Parsad

Just have to listen to Munger's lessons on cognitive biases. In this case, incentive bias. Clooney doesn't star in the "safe" movies (ex: the mediocre action movies guaranteed to draw an audience) easy money makers. Loeb wants Sony to make more of those movies and take less risk, which would reduce opportunities for Clooney. Not very surprising that Clooney is against it, even though he is typically a lot smarter than that. The model is changing, and Loeb has no clue what he is talking about either. Safe movies like John Carter, RIPD or Lone Ranger? Huge bombs! Studios are going to put themselves in a more precarious position by taking huge chances on massive concentrated bets as Spielberg alluded to. How did the Weinstein's build Miramax on independents if that doesn't work as Loeb is trying to say? Take a look at the numbers for the last five years. Sony is having a tougher 2013, but was leading the market in 2012, and was up there in previous years. Loeb's job is to point out short-term deficiencies to make his case...as most activists do. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/?view=company&view2=yearly&yr=2013&p=.htm Cheers!

Paranormal Activity cost $3M to make and made over $80M. Argument goes both ways. Tyler Perry's movies cost about $12-25M to make and generally gross 3-4 times that catering to the black audience. I think Hollywood operates like the financial industry...you have jackasses of all levels making stupid decisions, and then you have a handful of people who make good decisions and actually make money. How the hell did RIPD get made? Cheers!

Alfred Fell, Goldman's longest-serving employee at 98! Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meet-the-man-who-has-worked-at-goldman-for-80-years-150407976.html

Hi Folks, Just a heads up that the site is going to be updated sometime tonight...most likely! ;D So if the site is down for a few hours, you know why. There will be very minor cosmetic changes on the message board, but the homepage will be revamped to match the message board. I will have a couple of new things on the homepage...a section with value investing-related videos, an area where industry/employment-related postings will be put up (already getting requests from people to post stuff on there), and a small section to showcase anything boardmembers may want to publish...a sort of soundoff section. There will also be a live feed to new threads on the message board. These are minor improvements, and I'll continue to make changes over time. I'd like to thank Paul Clerc and his team at Watermelon Webworks for the time and effort they put in to doing these upgrades. Paul's a hard-core value investor, and I was very fortunate to stumble across him and have him take over the site's support and service. They do great work, so if you aren't happy with your IT guy, send him an email at paul@watermelonwebworks.com. Cheers and thanks!

Not sure if you guys have seen this video, but it's of Aaron Paul and how he came down from his house and greeted a bunch of fans in a tour bus. Buffett has a knack for finding good people, or making the people around him better human beings. Paul is probably one of the nicer guys in Hollywood, and a terrific actor to boot! Cheers! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/celebrity-news-video/10213420/Breaking-Bad-star-Aaron-Paul-meets-and-greets-Irish-fans-outside-his-home.html

For the last year, I've watched as China's government PMI numbers differ wildly from HSBC's PMI numbers. They were pretty similar going up, so how are they so different going down? Hmmm! Cheers! http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/01/uk-china-economy-pmihsbc-idUKBRE97002420130801

Part of my thought process related to continued growth in Mongolia is guided by Rio Tinto's continued investment in the Oyu Tolgoi mine as a recent Bloomberg article noted a potential further $5.1b investment which will presumably flow through Mongolia's economy ((http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-24/oyu-tolgoi-ceo-said-to-step-down-in-november-after-term-ends.html)). I think that is equivalent to about 50% or a bit more of their current GDP. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/resource-rich-mongolia-an-outpost-of-the-wild-wild-east/article13531356/ Kupperman's presentation provided an estimate of GDP growth of $5b to $50b between 2010-20 which is really difficult for me to wrap my head and I don't know if I necessarily buy into those estimates. Would like to see those estimates and how they were calculated...the range is enormous! Hopefully, their required rate of return for their projects substantially exceeds what one could earn when sticking cash in a local Mongolian bank with interest rates of 10-15% p.a. I'm just wondering how those banks afford to pay those rates. Rates rise but currency depreciates. Hmmm. The current YAK strategy suggests that ongoing operations will be funded by rent collected from the prime retail properties while the construction of high-rise commercial buildings will take longer to come to fruition. More value will presumably be created in re-development so I agree it is a reasonable strategy to patiently watch the ticker price while also watching for tangible developments on that side of the business and the evolving economic situation in China. That real estate will be worth a lot more in the long-term...maybe 15-20 years from now. I'm in the camp that in the short-term, it's going to be worth ALOT less. Be careful! China has popped...but can they keep pumping air in to keep the balloon afloat? Cheers!

LOL! Should have picked "NOEMISHN" or "0TO60N4". I'm sure the boardmembers will have other suggestions. Cheers!

