Parsad

I started this thread based on some comments by Txlaw on the Microsoft thread. Feel free to chime in. In regards to DELL, I see how cheap the stock is on an enterprise level, especially based on the amount of cash in the company above and beyond what would be required for payables. But what competitive advantages do you see with DELL? I'm one of those guys that believes owning the software platform has more of a competitive advantage than the hardware side. Cheers!

Tx, I would like to hear more from you on Dell, as well as anyone else that is long on Dell. I'll start another thread and we can post on there. I have no stake in Dell, but am intrigued by what everyone is seeing, including Fairfax. I see the value (especially in light of all that cash), but I have difficulty seeing the moat. Cheers!

Thanks! Nice to see stuff on the great insurance executives at Fairfax. Good article! Cheers!

I agree with you with regard to the board but whats your take on the LVLT issue. I don't think there would be a LVLT issue, if you didn't have a couple of hard-core LVLT shareholders posting on LVLT all the time. When Prem, Longleaf and Berkshire bought LVLT debt a few years ago, I didn't hear anyone complaining then, as it was discussed quite a bit. People never complain if they like the idea...only once they become annoyed and aren't enamored by it. While LVLT discussion should probaby be kept to the LVLT thread, the current post by Ben Graham was actually related to Howard Marks. So if you ban that, do you ban any other holdings that Mark's owns and someone else posts about? As I mentioned, users have the ability to ignore a post. Those that receive RSS Feed, choose to do so because they don't want to visit the board. But there is no filter on RSS Feed, thus you get all the posts you aren't interested in. Again, it's a choice. I can't ban one group because they like LVLT, yet allow others to post endlessly on another subject...FBK comes to mind...even the MSFT post is getting pretty damn long too. As long as people are courteous and it is somewhat related, I'm not going to censor people. It takes all kinds, and this board is as much a jumble of personalities as anywhere else. Cheers!

I'm surprised that nobody complained about the whistles. Boston shouldn't have been in the finals IMO. Tampa's game 7 had no whistles either and their special teams are more solid than Boston's. Take the power play out of the games for the most part and you have a huge advantage to the team with the weaker special team play. That's very true! Unfortunately, sometimes the refs do put the whistle away, and teams have to change their game plan. Both Tampa and Vancouver couldn't overcome those issues. Although, let's give Boston credit on the defensive end. How many shots did their players block? The put a stranglehold on the two most potent powerplays in the league in back to back series. The Sedins and Kesler had plenty of chances, but in close, Boston was doing everything they could to clear the puck. Their forwards were also doing a great job defensively. We'll see them again, and we'll beat them next time! Cheers!

Ben. Although we've rarely interacted, I appreciate your board input and share your opinion. I have removed this board from my RSS reader and only visit on rare occasions. The quality of the CB&F board has degraded so significantly that I'm now focused on a high quality private board with some other folks that don't post as often here. The ongoing analysis of FFH here is 2nd to none, but quality drops off rapidly on everything else. Hi Omagh, That's too bad. The board usually goes through some upheaval every couple of years with new members joining and others leaving. We are in that transitory period over the last few months, and I suspect as usual the board will continue to function. We've had many great posters leave, and we've had many great ones come on board. The internet is a vast source of knowledge, and different aspects of it will appeal to different people. As always, the board is here to serve the users, and the doors remain open for those that have left. It couldn't be as bad as you say, since Prem reads it every day! ;D Cheers!

Kinect technology will be used to get there: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015343377_microsoftkinect17.html. I also saw some demos of Microsoft research in terms of user interface for the future and it is really cool. Microsoft's pipeline is really very rich right now and it covers all areas where Microsoft has to meet competition. I cannot wait to not only see it deployed but also to find out all cross-applications that they will create and push from all this (like the Comcast + Skype deal). I agree. They are finally on the right track, and realize they have to work quickly. Windows adapted and it is much more user-friendly, but they had to go through the mistake of Vista to get to Windows 7. Same thing with gaming. They've had to make similiar mistakes in mobile and tablets, and they will get better. But their competitors are moving very quickly, so they will have to do the same. RIMM may end up being the next odd man out...just too slow getting their technology out, and are falling behind. RIMM's still making money, but the moat is diminishing quickly. Microsoft does not want to go that route. Cheers!

