yadayada

common sense and cash flow statements seems like the only way here imo. Look how they turned inventory in the past? If you see one or two red flags, just avoid. Are they dealing in something that is likely to be overvalued or depreciate fast in time? And finally, avoid the really small auditors. Seems to me that half decent audit firms aren't very motivated to play along with some small company's fraud, because they dont make that much in auditing costs. So there isn't much incentive to let them get away with it. If they have a history of churning through auditors, avoid. Really just avoid if something is shady, or if you see a red flag. Best thing you can do with investing is say next imo.

[amazonsearch]Math, Better Explained: Learn to Unlock Your Math Intuition [/amazonsearch] This really is an amazing book. If I would have known these things when I was in high school, I would have done so much better with math. It is really a sharpened way to think about the world, and all math equations were initially invented to solve some real world problem. WHich is often forgotten in school. They just make you solve boring equations without ever telling what you will need them for. It is also a quick read, and you dont really need to be even half decent at math to be able to read it .

Education will need a drastic upgrade to keep up with technology if we dont want massive unemployment and even more inequality in the future. 100 years ago if you studied physics you only needed to know newton's laws. Now you need to learn much more complicated stuff. The amount of knowledge required to keep up will only increase in the future. And our current education system is not fit to deal with that. It is too expensive and innefficient. The answer to this is obviously not the government, but people like gates and greenblatt who set up schools with their own money and random admission that outperform pretty much almost any state run school. If anything they should have an option to lower taxes for the rich, but set up a system where in return they can spend the money their way on their country. ALot of rich people probably have a problem with all the tax money that just dissapears in the system and never arrives to your average citizen. I know I would. And from an outsider perspective, the wholy lobbying thing in the US seems terribly broken too. The things corporations are allowed to do in your country seems insane to alot of europeans. There has to be a better way to fund political campaigns? But I supose it is a catch 22, all the guys in power don't want to change, precisely because they are not really acting in the best interest of your average american anymore. But to get americans to care enough to force positive change, they need to smarten up by improving education. That is pretty much the ultimate fix to make democracy work better. And Neil degrasse tyson sums up pretty well what is wrong with government:

I think that once you become competent at this, then you it becomes a part time job really. You know what to look for, and if you have your screening process nicely tuned it shouldn't take that much time to maintain your portfolio every year? Certainly not a constant 40 hours a week. There are only so many annual reports and books you can read. Unless you do bankruptcy's

Or you could say, 'I would come here and stab you in the throat with it for asking stupid questions like that'. I wonder if you would get hired then. It does show you are willing to take risks. And have violent tendencies. Maybe you get hired to 'motivate' their slave army at fox con.

I would stab them in the throat and take the money AND the pizza. Win win. And it shows you have the right mentality to become a top level manager.

what did he say in 2007?

[amazonsearch]Leverage: The CEO's Guide to Corporate Culture[/amazonsearch] Saw it recommended in the economist. Didnt read it yet, but thought id post it here. Its on my reading list now :) .

Infovine is an interesting one. Cannot figure out now how to get those annual reports tho. I managed to get annual statements translated to english with google translate the other day. They got roughly 40 bn in cash, no debt and generate over 10 bn. Was even cheaper a while ago with a PE of 5.5 :( There is a good write up on VIC on this company as well.

Yeah i also can't really find good companise that are cheap. Rates need to shoot up alot to make a good return on those stocks.

If you dont like shipping because it is such a commoditized industry, but the LNG shipping market looks different: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/63aa4154-52ca-11e3-8586-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2rVgYTQWT 2 barriers to entry, enormous costs of a lng tanker, and not every idiot with capital can operate one due to safety risks of these things. Unlike the tanker and dry bulk market. Plus there is limited supply in the next 2-3 years and demand seems to be ramping up. Report on the LNG market: http://www.marinemoney.com/sites/all/themes/marinemoney/forums/MMWeek13/presentations/Wednesday/4_00%20PM%20Doug%20Mavrinac-LPG.pdf Personally think you want to look at stocks that have a decent amount of ships on the spot market instead of tied up in long term charters. Currently spot rates have slumped back from 160k$ a day to about 80k$ due to limited new plants coming online this year. But there will be coming alot of new capacity coming online in 2014 and 2015 providing demand for lng carriers. Some interesting points from that report: LNG carrier current orderbook/fleet ratio remains below average levels at ~28.5% of existing fleet  Speculative ordering remains limited due to significant capital requirements, limited bank financing availability, and technical expertise required  Relatively few shipyards possess technical know-how to build an LNG ship; existing newbuilding orders placed at only 8 shipyards.  China has yet to get up the learning curving on building LNG ships with just 1yard building ships and at a higher cost than South Korean builders. Thoughts?

