fareastwarriors

Thanks for sharing. Good luck with school!

Conviction!

What is the solution? Just keep cutting taxes/programs?

He made Paulson looks so bad.

USually, if you google the title of the article and click on it to access wsj, you get the see the entire article as like a free sample article. How the Chou Income Fund Got Its Mojo . By KAREN JOHNSON Francis Chou was a 25-year-old telephone repairman in Canada when he pooled 51,000 Canadian dollars from himself and six co-workers to start an investment club. Thirty-one years later, Mr. Chou manages more than US$650 million for investors at his firm, Chou Associates Management Inc., and runs the best-performing bond fund in North America. "It wasn't a big sum," Mr. Chou says of his stock-investment club. "But it did quite well." Indeed. The Bell Canada co-workers—and some of their parents and friends who also invested early on with Mr. Chou—now are each worth more than $2 million. Mr. Chou's trajectory to the top of the bond-fund world shows how investors are tweaking tried-and-true strategies to boost returns and overcome chronically low interest rates. When he was starting out, Mr. Chou largely stuck to stocks and the classic value-investing methods made famous by Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett. "The key idea was to find bargains, and if you could find bargains, you could do quite well," Mr. Chou says in an interview at his unadorned suburban office, far from the bustle of Toronto's Bay Street financial hub. Bargain-hunting is a skill that Mr. Chou, now 56, honed as a boy. Born in India to Chinese parents, he wandered among food stalls in the small northern Indian city of Allahabad, clutching a shopping list from his mother. Because there were no refrigerators, milk had to be bought almost every day. While his mother worked as a Chinese-language teacher, the young Mr. Chou would check for freshness, turning the glass bottles to see the milk's color and thickness. He tried to discern which were priced too high, those likely to spoil soon and others that were watered down. In 1973, Mr. Chou's older brother immigrated to Canada. Mr. Chou joined him three years later, with $200 to his name. Eventually he landed a job as a repairman for Bell Canada. But when Mr. Chou stumbled on an article about value investing, he felt he had found his calling. A year after starting his club in 1981, Mr. Chou went looking for value-oriented firms. He introduced himself to Bob Tattersall, then at Bolton Tremblay Funds Inc., a Montreal investment-counseling firm that later grew into Canadian fund manager Montrusco Bolton. "I have two weeks' holiday," Mr. Chou said at the time. "Can I work for you for free?" Mr. Tattersall said yes. He was impressed by Mr. Chou's insights and asked him to analyze auto-parts maker Kelsey-Hayes Canada Ltd. "He did a good job on the report, and he was pretty excited at the end when we called the CFO, put him on the speaker phone and did a telephone interview," Mr. Tattersall recalls. For Mr. Chou, the two-week stint was a chance to scout Bay Street investment advisers, especially those who shared his value-oriented philosophy. In 1984, he left Bell Canada for good, joining investment firm Gardiner Watson Ltd. as an analyst, working beside value investor Prem Watsa. It was Mr. Watsa who pressed for his hire. "My boss asked me give him 10 minutes. We spoke for a half-hour. I have never been more impressed with anyone than I was in that half-hour." At Mr. Chou's urging, Mr. Watsa bought control of teetering Markel MKL +0.53%Financial of Canada, the Canadian unit of insurer Markel Corp. It eventually became Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., FFH.T +0.55%of which Mr. Watsa now is chairman and chief executive. Mr. Chou worked at Fairfax for about a decade, managing the company's surplus cash while running the grown-up version of the investment club launched at Bell Canada. While never abandoning his roots in value investing, Mr. Chou has branched into riskier bets such as corporate "junk" bonds, which have been luring many investors with returns that are much higher than Treasurys, at least for now. His investors have been the beneficiaries. The Chou Income Fund, launched in 2010 with $500,000, has been tops among North American bond funds so far this year, with a return of 28%, according to financial-data tracker Lipper. In the same period, the Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield Total Return index has gained 12%. Most of the assets in Mr. Chou's fund, which now has $6.3 million under management, are corporate junk bonds, including some issued by MannKind Corp. MNKD +3.19%and Dex One Corp. DEXO -8.61%He typically holds investments for a few years, singling out beaten-up assets that he expects to rebound in value. Junk-bond prices were especially tempting when he launched the fund, he says, but they have become more dangerous to play now as prices have climbed. In 2004, Mr. Chou was named fund manager of the decade in Canada by fund tracker Morningstar Inc., MORN +0.83%and his Chou Associates Fund swelled in popularity, with assets under management topping $1 billion. Mr. Chou is unrepentant about taking more risks, but the financial crisis was a painful reminder that even successful investment strategies can be derailed quickly. Chou Associates Fund suffered losses of 10% in 2007 and 29% in 2008. Some investors took their money and ran. The fund's performance rebounded with strong back-to-back gains. Over the past 15 years, it has risen an average of 8.3% a year, more than double the 3.4% average gain by the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Mr. Chou has never formally marketed his funds to investors. Letters he writes to them have a folksy, humble tone that echoes Mr. Buffett, the billionaire chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRKB +0.99% In an August note, Mr. Chou called a bad bet on a Chinese cellphone maker "an unforced error like they say in tennis." His investment was "an unnecessary penalty that would send us to the penalty box if it were hockey." "The market can whack you," Mr. Chou says, "and remind you that you don't know everything." —Min Zeng contributed to this article.