Bloomberg did a very good story on Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-17/biggest-distressed-debt-investor-marks-europe-after-22-years-of-19-return.html

There are 3 companies that reportedly have over a million servers in data centers. Amazon, Google, and you guessed it.. Microsoft. If anything I would say Apple is the company that's bringing up the rear when it comes to cloud computing... They are bringing up the rear, but they actually have the most intuitive appliances to take advantage of the cloud. If Microsoft or Google could achieve the same user experience with Windows or Android, then that would be very different. They are getting much better, but still have a ways to go. Cheers!

Really surprised at Ryan Kessler...he was money for the Canucks, game in and game out, for most all of the year and for most of the playoffs. Not sure how/why, but was a statistical non-factor against the Bruins. Kesler had a severe groin-related injury. He was being shot up with pain killers before every game since the early part of the San Jose series. Agreed that Kevin Bieksa would be a good captain...heckuva player. Bieksa would make a good captain. So would a number of other players on the Canucks...Kesler, Hamhuis, Malhotra, Daniel Sedin. Thing is, Henrik was actually a great captain. The guy wins the Art Ross and Hart without his brother, and then his brother wins the Art Ross the next year and is nominated for the Hart. Plus both of them stick around for all of the media questions, they are great with the fans and city, and take all the blame for the loss...Henrik actually said to the media (to deflect questions about Luongo) by saying if you are going to blame anyone, blame him and Daniel. He played hurt from the middle of the Nashville series, and when the media asked what was wrong with him, he said "nothing except a scoring slump!" Classy guy! Cheers!

Overall entertaining playoffs. Sanj, at least you are not a long suffering leaf fan like myself. I felt good for Tim Thomas-what a great story-not making it til he was 30+ yo-playing at such an elite level. I think Canucks need just a little more grit. I think this past experience itself will make them grittier. I think we will see them go far in playoffs again. Happy for Thomas and Vancouver-boy Lucic, but can you believe Kaberle is now a Stanley Cup champion! ;D Canucks should have really stuck to their goalie rotation they used during the regular season. Luongo is very emotional, and when the pressure is on, he has a tough time dealing with it if it is all on his shoulders. If they had put Schneider in each game after a loss, and then rotated Luongo back in, he would have played better. But unfortunately, coaches like to ride their horse during the playoffs, and that's not always the best thing for the player. Cheers!

No, actually I thought there would be a riot. A small one if they won, and a big one if they lost. You could see the anticipation and tension downtown. All you need is a handful of morons to get the fire lit, and the mobs join in. The crowds downtown were immense each home game, and they had one-tenth of the security presence they had during the Olympics. You knew something would happen. It's a disgrace, and I hope they catch all these yahoos from all the video recordings. Cheers!

We've had a number of new members join the board in the last year, and I've noticed a signficant deterioration in board courtesy and conduct. I would appreciate if board members conducted themselves in a manner that encourages intelligent dialogue and debate, without callous dismissal or ridicule of other members. No one is forcing any member to read all threads, posts or ideas. If there is something that is not to your liking, please feel free to ignore...a retort is not required. Those issues that interest you, please feel free to engage participants. Thanks! Sanjeev

The better team showed up for the last game. Canucks...pretty much every player...played well below their abilities. Kudos to Thomas - great and classy goalie! Currently riots, car burnings and looting in progress through the downtown core. Probably leftover muckrakers from the WTO meeting a few years ago! It was a great season, but the boys just fell a bit short. We'll be back in the hunt next year! Cheers!

