Patmo

They probably already were, I doubt this being up on COBF makes a difference...

I'm not great at reading into complex stuff, so I would love to see better investors' inputs on this. What I have so far: -For every 20 share block, you get 5 shares and 4 rights (transferable for a share at about 80% market cost iiuc) of the spinoff. -implied value if exercise: 9/29x16bil total cap (A,B,C)= about $5bilcap for Broadband, 9/29x$47avg pps= $15pps Broadband, excluding the 20ish% discount on rights (tell me if the calcs are on the right track!) -Will borrow $300mil from parent, makes cash payment of $300mil to parent (What's that for?) -Keeps talking about how leveraged the company will be, but is that all there is to it? -I don't know what is par for the course in rights offerings, but upon reading documentation rights appear difficult to exercise. -You get 26% of Charter, 100% of True Position, $3bil in deferred tax assets (vs. about 5bil market cap if every right is exercised?), a small holding in Time Warner Cable, and other unnamed small stuff. -Malone will have at least 45% stake "Charter's primary assets are its equity interests in its subsidiaries. Charter's operating subsidiaries are separate and distinct legal entities and are not obligated to make funds available to their debt issuer holding companies for payments on our notes or other obligations in the form of loans, distributions, or otherwise." -What I get from this is that most of Charter's revs/exps will instead be capitalized on the balance sheet as equity instruments? Additionally, these subs are not under any obligations re: Charter/LibertyBroadband's debt? I don't understand how large a % of Liberty's Broadband this interest is, but behind the prospectus going on and on about how leveraged Broadband will be and this, it looks like a mini version of the spinoff that made Malone famous? Or am I not seeing things correctly?

If you want prices to be irrationally cheap some of the time, you have to have them irrationally expensive some of the time too. It's not like anyone is twisting your hand into buying into those things. Humans are emotional creatures, don't fight it just take advantage of it.

I meant more regarding starting a fund (or other ways to solve the issue) than how to manage the money, but thanks for the suggestion it's not a bad idea. I'm still more comfortable sitting on cash for them, I'm just more comfortable that way, opportunity cost be damned. It's not staying like that forever anyway.

What if you just want to help friends and family without necessarily making a profit? What would the best course of action be? Right now I have 2 family members and 1 friend that asked me to manage part of their money, and I have to meet with them, go into their account together, etc. I'm very prudent with their money and there's not much particularly worth buying or selling so they just have a couple 5% positions and tons of cash right now, so I don't really have to meet with them too often. But it's going to get annoying for me over time, plus they have a life themselves so meeting all the time is just not very practical for any parties. They have each different tax status with their accounts (1 rrsp, 1 tfsa, 1 taxable - in Canada) so I don't know how that would affect anything. Any help would be appreciated, and sorry for kind of taking over.

Short selling is at a low, share repurchases and M&A are at a high, reddit's investing subforum predicts stocks will go up forever... Something somewhere will crap the bed soon, it appears. I sure hope so, I want to load up on some cheap stuff. There's almost nothing that feels like a screaming buy.

Don't come here with your negative energy please. "There is always something to do" as Peter Cundill, a fellow value investor, would say. Please read the above post. YOU TOO can learn to read the market signs. lol, that's what I'm afraid of... :) But can you read the merkhet signs?

The big name gold miners are a joke, last time I checked they were trying to pay themselves fat bonuses for bleeding money. There are a couple picks that I like in the mining space, but from the looks of it nobody gives much of a crap about either of them. To answer no_free_lunch, my personal pick for "best in class" is Mandalay Resources. I made a quick writeup on the company but it didn't generate much interest. Probably because my writeup sucked, lol :-[. I suggest you look into it (the company not the writeup). This company doesn't actually issue equity out their asses to fund their operations/expansion, which puts them on top of 99% of small miners with this one fact alone.

If you hold the eventual spin-offs, probably GOOG.