biaggio

No, I don't think it is bearish for stocks at all. I think people are pouring money into t-bills instead...contrary indicator. Although, you could be correct about the bonuses, but that's a hell of alot of bonuses! Cheers! I think this is the work of the fed - they want corporations and individuals to spend/invest money to get economy going, keep interest rates low so that we (e.g banks) can inflate/grow their way out of their problems (e.g prevent folks from defaulting on their loans that they can t afford if interest rates were higher) I don t think that people are pouring money into T bills. I can t imagine individuals or small organizations purchasing short term T bill to be paid a few weeks/months later for less (e.g buy for $100 get paid $99.9 a few weeks later). As was explained to me here a while ago- may make sense for large player with billions that want the U.S government to guarantee that they get almost all their money back when they need it later i.e. they don t trust their bank for such a large sum? Don t fight the fed. Bullish for stocks, eventually I hope.

very funny. The sad thing is that in order for it to be funny there has to be some truth there. I agree though that U.S will find a way to grow out of this. e.g. Hey we know they are going to spend 18-20% of GDP in health care. Who does not want to feel better and live longer

http://www.grahamanddoddsville.net/?p=1615 New book The Success Equation:Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing which was recently released sounds interesting.

Gio you re very humble. You made a mistake above, I definitely do not belong on the list. The people that work with (for) you must love you- you always find a way to make people feel good.

I hold small stake. Cheap valuation=selling for EV of less than its inventory value. As noted they have a lot of other assets that have value Risks for SHLD being a value trap: i. underlying business (retail) in secular decline i.e nobody expects it to compete successfully against Walmart, Target, Dollar store etc ii they have quite a bit of liabilities These are well known + probably priced in. There is comfort in knowing that ESL, Fairholme are in big vs the large short position---would not take much to see volatility on the upside. Again value could just continue to erode away, with market value following. For those with knowledge of options this may be a good place to make your bet. I am going to continue to hold common stock + see how things work out. Look forward to here from others about SHLD

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2012/11/19/hedge-fund-returns-with-mutual-fund-fees-how-one-global-equity-master-does-it/ I thought her views on evaluating business model/qualitative risk would resonate with a lot of people here.

That's a fair question. Anything that I read and think is worthwhile or worth revisiting goes on my blog first. My blog is a collection of things that I'm in to - not just investment articles. I have the blog as an outlet for myself bc not a lot of folks where I live want to talk about value investing, or vinyl or proper cocktails or hard to find craft brew. It's another online storage place for those things for me and possibly a point of interesting interaction. I'm not living in the town from the movie Deliverance or anything, but I've gone from a major metro, to a significantly smaller place, but I still have my big city tastes. I post to the blog first for myself and then ill tweet it and if its relevant, post a link here on the board. I'm not against you having a blog but when you post them this way it seems like you are simply promoting your blog. You can still post this on your blog but instead of providing us with the blog link just give us the source link where you originally found the article. Good lord. The guy posts something that someone else hasn't yet and so what if it's on his blog. Cover your eyes and click through. Another option is you find it and post it next time. Here's a piece of advice. Look at the link. If you see it isn't direct to the source, then don't click on it since it offends you. I don t mind if board member here post links to their blogs- how else are guys like me going to find these good places - I have bookmarked a lot of sites posted here by various members. They are all pretty good

BAC, AIG ~ 10%....the rest must be cash? Or like you say this is probably wrong in that there is a technical problem with the site e.g.typo?

How about BARBARIANS AT THE GATE-story of ROSS JOHNSON-nabisco takeover Watched the first 20 min - a lot of great one liners

Thanks for starting the thread. Will be most interested in hearing responses. Also I am curious as to how how they establish starting & subsequent positions e.g if you re like Gio who wants to accumulate initial 7% of fairly valued great position with idea to double down on position to 15%-for instance do you order all 7% at once, or in 1 or 2% (assuming a sizeable portfolio i.e $9 commission per trade is not going to make a difference) Personally I have been using a modified version of strategy expressed by Beerbaron a while ago: “If it's a great company for a good price: buy in blocks of 5-10% of portfolio if the price drops an additional 15% add another 5-10% up until 25%. If it's a good company at a great price: I buy 5% of my portfolio and not more.” Beer Baron For my portfolio I add in 2.5% at a time or a bit less because I am a chicken and like another chance to add in later. I sleep well. Tend to hold on to too much cash (which I would like to get down to 20%)

http://www.canadianinsider.com/node/7?ticker=FFH FYI, Brian Bradstreet was buying during the downturn

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323713104578130930796204500.html?mod=WSJ_Markets_LEFTTopStories Steven Cohen Implicated in Alleged Insider-Trading Scheme

Could you give an example ie which "put" would you like the best today

picked some up at $341 + $346.

how did you find that out if that s the reason I agree it a good opportunity to buy

says that average private market value=22 x earnings according to history. I was surprised it was this high. What do others think?

