Palantir

I think Gold or Oil are both strong investment ideas given their good performance in "beautiful deleveragings" a la Ray Dalio. I think another idea is to look for tax advantaged investments like MLPs etc.

I want to apply for this job. Anyone know the HR contact? :)

I think we'll just agree to disagree. :) . I respect Ferguson, but I feel there are better managers past and present. I think there's two types of managers - some like Pep, Sacchi and Wenger are good at building teams over the course of a season, and others like Benitez, Scolari, Tabarez, and Hiddink that are sharp tactical thinkers and excel at influencing matches via their decisions. Fergie seems to fall into the first category.

I must say, I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you that Ferguson is certainly not a value investor. But there is no way you can say Ferguson isn't one of the top 5 managers in the world at the moment (Mourinho, Del Bosque, Wenger and possibly Hiddink being the others), I personally support one of Manchester United's big rivals and would probably be the last person to admit that I like Ferguson in any way. Sure the current team has a lot of stars that were not bought cheap and they have spent a lot of money but you have to remember that Ferguson has also been in charge of Manchester United since 1986, the back bone of his initial title winning teams in the 90's all mainly featured young homegrown players from the youth team (Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt). And looking at the current team, you say everyone apart from Giggs and Scholes were bought for a nice fee but what about Jonny Evans, Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick, Phil Jones and Danny Welbeck all these are players who have been in the starting lineup for the last few games (I watch the premier league every weekend) and all came from the youth academy at Manchester. I mean if you going to judge him based on the past 3 years and say he has spent a lot of money, sure go ahead (it would be similar to judging a portfolio manager on his returns in less than 5 years) but that would be doing a great dis-service to manager who has been with the same team for 26 years and won 12 premier league titles. If that isn't the definition of being a great manager then I'm clearly deluded as a football fan. My friends would be rather surprised to hear that I just defended Ferguson. I'm happy to respond to your comments in more detail a little bit later (I'm work). But a few key points. The players you mentioned: Jonny Evans - Not a true first team prospect - has been surpassed by Jones and Smalling Wellbeck - correct. Michael Carrick - Product of Tottenham Academy (did you not know that?) Phil Jones - Product of Blackburn (ditto) Fletcher - Never matured into the player he was supposed to be and has not made a major impact on the first team. Ferguson has a great record. But keep in mind A)He has been coaching for 20+ years. B) He had a far better team and budget than most of the Premier league throughout the 90s. C) Look at his failures in the CL. In 20+ years managing ManU, Fergie has only won the CL twice. Think about what Benitez, Mourinho, or Guardiola could do in 20 years of coaching a top club. First rate manager? Absolutely. Best? I'm very skeptical. Better managers than Ferguson? Here goes (This is not exhaustive): Ancelloti Mourinho Benitez (His early career was amazing, seems to have gone off the rails) Oscar Tabarez Del Bosque Marcelo Lippi Pep Guardiola (Just imagine what he could do with 20 years at Barca) Joachim Loew (Young, but extremely gifted tactically) Hiddink Among retired names Arrigo Sacchi and Carlos Bianchi come to mind as well. I am surprised at your naming Wenger and not some of these names.

No offense. Alex Ferguson is not the greatest football manager of all time, nor is he even the greatest manager today, and probably not the greatest in the Premier League. He's merely a very good manager. It's extremely misleading to say that Fergie doesn't take shortcuts to success...pretty much every player on this current team except Scholes and Giggs was bought for a nice fee. Please don't take my admittedly harsh comments personally, but people go overboard in Fergie-love. Furthermore, he's not a value investor! My god there is so much wrong with that statement it's not even funny. One of the few teams that runs "value" strategies are Valencia in Spain, where they buy comparatively unheard of players and develop them into stars. Villa, Mata, Silva, Mendieta, and are now doing with Canales, Gago, Banega, Soldado etc etc. Ferguson simply has a big budget and a lot of talented players. But he really struggles in developing young players from the youth teams.

