muscleman

Well, I don't mean to insult. Just be cool and treat it like a joke. If you are still uncomfortable, I can delete it. :) On the other hand, are you sure you "engage in issues substantively" with regard to Hillary's various scandals? You are just taking her lies and the spins from crooked medias who sided with her at face value. How about this one: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/09/julian-assange-thousands-hillary-cables-signed-c-classified-yet-told-fbi-didnt-know-meant/ I've been reading a book "Stone walled" recently. The current administration's most frequently used trick is to spin lies to cover up the various scandals. How about Hillary's health? It doesn't pass the basic health bar to qualify for a president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUrRaasNHwI

****Deleted, as a simple joke was taken as insult by extreme leftists.*****

So you are really buying into this beautiful press release? When I look at stocks, the first thing I go to are proxy forms and related party transactions. When I look at Clinton, the first thing to look at are her email scandals, her Benghazi scandals, and her Clinton Foundation. When I look at company press releases and presentations, every crappy company convinces me it is a great investment. Huge potential and severely undervalued. So I no longer look at those. Non investors may look at the article you sent and buy into it, but I'd be surprised that value investors would do so. "Clinton has remained dogged by questions about her honesty, her willingness to shade the truth. Her use of a private email server while secretary of state is a clear example of poor judgment. She should take additional steps to divorce allegations of influence peddling from the Clinton Foundation. And she must be more forthright with the public by holding news conferences, as opposed to relying on a shield of carefully scripted appearances and speeches. Those are real shortcomings. But they pale in comparison to the litany of evils some opponents accuse her of. Treason? Murder? Her being cleared of crimes by investigation after investigation has no effect on these political hyenas; they refuse to see anything but conspiracies and cover-ups. We reject the politics of personal destruction. Clinton has made mistakes and displayed bad judgment, but her errors are plainly in a different universe than her opponent's. Trump's values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best. His serial shifts on fundamental issues reveal an astounding absence of preparedness. And his improvisational insults and midnight tweets exhibit a dangerous lack of judgment and impulse control. After nearly four decades in the public spotlight, 25 of them on the national stage, Clinton is a known quantity. For all her warts, she is the candidate more likely to keep our nation safe, to protect American ideals and to work across the aisle to uphold the vital domestic institutions that rely on a competent, experienced president. Hillary Clinton has spent years in the trenches doing the hard work needed to prepare herself to lead our nation. In this race, at this time, she deserves your vote." Lying in front of FBI and lying in front of congress is a big thing. Hillary did it many times. Oh, she told FBI that she doesn't know C means Classified. Do you believe that? No wonder Bill and Hillary become a family. They are just like each other. A liars group. Bill: "I don't think oral sex is sex." Hillary: "I don't think C means classified." Trump is playing on fears. Why not? If Hillary, such a big liar gets elected, we should be really scared. So what's wrong to warn people about this?

So you are really buying into this beautiful press release? When I look at stocks, the first thing I go to are proxy forms and related party transactions. When I look at Clinton, the first thing to look at are her email scandals, her Benghazi scandals, and her Clinton Foundation. When I look at company press releases and presentations, every crappy company convinces me it is a great investment. Huge potential and severely undervalued. So I no longer look at those. Non investors may look at the article you sent and buy into it, but I'd be surprised that value investors would do so.

How did you know that? :o But I guess that's normal with this guy. Having been burned by the Chinese reverse mergers, I guess he finally saved enough money to get back into the game again, so he is desperately needing to swing through the fence and make a large profit. Then he can start bragging about his legendary trade.

Just like what I said before, die hard Hillary lovers are defending her like Bruce Berkowitz defending SHLD and JOE. ;D Or even better, Bill Ackman defending VRX! Remember what Bill said about VRX when it was $90? There was a lot of smoke, but no fire. Add more! Later when it was $20: There was some fire, but we can fix it. How about this compared to Hillary. Last week: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/25/hillary-clinton-foundation-i-know-theres-lot-smoke/ Hillary Clinton on foundation: ‘I know there’s a lot of smoke but there’s no fire’ And now: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/08/30/clinton-foundation-controversy-yes-hillary-where-theres-smoke-there-really-is-fire.html Clinton Foundation controversy: Yes, Hillary, where there's smoke there really is fire Remember, Clinton said she would close the foundation if she got elected. Come on guys. If there is no fire why close it? Even if she closes it, can't she open another foundation, and name it mother-fucker-corruption-heaven foundation? ;D

Caution. I don't read anything written by Glenn. This guy is a joke. He was largely involved in the 2011 Chinese reverse mergers and got burned. He was writing a lot of pump articles and had the moto of "Follow me to invest to become a millionaire". He got quiet for the next 4 years, and now he started to become active again, on the GSEs? :o It looks to me that this guy is desperately looking for one big shot to become famous, so he can either launch a fund or do whatever he planned. I was even thinking about exiting all of my GSE shares when I saw this guy's activity, but I think that decision may not be wise because the legal reasonings provided by excellent board members here like chris and merkhet made this a strong case. http://seekingalpha.com/author/glen-bradford/articles#regular_articles&ticker=ccme

She's been doing in camera review of the documents that US treasury refused to turn over. Who know how long that's gonna take.

