cubsfan

Amazon goes into the "too hard pile" for me, but I must admit I became more interested after reading Nygren's , Chad's and Arnie Alsin's take on how they value AMZN: Nygren under "You bought what?" http://www.oakmark.com/Commentary/Commentary-Archives/2Q14--Bill-Nygren.htm?rf=dr http://www.peridotcapital.com/2014/06/profitless-amazon-myth-lives-on-thanks-to-lazy-financial-media.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PeridotCapitalist+%28Peridot+Capital+Blog%29 http://alsincapital.com/blog/2013/10/24/is-amazon-a-500-stock It starts to look more like a Tom Russo investment, where the "capacity to suffer" is playing out.

"You make your most money in bear markets, you just don't realize it at the time" - Shelby Cullom Davis "You can either have cheap stocks or you can have good news, but you can't have both" - Joe Rosenberg "In investing, if you are good, you're right six times out of ten. You're never going to be right nine times out of ten" - Peter Lynch

But 80 children killed - how awful is that.

If I understand Joel Greenblatt correctly - I believe he says 2 years. If you do good work, and your analysis is solid, the market should agree with you in 2 years. So I've tried to be much more patient in that regard and my preferred hold target is 2 years. If it appreciates a lot before then, I'll reassess the time period. If it's a wide moat stock with great compounding potential, then I think you need to be much more careful about selling.

I think you might need to dig a little deeper on Calamos. The insider buying under "John Calamos, SR" is really the company buying back shares under it's already announced buyback program. This fooled a lot of people, including me. I sold my shares as the company performance is pretty awful (losing assets under management) - and the company is still run as a personal piggy bank for the Calamos family. The insider buying had drawn me in originally - but it's an illusion. It may turn around - but I find it interesting that a company that should be concerned about "stewardship of capital" for companies it invests in - may not be run for the benefit of all of it's shareholders with it's current shareholder structure. Here are a few old comments re: it's dual shareholder structure: John Calamos Sr. founded his eponymous firm in 1977, serving as chairman and CEO as well as co-CIO. His nephew, Nick Calamos, serves as the other co-CIO and as a member of the board of directors. Although Calamos is now a publicly traded firm, it continues to resemble a private company in many respects. Much of this is because the Calamos family holds 97% of the firm's voting rights, leaving it with complete control over not only the operating and investment strategies employed by the firm, but also the makeup of the board of directors. Holders of the company's Class B shares, which have 10 times the voting rights of the firm's Class A shares and are held entirely by the Calamos family, have the right to appoint two of the six members of the company board. The family's dominant voting position also ensures that the remaining board members are to their liking. As with many family-controlled firms, we take issue with some of Calamos' related-party transactions, which include leases on aircraft and buildings used by the firm, catering services, and other dealings with businesses privately owned by the family.

Nice presentation, thanks for posting video.

Norm - very insightful article - as Buffett would say - "better to be approximately right, than precisely wrong".

Also, are there sites to pull the 10 year financials like Morningstar or Valueline (free or paid)? For the 10 yr financials, I use Morningstar and GuruFocus. GuruFocus does a decent job with Asian companies: http://www.gurufocus.com For the 10 year data, you need a premium membership with an add on for Asia. But I'm pretty happy with it.

Chai - thanks for posting the Barnett you-tube clip - really enjoyed that.

Thanks Phil - should have figured it would be easier in Europe than the US!

Phil - if you don't mind my asking - what broker do you use to buy the Korean stocks given the difficulty for retail investors to get them? And are there special restrictions in buying them? thanks

I had the same issue - since the country box is set to Canada - you need to change it. It worked for me.

Sanjeev - you are too funny - you got me!

Thanks for posting guys - terrific stuff!

Wow - I'm really surprised you think he's trying to manipulate markets. I personally feel he says what he thinks and calls it exactly like he sees it. Kinda of a strong accusation you are making.

