Parsad

I think the measured basket approach you are thinking of is appropriate. Of the larger players, several have lucrative patents that are expiring and will impact their future revenues. Alot of the future potential lies within the smaller bio-tech players, but this field is a landmine, not unlike the dot-com era. This will definitely be the area of growth and innovation, and the cash-rich large players will be snapping them up over the next decade. On another front, I would not discount the future success of JNJ. Alot of people seem to be doing that right now. They are the #1 or #2 player in many fields of pharmaceuticals and retail pharmaceuticals. Powerful brands that are not that different than Coke or Wrigleys...think Band-aid, Johnson & Johnson Baby Products, Acuvue, Neutrogena, Tylenol, Splenda, Listerine and...ahem...KY Lubricants! Cheers!

I thought one of the reasons why the stock fell yesterday was because the head of their Entertainment division, the guy who created the X-box, was retiring. Cheers!

Hey Viking, you are correct. I was just giving Eric an excuse. ;D Cheers!

Hi Eric, It was because the European Union fined them $1.35B. http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9880256-7.html We were close to starting a position, but just not quite cheap enough yesterday. You guys are correct, about it becoming a cheap, boring stock. Alot of premium companies are cheap, boring stocks right now...especially compared to many of the small and mid-cap stocks. Many have been in a bear market for a decade now, as their earnings and cash flows have finally caught up with their valuations. They may continue to be discounted a little longer. Cheers!

Also this guy seems to be always out-and-about, when would you ever have the time to sit down and read the 10K/Qs investors need to read before making an intelligent investment choice? Well, he has a huge entourage, so I would guess he's got at least 14 MBA's on his staff to do that for him. Plus, he's so busy designing the tallest office building in the world. ;D Cheers!

A few months back, we were surprised on this board by Jones Soda being sold to Reed's for $10M, which some of us felt was cheap. Shortly after negotiating that deal with Reed's, Jones asked for permission to entertain another unsolicited offer it had received and Reed's obliged. Too bad for Reed's! Jones Soda has signed a deal to be distributed through Walmart, and the market valuation today soared to almost $30M! Why Reed's agreed to this, I don't know, but they did. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Jones-Soda-soars-after-apf-3891261427.html?x=0&.v=1

Sanjeev, he's done better than what your source is stating - by a large margin. Can't say unless there was some disclosure, but I have an extremely hard time believing those results were not a matter of either luck, or pushing up prices of microcap stocks. In the meantime, the manager builds up a huge incentive allocation, while the fund tanks in a year when you can't keep the prices moving up. Have you actually seen any audited financials? If you have, then I stand corrected, but unless I could see a fund's behavior and what they were up to year after year, I don't believe the hype. It is extremely difficult to do just 3% a year better, and even harder to do 10% better than the indices over a period of time. Twenty six fold in six years is incomprehensible with a basket of stocks...even if you only held 3-5 stocks. Cheers!

Interesting article about Prince Alwaleed. I don't think he has anything in common with Buffett except being a billionaire and reading Berkshire's letters, but it is interesting to see how he fashions himself as an equal counterpart. Cheers! http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-17/buffett-and-the-prince.html

It's funny, for someone milking the hell out of this, she sure is doing her best to pretend to be distant from it. I think Buffett's biggest mistake in his career, was that he trusted Schroeder to write what was to be the most informed book about him and Berkshire. In the process, it made him look bad, while making Schroeder look downright bitter and spiteful. Cheers!

What do you think is the break for the top 0.1% of managers during '02-'10? I think greater than 10% annually above the S&P500 TR would put you pretty close...but over a reasonable time frame...10-15 years. You grow one dollar to $26 over six years, but lose 80% of that in the seventh year, you compounded at 23% annually and that's pretty amazing. Not sure exactly how I would view the results though if you were any of the people who put in money from 2006-2008. I think the truly great managers are the ones that can balance risk and reward over very long, long periods of time. Buffett losing money in only 2 years out of fifty is the gold standard. Seth Klarman managing a 17% return over 25 years with only two down years, while holding large amounts of cash is the silver. And none of those losses were catastrophic in any manner. Cheers!

From what I've seen elsewhere, the comments seem to say he lost over 80% in 2008? Does anyone know if that is correct? Cheers!

Here's an article about him when he was 18. He was making 50 trades a day! I think he suffered a gigantic loss in 2008 from what I see. Jordan, do you know exactly what the percentage loss was? Cheers! http://www.observer.com/node/41848

Hi Jordan, Are you sure about his numbers? I know that's what he says on his site, but from what I've read it seems as though he isn't a value guy, but trades alot. Also, take a look at some of the positions he held: http://www.insider-monitor.com/trader/cik1337851.html Alot them are tiny micro-caps, went bust, etc. How much leverage was he using? You also said he shorts. The one thing I've found out over the last few years is that you really have to investigate how returns were earned by alot of managers. Do you have any details on his annual results? Cheers!

