in a few weeks, Shopko term loan fully recovered. According to the proxy management expects $8.50 - $9.35 per share in distributions. My own calculations get me closer to the top of that range. In fact even slightly above that range but that probably means I am too optimistic about the workout assets. Shares were initially up today (what I would have expected) but around the close there was massive volume and SMTA ended down ~2% instead. Best explanation I could come up with is that some funds are not allowed to hold companies in liquidation and had to sell at today's close. Seems congruent with what happened in the market. But maybe I missed something. Not the most fireproof explanation ever.

Yeah, Q1 looks bad. On the other hand, their track record the past 10 years looks reasonably stable. Semiconductor / LCD makes up ~55% of their total sales. They even have some decent (English) investor presentations on their website: link.

We're in good company. Michael Burry: Especially Nippon Pillar Packing looks like it could easily fit into a Japanese value basket. 0.6x book, dividend, decent ROE, boring business and a big pile of excess cash.

Question of the decade ..

Bought a few shares of TLF (just dipping my toes in the water) A retailer .. Fuck me. Still, quantitatively very cheap, insiders own a large stake (the writer of 'dear chairman'), some selling pressure the past few days due to a delayed 10Q because of an internal accounting audit. Leathercraft seems relatively 'Amazon-proof', company has been profitable every year the past decade, capital allocation seems sensible and revenue is stable. Market cap ~$41m, solid balance sheet with ~$17m in cash, no debt.

Cool article, thanks for posting gaijin.

Looks great. The house too.

Agreed. I hope that is not the reason you bought it.

But the market cap of all platinum bullion is much smaller. Palladium even smaller still. Wouldn’t that be a better value pick by your reasoning? Buying palladium is like buying bitcoin at a 80% discount. Surely that makes up for the quality issues. Why are idiots still buying gold if they can buy platinum at a 99% discount?

Discount to what? The closest comp to a depreciation resistant non-sovereign store of value that exists today By that measure platinum is a far better investment, right?

Discount to what?

Cool to read that report. Thanks. Fascinating to see: the author seems to have a decent grasp of what is happening. He asserts Enron is not generating FCF, is skeptical about the related party transactions, even noting "These are, in effect, sales with recourse to Enron. It is unclear to what degree Enron is actually exposed to these recourse arrangements.". He notes that Enron marks investments using questionable models, is questioning the merchant asset trading profits, etc. But in the end he still comes up with a $30 / share or 26b valuation. A few months before bankruptcy! In hindsight it is easy to make fun of this, but at the time I'm not so sure I'd have done better. Very hard not to anchor to the current valuation. This was a fun exercise and funnily enough a bit reassuring. Could I have predicted Enron was a fraud before the fact? I doubt it. Would I have been smart / ballsy enough to short it? I doubt it. But after looking at the financials for a few minutes I can say with some confidence that I would not have gone long either. Not my cup of tea. Share count increasing like crazy, selling insiders, opaque and risky balance sheet, unclear where cashflow / earnings come from, huge derivative positions, very dubious related party transactions combined with a rich valuation: I think that Enron, just like Valeant, would be on my "skeptical-but-too-hard-pile" within a few minutes, meaning I would post snarky comments from the sidelines without ever getting involved. I guess that means I'm just a very boring, conservative investor, missing out on all the fun.

Yes, recommended.

Interesting exercise. For one thing, according to Wikipedia: So one question to consider a priori is: are the financials reliable in the first place? How relevant is it to study them? But I guess there's probably something to learn. Some stuff I don't like after looking at the financials for a few minutes (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) 1) If anybody understands what is happening in footnote 16 of the financials they probably deserve a Nobel prize. 2) The balance sheet looks very precarious. Huge derivative positions 'assets / liabilities from price risk management activities'. No cash. During 2000 receivables / payables quadrupled. 5b in 'unconsolidated equity affiliates' with only very limited disclosure in footnote 9. 3) Cashflow: what is happening under operating cashflow at 'merchant assets' and why are the items there so big, in particular 'proceeds from merchant asset sales'? On page 40 these activities look relatively small. 4) from 1998 - 2000 shares outstanding and diluted shares outstanding increase ~7% annualized. 5) how sensible is a y/y revenue growth of 150% from 20b to 50b in what is basically a utility company? These points do not necessarily indicate fraud but at the very least they make me a bit suspicious. At the very least, after looking at the financials I cannot say that I understand at all what is happening.

This. Assholes.

If you really want to bet on that I’m sure we can work something out.

I guess all of you heard already heard about Chernobyl, the latest HBO miniseries. Super hyped and now the highest rated tv series ever on IMDB. Not sure if that will last, but we watched it and both thought it was very good. Highly recommended. I'm a big fan of the Coen brothers but I watched the first 10 minutes of 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' and thought it was awful and switched it off. Was more of a gay musical rather than a cool film. Bit of a taste thing I guess. Usually I like my entertainment dark and gritty, and especially without singing. Talking about dark and gritty, recently I rewatched 'Sicario'. Underrated movie. I'm a big Ricky Gervais fan too. His latest mini-series, 'After life', was also very enjoyable though not mind-blowing. And last but not least, the next season of Rick and Morty will air in a few months! Wubba lubba dub dub!

I severely doubt that. Having to sit down with a bunch of overconfident youngsters using the lunch as a promotion to market their sham coins that he probably views as a net negative to society. "I'll have a small coffee and a donut, please".

SMTA. Looks like an interesting situation.