turar

Looks like all the recent attention resulted in an updated home page for Scion Capital: http://scioncapital.com/index.html Including a link to Burry's "2006 Q4 RMBS CDS Primer and FAQ": http://scioncapital.com/PDFs/Scion%202006%204Q%20RMBS%20CDS%20Primer%20and%20FAQ.pdf And a recommendation of Bo Shan, presumably of Gobi Capital (gobicap.com), who Burry invested with: "Dr. Burry suggests accredited and qualified investors contact Bo Shan (bo.shan@gobicap.com), a former analyst at Scion Capital and an investor in Dr. Burry’s mold. Dr. Burry has no interest, financial or otherwise, in Bo’s firm. Dr. Burry is simply an investor in Bo’s fund and strongly believes in his abilities." I wonder if anyone is familiar with the name?

Hmm, I guess I wasn't the only one who thought of "Berkshire Hathaway" when seeing "BH". Cute.

Looks like the columns are flipped between the 12/31/2009 and 3/31/2010.

So did anyone here buy anything past few weeks? Just curious.

I, on the other hand, thought it was an instant classic. He's basically not saying anything new or out of the ordinary, but it reads like pure gold. I'm talking about that second part, the Graham/Dodd thumb-down, and a Buffett's style endorsement at the same time. One of the best articles I've read in a while. His high quality definition is three-part, consisting of high profitability, profit stability, and low debt. I'm really curious what the acceptable threshold of profit stability is, in his view.

Yeah, but that's painful having to ask somebody else to handle your mail, even if it's not illegal. I actually had to do that for my TD Ameritrade account. They went even further and sent a letter telling me to sell all my holdings and close the account within a month, or they will do it for me! And that's the broker with a Canadian bank's logo on its chest.

Sorry for the off-topic, but that leads to me another question, or more like a rant. Why are Canadians not allowed to invest in US mutual funds or use US-based brokers? And is there a way to overcome that, legally obviously? I moved to Canada from US recently, and was told by Fairholme that since my new address is Canadian, I cannot purchase any more shares in my account. Apparently, there's a very short list of countries whose residents cannot buy US-based mutual funds, including the likes of North Korea, Iran, and ... Canada! After some research, it turns out there's a Canadian securities regulation of some sort that prohibits selling to Canadians, to somehow protect us from lower fees and many choices.

I'm somewhat of a not experienced investor, so I'm not yet comfortable with options. I'm thinking of hedging my portfolio in the current market. What strategies would you recommend? Currently I'm looking at simply buying RWM, but I have a feeling there's a better way.

That's the same as 76 pence, right? Plus 3 pence in August for a total of 79 pence, which is about $1.2 at current rate GBP/USD rate. But keeping it simple, all in GBP, is it correct that the div rate for 2009 is about 16% at current price?

I'm trying to figure out the dividends they're paying out. Is it correct that for 2009 there was a total of 79 pence paid?

Sorry, thought you were talking about Rodriguez in particular. Another consideration could be to think of FFH as a mutual fund. :)

FPA Capital fund is closed, besides Rodriguez is leaving. I would recommend an S&P500 or a "Total Market" ETF for that particular person, until they have way more than $1K to invest.

Care to share? I'm looking for something similar to Fairholme in Canada. I'm shocked at the fees though, compared to the US funds.

Ouch, that was an embarrassing malfunction with the torch lighting.

Regarding WINN, I am not impressed with the stores at all either. I wish Publix was traded publicly, one of the best run grocers, IMO. :)

Wanted to ask if anyone here tried using these sites or is a member? I've heard of KaChing a few weeks ago, but learned about Covestor just this week: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/another-startup-wants-to-democratize-investing Seems like an interesting way to get into money management business for someone without the formal education and background. And on the side note (didn't want to open a separate topic for this) -- any Canadians here have experience with HSBC InvestDirect brokerage they care to share, especially with international trading?

Is that the main character from Mad Men? :)

I think focusing on Kindle alone when discussing AMZN is a bit misleading. Let's not forget about the core business, that's still growing at over 20%, including the international part of it, which is now almost HALF of all business -- amazon.cn, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, etc, that's growing even faster. Regarding cannibalization -- yes, media (books, dvds, music) is about half the business, but the other half (electronics, clothes, etc) is growing much faster than media. Third-party business is significant too. On top of that, web services business is in infancy, but I think it will be large. Not to mention "side projects" like Amazon Fresh, Endless/Zappos, etc. Two more important keys: 1) At its core, Amazon is a technology company, not an "online retailer", and 2) Bezos is a truly long-term oriented manager, almost in value-investing style. Having said all that, valuation is too rich for me as well.

Nice! I just moved here a few months ago, but yeah, it's gotten cold all of a sudden :)

Are there any board members in AB, Edmonton in particular?

No. There will be a reorganization to another security, not FFH.TO (since your broker doesn't offer canadian holdings directly). This will be a nontaxable reorganization of your shares. But I'm guessing that new security will not be directly FFH.U? How liquid will it be?

In the same article though: "The United States lost 216,000 jobs in August, the department said earlier this month, down from 276,000 in July."

I think Berkowitz is being misquoted/underquoted here. IIRC, his meaning was that first everyone was saying Lampert was a genius, and now everyone is saying he's incompetent, and he's really neither.

What about the common for HRP? Seems like it's yielding 11%.

Jack, you can use AdBlockPlus (or something similar) and not see any ads at all. Initially I had no idea what this topic was all about, since I don't see any ads. I then realized that I had ABP running. http://adblockplus.org/en/ Generally about ads, it's pretty clear that this board is not run for profit, so I don't see what the issue is with a few ads. It sure beats paid membership!