DTEJD1997

Hey all: I can remember going to Wegman's years ago. I had family that lived in Rochester NY, which I believe is Wegman's base. In the 90's I watched them expand their operations significantly. I think they are arguably the best grocer in America. Wegman's seems to get it most "correct" if you ask me. They have a tremendous breadth of choices. Wegman's has a selection of brands that is very difficult to impossible to find at other retailers. Some are bargain, some are higher end. They have an emphasis on prepared foods that are well above average. Their employees seem to be motivated, at all levels. Compare this to surly or non-existent clerks at your local Giga-Hyper Mart. if Wegman's were to do an IPO, that is one of the VERY FEW companies that I would ever consider investing in at an IPO level. I don't have any problem with WFM charging whatever they think the market will bear. More power to them. I don't care how much money I am making, I am not going to pay $17 or $18 a pound for deli turkey breast. Yes, it is better than Boar's Head at Kroger's...but Boar's Head is no slouch and is only $6 or $7 a pound. Is turkey breast that is marginally better worth 3X the price? No way, not in my book...of course, others might disagree with me and that makes a market. I think Trader Joe's is going to be a thorn in their side. At my local Trader Joe's the demographic seems to be the same as WFM. You have elderly/older folks shopping there, but you also have students, and some in between. Trader Joe's almost certainly has more financial muscle & depth than WFM, as they are owned by Aldi (Albrecht Brothers)... Another possible thorn in WFM side could be "The Fresh Market". They seem to be a similar competitor of WFM. I am just surprised there is this much of a sustainable market for very high priced foods.

Hey all: Not really an actionable idea, and it is just a couple of general observations, so I posted it here, instead of in WFMI's thread. I go to Whole Foods several times a year. They have some Indian TV dinners and a few other items that are hard for me to find elsewhere. A year ago I was there with my girlfriend wandering by the deli counter. The sharp eyed clerk had me pegged and asked if I wanted to try a piece of peppered turkey. Of course I do! what a silly question! It was EXCELLENT, one of the tastiest pieces of turkey lunchmeat I've ever had. I thought I wanted to get some. The price? $17 lbs. I almost choked! I don't care how good it is, I'm not paying that for sliced turkey for sandwiches. Some of WFMI's prices are just getting silly. I can't imagine I'm the only one who thinks this. A "Trader Joes" has opened up, and I shop there much more frequently than at WFMI. Not that I'm a regular at Trader Joes....but I will go there much more often than I go to WFMI. Probably 5 to 1. I also think I'm not alone in this. Trader Joes is going to be a major thorn in WFMI's side... Any thoughts?

I think this could be the beginning of a great thread, good start hyten1! I love to invest in income stocks. One thing I've never understood is that a lot of "financial advisors" will frequently speak of income stocks and "dividend champions". Inevitability, these companies are paying 1% or maybe 2%. Most of the time, these companies are good, solid companies. They also grow dividends too. HOWEVER, the problem is that even with stability & growth, when you start at 1%, you have to wait SO LONG that I would argue it might not be worth it. Year 1 you get 1%, the dividend then grows 10% a year. 15 years later you are then getting about 4% income. OR if you invest in a 2% payer, growing at 10% a year, 15 years later you are then getting about 8%. 8% is good, but you had to wait 15 years to get it! I find the best "income" stocks don't necessarily start out that way. For example, I bought income some nano-cap community bank stocks. SBFG re-initiated a dividend, and then raised it up 20%. I suspect it will be raised for many years as they are paying out LESS than 12% of their net income. I also suspect that net income will increase as earnings are retained and re-invested in the bank. Another way to get good income is to write covered calls. I have had positions where over a period of a few years, I've recovered my initial investment from writing covered calls. Add to this dividends you receive and you are doing well. Unfortunately, these are fairly rare, and I hope to do more of this in the future. Lastly, a great way to get income is to buy into stocks that have STOPPED paying dividends. A perfect example of this is Ark Restaurants. At the peak of the financial crisis, ARK suspended it's dividend. They did this not because of financial weakness in their company, but that they wanted to marshall cash in case good opportunities to sign leases in NYC came about. A year passed and I think they got one new location. They started up the dividend AND made a special dividend to make up for the lost payments. If bought near the low, you could have gotten almost a 10% dividend yield.

