randomep

Are you giving due consideration to the assumptions you are taking on board when backing out the cash? The obvious assumption would be that a. management will turn that cash into producing assets very soon or b. it will soon be returned to the investor. Well soon depends on the discount rate you are using and the price you are paying, so we could be talking 5 to 10 years in some cases. Nonetheless I would just make sure that the assumptions do not undermine the economic reality of the investment. ooooooook, let's not back out the cash, what if I told you there is a Japanese company that has growing earnings, 8% ROE, sells for significantly less than netnet? If that company was in the US I think it would sell for double...... Every economy has its quirks, but I think the disgust and prejudice with the Japanese economy has caused people to be very subjective when looking at Japanese companies. I think SOME Japanese companies are very mispriced, but that's my opinion and the market is all about us betting on our opinions right? BTW the company is covered in my blog, cheers: bovinebear.blogspot.com/search/label/Tachibana

These are internal demons most of us investors face since it directly contradicts his main message of ignoring Mr. Market. Keynes, Buffett and Graham himself heavily emphasize the dictum: It is preferable to buy dollar bills at seventy cents, rather than selling them at seventy cents in the hope of subsequently repurchasing the notes at fifty cents. Vinod Looks like Hussman did not follow that advice, instead he would only buy the dollar at $0.50, and look what happened to him..... The following is a quote from his website in 2013, one of the more illogical money management decisions I have heard over the years....... ....... During the Depression, the market declined by two-thirds even after it became undervalued on every measure. It was that possibility that prompted me to hit the stop button to ensure that our methods were fully robust to those risks; that we could partition favorable and unfavorable outcomes even under the most hostile conditions; and that the resulting return/risk measures could be validated in “holdout data.” In the process, I damaged my reputation for a while, missing a huge advance in the interim. That’s unfortunate, but it’s also fine – markets move in cycles, and this one will also.

I agree. Ya this just doesn't make sense to me. If I don't buy mandel at 13 and hope that it drops lower then am I not timing the market. And am I not giving too much consideration to the macro. What if I am wrong and the market is not overvalued, and it keeps climbing, then I've missed out on a perfectly good undervalued stock.

I am skeptical, someone in the article says people are always relating something to the drop in crime rates. ....hmmmm.... hey wait a sec, freakonomics said the drop in crime rates is due to roe vs wade, and the abortion comeback in the 70's, who am I to believe???

Just joined. San Francisco (North Bay). Also interested in a meet-up. Are you talking about meetup.com? I am interested too, but I haven't found anything that piqued my interest. Let me know if you find one. china -> hong kong -> Toronto -> Ottawa -> Plano, TX -> bay area (a few miles south of SF) (hey I didn't know how much detail is appropriate so I listed them all)

how much $ how many sq ft?

Because of him, I realistically expect to beat the market. This is as opposed to most day traders and such who have a delusional belief that they can beat the market.

hi yadayada, I am always trying to get ideas from others' portfolio, but you are really mad about SNMX? why? I just downloaded their 10K and they are losing money, do I have the right company? Why is it so good? thanks

Hi, I had a cursory look at the report and can't see what is special about it. Why is it such a good report? thanks

thanks for livening up my day

Why? Well I don't follow it as much as I use to. But the bottom line is: - profits are at record highs because of $90 / barrel oil, when I first bought it oil was at $30 / barrel - if oil prices drop CVX profits will plummet - I look back at the last 10yrs, thank god I didn't own BP, it wasn't skill that led me to choose CVX and avoid the offshore oil spill - CVX is getting a lot of good press lately about how its return on assets are excellent and how well it is managed - oil is going to be more and more capital intensive and we go to more difficult places to extract it - CVX is large cap, and I am becoming a hard core small cap investor - I expect CVX to perform roughly in line with the market, and I only invest now expecting to beat the market So basically, it is good time to sell off the top.....

+1 thanks!

Not if there is plenty of liquidity to replace it. If my $20.00 bid disappears and is replaced with a $19.98 bid (remember there is always a bid in the market), I'll eat the 0.2% loss. I am not a trader. BTW I really do assume such shenanigans go on, I have much bigger worries. For example, - gas is higher at a pump close to my house, so I have to go farther to get a better price - if I forget my credit card bill, I'll have a $20 late fee - I paid $100 transaction fee for a trade done online, it would have been about $20 if I phoned (go figure!) - etc etc, if we look at the world that way it sure aint fair but there is nothing I can do HOWEVER, the government is sleeping at the wheel if SAC got away with what they did for so long, who knows they may have priced me out of some trades on CSCO or MSFT because they had some inside info!

Thanks for the article, the following is most telling. How HFT has changed the allocation of the pie between various market professionals is hard to say. But there has been one unambiguous winner, the retail investors who trade for themselves. Their small orders are a perfect match for today's narrow bid-offer spread, small average-trade-size market. For the first time in history, Main Street might have it rigged against Wall Street. I just don't see any problems in my orders of large cap trades. If I can buy and stock and instantly sell it, and only lose 0.1% (which I believe is the state of the market today), I think it is a very efficient system. For comparison, imagine you going to a currency exchange kiosk at the airport. If you buy a currency and turn around and sell it back to them, you'll lose at least 10% of your money! Just to put things in perspective. I would think justice is much better served by the government punishing Steven Cohen instead of the people that are the target of this thread, I just can't believe he isn't in jail.

the following video by a Japanese economist really explained things to me:

Very very interesting, I am reading their AR 2013... thanks

While we are on exchanges, I have a slightly off topic questions. The volume that we see quoted on the exchanges for a security... does that include all these ECN trades or is it just those that are traded on the exchange? I admit I only try to understand certain securities but not the mechanisms of trading.....