What was so good about it? The man just regurgitated what's been known for a long time about housing increasing with inflation (common sense should have told you this if you hadn't seen the long known data) and the 5th grade notion that all data points can't be above the average. I think Ben Graham covered that obvious one many years ago. I got that far then tuned out when he mentioned homeowners having a means to buy protection for home price decline. Price is a function of leverage if leverage exist in a system. The more leverage the higher the correlation, that is until it all collapses of it's own weight. In the old days they wanted 20 percent down, that was to protect the banker, and he went further than that, he wanted to see that you saved it over time. He looked back over your bank records to see this. No gift from mommy and daddy and no one time windfall. So somebody actually put up a sizable portion of the purchase from hard earned savings and how do you think their thinking on price differed from those with no money down or money from somebody else's hard work? So much noise and slop, why post this? Shiller is Of a class that can offer no insight. DW David, did someone force you to watch the interview? Did you pay to use this site? If you don't like a specific subject matter, feel free to ignore it. This board has operated very well for nine years, and I personally don't have time to listen to someone tell me I'm wasting their time, when I run this for free. There are plenty of other message boards where that sort of attitude (read "noise and slop") may be appreciated, but this isn't one of them.

Good interview with Robert Shiller. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/shiller-housing-could-fall-another-25-harder-predict-112122844.html;_ylt=AmgMkAgsg3qL_ldJ8HNKs9G7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2cDA3MTM0BHBvcwMxMQRzZWMDdG9wU3RvcmllcwRzbGsDc3RvY2tzYXJlNDBv?sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=

Actually a 3 leg stool is technically better then a 4 leg more. A 3 leg stool will never wobble.. Ah Beerbaron, that explains it! I totally misunderstood. Chanos doesn't wobble! ;D Cheers!

I think you misunderstand. The difference between Chanos and yourself is that he is offering a very specific product as opposed to someone like yourself who is driven purely by generating an overall return. His speciality is being short, and he does that extremely well, outperforming the market by 7-8%. For example, if you had the wherewithal to have been invested in him in 2007, you would probably have outperformed the market by 100% in the next two years. Actually, I think it's the other way around. To put this as simply as I can, I think Chanos' product is redundant. If you view his results long-term, then any investor would have been better off buying T-bills. If you view his returns short-term, then there are other products that do just as well a job, at a much more efficient price. There is no need in the industry for a short-only hedge fund. His outperforming his peers by 7-8% is the same as a stool with only three legs...much better than a stool with only two legs, but do you still really want to sit on it? Wherewithal be damned! Cheers!

This is not accurate. Take a long investor in ETFs who decides to hedge his position with a 100% short. If he uses Chanos (who earns 1% p.a. after costs, roughly), his total return would be the long ETF return + 1%. If he goes with your method of buying ETFs, his return will be the long ETF return - the cost of the ETF puts. My guess is that cost of the ETF puts would leave the long investor with a return that is less than the risk-free rate of return. This makes sense intuitively - otherwise, we would have found the solution to alchemy by creating a riskless return. This is the reason why Chanos exists and his business model works. In my former example, the investor has enhanced his returns while at the same time significantly reducing his volatility. Oec, my point was that Chanos existence is moot. The same investor could have gotten better results than being long the ETF and long Chanos, by simply being long the ETF and holding the same capital allocated to Chanos in a T-bill! You can carve up the turkey any way you want, but it's still a turkey. Cheers!

Fairfax filed a 13D/A stating that they do not own any more ICO. Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915191/000095012311058964/o71676sc13dza.htm

Parsad why do I feel the forces of evil are alive and well and up to their old tricks. Because there is just too much money involved. You'll never be able to get rid of it, but at least regulators can do enough to prevent systemic risk if they really want to. Cheers!

New updated website for purchasing Berkshire apparel. Thanks to Shai for pointing it out! Cheers! http://www.berkshirewear.com/

Thanks David! I think it's going to be one helluva game. The city is freaking out with anticipation. Win or lose, there is going to be a riot! Hopefully, things remain as jovial and calm as they were after the Gold medal game last year. Cheers!

Excellent article by the Economist on the number of fail to delivers. Cheers! http://www.economist.com/node/18774844

Here's a nice little article on Warren's grandson, Howard Buffett. Cheers! http://blogs.forbes.com/clareoconnor/2011/06/14/names-you-need-to-know-howard-buffett-age-27-yes-that-buffett-2/?partner=yahootix