What makes me CRAZY was that during the financial crises, several institutions were before the bankruptcy trustee arguing for senior management bonuses. These were the people that ran the companies into BK. The proffered reason was that the company need "experienced management" in their time of trouble and bonuses HAD to be offered so senior management would not leave for better jobs! As Nelson on the Simpsons would say "ha ha". These guys should have been thankful they did get sent straight to prison. They had the audacity to ask for bonuses after running the company into BK. Heck, I think you could outsource a lot of management jobs. I am sure you can find capable people in South America & China who will work diligently for $100k a year. You could have the current CEO train their replacement! They do it to line workers, why not have a taste of their own medicine? Management has hijacked capital in much of corporate America. They make it to the top, they SHOULD be rich. But to be making HUNDREDS of times what their average employee makes? That is not right. What about the long suffering shareholders?

I am in Houston. I have spoken with petroleum engineers in the recent past. Some of them think there is LOT more oil than what is commonly known. One guy gave me the example that large parts of the Middle East have never been explored for oil. An even larger part was explored back in the 40's & 50's. If it were gone over with modern technology, a LOT more oil would be found. There is a TON of oil in Mexico, and it is not being properly utilized. PEMEX is running the company strictly for cash flow, and they have been UNDERINVESTING for years & years. If the Mexican fields were properly managed and properly re-worked, there are billions of more oil that could be extracted. I have also heard rumors that there is TONS of oil up in Alaska. A lot more is up there than what is "conventionally known". Another intriguing thing is that there could be large amounts of oil in the Mid-West, specifically Michigan & Indiana. We may be running out of "cheap & easy" oil, but with oil at $100/barrel OR MORE, I don't think we will run out of "expensive" oil any time soon.

The number of bargains out there has certainly dropped, no question about it. A year ago, there was long list of interesting candidates, now it maybe 1/5 the size of what it is. I am also finding that I am having to mine further & deeper to get the bargains. A good analogy is a gold miner having to crush more rock to get the same amount of gold. The vein of bargains is rapidly getting mined out. There are bargains out there still, some in the small community banks. I am also finding some good bargains in China & Hong Kong. And no, these are not the reverse "scam mergers". I sold BBBI & ARKR today to buy more NTE.

What? This is a parody? Are you sure? I thought it was a CNBC documentary!!!!! I'll second the notion that Concentrata is relatively hott!

Wow: This is CRAZY!!!!! Some people have too much time on their hands. Perhaps this is a sign that we are approaching a top? The daytraders are coming back? I guess so....I've heard commercials on my local radio that claim options & futures trading is EASY and you too can make $10k a month in extra income. It is so easy, housewifes & the unemployed are doing it! FREE MONEY THAT IS EASY! Everybody is getting rich! There is no way there could be any problems!

