Spekulatius

Germany --> North Bay, CA

At 5$/share, buying back stock would have done wonders for BAC, at current valuations, I think they are better off paying some dividends. BAC trades at almost the same price/tangible ratio than JPM and JPM is arguable a much better managed bank.

MUSA spinoff : Positive aspects are: 1) Solid balance sheet 2) Exited noncore business (ethanol) for a nice chunk of cash 3) They own their real estate 4) Insider buys 5) Low cost leadership, which is important in Commodity business 6) Other companies in the same sector doing well (Susser) the big Y: [http://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.com/2014/02/alleghany-corp-investor-day.html/url]

Has any one looked at CVE? This integrated E&P seems to have a huge runaway in terms of production growth in front of them, which so far has been financed internally. I think they have done some smart moves in the past,like spinning of ECA and swapping upstream assets for a stake into COP (now PSX) refineries, which sort of hedged against WT/bitumen brent spreads. They pay a modest dividend too. Despite good production growth in the past, the stocks trades at a multi year low. Anybody own this or is looking into this stock? I think it could be a long runaway kind if stock.

Debt load generally appears too high, given the risks and volatility of the business. To make matters worse, some companies appear to distribute too much of their cash flow. I wonder when some of them, just get the message and deleverage. The Canadian E&p's certainly looks cheap based on price/cash flow metric, but one should look at the EV/cash flow ratio and then the relative valuation advantage to US peers is not as large as it first seems, imo.

1) I read about and interesting stock and then put it in my watchlist (~1-2h) 2) When my purchase price is reached I by a first position. I do more research to determine if it's worth a larger position (1-2h), or pot. Sell. 3) Each time, I bump up position, I spent a little bit more on research (0.5-1h). 4) When i sell, (typically after predetermined target price is reached), i also do check to determine, if a higher target price is warranted.(0.5h) I have a diversified portfolio with typically ~30 positions, in various stages of value creation.

I run a fairly diversified. Portfolio: Larger positions: LAACZ NSRGY QUCT TPCA FMBl BP VAST.AS KSB3.DE CAM.L HNFSA medium: DVN FRFC TAP KMI COSWF small: BAP OVLY KO JMHLY MIL ORKLY GTS ESLT CPKF CARE VALE RDI ORCL SFY MHLD ~17% cash And several other tiny stub positions (mostly microcaps)

I don't recommend them for checking accounts, but Penfed is very competitive in Credit cards (gas card with 5% cash back) and as a car lender. Sometimes, they have great mortgage deals too. Member since 2007, and i have their credit card as well As a car loan with them. For those without military associated, it costs 25$ to join.

DVN (partial buyback of a recently reduced position) ASFI (first lot) OVLY ( add)

I think most US investors don't have the expertise to invest in Chinese stocks. I bought some Swire Pacific recently and i like the idea to buy Jardine. Matheson: [http://www.gurufocus.com/news/175836/jardine-matheson-an-undertheradar-asian-growth-story-contest/url] I think Jardine in particular is a nice compounder, trading around book and compounding in the mod teens for a long time. Swire is a little cheaper in some respects (P/NAV) but maybe not as well positioned. In both cases, you get an owner operator and european style management who knows their way around in Asia. Both stocks are buys right now, imo.

I agree that it's a great book, probably an investment classic. It emphasizes the importance of the capital allocation skills of the CEO. I made me look at some of my stocks with a whole new lens. I borrowed it at my local library, but I really think it should be on the shelf in my room.

I was wrong. I import my monthly statements into quicken and import quicken into turbotax. That works without problems. Another plus. - IB's ipad app is very good and quite intuitive and their Android app is decent as well. i find myself using the ipad app for 90% of my trading. It does not work for my complex order types, but. I never use those anyways. If you have several accounts with (which I do), you pay the data feed fees only once.

I have been customer with IB since about 2006. I had very few problems with them. I like their trading platform and their mobile platform. The webtrader is pretty basic though and sometimes buggy. The statements are hard to read And there is definitely a learning curve with their platform. For international trading IB is hard to beat and their low commissions are great for traders. I have used Etrade, Wells Fargo investments and Fidelity and IB id by far my favorite. I found the phone support OK but their online chat support pretty good. I use turbotax with IB as well and download their statements monthly, which seems to work OK. They don't have directconnect though.