LC

Sanjeev - This is why (in my opinion) we need a dedicated Trump/Politics thread. Of course it will get crazy in that thread, it's politics after all. But the alternative is the discussion will still take place when it spills over into other threads. Re: Klarman - yes it has always been hard to find his letters. That's the charm. He has nothing to lose by artificially restricting the distribution. It creates a shroud of secrecy around him that further emboldens his current clients and creates desire in outsiders. Again, good marketing. Find a way to "sell" anything you can. He is aware of his brand and how he positions his fund competitively vs other managers.

And it's not just potential investors he is marketing towards. His methods increase client retention by making it more "painful" to exit, as they would be giving up a seemingly "rare" commodity.

Every article about klarman starts with, "and he wrote a book which sells for thousands!". Isn't it great when a story about extremely logical people begin with a logical fallacy?

Or a great marketer.

I think there is a large difference between not accepting ad hominem attacks vs. "hidden mind control"

Purchased PM and BRK.B a few days ago, sold out of SNA also a few days ago (lucky)

You are painting with a broad brush there...I would say most reasonable people are holding their tongue. The ones speaking out are the ones with extreme viewpoints. If insisting on civilized discourse and not advocating violence and the destruction of property to shut down political speech for which you disagree is an extreme viewpoint that should say something in and of itself don't you think? You are incorrectly interpreting what I wrote. For instance, a person can have both moderate views regarding one issue, and extreme views regarding another issue. You are advocating for free speech and nonviolence on this thread. Completely reasonable (in my opinion). You have also argued for, essentially, full-scale anarchy on previous threads. This is an extreme view (in my opinion)

You are painting with a broad brush there...I would say most reasonable people are holding their tongue. The ones speaking out are the ones with extreme viewpoints.

My thanks to Sanjeev for continuing to allow discussion whenever people clamor to "lock the thread". Free speech isn't a right on a private forum, but I appreciate it being allowed, even if it gets "messy" at times.

National Security Council appointee: https://www.google.com/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/38787241

Be careful legally too. I would do some research first...

Wait, what? Build a wall, out of the blue, with no warning? Oh I'm not surprised, simply amused. Do we know if this Great Wall of Mexico will span the entire 2000 mile border, or as the article I posted suggests: After initially proposing to wall off all 2,000 miles, Trump said the wall could run along roughly half of the border, with mountains and other natural barriers blocking immigrants from crossing elsewhere Reminds me of this:

Build the wall! https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/25/executive-order-border-security-and-immigration-enforcement-improvements Apparently, Trump said in a TV interview that Mexico would "absolutely, 100%" reimburse the US for his wall. Suuuure they will. Oh I know, just throw some trade sanctions on Mexican imports and consider that "paying for the wall". Apparently it will be quite expensive. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602494/bad-math-props-up-trumps-border-wall/ And of course, I can't think of a better time to build such a wall, especially when arrests from border crossings has been trending downwards for a decade:

So far I see a net negative based on his executive actions: I'm ambivalent on the trade deal renegotiations and pipeline. The big negative is the censorship.

I think this is the problem all value guys are having these days.

it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive! One can appreciate both the fine dining of Thomas Keller and the delicious sloppiness of Ronald McDonald!

Nice tips! MCD's makes delicious drunk and/or road trip food. Although I will say Taco Bell is a contender for greatest road trip food of all time.

Here is a google cache version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N-DwIeLG9ucJ:https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/altisource-recap/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Coufounding how? They had a residual-like (high multiple) revenue model based on Ocwen's portfolio, which was growing like crazy at the time as they bought the MSRs from all the banks post-2009. I can see how it became valuable over time if you assumed (as most did) that Ocwen/Erby were just good, salt-of-the-earth, capitalists. Confounding in the way that any stock is that returns in excess of 1,000% in the year after its IPO. The company's market cap almost doubled in Q4 with no news or discernible change in the forecast. If you have a spreadsheet or valuation write-up that justified a price in excess of $500 per share, I'd love to see it. There used to be a write up here: https://glennchan.wordpress.com/ but i think the site is down. otherwise i would go back to the ocwen thread as i think it was discussed quite a bit back then, if my memory serves

Coufounding how? They had a residual-like (high multiple) revenue model based on Ocwen's portfolio, which was growing like crazy at the time as they bought the MSRs from all the banks post-2009. I can see how it became valuable over time if you assumed (as most did) that Ocwen/Erby were just good, salt-of-the-earth, capitalists.

7.38% last year! woo I'm rich! :D

I will have to catch up on calculating my monthly returns...I used to do it religiously but have gotten lazy :D

Merry Xmas to all...and thanks Sanjeev for the board!

Not sure I agree...the stock market is more efficient than not. Things are usually cheap for a reason. Nobody goes to the grocery store and buys spoiled food just because it's half price.

I would find some way to measure marketing presence ($s spent as % of AUM, or perhaps some other metric) and compare that to historical returns. My guess is heavy marketers underperform, so you could use it as a tool to disqualify asset managers (rather than select).