Biaggio: I was worried at first about getting ripped off, but I have been careful and lucky. With silver coins, it is fairly easy to spot fakes. There are not a lot of them out there. The most valuable silver coin that I've bought might be worth $40 or so. Counterfeiters are not going to take the time & effort to forge a $40 coin, let alone a $5 coin. Counterfeiting USA money is a pretty serious offense, most casual criminals will stay far away from this. The other thing is that producing a coin for a reasonable cost is probably not something a couple of dudes could do in shed. You have to have stamping machines, knowledge of metallurgy, and tremendous engraving skills. The other thing is that once you are familiar with silver coins and have held them, you can spot a fake almost instantly. They have a certain heft & "feel" to them. So a counterfeiter would most likely have to have a good amount of silver in their product.... The counterfeiting that is more common is taking genuine coins and then altering their mint marks. For example, take an excellent condition 1880 "Philadelphia" Morgan dollar and add "CC" Carson City mint mark to it. This would take a $400 coin to a $2,000 coin.... There is a foolproof way to avoid this type of counterfeiting! I simply do not buy highly valued numismatic coins. I'll certainly pay a few dollars extra if a coin is in exceptionally good condition, but I'm not going to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars. If one did wish to get into rarer coins, there are several reputable grading services that can spot counterfeits and grade coins properly. If you are buying numismatic coins though, you are making a play on a coin's rarity. I am largely trying to play a coins metallic value. There have been a few times where I've bought a sack of silver dimes and in sorting through them I'll find a "rarer" date or mint mark. For example, I once found an 1875 dime from San Francisco. This is worth about $50. I paid the $2 silver for it. Obviously this is a rare find and does not happen often. I've found a small sack of semi-valuable coins this way through the years though. A similar thing exists for gold coins. Once you've seen them, it is relatively easy to spot "non gold" fakes. I also tend to stay away from the rarer coins. I simply try and buy for as close to the metal value that I can. I also carry a magnet. None of the coins you purchase should have a magnetic attraction. Additionally, if it is high value I'll weigh it. There is the official "Red Book" that has the weights of the coins you are looking at buying. Any gold coin that you are looking at buying should weigh almost EXACTLY what it should, there should be less than a .1 gram differential due to wear... If you are going to get into SERIOUS purchasing of gold coins, there is a neat tool called a a Fisch counterfeit detector. A counterfeiter can fake various aspects of gold coins. For example, they can make the WEIGHT exactly the same, but it can't be the correct thickness, as they are adding a base metal to dilute it. So this Fisch gizmo is machined to determine weight, size, thickness, etc. Any coin will have to pass every test. I don't own any of these, but I would if I were to buy serious amounts of gold. There are Fisch's for all major types of bullion coins, American Gold Eagles, Krugerands, Philharmonics, Maple Leafs, Pandas, etc. Additionally, the guys I'm generally buying from know how to spot fakes and they have established store fronts. None of this is 100% guarantee against fakes, but I've never got one. As to storage. I keep some at home, some at the office, and I have a couple of safe deposit boxes at the bank & credit union.

Hey all: I've been dabbling in coin collecting since I was a child. I was never really too serious until 4-5 years ago. I discovered "junk silver" USA coins. These coins were minted before 1965 and were 90% silver. Obviously, the silver is worth MULTIPLES of the face value of the coins. For example, I bought some silver dimes the other day for $1.85 a piece. Some of these dimes were from the 20's & 30's. Some of the older coins are real works of art. I had been buying them mainly as a good way to get into precious metals. I wish I had started sooner! I also wish that I got serious sooner, but better late than never. One thing I've started doing lately is buying gold. Here in the great state of Texas, we have a lot of pawn shops & jewelry stores & such that deal in gold & silver. Most of them are complete rip-offs and have no idea what they are doing....but not all of them. So, if I have extra time and a wad of cash, I'll stop in and check things out. Most of the time it is a waste of time....BUT NOT ALWAYS. I have a small circuit of stores that I am visiting and getting to know the managers & owners. Some places will buy gold for maybe 80% of spot. They will then sell to me for 105% of spot...I've bought many gold coins from the 1800's and sometimes will get 1/10 oz & 1/4 oz bullion pieces. Now here is where it gets interesting... A few weeks ago, one of my stops had two $5 USA gold coins. One was from the 1840's and the other was from the 1870's. Very beautiful pieces. Sold both of them to me for $800 CASH. This was about 1/2 oz. of gold, and the price of gold was about $1625 at the time. I had them on my work desk and one of my suppliers noticed them, and commented on how nice looking they were. He also wondered if I would sell them. Sure! everything is for sale at the right price. He offered $500 for the older coin. I took it! This was AFTER gold fell $200 an oz. Now before any of you think I might have made a mistake, I checked the year and mintage of the coin. It was not particularly valuable ABOVE it's gold value. That is, it is not really a numismatic coin. So I think I did a great transaction considering that gold fell as much as it did. Another jewelry store that I stop in about once a month, will sell Morgan & Peace silver dollars for $3 over their melt value. I buy all they have (which usually is not much). I got 3 Morgan dollars all over 100 years old for $22 a piece the other day. So I guess the point of my rambling post is that you can find "bargains" out there if you are friendly, patient, and have ready cash. Does anybody else buy gold/silver coins?