But the idea is not bad. Say you have accredited investors who meet the requirements, but don't want to pony up $1M to invest in one fund, if you can get a group of them together, it could be a viable way to invest.

How big do you need to be to invest?

Does anyone have insight into the workings of the fund? Are they a traditional, bottoms up equity fund, or is it a Magic Formula thing?

^ Could you go into position sizing? Roughly, how do you decide how much you put into a position whether it is a franchise/netnet/special situation? Do you prefer to buy baskets of netnet stocks or do you make concentrated bets in them? Currently I equal weight my holdings, so a microcap like RSKIA has the same weight as a franchise like PH....but I may reverse that plan....

I invest in these, but I don't really have financials to contribute, but I can contribute investment ideas....can I read the database too?

Good luck bro. Keep us posted on how your results turn out. :) Also if you dont mind....you should post your ideas too...

Let's be serious, this website has Alwaleed as a "guru". *rolls eyes*. Also the article is written very poorly, almost like through Google Translate or something.

Ok I don't see what's so great about the lecture. It sounds like an old and grumpy guy giving his musings on life and anything that strikes his fancy...

Something doesn't jive with me on the article... This line in particular when the author is contrasting their styles: "Diversification in the portfolio is a key to Pabrai’s strategy." If anything Pabrai has a concentrated strategy and Russo has much more diversification and holds many more positions. The author has a much different definition of diversification than I do. Not quite, after the 08 crisis, Pabrai publicly commented that concentrated holdings was a mistake and he'd run a diversified strategy in the future.

That's right b****ez!

Tell Sara Carbonero I said hi.

Er...how are you guys so confident it is a Weschler/Combs pick? By his own admission, the bigger positions in DVA's portfolio are WEB's. The fact that WEB has not commented publicly on it only leads me to think that this could be an acquisition candidate.

I don't think it was simply advancing age. How old is WEB? Rather Graham simply realized something that's quite true, with a more competitive market with investors who have more and more information available to them, markets do become more efficient, especially compared to Graham's heyday. I wonder what he'd think about current markets.

I'm not saying there is a total absence of harm, I'm saying the crime is "relatively harmless" compared to a harsh sentence of 10 years, which has been given for far worse crimes like the one I mentioned. To equate the two is bizarre. Punishments have to fit the crime. (Downloading music is harmful to the industry....should we be sent to Guantanamo?) I'm fine with banning him from working in the securities industry again, or even a short prison sentence. But in my opinion, in no way does he deserve what he's gotten.

Are you serious? You really don't see what's wrong with going to the casino and it being rigged or not against you even if you don't know and would have played there anyway? That is such bull****. The other side would have made the trade ANYWAYS. They have not been harmed in any way, yet at the same time you seriously think that it's just as bad as a child rapist? Really? I hope you don't have kids!

You cannot be serious. If you were on the losing side of his trade, even if Raj didn't know the information you still would have made the trade anyways. Given that the trade would have been made anyway, being on the losing side of Raj's trade makes him deserve 10 years in prison? Here is an example of a guy who got 10 years in prison: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/10/professional-clown-gets-10-years-in-prison-for-raping-girl.html Is it illegal? Sure...but it is not a significant harm at all. I don't see why "being on the losing side of the trade" should be punished the same as a fricking child rapist.

I can't believe that one would consider this a benign crime although it is considered that way when the politicians do it. I guess it's okay how the securities commission looks the other way on the rest of the things going on with wall street. It's all benign anyway. If this is so harmful, want to tell me who was exactly harmed by Rajaratnam trading on info that Goldman was about to get an investment from Buffett? Then once you've identified the victimized party, explain to me how that deserves ten years in prison.

I'm not saying that he should be shown leniency because of his good work. Rather, I think insider trading shouldn't be punished as severely as it is. A benign crime like that shouldn't put Raj in jail for 10 years.

I agree with them. I think the sentences for insider trading were far too harsh especially for Raj. 10 years is just too much for a pretty benign crime. I think even 2 yr sentences would have been enough punishment. I'm serious FYI.

An HBS grad who's working as a financial assistant?