Parsad

LOL! That's why I've never paid any attention to analysts. Half the stuff I would have bought would never have been purchased if I had listened to them. Cheers!

I'll play devils advocate. In 2014 and 2015 I can understand BAC going above tbv, but among 30 analysts BAC will earn about 90 cents a share in 2013. Mr. Market places primacy on earnings and not the balance sheet. I don't see how BAC can hit tbv (Sanjeev) by Christmas which would imply about 14x earnings. Not true. Market perceptions always change. Why is Fairfax around book, but BAC isn't? As litigation and loan loss overhang disappears, markets will value BAC closer to TBV and then BV. I suspect you will see some settlements in the next couple of months and continued positive improvements in 3rd Q and 4th Q financials. BAC needs to settle some issues so that dividends and buybacks are definitely approved in the next round of stress tests. 2012 was the last year of strengthening the balance sheet for BAC and losing weight after the heart attack. 2013 and forward will be building back the muscle mass and continued efficiencies. I'm ready for board criticism on my doubts for BAC as i know it is very popular on this board. No one liked this thing at $5, so why would they like it anymore now after significant improvement. Markets always jump in after all the heavy lifting is complete...not before. I couldn't see any reasonable reason why it would not hit TBV by Christmas, but I cannot control market sentiment. I still think it will get close...$12-12.50. If it doesn't do it by year-end, barring any significant broad market correction, it will hit it sometime next year...onwards and upwards! Cheers!

Chanticleer is not in the same league of Geico, Washington post or Netjet in terms of business moat and Mr. Pruitt is not in the same league of the CEOs of the mentioned companies, in my humble opinion. I wasn't saying even remotely that this was the case. I was arguing your comment regarding Buffett: Buffett's first principle is "never loss". This should be applied to stock investment as well as business endeavors. Cheers!

Actually Moore, I think the circumstances change dramatically when you manage other people's money as well. Probably far greater difficulties arise from that than actual portfolio size...especially if you have short lockups or no lockups. Managing your own portfolio, you can easily take bigger swings at ideas, because you know only you will redeem the capital. You suffer volatility for a couple of years, and some of your less-tempered partners will pull their capital because they get worried. Just a whole different game managing other people's money. Cheers!

Love it! Going to buy one. ;D Truth...I'm glad they increased the screen size...4.5" would have been even better. I like this design better than the previous phone. The display looks even better, but I'm not sure how much that will help with only a 4" screen...will have to see how my eyes feel when reading off of it. I'll test the Samsungs versus the iPhone 5 when I switch. I really do like the bigger screens on the Samsungs though, but it's going to be a pain in the ass for someone less technically savvy like me to switch phones. Cheers!

Those shares were acquired around August 2001 from Service Corp, and McElvaine Investment Trust was also part of the group acquiring shares. Cheers!

No, I don't think it's anything serious, but Nasdaq is being firm. You just listed on there and now your financials can't be relied upon because the audit for a subsidiary was not done. They've got to learn from this. Cheers!

Good interview with Bill Smead, manager of the Smead Value Fund. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-10/contrarian-manager-wins-by-buying-newspapers-avoiding-china.html

Another article in the New York Observer. Thanks to Shai for sending me the link! Cheers! http://observer.com/2012/09/how-hedge-fund-marketing-rules-could-root-out-bad-actors-really/

Looks like Nasdaq has halted trading in Chanticleer until they provide additional information on the 8-K released yesterday. Mike probably should put together a proper audit committee going forward. Stuff like this doesn't look good. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasdaq-halts-chanticleer-holdings-inc-201104342.html

No plans to even consider selling until it hits book value...two years away. Cheers!

I agree...a lost decade is difficult to make-up on the road to wealth-building. But if Buffett didn't look at the big picture and put away fears of interim losses, he would never have bought The Washington Post, Netjets or Geico, let alone invested in property-casualty insurance businesses. Cheers!