You do know that Donald Trump literally invests without reading financials... http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/22/politics/donald-trump-activist-investor/ "But while Trump's ability to establish a major position in these companies quietly was clearly strategic, his rationale for doing so appeared less so -- at least according to him. In fact, when it came to Bally, he got the idea of going after the company from a single conversation with a single analyst -- Dan Lee, his trusted confidante from Drexel Burnham, Trump told a Bally lawyer in a deposition reviewed by CNN. In that deposition, taken during a suit filed by Bally after Trump amassed 9.9% of the company's stock, Trump said he hadn't even looked at the company's proxy statements before he shelled out millions. He finally held a meeting with advisers from Bear Stearns after he'd purchased his stake in the company. "I wanted to start to learn a little bit about the company," Trump said of that first meeting. "I figured it was not a bad time to start." Over the course of the depositions and testimony CNN reviewed from the period, it was a regular theme from Trump -- one with familiar echoes to his presidential campaign. While Trump had close advisers, "Trump will do what Trump wants to do. And often he'll do it without telling them at all," one former Trump Organization executive, who was with the businessman during this period, said in an interview. The executive, who requested anonymity so as not to harm his existing relationship with Trump, recounted how most activist investors had teams of lawyers, analysts and advisers poring over the details of a potential target. Trump, on the other hand, wasn't even aware Bally had had health clubs -- a significant line of the company's business -- when he first started buying the company's stock. Trump, in his testimony in front of the casino commission, put it like this: "I just felt instinctively -- when I do research on things, they never work out well."" Uncle Carl Icahn will teach him and make good economic policies. When I compare how people dislike Trump vs how people dislike Hillary, come one, the dirty points are not even in the same magnitude.

People are defending Hillary just like Bruce Berkowitz defending his SHLD and ST Joe positions. ;D

I think the most important thing for us is what do we learn from his mistakes? Buffet said we should constantly learn from other's mistakes. :) 1. I think he is falling deeper and deeper into the value trap types. Companies that have apparently a lot of valuable assets, but burning them quickly. 2. Management capabilities seem to be number one importance to me. I've found a few stocks not working well due to greedy management. (GNCMA, CHEF etc.) In the SHLD's case, I think it is incapable management. 3. Sum of Parts valuation doesn't work and doesn't make sense in a lot of cases. For example, my local area has a Bowling shop that rents out Bowling shoes for $7 a pair for each visit. The return on investment on the shoe is likely in the range of 20% a day. So can they assign some valuation to the bowling shoe rental service and spin it out? They clearly cannot. So isn't it the same for a lot of SHLD's subsidiaries?

The link I included has the IRS tax report. That's the holy grail. Everything else they said on that annual report or any outside numbers are just bull shit. FactCheck.org Where Does Clinton Foundation Money Go? Instead of trusting these outside cover ups for the Clintons, why not just take a look at page 28 yourself? I assume most people on this board are financial detectives and financial report addicts. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/sites/default/files/clinton_foundation_report_public_2014.pdf What does item 15 say? Salaries and employee benefits. 35 Million. Item 17. Other expenses. 50 Million. Then scroll down to page 37 for the breakdowns. salaries and wages 24 Million. Conferences, conventions, and meetings 12 Million. Travel 7 Million. Other employee benefits 4 Million Payroll taxes 2.5 Million.

The link I included has the IRS tax report. That's the holy grail. Everything else they said on that annual report or any outside numbers are just bull shit.

https://t.co/2UYBfPyfv9 Page 28. Clinton foundation donation only 5 Million in 2014. Paid 35 Million salary! As a foundation, aren't they supposed to donate at least 5% of their assets each year? How come the salary is a monstrous 35 M?

I think the idea is to look for equities (leveraged, but paying down debt with FCF), that have the same treats like the private equity deals that work out from his set of data. These would be: 1) small caps that are leveraged 2) Reasonably valued per EV/EBITDA 3) showed a pattern of paying down their debt from FCF Not a bad idea. If there is a credit freeze, his fund will get absolutely destroyed, I think. I want to point out that small caps that are leveraged may also die. Who knows if his data set contains the dead ones as well. I think companies that have survived are much easier to be added to a research database than companies that failed. So the data set may contain a survivor bias. Who still has the list of fortune 500 companies in 1945? :)

Is this EV/EBITDA or P/EBITDA?

