kiwing100

For those of you who read the memos of Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/economic-reality.pdf

Many thanks to you for sharing.

For all you Buffett watchers ... FYI **Warren Buffett will be on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday, May 2nd 6AM-9AM ET. Charlie Munger, Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and Bill Gates, Microsoft Founder & Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will join from 8-9am ET.

Oddball, do you have favorite books on failure you'd like to recommend? Billion Dollar Lessons, anything about Enron, When Genius Failed, The Match King, Invisible Giants (Van Sweringen Brothers book, very off the radar, engaging book) I'd add "Fools Rush In" as a great case study of the disastrous Time Warner/AOL merger. The personalities are fascinating. Oddball, Studying failure is great, fun, interesting and you learn what areas to avoid in the investment world. My bookshelf is littered with books on company failures, investment failures and personal bankruptcies and I collect news stories of such failures. As Charlie Munger says, "tell me where I'm going to die so I won't go there" - classic Jakobi inversion - if you know how to lose money, then you stay away from those areas. By only studying success, you overlook what can go wrong. Klarman and Berkowitz focus on what can go wrong before what can go right. I've heard Berkowitz say that they try and kill the company in his investment thesis before he invests Warren Buffett's favourite business book was "Business Adventures" - it is a great read for investors and is a collection of stories - there's a story about business group think, cornering the stock market, currency peg devaluation. They've reprinted the book recently so you can get a copy. Here is an article from Bill Gates on the book. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gatess-and-buffetts-favorite-business-book-is-out-of-print-2014-07-17 Quote from Berkowitz interview: What is your strategy for the fund? If I was to build a stock screen like Bruce Berkowitz, what would it look like? We start with this basis: The only thing you can spend is cash. We want companies that generate significant cash in most times. That is how we start. We don’t care much about what they make, but we have to understand it. The balance sheet has to be strong; we want to make sure there are no tricks in the accounting. Then we try and kill the company. We think of all the ways the company can die, whether it’s stupid management or overleveraged balance sheets. If we can’t figure out a way to kill the company, and its generating good cash even in difficult times, then you have the beginning of a good investment.

For those of you interested in Howard Marks, just stumbled onto this, haven't seen it shared, so here you go. It came out a few days after his memo in January. https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/what-does-the-market-know.pdf

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/29/live-blog-3-hours-with-warren-buffett.html

It's out - http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2015ltr.pdf

FYI, just read a news article that WEB's annual letter is due out this weekend.

For those of us who do not know, could you tell us what is the situation that you allude to with respect to Mohnish Pabrai? Thank you in advance for your insight.

https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/on-the-couch.pdf?sfvrsn=4

Thank you for sharing.

http://english.caixin.com/2015-07-16/100829521.html

"With 701 stocks halted on mainland exchanges and at least another 1,240 falling by the 10 percent daily limit, sellers were locked out of about 67 percent of the Chinese market." Full article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-15/china-s-stock-futures-fall-before-economic-growth-data

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-08/this-is-why-so-many-chinese-companies-are-suspended

Just heard on Bloomberg There is a restriction on the number of index futures which can be short sold in China. This has the impact of long selling of stocks by hedge funds as they can no long hedge out their market risk ...

Was listening to a Bloomberg news report from a reporter on the ground in Athens, yesterday. A couple of interesting comments. The reporter noted some behaviour by Greeks given current circumstances; 1. Some Greeks are maxing out their credit cards and buying TV's, electronic items (perhaps in fear that these imported items will become more expensive if Greece leaves single currency). It seems that they believe that if the Greek banks go bankrupt, or if Greece leaves the Euro single currency, they believe that they will not have to pay the amount back to the bank ... (or to offset against their bank balance which they are unable to currently access) 2. Greeks are buying Rolexes, jewellery as a store of value, in the event that Greece leaves the single currency union.

Also I suppose if you own shares in a company that has halted trading, then you sell your other shares that are still trading. If you have a margin call, and need to put up more cash to maintain your position, and you don't have any spare cash and the only way to raise cash is to sell your shares, then this is even more urgent to sell your shares.

The figures just got bigger ...US$2.2trn of market cap affected or 33% of the market cap of the entire market ... This news itself could be fueling sales by investors / speculators for fear of being unable to sell their shareholdings in case their stocks are halted in trading ... (akin to a bank run where you fear that you are unable to get your money out of your bank, so you take it out in case) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-08/china-trade-halts-hit-2-2-trillion-as-state-intervention-fails

Some unusual things can happen in public markets. The 2 statistics that are incredible is 21% of market cap and and the value of stocks affected of US$1.4 trn .. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/chinese-trading-halts-freeze-1-4-trillion-of-shares-amid-rout

http://www.oaktreecapital.com/MemoTree/Risk%20Revisited%20Again.pdf

Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting: 64 Q&As - http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/05/berkshire-hathaway-2015-notes/99999/

FYI, Just saw that Buffett will be on CNBC with Becky Quick on Monday from 6:00-9:00 NY time.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ONE/15660259x0x820077/8af78e45-1d81-4363-931c-439d04312ebc/JPMC-AR2014-LetterToShareholders.pdf

Link to CNBC videos http://www.cnbc.com/id/102549930

Thank you very much JBird for sharing your audio file.