Businesses that Mr. Pruitt has involved come to the market to raise capital periodically, but the operations continue to accumulate substantial losses. “These conditions raise substantial doubt about Chanticleer Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries’ ability to continue as a going concern.” The auditor of the company concluded in 10K of 2011. Hi Fuluvu, Any auditor worth his salt would require a "going concern" disclosure in the notes in the audited financials when a business is stretched for cash and is burning through existing assets. In 2011, Chanticleer was still in the process of raising capital to continue to build out its restaurants. It went through a successful $11M raise in 2012, and you will probably not see such a disclosure in 2012. Auditors put them in, as they can be held liable for not disclosing such issues to shareholders. Chanticleer has enough cash for 2012 and 2013. I have not had a difficult time putting my trust in Mike, even though I always wondered how the heck he was going to keep the company afloat after the credit crisis and the deal collapsed. He managed to do so by selling off certain assets; raising capital publically and privately; putting up his own assets as collateral through loans to the company; and finally taking virtually any consulting gig he could get to keep cash flowing through the doors to make payroll and keep the company solvent. Often that meant taking an executive role with small startups where success may be elusive. But he did it. He always found a way to keep the company's head above water. You can't teach that! While the longer term returns to shareholders have not been terribly desireable after the credit crisis, I cannot fault the man's ethics, credibility or honesty. Mike works very hard, and he's had particularly little to show for it until the last year and a half after consummating the HOA deal, getting an HOA board seat, and then finally raising the capital necessary to get the company cash flow positive on a regular basis. We've happily bought more shares in the company and will remain long-term shareholders. Cheers!

I step away for a few hours, and how the heck did this thing degrade to where it is. When I left, there were a few people mired in existential debate. When I returned, they are mired in crap. The discussion is locked...everyone is out. Cheers!

Larry Wachowski, creator of the "Matrix" trilogy, "V for Vendetta", etc went through the same thing. He goes by Lana Wachowski now and is also involved with a woman as a woman. I just read about it last week. Cheers!

Chanticleer released an 8-K saying that they fired their South African CFO, as the financials for the properties had not been audited as the company was led to believe. Preliminary reviews show revenues were accurate and there was no misappropriation. A detailed review and audit is being conducted. They need to learn from this, tighten and implement better accounting controls for all of their properties. Cheers! http://biz.yahoo.com/e/120910/hotr8-k.html

I might want to quote some of my favorite authors,... Richard Dawkins: “Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.” http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1194.Richard_Dawkins That's another thing. If religious zealots believe that God will protect them and punish those that trespass against them, then why the hell do they need to set off nuclear weapons or dirty bombs on civilian populations...or even crash planes into civilian buildings? Maybe these religious zealots just don't have enough faith in their own Gods! ;D Cheers!

The other side of that, and equally important to me, is what if that deity is a merciless deity. One who plays with our lives at will, allows children to be murdered or sexually abused, women to be raped and throws down earthquakes on the poorest of people simply to garner their devotion so that they may not be the next victim. Would you want to go to a heaven ruled by a God like that? I can't help laughing hysterically every time I hear a winning athlete or award winner thanking God in their interview. According to this logic, their God actually spends time deciding football or basketball games, and who is going to win an Emmy or Academy Award! Maybe God is a bookie in Vegas! ;D Cheers! Yes the merciless deity isn't one that I'd fancy spending any amount of eternity with. Which leads to a question: Why, I suppose, have the religious texts chosen a deity with a personality that effectively demands church membership and 100% devotion? Eh? I wonder what the membership would be like for the version where the deity let you believe what you want and he'd accept you unconditionally anyhow because he values diversity? What are you saying Eric? That writers of religious texts purposefully chose a merciless and ambivalent God, simply to scare the crap out of people to gain long-term, devoted parishioners. You can rebel against a tyrant, but how do you revolt against an omniscient, invisible and immortal tyrant? ;D Cheers!

Bloomberg article on Hooters, including a very brief mention of Chanticleer. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-10/hooters-looks-to-catch-wife-s-eye-as-tight-shorts-rule.html

The other side of that, and equally important to me, is what if that deity is a merciless deity. One who plays with our lives at will, allows children to be murdered or sexually abused, women to be raped and throws down earthquakes on the poorest of people simply to garner their devotion so that they may not be the next victim. Would you want to go to a heaven ruled by a God like that? I can't help laughing hysterically every time I hear a winning athlete or award winner thanking God in their interview. According to this logic, their God actually spends time deciding football or basketball games, and who is going to win an Emmy or Academy Award! Maybe God is a bookie in Vegas! ;D Cheers!