Actually - this is the correct table from GuruFocus of Tepper's BAC trades: NYSE:BAC ($14.51) - David Tepper Holding History No. of Shares at Quarter Ends NYSE:BAC Quarterly Average Price ($) Also see: Holding History of other gurus Quarterly Buys and Sells in the Last 5 Years: Period Bought/Sold (Sh.) Qtr. End Shares Avrg. Price Gain (%) 2009Q2 -701,799 46,848,201 $10.89 33.2% 2009Q3 -12,972,100 33,876,101 $15.54 -6.6% 2009Q4 -1,624,000 32,252,101 $15.96 -9.1% 2010Q1 -1,909,502 30,342,599 $16.23 -10.6% 2010Q2 -2,992,900 27,349,699 $16.73 -13.3% 2010Q3 -4,876,000 22,473,699 $13.67 6.1% 2010Q4 +2,593,845 25,067,544 $12.24 18.5% 2011Q1 -7,851,695 17,215,849 $14.21 2.1% 2011Q2 -7,215,849 10,000,000 $11.86 22.3% 2011Q3 -10,000,000 0 $8.21 76.7% 2012Q1 +7,456,408 7,456,408 $7.93 83% 2012Q2 -3,599,400 3,857,008 $7.92 83.2% 2012Q3 -1,100,000 2,757,008 $8.05 80.2% 2012Q4 -274,000 2,483,008 $9.9 46.6% 2013Q2 +3,861,599 6,344,607 $12.75 13.8% 2013Q3 -4,125,000 2,219,607 $14.27 1.7% 2013Q4 -2,219,607 0 $14.83 -2.2% 2014Q1 0 0 $16.82 -13.7% Current Price: $14.51

Here is his history of the common - remainder sold in Dec 2013: http://www.gurufocus.com/stock/BAC Not sure about the bonds/preferreds.

A lot of that is covered in Plan's post - a snippet" Tepper was able to buy Bank of America preferred shares at just twelve cents on the dollar and Citigroup bonds at just nineteen cents. As those stocks rallied by the end of 2009, Appaloosa raked in the billions. I think most of his BAC was gone by mid-2011: http://www.dataroma.com/m/hist/p_hist.php?f=AM

Plan - that is terrific stuff...great contribution to the board.

Yea, plus you and David Tepper like FB!

Did a little googling - and found this: “Citicorp sent a manual on Korean stocks. Within 5 or 6 hours, twenty stocks selling at 2 or 3x earnings with strong balance sheets were identified … The strategy was to buy the securities of twenty companies … $100 million was quickly put to work.” -- Warren Buffett – 2005 talk to students at Harvard Quite amazing if you ask me... And then this from Monish about Buffett constructing this basket: Buffett then picked up a copy of the 2004 Citigroup Investment Guide to Korean stocks and began flipping through the pages, Buffett: “A couple of years ago I got this investment guide on Korean stocks. I began looking through. It felt like it was 1974 all over again. Look here at this company…Dehan, I don’t know how you pronounce it, Flour Company. It earned 12,879 won previously. It currently had a book value of 200,000 won and was earning 18,000 won. It had traded as high as 43,000 and as low as 35,000 won. At the time, the current price was 40,000 or 2 times earnings. In 4 hours I had found 20 companies like this.” Referring to having found 20 or so companies like Dehan Flour Buffett remarks, “When you invest like this, you will make money. Sure 1 or 2 companies may turn out to be poor choices, but the others will more than make up for any losses.”

That doesn't sound right - if I recall correctly, when he talked about the Korean basket - he was given a Korean manual by Citibank and spent a Sunday afternoon putting together a $100M basket of net/nets. Maybe I have it wrong - but I thought that was the case. Anybody else recall?

For those of you that did not make it to Omaha - here's a little taste: Great stuff - how many CEO's do this kind of thing?

Godamnit! Tell me about Reverend moon's conversion! If you listen to Charlie a lot - it's not that his brain is faster than his mouth. He has a way of leaving you hanging......like I gave you enough to figure it out - if you can't figure it out now, you're not that smart. He always does that. Charlie is way ahead of most people and it's hard to keep up. That is part of the charm of Charlie :)

They answered all my questions all right. Too bad that others did not feel that way, folks are fine to go to someone else to get their questions answered. Besides, they have been asked the same questions over and over again. They try new and interesting ways to answer them. At 83 and 90, they have my full appreciation for doing what they do, educate, freely. It is an extremely benevolent way of giving back. Surely, many of the regulars to Omaha share this view. Yep, I loved it and the other 3 guys that attended with me really enjoyed it. Why be disappointed because they skipped answering stupid questions.