I've got positions in GOFPY for a year or two. A couple of observations: A). Through the depths of the Greek crisis, OPAP has been profitable. B). They have continued to pay dividends, albeit reduced. I think that OPAP will continue to be profitable almost no matter what. People want to be able to gamble a few euros with the chance of winning more. Even if the standard of living goes down in Greece, which it most likely will...things would have to get unbelievably bad before people would stop betting 2-3-4 Euros on something. Also, I think their earnings will be somewhat protected EVEN IF Greece exits the Euro. People will still gamble the equivalent of a couple of Euros, whether that is 50, 100, 1000 or 10,000 drachmas. At the very low end of gambling, people are still going to engage in it for a few dollars or a few Euros... Also, what if things ever improve in Greece? I know that is a very odd assumption, but I'm talking 3-5 years from now. Things could improve at some point? In my opinion, OPAP is one of the very best companies to own in Greece.

Wow: I am surprised RUSH was not the hall of fame sooner. One of the most accomplished rock bands there is. Neil Pert is one of the best drummers that ever was. Example? Rush in Rio, the crowd starts singing to YYZ, an instrumental song! This is one of the best live concerts ever, and one of the best songs in that concert. Congratulations to them! May they continue to play for many years to come.

Hey all: Forgot to mention that had I held the FIZZ investment, it would have had a COMPOUND rate of return of between 24% & 25% PER YEAR! Can anyone think of a stock that has had a HIGHER 20 year rate of return than that? Thanks in advance!

Hey all: Yes, I think FIZZ's outlook is good. Not as good as it has been for the past 21 years, but certainly better than the average company. What prompted me to sell? I was a 20 year old investor, I just about doubled my money in a year, so I sold. I was inexperienced. I now have a bit more experience. If you will observe, FIZZ has a return on assets of about 24% and a return on equity of 55%. Clearly, this is a high quality company, and has been for many years. I just hope I can into another few opportunities like this. We'll see.

Hey all: Years ago, sometime around 1991, I bought 400 shares of National Beverage at 4 3/8. It went up in price, and I think I came close to doubling my money and I SOLD! I remember being very happy at the time with such a nice trade. I promptly lost track of the company until about 2006 when I recommended my Dad purchase some. He did and has done well. I then looked at it's history and saw that me selling it was one of the worst mistake of my life, as it appears that FIZZ has been one of the best performing stocks there is. A couple of years after I sold it, it split, and has split many time since.... Here is the history: 11/10/94 4-1 SPLIT 1,600 shares 10/28/96 2-1 SPLIT 3,200 shares 3/23/03 2-1 SPLIT 6,400 shares 3/24/03 Dividend 5,312 dollars 1/3/06 Dividend 5,312 dollars 5/31/07 12:10 split 7,680 shares 7/18/07 Dividend .8 6,144 dollars 1/14/10 Dividend 1.35 10,368 dollars 1/24/10 Dividend 2.30 17,664 dollars 12/5/12 Dividend 2.55 19,584 dollars So if I had held those shares, that I paid $1,750 for, I would have received $64,384 dollars in dividends and would have 7,680 shares worth about 107,136. So total return would be about 171,520, which equates to a 100X bagger over 21 years. I would posit that FIZZ has been one of the best performing stocks over the last 20 years. Obviously, this was a huge mistake I made. Any thoughts?

Hey all: Buybacks are good, for sure. HOWEVER, there are some problems associated with this. A). Companies have a BAD habit of buying back stock near the top... B). Companies can announce buybacks, and then only partially follow through. In fact, I suspect this may be a common strategy. We've authorized a 2 trillion share buyback! A year later, how many shares have been bought back? 150. The follow through needs some improvement! C). Buybacks are not as regular as dividends, in that dividends are usually quarterly. I think companies should retain a lot of their earnings, but they clearly ARE NOT distributing enough to us shareholders. A). Dividends have a habit of focusing management's attention. They know they need to make the next quarterly payment or there is going to be some fallout. It focuses their attention. B). It prevents companies from having weak bladders. How is that? How many cash rich companies have you seen that just COULD NOT HELP THEMSELVES FROM PISSING IT AWAY? Overpriced acquisitions (HP I'm looking at you), empire building, foolish expansion, etc. Dividends are a great way to relieve pressure on the corporate bladder. C). Dividends are a great way for shareholders to reduce risk. Over years, you can reduce your cost basis to zero or LESS THAN ZERO. D). Unfortunately, I've got more ideas than capital. My regular dividends allow me to diversify and try out different ideas. I took my latest payments and bought 300 shares of AERL. Not a big investment, haha, but it is something, and it is something brought about entirely by dividends! I like buybacks, but I guess I'm "old school" and prefer dividends. Just my thoughts...