Globe & Mail article on Canadian CEO's who did not receive a bonus last year. Guess which favourite CEO's picture is on top of the article...Prem! Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/managing/executive-compensation-2009/canadian-ceos-who-received-no-bonuses-last-year/article1580274/

Buffett will be a witness at the bi-partisian panel examining the financial crisis that was put together by Congress. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/37365020

Yes, I think the links were broken. Here is the interview, plus the associated files related to comments he makes in the interview. Enjoy! Cheers!

Yeah, they usually send you an 80% off promo code in your email each month or so. Make sure you read the fine print of each order before paying, because some restaurants are very specific on what you have to spend and they have some other restrictions on occasion. I haven't had a problem yet. I think the only thing that has gone wrong is in the early days, with the 80% off promo code, I bought a bunch of coupons at a huge discount, but only used a handful of them as they expire within a year of date of issue. Cheers!

Hey Folks, I don't know how many of you have heard of Groupon or Restaurant.com, but as value investors, I figured some of you might be interested. Groupon creates collective buying power in your specific city or area. They are in quite a few cities now, and you can save a fair amount on certain offerings they have. I've used it for restaurants primarily, but they have various merchandise as well. http://www.groupon.com/r/uu3053123 http://www.groupon.com/vancouver/deals Restaurant.com is terrific! I've used it for virtually every city I've visited in the last year and a half. You can buy $25 worth of food at various restaurants in different cities for like $10, and sometimes even $2! We used a $25 coupon that I bought for $5 at a restaurant in the Old Market area of Omaha...it was a newer, hip winebar type of restaurant. The food was really good! We had to spend $50 in food, excluding beverages, and we could use the $25 coupon. It was well worth it. http://www.restaurant.com/ Cheers!

Store count is currently around 475, to grow the store count to 2-3x would mean adding 475-950 stores. At $1.15M per location that means spending $546-$1093M to execute this expansion. They have about $75M in cash and owner earnings are $40M per year so, if they reinvested every dollar into this effort, it would take at least 12 years to grow to this size. I think you're confusing who is putting up the capital. It won't be SNS, but the franchisees that have to pay for the buildout of any new locations. SNS receives a franchise fee and a percentage of revenues going forward. In return, they pay for back-end office support, advertising, and assist with financing and leasing. Cheers!

I believe at the AGM, Sardar said they are working on a franchise unit that will cost a total of $1.15M to build out. About 33% less than present restaurants. They also announced several new franchises that would be opening soon...Las Vegas and Denver were part of them I believe. Cheers!

The compensation package has an impact on intrinsic value, but I don't see Steak'n Shake diminishing anytime soon. Sorry Tiddman, I guess I beg to disagree on this one as well. I don't know what will happen to Biglari Holdings investments, but Steak'n Shake will be significantly bigger ten years from now. Cheers!

What do you think the chance is that Sardar comes out and says 'hey guys I screwed up, now that I look at it more closely the compensation package is asking too much here is what I should have done....etc. etc.' I think this type of response would put him back on top in some of the shareholders minds, but I'm not sure it will happen. This is what I would hope he would do, but from everything I've seen and heard, I think it has a very, very slim chance of happening. Cheers!

We have turned a hero to a zero at the speed of light, on this board. It takes a lifetime of work to build a reputation and only five minutes to ruin it. From the drop in the stock price, it seems as though management's actions have everything to do with the change in sentiment. This was a failure of the board of directors. A massively delusional idea that wasn't thought through completely. The company will do fine long-term, but this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of shareholders who were there from the beginning. With no input, how are shareholders to perceive this change? With management not interested in listening to shareholders, what does this tell them? All they can do is wait and see how the vote turns out. Cheers!

Hi Mark, There were a ton of posts immediately after the compensation package announcement. We were subsequently hacked twice and lost the posts from May 2nd to May 7th. It was probably the greatest reaction we've had to any single incident on the board, including the old MSN Message Board. Basically, the compensation structure is being changed, and there is no intention of working with shareholders on this...either you agree or disagree. We chose to remove the SNS board since shareholders have no input outside of the actual vote on the proposal. Who is working exactly for whom here? Thus, we have no interest in supporting this type of behavior. Cheers!

Article on why Buffett has yet to invest in India, but is going to visit the country soon. Cheers! http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90861/6997130.html