cubsfan

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.

If you were at last year's meeting like I was, you could conclude that Doug Kass is a waste of time, and has an ax to grind since Munger pimped him when he asked to be funded with $100M.

I have listen to all of these podcasts religiously, since they started releasing them early last year. They are great - and I use them on the treadmill, etc. You can learn a ton from them - and they are free.

Do you mean all this? http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/berkshire-hathaway/bruce-greenwald-buffett-has-lost-his-mind/

Here is why you should attend... I wrote this up after last years meeting: http://www.beyondproxy.com/fairfax-annual-meeting/

What the heck? you mean he got a 75% discount for 3months? How much worth of stocks are were talking about here? I mean who is selling these shares at 75% discount..... can't be too many before the seller(s) figure it out right? My god this is the biggest example of stockmarket inefficiency I have ever heard! That should be the nail in the coffin for EMT..... Strange thing happen in these overseas markets. About 1 year ago, I bought DKSH (Malaysia) at a 6 PE. Meanwhile, it's Swiss parent DKSH, traded at around a 30 PE. They were essentially similar profiles, and Malaysian sub contributed plenty of profit to the parent. 12 months later DKSH in Malaysia is a 3X bagger. I couldn't believe you could find stuff like this, but it happens. So much for EMT!

That is an excellent read - thanks for posting.

I don't understand how is managing other's portfolio work? If you trade for them don't you just shadow your own porfolio? Trading is zero work Random - that's not exactly what I meant. Trading is no work - correct. Frequent trading is destructive, as we are all investors on this board. You mentioned idleness, and some will see trading as filling idleness. I'm saying you have to fight that tendency. As you say, managing a portfolio is pretty easy. The work is in the front end - defining goals and reviewing the current portfolio they are in, and coming up with a plan that allows them to see the difference between an asset allocation model and a value investors approach. That has been significant work. Once accomplished, yes - portfolios are quite similar.

Thanks for your sincere response. That is very interesting how you got started full time. I truly recommend "Free Capital", it talks about how 12 people in Europe got started investing full time. So are you saying you manage money for other people? For me one thing is the opposite though, I hated trying to invest full time. I just couldn't deal with the pressure and the apparent idleness. I find that working at least helps me be more patient and take my mind off it, esp. when there is a market pullback. In terms of my getting started - I consider it "fate meets luck" - it was not planned, but worked out well that I was sort of forced to make a decision. Investing full time leaves me plenty of time to work on other peoples portfolios, friends and family. Since that can occupy plenty of time, and I like it, I am less likely to do I something stupid, like trade. I agree with you - the idleness can be filled up with something really dumb - like trying to "make things happen". Idle time is better spent reading, thinking, going over models a second/third time, and research. Patience and good decision making is a critical element. So I spend lots of time attending conferences as well - there is a lot of time for learning. But I agree - the people I have seen "blow up" are the ones that try and make things happen by trading when they get bored. I'll check out Free Capital - thanks.

This is an interesting conversation. Not sure where I come down on it. Maybe it just depends... In my case, 5 years ago, I can't find a job - and now I do this full time. By checking out of the tech workforce, like Eric says, I leave a space (high paying job) for someone else. That seems like a good thing. And I don't clog up the unemployment rolls. For myself, I eventually get to the point where I am paying a hell of a lot in taxes and supporting my family. I'm taking no government support. This seems like a double win to me. Plus I am helping several other people make a lot of money with some above average (index beating) returns. All this seems like a net-net-net positive to me. Plus I'm way happier than I was working for other people. It sure feels like I'm doing good.