Unbelievable, non pros are setting up Apple "bull spreads" on the calls? Well, maybe it is believable... But how could anything go wrong with that? Everybody makes money with options? Some guy had $400k in Apple stock and he converts his long position to all short dated out of the money calls? He is just BEGGING to be made an example of. I sometimes watch "American Greed" and it is amazing how stupid some of the scams are. What is even more amazing is that people put their life savings into them! These people work all their lives, and some guy comes to them talking a bunch of fianancial mumbo-jumbo and they say "ok, lets put all our money in it!". These people agonize over the price of toilet paper when they are at the grocery store, but think nothing of putting their life savings into some get rich quick scheme. I guess P.T. Barnum was right!

So the consensus is that Buffet has changed his position and is now actively giving to charity before he passes? If so, good for him. I will stand by my position...I think people have an obligation to help people in the here and now. Of course, it is also good to help people in the future too. There is a problem with deferring charity until future periods. If there are people suffering NOW, who need food, shelter, medicine etc and DO NOT get any relief, the opportunity to help may pass. In the most extreme case, someone dies of starvation, not getting needed medical attention, etc. In less severe cases, perhaps a family breaks apart as they lose their home or apartment, a young person strays and gets wrapped in criminality, or who knows? The law of unintended consequences could run wild... How do you put a time value on the suffering of somebody? We will let 20 people starve to death today, so that we can probably save 100 people 20 years from now? I don't know. All spiritual texts, Bible, Torah, Koran, exhort people to contribute to charity & help those in need. None of the religious texts say grow your capital and then ONLY pass it on to people when you pass on.... Here is another to think of things....Imagine if Buffet loses all of his money/capital...he then dies penniless and winds up helping no one. A most unlikely scenario for sure, but not impossible... As for my selfishness, I admit to that, and that is one of my many flaws. HOWEVER, I do give charity (actively so), not nearly as much as I could or should, but I do make a conscious effort. I hope to improve on that in the near future also. I would challenge everyone to exam their charitable giving and see if they can't improve on it in the upcoming year.

Hey all: I thought I heard that W.E.B's stand on charity had changed a bit, can anyone confirm this? It was my understanding that WEB would NEVER give ANYTHING to charity while he was living, but that charity would get over 90% of his wealth when he passed away. I have heard that the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is going to get most of it. However, has he changed his stance on charity while he is living? If not, it seems to me kind of selfish. Good that he is giving to charity, but very bad that he did not do anything while he was living and that he deferred it for so many years. How many people are suffering tremendously and need help NOW? Any news/thoughts?

The number #1 thing I wish could short would be the "pump & dump" scams that I'm being bombarded with. A good example is ASUV & GNIN. These companies are laughable. One of them had like $15k in the bank, and almost $100k of sales. Market cap was $100MM at the time. What could possibly go wrong? How these things don't end at ZERO or $.01 is beyond me... The other short target would be Amazon. They lose money on most transactions, but they are going to make it up on VOLUME! I am sure I could build a huge business selling dollar bills for $.95! Sure, AMZN has some neat gizmos & such, but at the end of the day, they just sell whatever they can get their hands on. They sell it cheap and give free shipping. No worries about profiting, as the market lets the stock trade at 2X sales and 15X book. What could possibly go wrong with AMZN?

I've looked into Bitcoins. At one point, I was thinking about "mining" them...but that is easier said than done at this point. One of the VERY BIG problems that I saw, was the very limited number of merchants that would accept them. Well over 90% of the merchants I saw, I would have little to no interest in buying things from. If you are looking for an alternate store of value, I would buy USA 90% silver "junk" silver coins. When you have your fill of that, I would look to be buying 1/10, 1/4, 1/2 oz. gold coins with little to no numismatic value. I would feel a lot safer in physical gold & silver than bitcoin! You can easily put a fortune into a small safety deposit box with gold, or so I'm told! I don't personally have ANY gold or silver coins...