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frommi

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Posts posted by frommi

  1. Damn, you really have a skittish mind!  ;) Selling dimes on the dollar imo for a market correction that might happen and could impact the stock price of your stocks.

     

    Bought some EUROB last week sub $0.10 and more NTLS below $4.5 a few weeks ago. Corrections be damned! They are the reason I buy anything in the first place.

     

    Perhaps i do it wrong, but thats the way i can sleep at night. I will probably never post a year with a return of >50%, but i am pretty sure that i will never post a year with a 30-50% loss either.

    With Intralot i fear the GR-Exit and the loss of the high margin contracts in Romania?/Greece they mentioned in the last call. Made me think about what i really understand of that business.

    AIQ may be worth holding, but i didn`t want to lose my profits and i was not sure if i am mentally able to hold it when they tank below 19$ and they are not able to grow EBITDA. (or even worse) And i really hate how the stock price has moved, there is a big barrier around 25/26$ now.

     

    The next stocks i buy will be better businesses with growth, a moat and where i truly understand the business, that gives me a lot more confidence to hold for longer.  (And especially over the summer).

  2. Sold Intralot and AIQ and started my summer hedging program. Bought Gold, TLT, IWM Puts and shorted XBI. Still hold FFH, OUTR and NWH.AX.

    I just can`t get rid of the bear inside of me, i have that nagging feeling that the bull market ends this summer with at least a 20% correction. Its about time.

  3. Sold out of SEC.TO and bought QVAL.

     

    frommi,

     

    Just curious why sold out of SEC.TO? 

     

    Regarding QVAL, do you have a % of your assets in quantitative value funds?  Have you looked at other funds?

     

    Thanks,

     

    AtlCDore

     

    Because after the discussion and looking at historically P/B ratios for SEC.TO i see a P/B of ~0.6 as fair value of SEC.TO and because it is now close to that number and the stock is so illiquid i wanted to get out on the way up. QVAL is only a small part of my portfolio at the moment, but i can imagine buying more of it because i can compound tax efficient and with a small TER there with a tested value strategy that is proven to beat the market. But in the first place i bought it because i had no other good idea at the moment. But that can change daily.

  4. I think the argument that stocks are not expensive because the yields on treasuries are low is a bit dangerous. Low yields on treasuries imply that we are close to deflation and this means that growth rates in the future will be a lot lower than we are used to. If the bond markets in the world are pricing the bonds correctly we are going the japanese way in the world economy and i am not sure if this is a good sign for equity markets. The question is only when the stock market will realize this.

  5. But how often does the market drop 30%?

     

    One in five years.

    So 0.005 to 0.4

              5 to 80

           

     

    It has to drop that much in 1-2 months, so that happened not that often. When you do it every month you are sure to lose money in the long run, because implied volatility is higher than realized volatility. So to be effective you have to have rules in place to not do it every time, but then of course you are market timing.

  6. Of course I don’t know either… But Thomas Cook and IKYA are two wonderful examples, and as I have said, you just need a few more choices like those two to build lots of value.

    The demographics are there, a new pro-business government is there, India’s overall debt level is quite low: those are three wonderful tailwinds for business!

    The stock market is ebullient right now? Well, we have lots of cash, don’t we? And will be ready to use it when opportunities come. Imo they will.

     

     

    And who doesn`t know that? :)

    Anyway its irrelevant for the pricing of FFI relative to its NAV. What should matter is the fees, arbitrage and the possibility to sell it any day and based on that it deserves to trade a slight discount to NAV or at NAV. Its the same reason Ackman can talk all day long that PSH deserves a premium to NAV, but probably will never get it. (Except in times of exuberance)

  7. I think you are making an assumption here. Look at thomas cook - fairfax was able to buy it at 10X cash flow. IKYA was around at sub 10 levels and a lot of other tuckin accquisitions in IKYA have happened at fair decent valuations. same for sterling holiday resorts

     

    As an indian investor i can tell you that growth may be overvalued in a lot of cases, but not always. So fairfax india can always find attractive deals

     

    Yeah thats fine, after some years of operating and buying private businesses it might trade at a premium to NAV because NAV doesn`t reflect the reality anymore. But not in the first years of operating and surely not before they bought the first business.

  8. Ya it matters because private businesses might sell for 5x earnings whereas the stock indices aren't exactly that cheap in India. I wasn't trying to argue, I just was asking whether or not they could invest in private businesses or not. Do you know the answer to that off hand?

     

    No, sorry. :)

     

  9. I can understand that there is some premium (3-5%) because its hard to invest yourself in india without being an indian person yourself, but a premium for public stock holdings?

    For me this sounds like wishful thinking and FFI looks at the moment like a hyped investment that comes down to NAV when the first official report is public.

     

    Can FFI only invest in public stock holdings in India?... or does their prospectus say they can also buy private businesses and do joint-ventures, etc?

     

    Does it matter? They will certainly pay a premium for growth and that is already reflected in the NAV. A premium on FFI is like a premium on a premium. (And you pay fees for that luxury, so in reality it should trade at a slight discount to NAV.). Otherwise FFH could just setup a hedgefund on a hedgefund on a hedgefund on a hedgefund and in the end you pay a 1000x premium on the original business. The stock market crash of 1929 came through this type of packaging.

  10. I can understand that there is some premium (3-5%) because its hard to invest yourself in india without being an indian person yourself, but a premium for public stock holdings?

    For me this sounds like wishful thinking and FFI looks at the moment like a hyped investment that comes down to NAV when the first official report is public.

  11. I paid 8.30 per contract for the 190 strikes for next January. I don't know exactly what the S&P was at when I bought them, but they've been in the green since day 1. It's only a small piece of protection at the moment - will expand it depending on how the market does

     

    Don`t you think this is a bit expensive since the market has to fall at least 12% from here just to bring you to beak even?

  12. There are different ways to use leverage.

     

    1) Buy companies with debt, that way is most similar to a mortgage.

    2) Buy call options/warrants

    3) Use margin with puts to create synthetic call options, the Eric way. This is similar to a barbell strategy, Nassim Taleb describes this very well in Antifragility.

    4) Use margin without protection, probably the dumbest method.

     

    I use method 1 and 2, but limit 2) to 5% of the portfolio.

  13. Sold my PKX stake and bought more SEC.TO. I want more exposure in businesses that i can hold for the long term and short term prospects for SEC look more promising, too. Munger, Pabrai selling PKX have influenced me and its possible that their low cost advantage is eroded by the currency wars. I feel that my insight/edge into SEC is a lot better than in PKX. SEC is now a 20% position.

  14. Do you see any other long term solution? I think the problem is that politicians don't speak out the only two logical solutions to the euro zone problem:

    1. United States of Europe (my personal favorite but not (yet) politically feasible I'm afraid),

    2. Euro zone break up.

     

    Every other "solution" is no solution but kicking the can down the road – the can thereby getting bigger and bigger. You might say "well, there's been a lot of can kicking down the road for quite a few years" and you'd be right but I think the state of the world economy is a catalyst this time.

     

    I share your opinion about germany, but in the case of italy i think a default in a number of steps with a central bank program to support the banks is the most probable outcome.

    No country really wants to leave the EU, you can see this in the case of greece. The politicians will try to kick the can down the road for the next decades, because all they are interested in is that the next bomb doesn`t explode in their legislative period. There is no incentive for a politician to think long term.

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