Phaceliacapital

Not yet but I advise you to read the excerpt as featured in BW: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/jeff-bezos-and-the-age-of-amazon-excerpt-from-the-everything-store-by-brad-stone I read it today and decided to buy the book :) ""Bezos rarely speaks at conferences and gives interviews only to publicize new products, such as the latest Kindle Fire. He declined to comment on this account, saying that it’s “too early” for a reflective look at Amazon’s history, though he approved many interviews with friends, family, and senior Amazon executives. "" :D

Funny you mentioned this, I think selective investing in the Series 10 Collector series does offer quite compelling returns. Especially the early Star Wars sets such as the Star Destroyer and Millenium Falcon were worth your while back in the days. Nowadays I focus on series that are known to have a very limited production line or that have an exclusive history (like for instance the co-operation with Maersk, which together with Lego are the two richest families in Denmark). I think around 2.5% of my portfolio is invested in Lego boxes. Of course my personal downside is limited as I do not mind building the sets instead of selling them :D

Haha I forgot, I am busy reading the box (started this week) :D Looks like a good book uptill now so we'll see how that pans out. I am making Maritime Economics my next book to buy (and read) once I finish the box and manual of ideas. Also for those wishing to diversify their portfolio, you should buy one or two pieces of the recently announced Maersk E-Class Lego set.

After reading The Shipping Man during my holiday at Croatia I became enamoured by the shipping industry as a whole (I know the novel is fiction but hey everyone can be a dreamer and main character Fairchild kinda resembles James Tisch from Loews, who bought ships for 5 mn each and sold them for 50 mn each a couple of years later) I continued my quest to learn more about the shipping industry with following books: Dynasties of the Seas - Lori Ann Larocco Kinda like the outsiders book it features one "titan" per chapter featuring all the well known guys such as Frederiksen, Wang, Nielsen, Wilbur Ross etc. I think the book succeeds in its goal to give the reader more insight into how these people think and operate their business (you buy a ship when it's losing money and sell when it makes money) and recommend it to any who haven't read it yet 90% of everything - Rose George This is a very interesting book that I think has only recently hit the shelves. Rose George is a journalist that managed to secure a trip on one of the Maersk tank containers to do a 3 month travel from the UK to China. The book starts as a kind of journal but further on elaborates on other stuff related to shipping such as sea security, sea pollution (especially noise pollution as this apparently impacts whales to quite an extent) etc. Also a very easy to read book and very insightful. How to make a fortune on land and sea - Perry I bought this book as one reviewer of the above books said it was definitely worth the read, I can tell you: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK, it stars with 50 pages of maritime investing and then it continues on claiming that Zionists have setup the 9/11 tragedy... I kid you not (unfortunately) In addition, for those interesting, there is a film coming up "Captain Philips" feat Tom hanks depicting the (true) story of Somalian pirates hijacking a Maersk tank container.

For those interested, other financially related movies (or at least featuring BB terminals): Margin Call (with Zach Quinto and Kevin Spacey) - Story depicting when the first IB found out is was gonna blow up in 2008 Arbitrage (Richard Gere) - Hedge fund story Too big too fail (Paulson story based on Sorkin's novel) Pursuit of Happyness (real life story based on Chris Gardner feat Will Smith) The Inside Job (narrated by Matt Damon) American Pyscho :D ?? Series: Wall Street Warriors Bankers

For those interested in the large tycoons of those das (Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan) a documentary I advise you to watch is "The men who built America", it's a little bit "americanised" but very informational nonetheless.

No problems here (EU based).

Thanks, that's for tonight edit: Couldn't wait, amazing interview

Agreed! Thanks Ross

From BW

I found that a really heavy book to plow through, in retrospect I was relatively young when I first read it so maybe I ought to give it a try

It's the same for the Auction House in WoW, on less populated servers you could even corner the market

What about companies that generate royalties based on the top line of miners?

That's a quite conservative approach, I like it

Hi all, I saw this recent clip of Jim Chanos at BB: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/chanos-i-don-t-think-apple-s-a-value-stock-LcVQQA1OSRS4t9vYefyxzw.html where he basically states that a lot of companies (IMB, 3D systems) are masking their true R&D expense through the use of acquisitions, which allows them co capitalize instead of expense their R&D in the financial statements. This of course benefits Net Income and thus Free Cash Flow, distorting the true health of the company. (He made a similar argument concerning HP in 2012: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48228416 ) How do you guys look at this in terms of correcting? Do we subract that portion of the acquisition (found in CFI statement) related to R&D from Net Income (before tax)? Do we look into the financials of the target to find their R&D expense and approximate what amount of R&D they bought? Is a company like Yahoo doing this? Thanks in advance for the knowledge

Given that a lot of Canadians browse this board I was wondering whether any of you have looked at Second Cup? It is bouncing around its 52 week low (also its all time low) and seems to have "disappointed" on earnings due to an impairment charge that it took on its trademarks (make up most of the balance sheet) due to a declining stock price and a decline in sales in comparison to projections (which you can find in the most recent Q filing). I have only done some few back on the envelope calculations but currently come up with Revenues around 26 M Operating Income before impairment: 7M (Operating margin around 26.74%) EBITDA: Around 7.67 M (a 29% EBITDA margin, which is quite nice for a commodity business) Current MCAP is around 39M (shares are trading at 3.94). Cash 6.376 Debt 10 (Term loan with fully hedged interest rate) EV somewhere around 42 Giving you: EV/EBITDA: 5.475 EV/Revenues: 1.615 EV/NormOI: 6-ish Dividends paid last year = 4*0.085 = 0.34 / 4 (current price) = 8.5% yield CFO looks strong enough to service debt, FCF is probably around 3.5 - 4 M + it appears their most profitable quarter is in the fourth quarter.. Some recent news flow: New cooperation with Kraft: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/more-ways-to-bring-home-the-second-cup-coffee-youve-come-to-love-224386701.html New CFO: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1223313/second-cup-announces-appointment-of-new-chief-financial-officer I'll have to take a closer look later tonight to double check the numbers..

Good morning read :D

I can't attend but I look forward to the notes that will definitely be taken there????

Second Cup in Canada

Thanks (and thanks Gio as I can't access VW from here)!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-05/jpmorgan-stop-making-student-loans I am very curious as to whether this can be translated into an investment ideas, apart from banks, which companies will be hit by student loans not performing? So unfortunate my BB terminal is at the office :D

http://www.4-traders.com/AINSWORTH-LUMBER-CO-LTD-1409012/news/Ainsworth-Lumber-Co-Ltd--LP-Agrees-To-Acquire-Ainsworth-Advancing-Its-Global-Leadership-In-Stran-17240724/

What might also be interesting is to buy their book (as discussed here: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/books/manual-of-ideas-mihaljevic/), read the sample they offer for free and then make up your mind. I ordered the book and will decide after if MOI is something for me.

Exactly, reminds me of this graph (ironically enough taken from a presentation at such a seminar): http://i41.tinypic.com/j968p0.jpg

Haha thanks for the advice. Last time I went to such a seminar I scared a group of mutual fund managers standing behind me when I let out a loud "Oh my god" while reading from one of the free BB terminals they had there. Of course, thanks to the monotonous orange/black layout little did they know that I was reading the Golf news and Woods just hit a double bogey. I agree though that most presentations are often a waste of time, although there are some CEO's (the ones that use their presentation for one slide and then start to improvise) that are worth listening to. Haven't had the time yet but currently AMT (wondering about the Mudday Waters debate), CBOE, Monsanto (very nice business) and Dunkin are on my list.