CorpRaider

Agreed. At least he admitted that he abstained and sort of called them out on TV. He will probably get them to where he wants to go just through the media pressure he commands, but uncle Carl would have used a 2x4 and we would all have been better for that. I mean, he could have just let Charlie be the bad guy.

I'll take a stab: Based upon the discussion of how to analyze investments in your most recent annual letter and the fortune magazine excerpt, along with an analysis of other of your investments, some have posited that you use a 10% pretax earnings yield as a sort of short hand screening factor for potentially attractive investments. Is this true? If not what, if any, common handicapping factors you use before determining which potential investments deserve a closer look?

Do you mean to give it all away or have I missed something? http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/24/warren-buffett-berkshire-letter/ Brief discussion of his general instructions for investment of the corpus of his testamentary trust FBO Astrid is near the end of the article/ in the letter.

I would seriously consider WEB's plan in certain situations.

MOAT is an interesting one. I keep it on my watchlist to see how it performs and to watch the portfolio for ideas. Turnover rate has been too high for me to mention it to friends looking for a passive option. I've been going with VIG for the quality focus, but I don't love the cap weighting methodology.

Oh yeah I didn't notice it. I watch every new Walthtrack interview like a new episode of Breaking Bad. Even the ones about timing social security elections? and the ones with WSJ writers opining on fixed annuities? hehe! I do watch it too. Next week: Heebner

Hey, that interview with Bob Arnott is what I linked to above! ;D But Specops, you might want to check it out (if you're not already well versed on the subject, he wrote a book about it several years ago), he's researched some of the problems/issues you raise with respect to traditional index funds. I'm also following the Guggenheim Pure Value etfs that some other poster on here alerted us to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management

This sounds like the complete opposite of CNBC. Yeah, and most reality tv shows. I'm sure some brilliant producer will try and get him to take it up a notch after a season or two. I really think most people see through that and get bored with it. Shark tank is alright. Everytime Cuban talks I just think "broadcast.com."

[amazonsearch]Shareholder Yield: A Better Approach to Dividend Investing[/amazonsearch] [amazonsearch]Global Value: How to Spot Bubbles, Avoid Market Crashes, and Earn Big Returns in the Stock Market [/amazonsearch] Just flagging for the board's attention: Mebane Faber's two short books discussing the strategies employed by the SYLD and GVAL ETFs are available for free in Kindle format. I haven't read them yet and express no opinion as to whether this is a fair price.

I like it. Like that he doesn't seem to try and create drama for drama's sake. Always wondered why the real estate investing, business running/investing shows were totally ignored by CNBC.

I liked Tim's idea and really enjoyed his summary of the Buffett early years. He should CC the yalie's who have apparently only analyzed the later years and concluded his outperformance was due to low beta names with high leverage via float. I also enjoyed all the ideas that confirmed my own viewpoint (hah): MKL, BBBY (that is one smart lady) & OXY.

I take your point about reduced influence but am tempted to say, "perish the thought that we should lose all of our great influence over the Israelis, Palestinians and Saudis (haha)." Well, in fairness, we have been able to (just barely) keep Israel (and North Korea) from executing a unilateral strike, starting (another) regional war, but we've been unable to prevent them from making public threats of same (which is always helpful). Seems like our influence is about equal with both of those countries. Oh well, at least the western hemisphere doesnt need the oil any more. Fortress America and whatnot. The Russians arguably violated the treaty, but I've not heard many (if any) assert that an actual valid referendom on joining Russia would fail to pass by a comfortable margin. If you're Poland and you're a member of NATO, who is actually contributing something to your own defense, you've done as well as you can to secure yourself it seems to me. South Korea should just continue to buy more joint strike fighters and they will be ok. Even better, maybe they shouldn't be so choosy and should take some boeing product next time as well instread of trying to nickel and dime LMT via multiple rounds of bidding. Perhaps jets and munitions in exchange for all the shipping containers stuffed with Hyundai and LG products will make an impact on the trade imbalances created by a quarter century of abusive trade laws and perpetually, artificially deflated currencies. To me, the EU has to take the lead on this, their backyard and they actually have substantial enough trade ties with Russia to make an impact.

haha! I'm trying to get it at a valuation that based on my back of the envelope, uncle carl style analysis gives me a ~50% return to Elan's valuation of the royalty co.

Confirmation bias endorphins kicking in! I'm stalking THRX, probably being greedy and will miss it (like i did with freaking K); but hoping to get it in the mid 20's.

Is that the one with the palm pilot stylus?

I would note that they "shook Osama's hand" right in the middle of Pakistan, where the prior administration feared to tread. Wake me when the Russians put nukes in Cuba again or invade Mexico. I'm more interested in completing the evisceration of the terrorists in waziristan. If the Euros have a problem with what Putin is doing in Ukraine, we have lots of natural resources and arms we can sell to support our allies.

Would you choose ROTH if you were younger and expected your salary to go up a bit? Or if you just had a bad feeling about taxes in the future? This picture makes a good case for ROTH. We're pretty low on the tax curve, historically: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/US-tax-rates.png There was another post where someone would do Traditional 401k, roll it over into a Traditional IRA when they could, and then roll that over into a ROTH IRA as they pleased, which let them control how much taxable income they'd have for that year. Nah, I prefer to defer unless you're in a really low bracket. You can always convert to roth at the time of your choosing and in the marginal amount of your choosing via the rack door roth. Also you can control state taxes with ease. Why pay today what you can put off until tomorrow?

Yeah, I thought it might be that. EDIT: oops saw op was asking about priority of contributions. Yeah, I max out tax deferred accounts first.

I've been wrestling with the idea of just setting mine up like WEB has prescribed for Astrid's testamentary trust (90 S&P; 10% ST bonds). My 401K is limited to funds; no self-direction. I just want more justification for why he said the S&P 500, with no allocation to smaller cap stocks or international stocks. Could be, he prefers large, proven high ROE businesses, or maybe he is just trying to really make it a no-brainer.

He would have been just a millionaire (maybe with a few hundred million; maybe just barely a billionaire) living a quiet private life in Omaha, without the great networking skills. Also, lets not act like he came from the wrong side of the tracks or the middle class or something. When your dad is a congressman, you're kind of a big deal in omaha.

Best wishes to his family and friends.

I'm getting interested in this. I like the moves they are making, and they sort of give me comfort that they would rationally evaluate any interest from potential acquirers. Seems like worst case scenario, you get paid to wait until EM growth kicks in.

I am starting to do some digging on Gundlach and I wouldn't say he is doing macro. Since the credit crisis he has an almost barbellish portfolio that mixes non agencies (credit sensitive) and agencies (non credit sensitive), which can offset inflation and deflation scenarios. He also says he doesn't try to predict rates. Although, I think he will occasionally add an inverse IO or support bond if he thinks rates/prepayments have over shot and they offer good relative value. I am trying to look for a good HY fund (I'm thinking closed end to avoid redemption issues) to invest in for the next inevitable down cycle. May be semantics. My impression is that he's analyzing the various classes of debt instruments and their relative merit based on his predictions of the larger trends everytime I hear him talk. For example he loves dollar denominated emerging market debt given the relative values and his predictions for currencies, etc. I've heard him speak on t-rate predictions a fair amount lately, but he's usually contrarian and value based from a larger perspective, but what I mean is he's not going through and saying this intel or chesapeake bond is priced at X and I think the credit is going to hold up better than the market does or strengthen because of Y operationally, which is more akin to what Fuss does. He's an old credit analyst like Ben Graham (and myself). I have money with both.