siddharth18
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Posts posted by siddharth18
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"Good capital allocator" is a term you hear a lot lately. i don't want to show my ignorance, but I'm not sure I know what a good capital allocator is? It sounds like a finance function, but I have a feeling it isn't?
From my understanding, a good capital allocator is someone who is dogmatic about investing only in areas that show promise of a return on capital that meets his hurdle rate and exceed his cost of capital. His priority isn't to sacrifice return on capital for the sake of growth - quite the opposite - someone who returns capital if there aren't attractive growth opportunities. This seems only possible for someone who benefits from increase in the per-share intrinsic value of the business rather than the total revenue of the business, hence business ownership and long-term view is key for the outsider. Most managers aren't outsiders because they get paid on the size of the business that prioritizes empire building even at the cost of mediocre returns.
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Can't wait to see who plays the "Wing Chau" character :D
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Thanks for the suggestion! This is much better than individually checking each blog and also a better way to sort and organize this massive flow of information.
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Seen tons of ads for it but never tried it. So it's just riddles and puzzles?
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Is there a write-up available somewhere about Nestle? There is one on VIC but it's 5 years old.
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I have to disagree with the statement that it's a good move if FB is using shares. Taking taxes out of the picture it's exactly the same as issuing 235 Millions shares in the public market and paying cash. Just like when people claim buybacks done at high valuations are a crappy way of returning money, a share is worth X dollars no matter how you look at it.
BeerBaron
Zuck isn't dumb and I'm sure he'd only be issuing stock if he realized that the stock price had run past its current estimate of intrinsic value. Plus I think facebook is scared to death of its user base fleeing so it will spend however many billions it takes to protect/improve/fortify its moat (especially when wall street allows it to by valuing it at $170B). The question is what will happen when facebook stock turns from euphoric to depressive - at which point facebook better have saved tons of cash for it.
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I had never heard of it either until a relative from Asia told me about it. I was like - what is WhatsApp? I've never heard of it!
Anyway it's funny people keep throwing around billions of dollars like it's monopoly money. Trading expensive paper for an even more expensive paper - and BOOM - we have a deal worth tens of billions of dollars.
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One question I have about 2004-2005-2006: Was it obvious that a bubble was forming in the financial sector? Was it as easy for a value guy to avoid banks then as easy it is to avoid today, say, facebook/twitter/netflix stocks?
Noooooooooooo, there was no agreement by investing guru's or us common folk that financials were going to blow. Sure I heard of people like Einhorn and Whitney, but there is always people on the fringe. Buffett didn't see it, Bernenke didn't see it, so how could I?
But you know, even Hollywood knows how wall street works. In the movie Margin Call, the head honcho says after the meltdown, "Nobody knows what's going on, we just react". Buffett got rich from the crisis, because he had a cash cushion, that cash he always had on hand. So he could take advantage. The key is once you have a cash cushion, know to use it. I kept saying to anyone who would listen, this is a once in-a-lifetime opportunity. Because I looked at the DJIA of the last 100 years and I saw that 1932, 1974, 1982 were golden opportunities, I kept thinking man if I could get back to the 80's and bought MSFT. Well I can imagine myself saying the same thing about the market in 2009 if I don't act.
Appreciate that insight - thanks.
Were financials, in any case, easy to avoid? Not because they were selling for P/E of 100, but more like dividend stocks today? Yielding a pittance for the risk taken. I think the biggest takeaway (even for those who avoided financials) is the blowback and the spillover effect the financials had on all other sectors of the economy.
I suppose the only lesson that can be drawn (especially for those running concentrated portfolios) is to have appropriate level of sector-based diversification.
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One question I have about 2004-2005-2006: Was it obvious that a bubble was forming in the financial sector? Was it as easy for a value guy to avoid banks then as easy it is to avoid today, say, facebook/twitter/netflix stocks?
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http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/18/investing/steinberg-sac-capital/
Steinberg guilty.
house of cards....
He wouldn't rat before his conviction. Lets see what he does now when he's faced with a long sentence vs a possibly much shorter sentence.
Should he agree to testify against Cohen as part of a plea deal, Can the DOJ/SEC then charge Cohen, even though the company has settled?
Yes.
The settlement documents point it out clearly, noting “this agreement does not provide any protection against prosecution or other enforcement action against the SAC Entity Defendants, any owner, shareholder, or employee of the SAC Entity Defendants or any other person.” In a letter to the judges Bharara goes further, saying “the agreement provides no immunity from prosecution for any individual and does not restrict the Government from charging any individual for any criminal offense and seeking the maximum term of imprisonment applicable to any such violation of criminal law. -
Great discussion here. I personally can't convince myself to invest in a large cap because I know there are bigger and better firms/money managers out there doing this that have more resources, experience and understanding of the large cap in question. It's for this reason I believe that small caps are most likely to be priced inefficiently most of the time.