How about this, I'll flip it around. I could argue easily that every business that isn't going out of business has a moat. There's a reason they are still in business, customer relationships, a key plant location. A business with absolutely zero moat will be out of business soon as a competitor with the smallest semblance of a competitive advantage will take their customers. I think investors blow competitive advantages out of proportion. If you read a 10-k there's a section in there for competitive advantages, note how all companies are able to come up with something. To investors some of these things seem phoney, like "the strength of our customer relationships", or "our customer service" or "our quality". Seems like something that can be replicated. I am not a professional investor, I've worked at real companies in the real world, and those things do exist. I've seen a number of contracts walk from one client to another when a sales person leaves. There are also tiny companies that seem to have no advantage, yet a sales person or CEO who knows everyone, and people use people they know. Here's an interesting thought experiment, or a real one if you're so inclined. Call up some of these moat companies and ask the CEO what makes their company better than competitors. The answer they give might be much different than what an investor might give. Does the CEO, the person with the most visibility know the future of their company? Does the CEO know how to value it? I've been thinking about this some recently. Essentially a Buffett moat company is a leading company in industry. You have the Coke and Pepsi companies, Exxon etc. The truth is there is no secret sauce to their current success, they have one thing, inerta. When a company is so big is just continues to roll forward. Do you think that Exxon really has hired the 90,000 best and brightest? All companies supposedly hire the best and brightest, at some point the next person hired isn't quite as bright and so on and so forth. As for moats, I think the true ones are found in smaller growing companies. I listened to an interview with the author of a book, Blueprint to a Billion recently. He talked about companies that grew from $1m in revenue to $1b in revenue in 10-15 years. These are the Starbucks, the McDonalds going from infancy stage to the industry leader. To go from $1m to $1b a moat has to exist. So the question to everyone who's looking for moats is this. If you can get good at identifying a durable competitive advantage why are you investing in $10b companies that have limited growth. Instead why not look at these tiny companies in a startup stage, if a moat exists you could make 100 or 200x your money rather than 15% a year. Another question to anyone who's an expert on a business model and can somehow see into the future. Why use that in investing, why not start a consulting business, or start a business to exploit it? Good post. Its hard to find those small companies that are cheap with significant enduring competitive advantage,but it may be even harder to compete against large players stockpicking big companies. Oddball, how do you troll for these oddball stocks i.e where do you scan or look? Do you use screens? I look at new lows, scan earnings- I generally don t have a bias against small or micro caps. You make a lot of sense.

Is it a crime against humanity or otherwise morally repugnant to own them all? Hell, I mean someone could actually have 4 or 5 positions. Ok, ok, that's crazy talk. I own them all. Add in gradually with price weakness over the long term. My experience has taught me that I am not smart enough to have just a couple positions, or sell one to buy another (unless valuation is grossly out of line) I would be happy to do as well as Mr Watsa , Buffet, etc. I am impressed though with some of the posters here that run a very concentrated portfolio, especially with some of their picks over the last few years. They have been instructive + fun to read and follow along.

were did you get that 24 companies stat ? Sorry Green, I couldn t remember where I saw that stat. I think I saw it here: http://www.resolutefunds.com/rgf_story.html "In 2005 it became increasingly concerning to us that the Ontario government’s new regulations, first National Instruments 81-106 and then 81-107, would severely impair our ability to make investors money. The reasons were extensive but the reduction in the confidentiality of what we were buying and selling was one example. As we never held 25 stocks during the entire life of the Fund, provisions requiring us to report our top 25 holdings would effectively force us to disclose our entire portfolio every three months."

Sad. Too young, only 61. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-21/annaly-says-michael-farrell-dies-after-cancer-diagnosed

don t forget NormR's informal pre dinner gathering for drinks (very good as well)

Kraven, thanks for your posts and sharing about Ben graham's life- though I read his security books I did not know anything about his personal life, nor his differing investment philosophy late in his life. I think in advancing age you kind of get burned out (i.e lose the passion and enthusiasm you have in your 20's), and you look for safety , short cuts and the desire to enjoy the finer things in life (wine, women and travel). I think you get wiser (I hope so anyways). There may be a lesson here as well for all of us.

I found this treasure of scanned articles/interviews on Ben Graham on Matt Paul's web site- I hope he does not mind me posting. -http://mattpauls.com/assets/BenGrahamJournalScans.pdf I just started reading his site http://investinginknowledge.com/. Appears to have a lot of good stuff. I was surprised to read in the first article of a 1976 interview that he kind of believed in EMT and that in depth researching (reading all the SEC filings of the company plus all its competitors as advised by one of our old posters) an investment in a specific stock maybe a mistake (waste of time), because of the intense research done by others it is unlikely that you will have an advantage. Good for us that he believed that individuals can have an advantage over institutions Edit: second article(stuff you guys all know) clarifies re EMT- the market has access to knowledge and knows all that is knowable. The difference for us value investors is judgement and if market prices fully reflect underling value. i.e we re still not likely to get an edge from reading all the 10K's. Just pick high quality predictable enterprises at a discount (margin of safety) Sorry I am trying to speed read + sometimes my reading comprehension is lacking.

Thanks for posting plan. Where did you find that graph? It would be interesting to follow the debt/income ratio-maybe an indication of how long interest rates should stay low (as per Dalio, we can grow/inflate our way out of the problem by keeping interest rates lower than economic growth rate). It looks like we re going in the right direction. How low do you think they want to get to- 95% like the 2000's or 70-85% like the 80's? Mind you, it will not help us pick stock- interesting non the less-and another indication that things are improving.

It is held the morning after the Berkshire meeting and includes a very nice breakfast. This year it expanded to the Omaha Hilton across the street from the CenturyLink Center where the Berkshire meeting is held. Tom Gayner and Steve Markel make some opening remarks and then open it up for Q&A. The audience includes a lot of informed investors and large value investors such at Tom Russo, David Winters, Mohnish Pabrai, etc. The discussion is useful and questions are typically informed and intelligent. I have found that attending gives me an opportunity to both follow the investment and take the measure of management, whom I've found to be first class people. Thanks Val. Do you have to be a MKL shareholder?