After a second read, I think the article is talking about EV/EBITDA less than 7, given the following language. "Price matters because the typical PE firm puts 60% leverage on an acquisition. At a purchase price of five times cash flow, debt should equal about three times EBITDA" I think it really depends on how capital intensive this business is. Some business have 2% capex on revenue and some have 50%. The 2% ones can have a much higher sustainable EV/EBITDA multiple.

Thank you for sharing! Do you know if the article means 7 times EV/EBITDA or P/EBITDA? I think even in today's stock market it is not easy to find 7x EV/EBITDA stocks. P/EBITDA of 7 seems more likely. But then with debt, it could easily go to 14x EBITDA, a ridiculously high multiple.

What's the difference in the reasoning between: "The polls are validating that approach", so the majority must be right AND Market efficient hypothesis: The stock price always reflect all fundamentals. If you think the stock is undervalued or overvalued, you must be wrong. The market must be right. So why are you on this value investing board? :) Oh well since you mentioned.. I believe that the market is right MOST of the time but it does misprice an asset from time to time. It may be due to regulations,protection, tax loss harvesting,mass hysteria , biases or an investor base. Value investing is just a framework to analyze these opportunities. Trend following is another where the traders captures fat tails of the deviation. Elections is a popularity contest decided by voting. There is no weighing machine here. I hope you don't think that Clinton and Trump are the most eligible for the President's job. Its an apples and orange comparison. I really hope you don't believe that markets gets it wrong MOST of the time. Efficient market hypothesis is not correct but that doesn't mean the opposite must be true. I think George Soros's book has a better understanding of this than traditional value investors. Traditional value investors think the market is right most of the time, and price always evolves around value, so when undervalued stocks are discovered, they buy, and hope it will go back to value quickly. Soros takes it to the next level, saying that under or overvaluation can sustain for an extended period of time, and the under/overvaluation itself can reenforce itself. For example, VRX was overvalued, and that can be used as an acquisition currency to increase per share value, which reenforces the market's view that the stock is good. This game can sustain for a long time. I want to apply that understanding to election here. Assuming a stable population, people can get unhappy with a party in power and vote for the other party in the next election (just like classic value investing: price evolves around value), or the current administration can bring in massive amount of illegal immigrants and influence the judges to void the voter ID laws. Each person, intelligent or not, only has one vote. So once these guys started to vote and break the balance, the balance may be broken forever. From an unverified source, there are 6% of votes casted by illegal immigrants. I don't want to involve in the discussion of whether this figure is correct or not, but in theory, assuming it is, this may become a self-reinforcing trend.

What's the difference in the reasoning between: "The polls are validating that approach", so the majority must be right AND Market efficient hypothesis: The stock price always reflect all fundamentals. If you think the stock is undervalued or overvalued, you must be wrong. The market must be right. So why are you on this value investing board? :) +1 The market in the short term is a voting machine and in the long term a weighing machine. Unfortunately the democratic process is always a voting machine and works as well as you would expect. That's true. If election happens today, Hillary will most likely get the crown seat. But in the next two months, it is a bit hard to say how things will evolve and whether this voting machine will evolve to that weighing machine.

What's the difference in the reasoning between: "The polls are validating that approach", so the majority must be right AND Market efficient hypothesis: The stock price always reflect all fundamentals. If you think the stock is undervalued or overvalued, you must be wrong. The market must be right. So why are you on this value investing board? :)

So what did he say in the past few weeks that made you think so? Please list them out and let's compare it with Hillary's super-predator comments. :)

Would you buy a company whose CEO thinks his shareholder base is 'poorly educated' ,has a record of leveraging and then declaring bankruptcies multiple times, does not disclose his returns , hires incompetent people , claims that he doesn't need to learn about anything, is so poor in basic math that he thinks he can alienate 40% of the market and can still win. Trump bankrupted 4 of his companies. He has over 100 in total. Not that bad. He does not disclose his returns but does Hillary disclose? Focus on the big picture. The concerns with Hillary is far more serious. If you have ever been offended by anything Trump says, watch this. I am far more offended by this. Lastly, as swing voter, I only argue with swing voters. I do not bother discussing this topic with die hard republican or democrats because they always vote for the same party regardless. :)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-department-of-clinton-1472167746 Guys, how comfortable are you with this kind of ethics? When I invest, the first thing I check is the related transactions and the DEF 14. If the company CEO consistently steals from the shareholders, there is no way I would invest, even if it is cheap. Why not the same rational for electing US president?

Yeah.... As I said before, with so many cases going on, some people argue that we just need to win one. But the cases are related. If we lose enough like this, there will be impacts on the remaining. However I still expect the Appeals court to bring justice.