muscleman

I lost a lot of money in CCME. It was audited by Deloitte, and Star International was its biggest shareholders, so I thought it would be fine, but turned out to be a fraud. Small cap does have this risk. I think you have to do your own research and try to know the CEO well in order to understand his incentive.

Yes. It is an $80 commission. The Fidelity broker routes the trade through a Korean broker. The Korean broker charges an additional commission of ~10bps. On top of that, do you also need to pay for the USD/KRW exchange fee? Fidelity normally charges 1% per side for forex.

With this pace of closing, I expect another brutal quarter for Q1. The revenue will likely get a hit. I am curious if Eddie simply waited until these cash burning stores' leases to expire to close? He could have closed these stores 3-5 years earlier. People were saying that the stores were not aggressively closed because Eddie has to wait until RE value goes up. But that is for owned stores, not leased ones, right?

Yeah. 500 TTM is sufficient to move the ball fast enough.

Nice find! I like this quote in particular... The deal is raising interest from New York investment company Stone House Capital Management, LLC, which is researching whether to invest in Sears. “We do see a lot of value in some of the ... brands Sears has,” including Land’s End, said Julian Tatz of Stone House Capital Management. “Retail looks like it’s not going to really turn out too well, but we’re looking at the whole picture, not only retail.” This is weird. Why would a hedge fund start to talk about a potential position before he decides to load up?

Does anyone have insights into this? http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/01/fitch_ratings_michigan_gov_ric.html

eli lilly federal credit union? Sounds like a weird name. Do you know other HSA admins that can allow me to have a brokerage option in the HSA account?

I meant people at other teams in the same firm. My colleagues all had very low bonuses so part of the reason is definitely because the business is not making money. It is just that I am penalised so much worse. Also the "star" performer of the team also got very low compared to other similar ranked person in other teams. I know it sounds like I am a little arrogant.. but isn't it much better to get into an easier business now that I am young than slog it out to become like the star indispensible member of the team but still get paid very very low. Also I don't envision myself doing this for the long term. I ended up here due to certain unforeseen circumstances. The team that I was meant to join didn't have headcount from senior management so I was pushed here to do some work. I would say if I exceed all expectations then my total bonus can probably only go up to $10,000 (still lower than the average) Basically there is a rating / feedback system. I got a 3 out of 5 (60% of the firm gets 3, ¬20% gets 2, 10% gets 1 and 4, and 5's get fired) .. people who get 3 range from my bonus to $35,000. I know it is easy to attribute this to that I'm at the "lower end of the 3", but this amount is still very unjustified and if I don't change now I will be stuck in a lousy business. Are you in Microsoft? The review systems sounds like Microsoft. I worked there for nearly five years, got an insulting bonus last year, and I felt so pissed that I left in 2 months. Nope not Microsoft, but that's what I am kinda feeling right now. Don't spend any more time to complain dude. Just keep your heads down, and prepare for the interviews! Smile to your boss, but say "f*ck you" in your heart.

Let's say you just have an insurance company and nothing else in your holding company -- you'd better be pretty damn cautious about MTM losses on equities. Now, instead suppose you also have a few very high quality (and wholly owned) companies surrounding it -- companies that just throw off tons of cash.... Two things just happened by adding the very high quality wholly owned cash machines: 1) insurance ratings went up on the insurer, ultimately leading to better underwriting results (charge more for higher ratings) 2) You can invest the float a bit more aggressively given the huge amounts of earnings power across the consolidated entity I believe the insurance businesses within Berkshire would earn lower ROE as entities outside of Berkshire. The structure boosts intrinsic value. Similarly, I think an aircraft carrier is better off travelling in a convoy of destroyers. Buffett is playing a little game of fleet admiral here. That's a very good perspective, Eric. Warren had squeezed cash from BRK to buy NICO which meant that a company with lousy returns was joined to a controlled insurer with a huge pile of cash and marketable securities. BRK's ownership of NICO gave Warren optionality; if NICO had got in trouble with high intrinsic value but low market value equity holdings on its BS Warren could have squeezed or even liquidated BRK with its remaining working capital to provide relief to NICO. Things weren't all rosie. Warren's investments were such a spiderweb of cross holdings that the SEC took interest and was about to bring suit around that time. I think the key reason he took the plunge into investing almost all NICO's assets in equities was that equity holdings of insurance companies didn't have to be marked to market then. If his regulator questioned those holdings which were likely carried at purchase price, Warren could have pointed to how solid the underlying businesses were. NICO had been a homegrown Omaha success. I suspect that the regulator of that local business was not unfriendly or activist. :) I agree that operating businesses, which throw off tons of cash are very good things to possess… I think this is self-evident! But don’t forget that until the mid-90s’ almost 90% of the increase in BV for Berkshire was achieved thanks to insurance + investing. And during the 80s’ Berkshire practically only grew through insurance + investing. Even if today marked to market accounting, like twacowfca suggests, limits the amount of equities an insurance company can purchase, without running too much risk, and therefore what Berkshire achieved during the ‘80s is no more replicable, I think Dhandho Holdings might still do pretty well. Think about Markel: Mr. Gayner is surely a smart investor, but he is no outlier, nor he has a better track record than Mr. Pabrai… actually, his track record is only slightly better than the S&P500. Yet, MKL has compounded BVPS at more than 16% for the last 20 years. Dhandho Holdings imo is going to be a very good vehicle for compounding capital, even without owing operating businesses… This, of course, doesn’t exclude the fact Mr. Pabrai could very well decide to buy entire businesses in the future! :) Gio So in the old days, Buffet's company was allowed to use 100% of float to buy stocks? How did he deal with the volatility?