...you would think that with the HLF debacle he would learn to just do things quietly. now that he has established his position at lower prices, he is "inviting" the herd to come in and drive the price up to counter his losses in hlf. I wonder what his record would be if he did not have the access to the media that he does? Well any rational person would assume this type of behavior is illegal...but apparently not! Cheers!

Sure, I know you can do it, but it's still fun to watch. I remember in grade 12 I had to write my provincial exam for biology. I had not studied the months leading up to it, and it was going to be worth 50% of my mark. I memorized my entire text book verbatim in two nights, wrote the exam, and had one of the highest scores in the province. Cheers!

I believe at Overstock's team meeting one morning in the last couple of weeks. I believe Mohnish can do this as well, as he once told me he could count cards. Looks like Patrick's lost some weight as well. Cheers! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S9cjzlQLq8

Having lived thru' the Yahoo:FFH msg board (2002-03) and (2005-06), the short cabal is no conspiracy theory. I have personally locked horns with some of the posters(not unlike Sanjeev) executing the attack on FFH. There was near perfect correlation between the rumour mongering, extreme short interest and a depressed FFH stock price. It turned out well for us as we bought and held on to the stock but it took FFH lawsuit to stop all of this. They were not going to stop otherwise. Although I've not owned other stocks which were short attacked to oblivion, the central question that deepcapture poses is what gives these hedgies the hellish right to do this? Byrne and deepcapture have been ignored, made to look like idiots in the public eye but it turns out that just about everything they alleged is turning out to be true! No, this is no bedtime story at all, it is a shame it took 10 plus years to get to this point. More people would be sleeping well without reading bedtime books had the regulators acted sooner on the deepcapture expose! Byrne is a hero. Prem has too much class to put an ad out like that, but I'm glad Patrick doesn't! ;D Especially after all the shit that they went through (1/3rd their own doing, 2/3rds the miscreants). In Patrick's case, because he was so vocal about it, they made him out to be a complete idiot. Remember, this is a man who was so adamant that SAC was corrupt, that he got into an argument with his own father because he thought he was doing the right thing. Perhaps a little misguided, as the business suffered because of the crusade, but true to form, he was fighting a much bigger fight like he always has his whole life. Almost everything he's said...from the effects of naked short-selling to the corruption in the financial industry and co-opted journalists, analysts and portfolio managers has come true. I remember watching CNBC about three years back, and that idiot Joe Kernen, along with David Faber and sweathog Herb Greenberg, were doing a hatchet job on Byrne and Overstock. I remember Kernen and Faber's actual comments..."Is Byrne even relevant anymore...is he still around? Is Overstock.com around? I think they're finished." They were pissed off because Byrne had said that there was a fax machine at CNBC head office that receives faxes directly from Cohen. Who would have believed it then, and who wouldn't believe it today after the attorney general has put a bounty on SAC's head! Byrne doesn't always have the right delivery, nor is he the greatest orator of all time, but the man puts his neck on the line for a fight, and I couldn't agree more with longinvestor...Byrne is a hero today...a crazy ass hero who knows no bounds, but a hero nonetheless! Cheers!

Thanks G2! I don't know Kuppy, but I've known Jordan for about 8 years...he is a good guy. Lots of potential in what they are doing, but a fair amount of risk, as Mongolia goes the way China goes. If China continues to thrive for the next 20 years, Mongolia will pan out like they expect. Although, I suspect we may see a short-term hiccup on the way to China's rise. I have not had any faith in China's finances for years, and I'm not about to start now. I think everything was built on easy credit, and the bubble is enormous. They are rich enough to float the bubble for a while, but at some point the easy credit will stop and so will the music. You are seeing pains on the developer side. That's where the bubble bursting impacts first. Then you start to see liquidity dry up as the easy credit slows, while debt ratios remain high. Finally, the off-balance sheet liabilities start to appear...who owes who money, and exactly how levered were they. Then it hits the corporations, and finally the consumer. We are still early...liquidity is drying up, credit is tightening, while the government tries to loosen the purse strings to create a soft landing. Hard to create a soft landing when you were flying at 20,000 feet and the plane is dropping like a rock. We'll see what happens, but I suspect the U.S. is going to have to keep the global economy alive as others falter...and exactly how that happens when the tap turns off is beyond me! Cheers!

Incidentally, there is a whole host of others that need to be taken down as well...including a well-known short-seller who made certain proclamations at the very first Value Investing Conference (the reason I will never attend one again in my life) and another well-known "value manager" who were part of the cabal against Fairfax. Not to mention the Three Stooges (A, C & W)...you can guess by the last name initials, who endlessly barraged OSTK with negative articles and attacks. Miscreants one and all who should join Cohen on the funeral pyre! Cheers!

