abyli

That's ok. Alot of the people who are now financially independent on here (or the predecessor message board) were in their 20's or early 30's 10-15 years ago. This is the right forum. When I started Corner Market Capital 11 years ago, I was 35 years old, after raising my brother and getting him through university. I was living off my limited investments and working on the side while building the business. Today I am financially independent! I am very fortunate...I get to do what I love every day and work only with people I like to work with. The funny thing now is that I have no plans on ever retiring unless forced to do so due to circumstance or poor health. Young and poor is a good thing, as long as you never forget how hungry you were going forward. It will help you to succeed and get to where you want to be! Cheers! Congratulations! Sanj! Well done! Bing

It shows people are mad at what happened last 8 years! Hillary had a such bad reputation in US.

:-) Let's not allow the facts to spoil a good tale. Too old, too big and too boring. That's a good summary. Also Facebook looks very attractive relatively. :-)

How do we think about the electric cars potential impact to the aftermarket auto parts business? Typical E-cars only need 1/3 of parts of traditional cars. E-car does not have engine, transmission, no need to change oil or filter, much less maintenance...

Texas is the worst. If you have one Texas investor, you have to register.

Yeah. That is probably the best choice so far. :-)

Thank you. Do you subscribe to Gugufocus? Is it good? Bing

I try to get companies' past 10 years fundamental data into Excel so that I can do calculation. But I can not find a reliable data source. How do everyone do that here? It seems that everyone need that... Please help!

Waiting to order Tesla 3... if Elon Musk can keep the promised price and not too far from the expected delivery date... :-)

AAPL

AAPL

I have to admit I find it slightly ironic that Pabrai---as one of the self proclaimed cloners has had such a difficult time. It makes one wonder if he really did all the research he should have done or as Dabuff says got caught with his pants down. After following Pabrai for 13 years, I realized a few years ago that he is not as good investor as I thought. He took some big risks, some paid off handsomely when he sold but lots of stocks fell off cliff after he sold. I do not like the idea of clone. We were all born differently and have different education and experiences. That is what circle of competence about. If you do not understand the business inside and out, you will be tested by the market at some point.

The very best investor is Duan Yongping. He had lunch Warren Buffett 10 years ago and he does not need money. :-) He can both manage company and invest. He owns BBG and OPPO smart phones.... http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=OPPO. His blog: http://nteswjq.blog.163.com/blog/#m=0 Then Dan Bin is pretty good. His blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/danbin168 and his company: http://www.ebay-invest.com/

Happy birthday and thank you for the best board! Bing

There is no value trap, only wrong stocks. Lots of value investors bought Citigroup after it fell 50% in great recession. Does it mean Citi stock was value trap? Value investor can easily get interested in things that looks cheap or down 50%, but that is wrong way to look at it. What you should do is to think yourself as someone who just came to earth and ignore past prices. First, ask yourself, do I really understand the business, especially its business model. That is your most important margin of safety. If you do not understand the business, how do you know it is cheap? To me, that is the concept of margin of safety. Second, you need to check the company culture. Without right culture, the good business will not last long. Then you check the company's management team, check past records of the CEO. How CEO talks in conference call, how CEO thinks about shareholders? After you understand the business, then you ask yourself, do I buy this company as a private business if the market is closed for 10 years? If the answer is still yes, then you buy the stock. In a sense, what Ben Graham or Warren Buffett did in early days was NOT value investing. Value investing means you pay less and get more. What kind of value investing is it if there is not much value left in the company? :-)

Anyone feel the fonts are too small for the mobile version? Is there a way to make the fonts bigger? Thanks.

After observing Fairfax for 13 years, I realized that they are not very good at stocks, but they made most of their money from bonds. Fairfax is first an investment company, then an OK insurance company (cost 2% a year for float if I remember correctly). Fairfax just can not underwrite like Lancashire or RNR. It is not their culture and they just can never get to that level of underwriting. When next hurricane or big events hit, I bet Fairfax will need to separate normal underwriting and Big Cat loss again. So Fairfax has to hedge all the time to protect the company. Well, the hedge was supposed to protect their stock holdings, so why Fairfax sold Johnson & Johnson (Prem said JNJ is long term investment) then? So what those hedges protect if they sold their only long term stock holding? I think there is something wrong with Fairfax's business model. Those hedges are not free and it costs money, sometimes lots of money. If Fairfax can not underwrite for profit in the long run (overall have not achieved that since 1985), then Prem has to buy lots of hedges to protect the company from going under. Last year was the year that all stars were aligned to make big profit for FFH: no big hurricane, interest rate went lower so bonds made money, stock market was good, so FFH made a good profit last year, but I do not expect them to repeat that easily. With the current business model, I do not think FFH can achieve their 15% target in the long run. Last year, someone did calculation, FFH has not achieved that goal for the last 5 years, 10 years and 15 years!

Why Prem bought BlackBerry but not Apple shares? Apple was trading PE 6 excluding cash two years ago. Was BlackBerry easier to understand than Apple?

Dear board members, Are you interested in hiring a young lady to do the summer intern job? My niece is currently studying in Ohio State University business school, now the 3rd year in college. She is looking for gaining work experience after three years studying in Finance major. I know many board members came from business schools, do you hire summer interns? Or have you had such experiences to work as summer intern? Where to look for such opportunies? Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much! Bing

I think it is foreign closed fund, so PFIC will apply. So I purchased shares in IRA accounts.

i have 12 currently. all are held because they in some way help me maximize the number of points/miles i receive from signup bonuses and spend. I have like 6 now. That's down a couple already. Those sign up bonuses are very lucrative. Wow, I guess I don't work as hard taking advantage of the cash back/points. I only have 3 cards. Not counting my debit card for my checking account which has a VISA logo on it, but it isn't a credit card and provides no cash back benefits. I only use it at ATMs to get cash, never to buy anything. Once you are already getting 2% cash back on everything you buy the extra effort to get a few bonus points here or there doesn't seem to me to be worth the extra effort. Amex Preferred Cash give you 6% back on grocery. Sallie Mae Card give you 5% on grocery(including Walmart Super Center), 5% on gas, 5% on books (including Amazon.com)...

First half was great!

Happy Birthday Sanjeev! The best value investing forum ever! I was very fortunate to join the form at very early stage and watch it grow and grow... Thank you!

1. Intelligent Investor 2. Buffett Letters 3. Poor Charlie's Almanack 4. Philip Fisher Common stock and Uncommon Profits 5. You can be a Stock Market Genius

... I thought I should focus on "assets" here .... He was careful not to say US, so i am guessing Canadian .... someone earlier suggested it should start with a B (i don't know how they got to that, but it fits with my guess, so including it as a rationale ;D ) .... He still didn't answer if it was written up on the board. I am assuming it was. BAM was also written up ( so are many others, but this also fits with my guess) I said "something started with B". I agree with you, it could be one of BAM, BPO or BPY.