WolfOfMainStreet

This is great. He presents the information with limited commentary, I subscribed. I'm looking for something exactly like this for the rest. Patmo thanks for yours too.

I'm not exposed to enough accounting and (somewhat unbiased) economic news as I'd like. Inevitably, the way we record financial information and general economic trends affect our rough estimate of intrinsic value for most companies. This board has several great discussions about some of these topics but I'm looking for a news source that comes out periodically. I read Bloomberg Businessweek on a weekly basis but it doesn't cover those topics as much as I'd like. So sum up here's what I'm looking for: Accounting -What new standards and rules are coming out? -What rules/standards are being proposed and how far long are they in the process? -Are there any major shifts in recording data under the current rules? For example, are lots of companies in industry "x" going from LIFO to FIFO? Economics/Broad Finance -Reader's digest version of BLS, Fed, and ECB releases. -What's going on in banking that matters? New rules, regulations, structural shifts, etc. -What's going on with LBOs, M&As, VC firms, bankruptcies and other financial transactions? Are they moving to larger or smaller companies? Are they moving into specific industries? I know that some of these points are pretty broad. I'm not looking for just two periodical information sources. I want things that will hit on these main points but won't be 500+ pages of reading per week. Right now I'm finding bits of pieces of information on these from various major sources (WSJ, Businessweek, Economist, FT, etc.) but I have no stable news sources that repeatedly hit on these points. Thank you!

Evidence is anecdotal. But a lot of these activities are centered around the idea of synergy, aka job cuts. The hope is capital created this way may find its way into creating more productive activity. Nobody really tabulates statistics in this fashion, but the creative destruction process works in mysterious ways. On the margin, he could be correct. So to sum up and to add a bit on: Here's what I think about when he says "borrowing from the future" in regards to these activities. As interest rates remain low for a prolonged period these synergy activities will trickle down to smaller firms, e.g. 1435 announced M&A deals below $100m for 2015. Some of these bankers/managers are not the best capital allocators. Usually these firms are too small to move the needle. However, in the aggregate and over a longer time period they'll get too irresponsible with the capital/job cuts enough to move the needle. To compound their troubles, a raise in interest rates will raise the payments on the floating rate portion of their debt. I'm using size here as a proxy for capital irresponsibility but there's probably a better metric. Sound about right? MA_Trends_From_SP_Capital_IQ_Global_Markets_Intelligence_-__3-31-2015.pdf

Does anyone have any data that supports his claim that lots of debt is used for job destructive LBOs/M&As? I was just talking about this with a friend of mine. If these financial moves cut jobs significantly on average then aggregate demand will go down and the LBO/M&A return would be affected as well. Kind of like a double edged sword beyond some threshold.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Thought you guys might appreciate this: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://64.62.200.70/PERIODICAL/PDF/Munseys-1920feb/45-55/

This is awesome

Allan Mecham is now in IBKR: http://whalewisdom.com/filer/arlington-value-capital-llc

Gio and cubs thanks this is exactly what I was looking for! Any other input is greatly appreciated.

Hey all, A good friend of mine is looking to open a business but he has no knowledge of finance/accounting. I convinced him to take the time to read a few books to at least get a basic working knowledge of business before any money leaves his pocket. Does anybody know a good book for beginning business owners that has lots of practical accounting and financial knowledge? Looking for something that's not too long written in plain simple to understand English. The book doesn't have to be elaborate, just very practical. I will fill in any of the gaps if he has specific questions but I don't want to teach him everything from assets to managing cash flows. Thanks

I think with a 1000$ you should aim to have one or two positions so that frictions costs are tolerable. I would suggest 50% index fund (S&P 500) and another stock. Aim to keep the S&P500 long term (10Y) and the stock medium term (3-5Y). The good news is that a 1000$ any major mistakes will be offset by your new savings. As your nest egg gets bigger you increase the amount of positions to your desired level (10 maybe?). As for the broker choice, take a broker that does not charge monthly fees. With that amount the fees would eat into your savings quite fast. One thing that is important is to no be trigger happy, friction fees will be running in the 1-2% for each transaction which will kill any outperformance. Forget dividends, and focus on capital appreciation, do you really care about those 30$ in dividends? It's not like you need it to live on right. Ah yes, don't forget that your risk tolerance is whatever does not make you lose sleep at night! BeerBaron Thanks! Sounds like a good idea. Just curious, what broker do you use? Anyone have specific cheap ones that they've used for a while?

I am willing to tolerate risk if the price is right. These $1,000 are the bulk of my savings which I want to worry the least about. I have a couple of hundred that I will definitely invest on different ideas of mine to get more experience with capital appreciation. I'm cool with losing the couple of hundred but I still need the bulk of the $1,000 in case I need cash. Also, what's the absolute cheapest online broker you guys know of? If the trading fees are low enough I might consider using some of the $1,000 on my own ideas as well because otherwise the brokerage fees are too much. I'm not cool with paying $10 to buy and another $10 to sell a $100 position. My capital needs to appreciate by 20% just to break even.

Hello all, Looking to finally throw my savings into the market. I'm looking for a no-load no minimum amount investment fund. Looking for something adequately diversified (stocks, bonds, international) that has a long track record for stable returns. I want to be able to beat out inflation after taxes so the fund needs to have at least a 5% annual dividend. Also, I am looking for the cheapest online broker that will do this for me. I have only $1,000 to invest so trading fees need to be pretty low. Anyone have some great funds out there? Looking for input from long time share holders. Thanks :)

McKinsey's Valuation interests me... I've read a few reviews on Amazon, but I'd love to get your opinion (or anyone else here who has read it) on why you think it's good and useful, and the kind of stuff that it does well. Is the thinking in the book directly compatible with value investing, or is it more general tools that you can then try to transpose to a different approach? Has anyone read Investment Valuation by Damodaran? Seems like another interesting one. McKinsey's book changed the way I thought about business performance. The book clearly articulated the rationale for ROIC, and, more importantly, understanding invested capital from both a financing and operating perspective. Further, the book clearly articulated the link between ROIC and FCF generation. It has the flaws of any academic finance book (building capital costs using the accepted methodologies), but if I had to recommend one book, and one book only, it'd probably be this one. Now that I've just written this, I realized I gave my copy to a colleague/friend, but I don't recall who. This is a problem. Thanks, sounds like all the stuff I was looking for. When you said it's flawed in the sense of building capital costs using the accepted methodologies do you mean CAPM and WACC? What would you say gets over these flaws? Also I found it here: http://upload.studwork.org/order/9056/Valuation__Measuring_and_Managing_the_Value_of_Companies__5th_Edition__University_Edition_.pdf

Happy birthday and a happy Fourth of July! Thanks for your work with this fantastic forum

What are your opinions on McKinsey vs. Damodaran (general differences)? If you had to pick one starting out which would you go with and why? Just by glancing over the contents I am getting a feeling that Damodaran lays out the different valuation models and where to use what. It also looks like McKinsey builds on the idea of value and then branches off from there. Did I get that about right? Also, what models do you use more often? Thanks in advance, trying to build a good reading list for my weekends during the semester. I go nuts if I don't read a couple hundred pages of something every week :) P.S. McKinsey's latest version is 2010 and Damodaran is 2012, I know the meat of the text probably hasn't changed much but maybe some of the post recession examples have. Has anyone read the most recent editions of each? Any notable differences?