I read this yesterday. Sad and stupid! Cheers!

I'm taking the higher road like Prem, but I'm screaming with laughter inside! Nice one Patrick. Cheers!

We're all cheering on the inside! We'd be cheering on the outside if the government would somehow seize all of his assets. This guy will just become another Milken when he gets out. Do your time and then come out and show the world what a great guy you are, while the snake oil salesmen personality is never too far away. Same thing with Sam Antar. How many people at the SEC listen to him? Yet this is one carnivorous bastard who keeps plugging along embracing his convicted felon moniker. How about fan favorite Jim Cramer, who somehow shaped himself into the Louis C. K. of business! These assholes always come out on top, unless you take away their money and influence. The government doesn't seem to ever go far enough! Cheers! Why should the government take the money? It wasn't the government these people got their money from. Why is it not possible for these people to be sued into the poorhouse by their victims? Hi Rkbabang, I wasn't stipulating who should get it, only that it doesn't remain in the crook's hands. I'm more than happy to see it return to those that were hurt. Cheers!

These guy's have a good idea, but I've never understood what their plan is. All I know is that they are trying to capitalize on Mongolia's growth...the rest has been a bit haphazard. I suspect the losses from the insurance business are obscuring the results from the real estate business. Insurance is not easy from both a statistical and marketing perspective, and probably even more difficult in a region where no one has really ever bought it before and has no historical record of insurance losses. Lastly, if China slows...what happens to that real estate portfolio if prices fall drastically? Smart guys, so I'm sure they have already thought these things through. From a management point of view, I would also suggest that Kuppy write just quarterly or semi-annually. Too much information for investors and shareholders, so it looks like they are constantly changing strategies in a very short period of time. Run the company, make money, build equity and then worry about providing updates. I have to give them all the praise in the world for their compensation structure though. Kuppy and Jordan get paid nothing, and director's fees, etc are all well under their peers. Good luck to them in the new frontier! Cheers!

I take it back! Maybe Preet Bharara is different than what we've seen in the past. He's going after any and all SAC assets, including Cohen's! I'm cheering both on the inside and outside now T-bone! Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/100915672

We're all cheering on the inside! We'd be cheering on the outside if the government would somehow seize all of his assets. This guy will just become another Milken when he gets out. Do your time and then come out and show the world what a great guy you are, while the snake oil salesmen personality is never too far away. Same thing with Sam Antar. How many people at the SEC listen to him? Yet this is one carnivorous bastard who keeps plugging along embracing his convicted felon moniker. How about fan favorite Jim Cramer, who somehow shaped himself into the Louis C. K. of business! These assholes always come out on top, unless you take away their money and influence. The government doesn't seem to ever go far enough! Cheers!

Links guys! Copyrighted stuff will be deleted if I see it. Cheers!

Coincidence? I think not! Paul was on the front lines with the whole short attack and ensuing lawsuit. The best story I have about all of that was I received a subpoena from Fairfax's attorney, Kasowitz Benson, because I had bought the www.premwatsa.com domain name when it became available. Kasowitz Benson thought that it was still under the control of whichever hedgie had put up that attack website. I had to call Paul up and say, I bought the domain name when it became available, so that no one could put up another website...but that they could have the domain name if they wanted. He said, "Oh geez sorry, I'll take care of it!" And that was that...no more subpoena and the beginning of a friendship...plus I got to keep the domain name! Cheers!

Congratulations to Paul on becoming President of Fairfax! I've had the pleasure of dealing with Paul on numerous occasions, including our annual dinners, and he's a terrific, passionate, talented individual who loves his job and Fairfax! Great choice! Cheers! http://www.fairfax.ca/news/press-releases/press-release-details/2013/Fairfax-Financial-Holdings-Limited-Executive-Announcement/default.aspx

Eric you need to write a book or start your own show. Too much great information! Cheers!

No, unfortunately not this time. If I had held all of my OSTK from a year ago, not including the options, I would have made 7 times my money...and it was a big position. Unfortunately, we average in and we average out. And we were out in the very high 20's...with an average out much lower in the high teens...our cost was just under $6, so I'm not crying. And then there were those options! ;D I'm happy for Patrick, Jonathan and everyone who works, supports or has shares in Overstock.com. It's been a tough road, not unlike Fairfax's "seven lean years". Today "Tinfoil hat Byrne" is worth a huge fortune again, many of his critics have been weeded out as frauds, hucksters, shills or even worse, and his company is consistently making profits which almost everyone doubted would ever happen! One noted coincidence between Fairfax's revival and Overstock's triumphant return...both occurred within a couple of years of Sam Mitchell joining their boards! May be a coincidence or may be something else...take it whichever way you want! Cheers!