Dual citizen Aussie (by descent) /US (born and raised)... check. Actually soon it will be tri-citizen (UK). My father was born in London and I can get citizenship by descent if I just apply (I'm in the process of doing that but it will take a few months). Eric are you searching for the perfect money? US, Aussie and now the pound? Cheers!

The key word here is "unnecessary". That's not the same as claiming to have proven a negative. It just means that the models of reality work just fine without having to postulate for a god. This is worth emphasizing because the same miscommunications about logical reasoning keep reappearing throughout the thread. Sorry but saying that god is unnecessary is extremely arrogant for someone who simply built a model which essentially reverse engineers an existence without reconciling that existence. I would be more impressed if the academics were more humble and admitted that their research confirms how little we know about our existence. Moore, it depends on what your definition of God is. Did you ask any scientist you've spoken to how they define it? Do they define it is something specific such as Christ, Shiva, Mohammed, what have you; an omniscient being responsible for the creation of the entire universe; or something as simple as a higher intelligence that created us? There are as many interpretations of God as you can think of. But if you tie it down to a specific religious text, I have a hard time seeing any scientist putting their faith in a book written by predominantly men with no supporting evidence. If all we have to base our faith upon is a book or words from a spiritual figurehead, then how does the Bible, Koran or Gita deserve greater significance than a scientific textbook detailing evolution, the structure of DNA or theories about the Big Bang? I would think that many scientists could not exclude the possibility of intelligent life outside of our universe. If so, how can they exclude the possibility that higher intelligence had some part in creating us...be it accidental or deliberate. The word "necessary" meant that you didn't need the word "God" to explain the universe. Science will eventually answer many of the questions we previously assigned to the word "God", when we simply could not comprehend how something occurred. Cheers!

As for your bashing of gold I can now count several years of you bashing gold (as with Ericopoly) meanwhile in those years gold continues to set new highs and act as the perfect money. Eventually people like you will catch on about gold and at that point I will be selling it to you! Gold is up 200% since the start of my fund. Did you have at least 25% gold exposure in your fund? If yes, then kudos to you...but I will never ever buy gold...unless it goes back down to $330/oz, which is where I did buy it once before and put it in my safety deposit box. But I sold it all when between $700-900...hey that was a 200% return in about 6 years...what do you know? By the way, there is no such thing as "the perfect money". Cheers!

I'm 30. Is this an attempt to pull rank on me or something? An appeal to authority or some other logical fallacy that has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of my reasoning? A way to put me in the "young" bucket so you can more easily dismiss anything I say? Not that it matters; if I happened to be 50, you'd probably find some other way... Next you'll say: "Oh, I was just like you when I was your age, but I grew out of it..." *sigh* It's ok Liberty. As you get older, it will get much easier to be cynical, introverted, dismissive and stubborn in your ideas. You'll realize that liberal values and capitalism cannot co-exist...Buffett and Steve Jobs were a figment of capitalism's imagination. ;D Cheers!

Age doesn't change facts, being old or young doesn't have anything to do with it. But being older and having grown up during a time in which it was more common to indoctrinate children before they were old enough to think critically probably has something to do with more older people believing certain things... Go ahead and tell Hawkings and all the other physicists that they don't know what they're doing... Next you can tell Andrew Wiles that his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was flawed :o Our brains haven't evolved to intuitively grasp thinks like quantum mechanics or general relativity, and that's why they seem so weird and nonsensical to us (same reason why we can't think in 7 dimensions or about objects moving at relativistic speeds or whatever). But the math provides predictions that are testable with instruments and experiments, and at very very very very high levels of precision. This isn't just made up sh*t, we know a lot about how the universe works even if it doesn't make sense to you. And how old are you Liberty? I say 35 or less.. He's young enough to know that investing in gold is probably not a good idea. While the guys over 35 think the world is going to hell in a hand basket as a black president socializes the United States of America. But even those guys are too young to remember what the world going to hell really looked like...when it wasn't even possible for a black president to sit in the Oval Office and have the opportunity to socialize the country! Hey but back to the future! ;D Cheers!