CorpRaider

Ditto.

I like it. Wish the podcast updated faster.

I was going to take another tranche of KMI @ $30 but it popped on me.

Ok, it is logically flawed, because you are criticizing his current cash and position sizing philsophy based upon the very shortcomings it was designed to remedy (whether successfully or not, remains to be seen). It is like one of those quantum paradoxes from a Star Trek episode with time travel.

Hi Eric, I recently caught some interview where they discussed a really cheap variable annuity. It made me think of this thread. I think the linked interview is the one. I believe it is Cortazzo who talks about a supercheap variable annuity with a flat monthly fee. Not sure if the investment options have imbedded higher expenses. http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/premium-mark-cortazzo-alexandra-lebenthal-2/

Do you guys subscribe to fortune? Seems like it has too much general management focus for me.

No doubt. Also if DE wasn't bought and paid for, that would help.

Eric, If that is your wife in your avatar, you guys are even! haha. Just kidding.

I see what you're saying. His stated position on liquidity, as set forth above, has not been proven to outperform through a serious bear market, for sure.

I've got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!

I don't think it is fair to hammer Pabrai's position on cash and liquidity based upon underperformance during the great recession period which was likely caused by not holding enough cash and is probably the exact scenario his current views on liquidity are intended to address.

Yeah and almost every one of them is drawing at least two classroom instructor salaries.

I am a repeat offender for many of these. Don't worry though, I'm flighty and will likely soon forget my password and/or username. P.S. For a guy who is young enough to have owned a colecovision...

I take your point, but the six hour statement is a joke. The teachers I know have to take stuff home all the time (like more often than not: either planning or grading papers or doing some committee bs) and stay after hours for professional development and meetings internally and with parents. My wife used to teach and during the school year she was working as many hours as I was as a new attorney at a big law firm (which is a lot, BTW) and I was making at least 3x as much. They also have about 18 moronic administrators who all have various and detailed opinions about how they should do their jobs based upon their two years of experience in the classroom from 20 years ago. I finally talked her into going to wait tables at Chills or run the register at Target for better hourly pay and lower stress. I'm kidding, somewhat. They do have benefits that aren't totally crappy, but if healthcare and employment decouple, I could envision a real dearth of teachers. In the end its about supply and demand and since women were forced into the profession for so long the labor rate in teaching is probably artificially depressed. One would expect that to correct itself over time.

I like the suggestions of the superinvestors article, Greenblatt's first two books and the lowenstein ones moreso than the straight biographies to help spark/stoke the initial interest.

As Munger has said, I never cease to be amazed at the power of incentives. I think the US has got to rework the incentives so that impoverished persons are not financially incentivized to procreate beyond replacement numbers (i.e. you only get additional welfare and EBT, refundable tax credits, all forms of governmental support for the first two kids). We also need to liberalize parental leave and other incentives (like the scandinavians do) for those who are well suited to create and raise kids who are not products of poverty. This will become ever more important as robotics and computers make labor scarcity an antiquated concept.

Yeah, I linked to this in another thread a week or two ago. It is really neat. I love bloomberg, BTW anyone heard anything else about them buying the FT? There were some reports they might do it last year, but I haven't heard anything since.

Barrons and some others, like Doug Kass, are focusing on these and other CEFs a lot lately.

Hey, you might run through a dynamite factory with a lit torch and survive, but you're still an idiot.

A 40% "correction" in US equity markets.

If borrowers could have the debt extinguished via bankruptcy a lot of these shitty Caribbean medical schools and some of the for profit diploma mills wouldn't be in business defrauding kids. Just saying, maybe the normal rules governing obligor and obligee have some merit. Also re: income inequality, we have got to modify the social support system so that the bottom of society is not financially incented to procreate beyond two kids we don't need to be created incentives to explode the population at the bottom economic rung. Maybe there was some merit to this back when labor was remotely scarce, but that was before the advent of computing and robotics.

Nat Gas hits $4.40. Highest close since 2011. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-futures-fall-further-despite-inventory-drop-2013-12-12?link=MW_home_latest_news

Sounds like a typical blowhard prognosticator. I'm going to cast my lot with WEB and an outlook for this country that is just a bit above trendline for the (much) longer term performance of the Dutch and British systems.

LOL a post about Gold (it was gold right?) mutated into two threads; one about global thermonuclear war and the other about timber. hah! EDIT: I suppose it is primarily my fault for coming out of left field with the timber talk. Thanks Oddball for sharing your wisdom. I had read a couple of articles about timber's long-term (as in predating financial assets) ROI running at 7-8% real, of course there was a spike during the bubonic plague. hah. But I have used 6-7% as a sort of shorthand/indicator for the rate I want to see timber REITs yielding before I get interested. I figure I can let them keep a % off the top for me not having to look in lumber jack trader weekly. But your strategy of stacking the tax sales is much slicker (as usual).

What is EBIT/Tev? Earnings Before Interest and Tax/Total Enterprise Value. You could go further up the income statement to EBITDA yield, but I prefer EBIT when running loose screens (uses depreciation as a proxy for capital deterioration, which as we know isn't true). Papers that I have seen seem to show it is roughly a wash on performance between the 2 stats. Enterprise level metrics show superior correlation to results as they normalize for leverage. P/E and for that matter book/market screens give an "unfair advantage" to levered up firms. Finally book screens don't seem to work well on mid-large cap stocks in practice. Return on Capital seems to add some juice, as Greenblatt claims in the Little Book. The Magic formula ranks stocks on a 50/50 factor of ROC and EBIT/EV... but, you should know that Tobias Carlisle contends that the cheapest value decile stocks, ranked by ROC, should outperform the seemingly random 50/50 factor that Greenblatt has chosen. At some point of course, over fitting may be an issue, but I suspect Tobias is closer to the truth, hence my comment on XOM. Perhaps we should move this discussion to another thread. I do think it would be valuable to discuss apples/apples metrics though. I have noticed quite a bit of confusing ratios that cross compare firm, value, and equity level metrics. Each metric can of course be useful, but only as long as you are comparing apples to apples, if you follow what I mean. EDIT: Oops...I realize you may just be looking for the XOM EBIT/ev yield? I use this metric a lot as a screen for companies to monitor/check out. Maybe layer on a subjective opinion on management and get really interested if there is a catalyst. That's what put me on to OXY to begin with. CVX and XOM were ranked highly as well.