JAllen

How was Goldman on the brink of failure? Were they one of the ones that requested the TARP funds or were they forced to?

Zimbabwe's stock market went up 12,000% during their inflationary (to say the very least) period. I have one of their 5,000,000 notes that wouldn't buy a loaf of bread; and that was a year ago.

Interactive Brokers has a complete list of bond/preferred stock offerings that are available on their web page I believe. I would ask each one for a list. It seems like each one should publish a list if they offer a diverse selection. I have been satisfied with IB's selection but it is by no means complete. Probably 8/10 that I ever wanted to get quotes on they had and they probably have virtually all large cap issues.

Yes, There are a few more interesting article on the same website. Try clicking on his name at the top of the article.

I asked some acquaintances about if it was possible to foresee the luck factor components and set one's self up to be an outlier. They generally thought that you couldn't. I think one can be deserving of great success (by constant learning and very hard work- yes this is vague) much like Munger likes to point out but maybe not to the extent of being the top 1-10 most successful people in the world.

Thanks for creating that spreadsheet Viking!

You sold the right to sell. You didn't buy the right to buy. The only way you are going to end up with shares is if the price between now and then, or then, ends up $10 or below and someone decides to exercise their right to sell the shares to you at $10. I would buy them back and hope Axp goes back to $12. Then buy calls.

I think it's the Treasury issuing the bonds. The Fed doesn't have the legislative authority to issue their own debt as had been requested/discussed recently as a way for the Fed to tighten coming out of this recession. Here's a Bloomberg article discussing this from this morning: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a8R8g_qvgis8

It's borderline disgusting how disrespectful some have been to Sanjeev about the ads. I'm blown away. Sanjeev, any idea on how much you make per click? Is it different rates for different ads or all the same?

Why do you think that Omaha? I can't see Munger agreeing with Krugman very much.

Klarman said in a recent interview that they take a 10% position about every two years. I think the current one (but has owned for a while) is Fox. I think most of his positions are much smaller.

Berkshire lent Vulcan material money also. I forget the details though.

It's not reckless but I wouldn't do it with a company that had a 2% chance of blowing up. That means over a 50 year investing career if you always have 50% of your net worth in one company than one year/morning you're going to wake up 50% more poor. If the 7 lean years and near failure wouldn't have happened (it wouldn't be a $250 stock though would it) than I would probably think differently. The insurance/underwriting/reserving risk is not one that I can grasp being outside the company. Prem is probably the only one that can and I'm glad he's comfortable with it! I would do it with a company that had a .5% chance of blowing up or the blow up would be good for the rest of the world and my holdings (ex: finding a better, cleaner source of energy than petro to a petro company). At $100 U.S now, I would feel comfortable with 33%40%, maybe more.

I think that there was discussion a while back about the banks would do this (mark them too low or be caused to mark them too low)but that it wasn't necessarily the end of the world that they were going to mark the assets down too far. I would rather them mark them too low than too high any day. So, it was accusatory but not in the negative sense.

SRS is a mistake. Look at the largest components of SRS over time. Create a graph in Google Finance comparing PLD, REG, SPG (which 9 months ago were the largest components of SRS and the largest, I think, companies in their sub-industry) with SRS and you'll see that in the last year: SRS is down 70.28% PLD is down 88% REG is down 55% SPG is down 53% ??? Cardboard put it best- "SRS is broken"

And an attorney in the state that the company is incorporated in!

Just remember his "portfolio" is $80 Billion. Citigroup or whomever will have 10 analysts running around looking for whatever he wants!

It's a 203% increase in shares outstanding! Ouch! http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/May2009/07/c9405.html

Their stores in Jacksonville and Miami are fairly well maintained and attractive. They could make their Kmarts more visible. They have spent some money on their Coral Gables store. They installed some new, fairly nice looking tile surrounding the main entrance. It looks nice and that land is worth probably a million an acre, especially if the zoning there is intensity inclusive and would allow multi-family construction. I'm not sure about the rest of the country. I still don't see why so many people think the retailing is going to fail and he's just retailing it until something happens to make him want to liquidate (like the original Berkshire textile mills). He's actually doing many smart things in addition to the Mygofer sales process. Check out servicelive.com. I think many people in general underestimate him. Retailing isn't as bad as textiles! I don't know what would make him liquidate that hasn't already happened. Barring continued sales declines to zero, of course.

I put about 2% of my liquid security net worth into BYD and am hoping to pull a Phillip Fisher with it and attempt to never sell. It was only a 3-4 Billion dollar company that has the potential to become one of/the largest companies in the world, especially if they develop the best lithium battery. Munger doesn't say things like that about very many people/companies! They file complete annual reports just like American companies. I found them through the Hong Kong stock exchange. It takes a few steps but is definitely doable.

Hi HPMST, This is actually a fairly easy metric to determine. In fact, most banks, or at least the ones that have low costs will break it out for you. If you go to the most recent Wells Fargo presentation (the Barclays one) on slide 18 it shows you their average interest rate on interest bearing deposits. It will also show you the percentage of deposits that are checking or savings which will have lower interest rates than CDs of course. Hope this helps.

I also use the Google RSS reader also through Igoogle.com usually and recommend it.

I voted no only because I think RSS feeds are one of the most valuable tools available for gathering information through the internet today. I subscribe to the "Nightly Investment Links" through an RSS (thank you Miguel) and encourage others if they don't already know how to learn more about RSS so they can subscribe to their CO's. Sec filings, news reports, the endless great blogs out there etc.

It seems like the embedded rights are increasing the value of the shares. The higher they go, the more they are worth because with buying one you get to buy another at $3. I haven't sold any of mine yet buy might go the covered call route if there is a decent price at $7.5US.

Yes, the company is still generating the same amount of cash with their substantial hedge book but now the cash will be diverted to paying down some of that debt instead of out to the shareholders. It's still the same earnings power of course. I have no idea when they will again pay a dividend but I still own most of my position. The stock cap/cash flow multiple is very small still!