any thoughts on lng shipping? Iv gone ahead and read some articles. If you can find some cheap names on a fcf basis out there it looks like an interesting niche to invest in. looking at the orderbook and potential demand in the next few years at least.

Finviz doesnt have all the stocks tho. Google screener has a more complete list. What I like to do is make a watch list of under the radar boring companies that have a decent moat. At some point they can become cheap again for the wrong reasons. Whenever there is a loser, you check them out and see if its a bargain. Also googling for blogs on a regular basis can be rewarding. Lots of smart guys out there blogging their investments.

what are some farming stocks taht are actually cash flow positive?

is there a way to follow what these guys are doing with a slight delay?

What is a good introduction book to options for an idiot like me?

let's say the number is larger and you have some other opportunities that are very juicy, but no money to act on it. That might not be available later. Then the guaranteed money right now could be better. Except for that, I agree with Hielko

The intelligent investor bored me to fking death. It cost me alot of money, I would have been into valueinvesting like 2 years earlier if it wasnt for that book. Not sure why everyone loves it so much. Its like one of those ancient movies from the 30's that supposedly revolutionized a genre. Better watch the modern ones that perfected the genre. It was just too dry and long winded for me. I liked this book much better as an intro: http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Value-Investing-ebook/dp/B000SHWG52/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390218841&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=getting+started+in+valu Then I would read this one, it really describes the different ways you can go into investing pretty well. http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Ideas-Framework-Finding-Investments-ebook/dp/B00DF1L98S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390218867&sr=8-1&keywords=the+manual+of+ideas But you might want to get your accounting knowledge up to date tho, to understand the language of business, so to speak. http://www.amazon.com/Financial-Statements-Step---Step-Understanding-ebook/dp/B004GGU342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390218919&sr=8-1&keywords=financial+statements http://www.amazon.com/Financial-Shenanigans-Third-Howard-Schilit-ebook/dp/B0026HPHW6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390218985&sr=8-1&keywords=financial+shenanigans Both highly recommended. Also read alot of financial reports. What you want to do then is get an idea what is cheap and what is not. I see alot of write ups on sites like VIC marketting ideas that are trading at 12x earnings, but should be at 18 times earnings, because the other companies are valued like that. Your objective should be to figure out how to figure out what apropriate valuations are for different types of businesses. Probably recommend this one for that: http://www.stockideas.org/seth-klarman-margin-safety-pdf-download-notes/ You could buy it, but it's like 3k$ now on amazon. This should get you started imo. And read all the other books mentioned here.

http://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/energy-strategist/my-1-lng-tanker-stock-to-buy-now-energy-strategist/ makes a pretty compelling argument to invest in LNG tankers.

There are people who live to work, and people who work to live. Everyone gets their satisfaction from something different.

Really the tax rate will be 0%? Or is that only on certain sites?

http://www.amazon.com/Flow-P-S-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi-ebook/dp/B000W94FE6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1390045283&sr=8-4&keywords=flow Thought this was a good read. How a factory worker gets satisfaction out of seemingly monotonous work.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594298-effect-todays-technology-tomorrows-jobs-will-be-immenseand-no-country-ready About how technology will make alot of low level jobs obsolete. Thought it might get some interesting discussion on this board :) .

doesnt that mean that you have to pay that 35% monthly tax? Which in reality will be more like 40-50%. Which is extremly unreasonable with the amount of risk you take imo. Id pay like 20% at most really. You still play?

there should be alot of increase in demand from china for natural gas right? Because its much cleaner then coal, and they got a real pollution problem.