Bass Says Half His Fund Is Invested in Subprime Bonds(!) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-16/bass-says-half-his-fund-is-invested-in-subprime-bonds.html video of interview http://www.bloomberg.com/video/bass-says-half-his-firm-s-money-in-subprime-bonds-DfesKbJNSrSa3mw9TJR7Xw.html

not enough cash to buy a sizable position :(

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-13/buffett-power-unit-targets-renewables-for-acquisitions.html Buffett Power Unit Targets Renewables for Acquisitions “We believe renewables is the better investment right now” because utilities are too expensive, MidAmerican’s Goodman said in an interview today at an Edison Electric Institute conference in Phoenix. “As a cash buyer, we will be looking at utilities if pricing comes in a bit.” MidAmerican has sought opportunities to reinvest its cash and highlighted that it has more funds available to service debt and build its business because it doesn’t pay a dividend. The power provider also has access to capital from Omaha, Nebraska- based Berkshire, which holds a 90 percent stake. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-13/berkshire-s-manville-says-ceo-raba-departs-rhinehart-promoted.html Berkshire Replaces Raba as Buffet Sees Housing Rebound Todd Raba, 55, will “relinquish” his position as chairman and CEO of Johns Manville, the Denver-based company said today in a statement. Mary Rhinehart, 54, who has served as chief financial officer, was named CEO, effective immediately, the unit of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire said.

BB should be running private $ with longer lockups. With mutual funds, there is too much hot money chasing "hot" managers...

Out of interest, how many would say that their decision to hold AIG and / or BAC has been influenced by the fact that Berkowitz holds them? I held BAC before Berkowitz started building a huge position in BAC. Unfortunately, I started buying BAC at the beginning of 2008 (before I knew of this board). I am still buying. I learned of AIG through this board .

I hope all these companies go to zero. >:( ... Shame on me, mixing emotions with investing.

http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2012/11/08/warren-buffett-read-all-about-him/ The article is a review of 2 new Buffett books but it includes plenty of links to good WEB's resources.

But it gave the opportunity for many investors to buy Fairfax at a great sale. I'm sure many benefit from this short attack.

I was thoroughly confused during the exchange on CNBC.....

While the general media is consumed with Sandy (for good reasons), it seems to me there are a healthy amount of M/A activity this week (Sun-Wed, at least). PVH to Buy Warnaco Group for $2.9 Billion Disney to buy Lucasfilm for $4.05 Billion Carlyle to Buy Diversey Japan for $377 Million Bayer to Buy Schiff Nutrition for $1.2 Billion Riverbed Technology to Buy Opnet for $993 Million Clean Harbors to Acquire Safety-Kleen for $1.25 Billion Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing. But it's interesting for me.

http://wealthtrack.com/previous_10-12-2012.php I know it was posted before elsewhere but I thought I post it here in case others haven't seen it yet. For those interested, Berkowitz interview on Wealthtrack.

"Google was forced to cancel Monday’s event to unveil a new smartphone, the Nexus 4, as well as several new tablets, all aimed at the holiday shopping season." From the NYTimes. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/business/brunt-of-business-impact-yet-to-come.html?ref=business

Another piece on Ted Wechsler in BusinessWeek: Ted Wechsler: The Next Warren Buffett? http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/ted-wechsler-the-next-warren-buffett#p1 but it's pretty much a rehash of the Bloomberg article.

Thanks for sharing. This NYTimes article on Chinese officials and their wealth/corruption seems relevant. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html?hp

love this quote, classic buffett He said he was also given some hormones, so "occasionally I get some hot flashes. We males call those power surges, actually."

http://www.tilsonfunds.com/BRK.pdf presentation by Tilson on BRK

I;m not Indian but thanks for sharing these articles. very interesting. I enjoyed reading them.

I just bought a Triplex in Cali. ;D The rental income is great. I don't need price appreciation to make a decent return but I wouldn't mind either! :P

Besides all the negative publicity and media attention about the debit fees and account fees?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-04/jet-lease-billionaire-udvar-hazy-takes-on-aig-hand-that-fed-him.html very interesting article on current Air Lease Corp. CEO and his history with ILFC.