LC

Info here: http://wealth-index.com/ Just as a disclaimer I have only used it to source ideas for research.

That's presumptuous. Shall I start naming hobbies which are predominately populated by women? Soapmaking, perfume making, sewing, knitting, yoga, gardening, writing, jewelry making, antiquing, etc. I can go on. This argument is totally facetious. There doesn't appear to be a single female on this board, and yet here we all are discussing the issue as if we have a clue? Reminds me of when some argument about race and poverty came up a few months ago. Remember: we're male, above average intelligence and wealth, and if everyone just listened to our opinions...

I'd say Berkshire. It's the greatest investor's lifetime collection of businesses. Second I'd say the ISE Wealth index etf.

That interview was ridiculous. The two hosts were 30 seconds away from publicly shaming Tepper for not being apart of the giving pledge. Is there no tact left? I felt embarrassed for everyone who was a part of that.

When do regulators become concerned given the growing amount of utilities etc that BRK owns?

They'll probably sue BAC.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-26/the-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes Interesting, albeit tangential, excerpt: ". In 2012, Goldman was rebuked by a Delaware judge for its behavior during a corporate acquisition. Goldman had advised one energy company, El Paso Corp., as it sold itself to another energy company, Kinder Morgan, in which Goldman actually owned a $4 billion stake, and a Goldman banker had a big personal investment. The incident forced the Fed to ask Goldman to see its conflict of interest policy. It turned out that Goldman had no conflict of interest policy"

A guy like Schloss made his money from the market's inferior wisdom, buying hundreds of stocks under book. A guy like Buffett made money from his superior wisdom, buying a few stocks where he felt he was right.

Good.

Well, if their gross margin is 25% per car and the average selling price is 40k, that's 10k gross per car. They currently trade for 35b. They need to sell 3.5m cars to make up their market cap in gross profit. There are currently about 255m cars in North America. Anyone have any insight into normalized ebitda or net margin per car?

Technophiles argue other phones are both technologically superior to the iphone and provide a better value (cost-benefit) to the end user. Yet look at the economic results. There's a reason Apple's competitors are playing in the low cost field. Also, product updates do not mean a moat is non-existent. Gillette would still be shilling 1 blade razors. Instead PG has added so many blades I can shave from my sideburns down to my adam's apple in one fell swoop.

Only took him 4 paragraphs to mention his book. I'm impressed by his mastery of delayed gratification.

You can buy shares in the public co at the market price, Palantir. Which is what I'll be doing :)

Congrats Mr. Parsad :)

Article on a screening technique http://alephblog.com/2014/08/30/using-mean-reversion-and-momentum-for-possible-advantage/

Not sure if this was posted already: http://www.scribd.com/doc/238132453/Sequoia-Investor-Day A good read as they discuss how they think about a variety of businesses.

Nate, thanks. Very informative as always. Also thank you PM and bookie for potential outlets to find other deals.

Thanks for that link. Marketability isn't a huge concern to me, but key man risk is. I'm also very curious about the brokers who are selling these deals. I assume the diligence they do is minimal at best. Therefore the buyer needs to work with the seller to obtain accurate financials information, client/vendor lists, etc. I want to be prepared before I engage a seller in a round of due diligence, and also know what to look out for.

Thanks for posting your experience, ray. What are the red flags that immediately tell you to pass? Part of what I'm trying to figure out is how to best filter through these. With public companies it is a bit easier because financials are usually spelled out cleanly and there is a lot of information as to industry dynamics.

Has anyone looked into buying local businesses? I periodically browse biz upswell.com and there are businesses, albeit not great ones, selling for 2-4x cash flow. The seasoned appraisers here will argue there is a reason for this (commodity businesses, geographic concentration, etc.) but for something like a convenience store or coffee shop, I would imagine it's not hard to manage. Does anyone on the boards have experience with this, or know of obvious pitfalls to look out for? Just curious, TIA.

I'm glad someone figured it out. The whole premise of an economy is centered around the owners of production "renting" the labor from "freed" folks. Turns out it's cheaper to pay someone a wage then actually owning them since wages can deflate in real terms, but having to feed, clothe, and put a roof over their heads actually keeps up with inflation. Karl Marx alluded to the final steps of capitalism is to completely displace human labor with machines in his Communist Manifesto. Of course the workers will feel disenfranchised and rise up beginning the age of communism. Pretty amazing foresight from someone writing in the 1800's. Maybe for society this is true, but take the business owner's perspective. I see it a lot like Buffett talking about Berkshire back when he bought it. All the textile mills buy new equipment to lower their cost but never see any of the margin expansion due to competition...all the cost savings eventually flow are passed on to their customers. Therefore a monopoly business would benefit most as they don't have as much competitive pressure to pass these cost savings on.

Find out which monopoloy/oligopolies this will impact. More competitive industries will most likely pass the cost savings down the line.

Re #2 You probably know this but in case you don't, if you click the "new" icon next to each thread it will take you to the oldest unread post in that thread.

Also screening is just one tool in the toolbox. Sometimes it doesn't turn up obvious bargains like Apple when it was 400/share (pre-split). Cash adjusted p/e was really low but a screen wouldn't show that. That's why I use business metrics, make straightforward adjustments (excess cash, accrual vs cash flow, etc.) to find a rough multiple for the business, and then try to decide whether any "cheapness" is due to temporary or permanent issues.

I really only look at screens for business metrics (margins, sales growth, etc.) and not valuation metrics. So I wake up one day and say, today I feel like reading about a company with really nice gross margins, let me go find one and see what it looks like.