We all understand the mechanics of being ripped off here. The issue is how much. In your example you are talking about a 1% fee. That is a shock. The way I see it is this: I am a long term investor. Most reasonable investors have turnover of around 25-20% which means we trade every 5yrs. Your 1% which is huge, works out to a fee of 0.2% per year. Still very little compared to a mutual fund fee. But the 1% is a huge stretch still. I look at my trades, a large cap security simple does usually move 1% in a day. Let along in a blick of an eye. I just bought ERUS (a several hundred million ETF), it quoted at 17.75 or some such, and I got it at that price on a market buy, give or take a few pennies. If you are talking about me being taxed 1% it means I / would have to pay 17.93, I mean I would notice if I am paying that much difference. So my point it is just a fraction of a percent, if at all. It is probably happening to big block orders..... so one more reason to avoid hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds..... and 95% of us buy our own securities.....

+1 makes me think putin just wants to preserve power, not world conquest, he isn't hitler.......

If you feel that way then you can make that argument about any situation. Bernie Madoff, Enron etc. I think the original poster is right. Though front running is making tons for a select few they are making a tiny bit off the masses. The victms are probably a huge active mutual fund say. Well most active mutual funds are useless and they charge you say 1.5%. Say your gains are hampered by 0.1%, it is still an order of magnitude less than your fees for useless management. Madoff ruined lives and caused people to commit suicide. Enron did the same. I think we should put things in perspective. I think a single person like Jim Cramer does as much aggregate financial damage to personal wealth as one of those front runners.....

Of course, I hope so, though I don’t know and I cannot say… What I do know is that, after two "valuation peaks" gone extremely bad (2000 and 2007), if we ever learn something, people shouldn’t feel comfortable about being at the peak again! I have written “valuation peaks”, because this has very little to do with macro (I am pretty agnostic about what Mr. Putin in going to do!). Instead, it is a case of prices being out of whack with values once again… And, if we ever learn something, its outcome imo is quite predictable. ;) Cheers, Gio Noooooo, this time it is different! Shiller has not written (and does not plan to) write a 3rd edition of his book Irrational Excuberance, which preceeded each of the last two bubbles....... so we are all cool to keep partying......

What the heck? you mean he got a 75% discount for 3months? How much worth of stocks are were talking about here? I mean who is selling these shares at 75% discount..... can't be too many before the seller(s) figure it out right? My god this is the biggest example of stockmarket inefficiency I have ever heard! That should be the nail in the coffin for EMT.....

Great points, tng. I was starting to think in your way too, but you really solidified my thoughts. I was just thinking is there room for older say 50+ yr old people in tech (computer s/w and h/w). Maybe what I am noticing around me is happening throughout the industry, the average ages in hi tech is getting older.....

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-brutal-ageism My least favorite quote of the entire article, After making computer chips for 15yrs in silicon valley, and just generally getting older, I have found there is no substitute for experience. If you look closely at the world trend, I think you'll find the opposite phenomenon more accurate than what the article says. The world is harder and harder for young people to get ahead. They lack knowledge and experience and blue collar jobs are harder and harder to get and lower and lower paying. The established and experienced can get richer and more successful. The world favours the incumbent. Not necessarily for businesses that emphasize innovation. Young people are "smarter" than older people in specific ways. Think back to when you were 16 and you read something that kept your brain buzzing until you internalized the new thought process. That sensitivity and cognitive agility lessens over time. Of course you pick up other attributes, but those young attributes are especially useful for mold breaking. You may be right about young people being smarter, but that requires a debate on the meaning of smarter. But businesses that emphasize innovation needs young people? Specifically what are we talking about. I really try hard to think of who is innovative? Facebook, I mean step back a bit and call facebook what it really is..... a website and it isn't even the first to make social media or whatever their niche is...... Apple? with Jobs? I mean he was old when Apple introduced iPhone and iPod, and even then those are not innovative, Jobs is a real good salesman and I dunno how to describe it. MSFT? with Gates? DOS or Windows were not innovative, and I am amazed at how it gets us to all use it. I am convinced Intel has to make processors more and more powerful only because Windows is so slow, turn any windows machine into a Linux box and you'll know how inferior it is.... When I think of innovation, I think of maybe people talking at TED, are they all young? Einstein did his most brilliant work in his 20's ok. Black Scholes? The guys who came up with it were all in their 30's at least I believe. I also think of people who invented Ethernet or TCP/IP, but these are all guys sweeting in some university or research lab. They were not led by 20yr old kids. Our society is built on the shoulder of giants, the people who suddenly make a ton of money in business may be some 22yr old who does an IPO, but I hardly think what they do is innovative. They did something cool that caught on... As I get older (in my 40's) I work in places where all my coworkers are above 35...... and we are making the most advanced **whatever(sorry I can't say)** in the world..... I reiterate, the people who control things in our world are mostly old geezers with experience....

ERUS (Russia ETF) :P