CorpRaider

Legal fees? hah!

I've been assing around with BSBR, more just passively tracking and getting familiar. Probably 90% chance I never do anything other than just sort of learn a little about it.

Yeah, I would hit DNKN. Would like to pick some up if it ever got cheap, long runway in front of them, imop.

One other little data point, seems like Greenblatt's shop has put up better numbers in the managed accounts following the magic formula (at least per their website) which focus on the top 40, versus the FNSAX which focuses on the top ~140 which has outperformed the FVVAX, which focuses on the "top" 1000 or just tweaks the weights in the index depending on how you look at it. The records are all probably too short to draw any meaningful inference but something to stick a pin in on this question, it seems to me.

Did someone use excellent management and BAC in the same paragraph? Have you ever heard Ken Lewis or Brian Moynihan speak? hah! Just kidding...kind of

Those are some sick results. Well done. I am a concentrator for sure; I can handle volatility. For instance right now I'm 30% WFC, 30% BRK, 15% DTV, 10% GS, 10% LRE.L. For 10.5 years, returns are 14.2% annualized = 6% outperformance. For 13.5 years ( when I started), the outperformance is 9% per year. Most of this outperformance can be attributed to just two events/decisions: 1) Heavily owning BRK in 00-02 as it went up and the market tanked. 2) In March '09 putting 1/3 of my portfolio each into WFC and AXP at ~$10 each. So have I been smart or lucky? Munger has said getting rich only takes a few decisions...and I was extremely confident in those choices, but still...I would say someone with simliar results spread over many decisions would be on sounder footing. Nonetheless, I'll take it ;D Nicely done. I could make a convincing case that I display extreme arrogance by being lucky enough to live at the same time as arguably the greatest investor the world has known and yet not owning any BRK or WFC.

Thanks for sharing, sir.

going on the list. Thanks!

No I was only jesting, regrettably. I posted in one of the North American E&P company threads that the whole middle east is basically involved in a sectarian regional quasi-hot war to my mind. I see no reason the UK, US and/or France should do the dying and the pay the price for the sunnis' fight. Quatar, UAE and the Saudis, (arab league, whomever) can pay if they want to play. Same for the shia, imop. I don't think Obama is going to go plowing in there, he will just do something like Clinton did with the serbs. I'm a political or at least non-partisan but just be glad we don't have a president with a different "world view" in office. Bombing probably won't stop the genocide/chemical weapons though, but if Turkey and/or the Saudis want someone to do more, they can step up instead of whining to get the Americans and the Brits involved and then bitching about how we do it. All just my opinion.

Raytheon....just kidding...kinda'.

Alternative scenario: U.S. sells arms to Sunnis; russia, china, whomever sells arms to the shia. Keep it roughly equal; sell US stuff from the 80's, whatever it takes to keep it "sporting". All deficits from past 30 years erased in 5 years.

Yeah, I'll take a crack at a somewhat meaningful contribution. These bonds appear to be basically securitized asset-backed term debt, secured by A/R and inventory. The non-guarantor business looks like "good sears" but all of this seems like much ado about not a lot to me. I mean it does highlight how great the "non-retailer sears" would look, but I think that is pretty intuitive. Of course one has to wonder if it would look as great in arms-length transactions. The guarantor and non-guarantor designations are only with respect to this one asset based bond issuance of about $1 bil, right? They've got plenty of coverage of A/R and inventory to cover that issuance, so they shouldn't pose a problem for anyone other than the entities holding the inventory and A/R no matter which sub is a guarantor, also other asset based lines of credit would likely be superior to these bonds. The non-guarantor subs would still be "on the hook" for general obligations of the parent (such as implosion of pension and PBGC coming in to take everyone's cookies), as far as I can tell.

This is 3 year data, hardly statistically valid. In fact given the tumult, I would expect something like this during this period. That said, to me MF is a beginning, it gives companies to analyze. Whenever I hear this response I wonder how long is needed for something to be statistically significant? I've heard people claim 120 years of market data isn't enough to show stocks outperform bonds at a statistically significant level. At the minimum, you need to go a whole market cycle. Also, I would guess, that the Chinese fraud problem really screwed up results. No experienced investor should have bought into that crap, though. Again, I look at MF as a starting point. If you scrub for the Chinese frauds, and the results were good, one could still argue that that was cherry picking. You would expect value stocks not to do as well on a big leg up in the market. I think that's certainly a form of cherry picking. Magic formula is supposed to be great because it's buying ugly and cheap companies that humans wouldn't buy because "no experienced investor should have bought into that crap". If it would have bought a few real Chinese companies that went op 1000% no-one would have complained about the bad picks, in that case it would all be part of the strategy. I must be missing something, it looks to me like my FNSAX is pantsing S&P and Midcaps. http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/fnsax/f?t=FNSAX

I like C management better and its not even close. Of course, I doubt I'm alone in that view.

I dunno, the Australians always clean up on that "funniest commercials" show or at least they did back in the 90's when I watched it. "Your handsome-ass grandfather only had one blade....and polio!" "Flush her out to sea boys!" HAHA! I saw this guy on CNBC I think.

Yeah, Eric that's just stupid on WFC's part. Sometimes you can find an actual banker at some of the smaller community and regional banks. Sometimes I think it may not be worth it to stop off at a money center bank for anything that can't be underwritten by a high school graduate and a standard program.

Thanks. I enjoyed it. While I agreed with much of it, I also found myself thinking, "this sounds like a man who is getting 'pantsed' by the S&P and does not like it one bit."

I personally have only bought put options. Shorts theoretically have infinite loss potential. That doesn't work well if you plug it into the kelly equation. hah!

Putting on my tin hat: Summers will be the next chairman of the fed. Between his foot-in-mouth disease and the congressional mess which will flare up in about a month we're looking at trouble: muy selling. Now, if I'm right, I shall remind you all; if I am not....I was just joking around.

It looks great!

I want some MKL, but I'm hoping for some integration/merger earnings chop to afford a buying opportunity. Alternatively, one can always hope for a debt ceiling/budget panic or a Larry Summers induced crash if he's named chairman of the fed.

Tisch says CNA is buying munis: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-29/tisch-bets-on-munis-as-yields-rebound-from-ugly-contest-.html?cmpid=yhoo

Yep, I suppose we will see. So far she's years early and off by orders of magnitude. One could argue that the producers of the classic film "Robocop" have an equally impressive record of predicting the financial future of the city of Detroit. ;D

Thanks for this post. I'm not brave/sophisticated enough to be looking at Detroit obligations; but I am interested in participating in a conversation about munis and the fear that seems to be taking hold in this market. The continuing blood letting in munis and munifunds appears to be in part because of fear of how the Detroit GO bonds might be treated in the bankruptcy (I initially thought it was just a retail reaction to the taper terror). Blackrock's muni chief wrote an op-ed cautioning that it could be the end of civilization as we know it. Then again, Meredith Whitney has continued to call for a collapse in the muni market, so maybe she was just a decade or so early.

Ackman put it out there, "I had sullcrom look at it." Icahn was like, "I could buy you six times over. I could break you mate. I could tender for the company just to burn your ass."