This blogger sums it up nicely:
...I am not at an informational disadvantage. Small as these stocks are**, no one is going to spend an awful lot of money in an information arms war to gain a slight edge over other market participants. iSuppli doesn't cover Lectra, Tessi, Haynes, or James Halstead. If the price is low, it’s most likely just low, not priced for risk.
There are, I know, retail investors who like taking the other side of the trade on well-watched stocks like Apple, and opaque stocks like Citi, situations in which they know that they are likely at a severe informational disadvantage (in terms of both the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns) armed with the belief (perhaps justified, perhaps true, but nevertheless suffering from a Gettier problem) that professional investors are stupid or myopic or whatever else. I’m not one of them and that kind of trade is not my bag. I like to know at least as much about a stock as any non-insider. Otherwise, and this is a personal thing – necessarily so – I’d feel as silly as if I opened a neighborhood grocery store in the shadow of a Walmart.
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Read like a puff piece for Tim Sykes. Did CNN get paid for this story?
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Amazing article. Thanks for sharing.
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11. Not a single person in the world knows what the market will do in the short run. End of story.
Market makers would beg to differ...
http://www.stocktrading.com/wsjknight1.shtml
Steve Cohen/Raj Rajaratnam would beg to differ too!
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It's the quality of posts and the depth/breadth of thinking that sets apart Packer from the neophytes here (like me).
Congrats and let's hope you'll stick around for a while so we can all learn from you :)
Cheers!
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Great article. I agree it's a very bad idea to rely on Google for a majority of your business...and a lot of e-commerce sites are just one algorithm change away from losing their rank in the search engine and hence losing majority of their business to the next guy.
This specific business doesn't seem to be too reliant on Google since "only" 35% of comes organically from Google. That the site has emerged relatively unscathed from the multiple algorithm changes in the past few years probably means that this niche has too little competition and, in the eyes of Google, this site has original and relevant content.
Sales could definitely be increased if one were to widen the customer-service availability to, say, around-the-clock.
As for what price I'd pay - 2x net income seems okay but only if it's financed in part by a note payable or an earn-out. I want the seller to remain interested/motivated in seeing the buyer succeed after the sale is consummated.
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Great thread DTEJD1997. I think this thread highlights a lot of issues that aren't discussed/considered by studends today before pursuing higher education. It reminds you of the quote - "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts." For everything that you acquire/receive in life, you have to consider the explicit and implicit costs. Everything in life has as price-tag but not every price tag is visible.
It is for this reason I decided to forego medical school in favor of running a business after high school. Spending 7-9 years of my life after high school, incurring hundreds of thousands in debt and sacrificing my youth while being forced to rote arcane medical terminology was something that seemed like a very high price to pay for assured middle class salary for the rest of my life.
It also brings to mind the notion that you don't go to Harvard for the education, but the connections.
I also agree with the below:
I agree whole heartedly with this. If a.person likes/loves practicing law then necessity will breed invention.
This young lady who writes this blog was offered a job in something related to personal finance because someone saw her potential on the blog.
She has no formal background in the topic; i.e certifications, education.
A friend of mine I met wanted to get into value investing as a profession. He moved to Toronto, got an unrelated job crunching numbers at a mutual fund shop. He produced numerous very pro analyses and basically pestered local value shops. He got a job.
I personally think that living at home, and refusing to relocate stifles the creativity/ desperation needed to push forward. If she is still single, she needs to upset the apple cart, move to a place that needs lawyers, and get on with it. I would guarantee a positive outcome. Being in real duress unleashes creativity - all assuming no mental health issues or addictions.
Begin in real duress is the best catalyst of exploring all available avenues of success. The immigrants of 19th and 20th century who came to USA - came with nothing (in some cases they borrowed money for a ticket to USA) and had to find everything on their own - food, shelter, clothing. This is what made 1st generation immigrants more successful in USA (even today) compared to 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants.
And let's not forget Dr. Mike Burry's obsession and incessant drive that led him to be discovered by Joel Greenblatt which led him to creating Scion Capital.
You must never confuse knowledge with education and if you have the drive you will a way to succeed even in the face of insurmountable odds.
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Various brokerages offer various goodies. Some offer free LEVEL 2 quotes (TD Ameritrade), some offer stock lending (IB), some offer free trades (Merrill), some offer access 25 countries (Fidelity). Just depends on what your needs are, what matters to you the most, etc.
Of course, nothing's stopping you from opening accounts at ALL majors brokerages :P
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What if the new short is JCP?
Identifying the Next Outsiders
in General Discussion
Posted
I think John Fredriksen and the Awilhelmsen Group of Norway have a strong track record.
Robin Raina at EBIX has a good track record too - he has rolled over so many companies without sacrificing margins and knows when to issue stock and when to issue cash. From 2005 to 2011, his share count has increased by 48% while the per-share revenue has increased 480% all the while increasing margins. This has led to an EPS growth of over 1000% in face of a 48% share count increase...