Not sure if you can buy those. I tried to place an order for hyundai's GDR in london and it says it is not allowed for electronic trading. I will call fidelity on Sunday night when their global desk opens. I am using IB right now for my individual account, so I have to call them as well.

I meant people at other teams in the same firm. My colleagues all had very low bonuses so part of the reason is definitely because the business is not making money. It is just that I am penalised so much worse. Also the "star" performer of the team also got very low compared to other similar ranked person in other teams. I know it sounds like I am a little arrogant.. but isn't it much better to get into an easier business now that I am young than slog it out to become like the star indispensible member of the team but still get paid very very low. Also I don't envision myself doing this for the long term. I ended up here due to certain unforeseen circumstances. The team that I was meant to join didn't have headcount from senior management so I was pushed here to do some work. I would say if I exceed all expectations then my total bonus can probably only go up to $10,000 (still lower than the average) Basically there is a rating / feedback system. I got a 3 out of 5 (60% of the firm gets 3, ¬20% gets 2, 10% gets 1 and 4, and 5's get fired) .. people who get 3 range from my bonus to $35,000. I know it is easy to attribute this to that I'm at the "lower end of the 3", but this amount is still very unjustified and if I don't change now I will be stuck in a lousy business. Are you in Microsoft? The review systems sounds like Microsoft. I worked there for nearly five years, got an insulting bonus last year, and I felt so pissed that I left in 2 months.

Let's say you just have an insurance company and nothing else in your holding company -- you'd better be pretty damn cautious about MTM losses on equities. Now, instead suppose you also have a few very high quality (and wholly owned) companies surrounding it -- companies that just throw off tons of cash.... Two things just happened by adding the very high quality wholly owned cash machines: 1) insurance ratings went up on the insurer, ultimately leading to better underwriting results (charge more for higher ratings) 2) You can invest the float a bit more aggressively given the huge amounts of earnings power across the consolidated entity I believe the insurance businesses within Berkshire would earn lower ROE as entities outside of Berkshire. The structure boosts intrinsic value. Similarly, I think an aircraft carrier is better off travelling in a convoy of destroyers. Buffett is playing a little game of fleet admiral here. So if the insurance float is used to buy stocks, they need to be MTM, but if the float is used to buyout a company, then it is no longer needed to MTM, because there is no market to mark to, am I right? In this case, I think it is much less risky.

I was gonna ask the same question. But the other question I have is that Pabrai may have to change his strategies if he were to invest the float like Buffet. In from 2008 to 2009, he had 65% mark to market loss at one point, which I believe is more than sufficient to wipe out an insurance company. But if he invests like MKL, and only use 50-70% of float to buy stocks, I think it will be fine. Thoughts? How did Buffet invest so much into equity and not worried to be wiped out by MTM losses?

I think Puerto Rico's situation is more like Italy and Spain, not Greece. They have done a good job, and it is working better than they expected. With that said, I welcome anyone who understand this issue to share their thoughts, and I really appreciate that. I remember in 2011, the issues about Italy and Spain about to die has been on the media all day long. Then all of a sudden, they no longer say anything about it anymore. What is the "crsis"? It is the boy who cried wolf meets the analysis who made a bearish call, hoping to gain some popularity.

for all of those forayed into fortress paper, i am wondering if it can finally start to turn the corner due to the weak CAD?

Normally am I allowed to rollover to a Roth IRA only when I leave the company?

This article says that Buffet uses it to make market calls. But recently I think Buffet said he is optimistic.

Bad for GLRE and TPRE. Waiting for giofranchie's input :)

Is there going to be any recording later? I hope it could was held in the US.

Could you tell me how to do that in tws? Did you click some controls to convert FRFHF to FFH and then sell it?

Yeah. It is written in PR's constitution that public debt must be paid in full at first before other liabilities. So this means if there is really a need to restructure, pensions will likely get hurt before the GO bonds are even considered to get a cut. But if Moody downgrade does happen, there will be lots of forced selling, and price could become very cheap. :) Still, did anyone find that 2041 GO bond that bloomberg was talking about? I have no idea which bond it is. I can't find it in fidelity.

I found a few posts there but I don't think those make any sense at all. There is no detail about his analysis and his view. Just a boy crying wolf. :) What I see is that Puerto Rico annual budget deficit has gone from 3.3 bn in 2009 to 0.8 bn in 2013, and continues to go down.

The credit is only up to $500, right? If our account grow too big someday, it will become a problem, no? :)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-12/puerto-rico-may-be-cut-to-junk-by-moody-s-as-economy-weakens.html I think this will become very interesting if the downgrade and forced selling happens. Puerto Rico doesn't seem to have an insolvency issue, but just a liquidity issue, so I think if they can bailed out by some cheap bridge financing, it will be good and the "crisis" will be over. I can't find that 2041 GO bond symbol in fidelity. Does anyone know? If the forced selling does happen and it goes much lower than 67, I would be quite interested. :)

I view it as IB's value if they are the only broker (out of a half dozen I have experience with) that is withholding on Canadian dividends incorrectly. I'll take my business elsewhere. Not worth my time to battle CRA...much easier to just keep another ira account at another broker for purposes of of these types of trades. What about non-IRA accounts?