turar

In another thread, someone mentioned the concern of baby boomers retiring and slowly pulling their assets from the market over the coming years, probably starting now. It was dismissed as a concern, but I didn't understand the reasons for the dismissal. I've seen this issue come up every now and then, but somehow brushed it off and didn't pay much attention to it previously. What is your thinking on the implications of this process on the general market values?

It could be a spinoff, not a special dividend.

Canadian market is closed for holiday (Thanksgiving).

Are you guys reading their websites/presentations/reports through online robot-translators, or asking somebody human to translate?

Kayak.com is what I use, works internationally as well. This seems very similar.

A couple more blog posts about Michael Burry that I found interesting: - Reading Michael Burry: http://robertpiomolloy.com/blog/?p=94 - Michael Burry’s Value Investors Club Ideas Revealed: http://robertpiomolloy.com/blog/?p=130 The second one is very interesting, as it does seem that michael99 on VIC was indeed Michael Burry. Going through those VIC ideas and reading his reasoning, especially in the comments is pretty interesting. More interesting is that It looks like that most of his VIC ideas didn't work out, except for Industrias Bachoco and GTSI. I may be wrong, as most of them were either bought out, or were otherwise liquidated since then. Pillowtex idea is probably the most interesting, as it imploded almost immediately after posting, and subsequent comments are a good read.

Just out of curiosity, which assets would command the same valuations? If one has a portfolio of businesses producing everyday goods and providing everyday services -- Cokes, P&Gs, etc., how much worthless can it really become?

I always thought this was because it's very difficult to afford a Vancouver mortgage without renting out a part of your house.

It's probably not hard to guess some of these, but would you mind sharing?

Site didn't open for me a few times after the migration -- connection time out. Past few days it's been good though.

I wonder if they break out sales by brand somewhere, couldn't find it in their 10K. I wonder how their waters (Dasani, etc), healthier drinks like juices -- Simply, Odwalla, etc., are doing over time compared to legacy drinks.

Poll is slightly incorrect, there's no option for "never". I never use it, but picked "rarely".

+1 for Interactive Brokers

I stand corrected. Another idea -- I wish there were something like an "owner-manager" ETF, where the only criteria for inclusion would be that C-level executives collectively hold over a certain percentage of the company. I wonder what the long term performance of such an ETF would be. As an alternative, board members could also be included, in something like "inside ownership" ETF.

Thanks Liberty. I don't think Larry and Sergey own much of GOOG though, although they do wield strong control as founders and officers.

Maybe an ETF like ITB or XHB?

While responding to another thread, I thought that it might be a good idea to have a thread compiling a list of public companies run by competent owner-managers. Usually, when discussing such companies, the board tends to focus on obvious value investors -- BRK, FFH, LUK, SHLD, etc. There are other owner managers though, who continue building and growing their companies and rewarding their shareholders, and I wonder if you have any in mind. Some that I can think of top of my head are: Bezos of Amazon Dell of Dell Ellison of Oracle etc. I'm sure there are many many more, especially in the small cap area, that might be beneficial to study for potential investment.

Yeah, I was half-joking. Still though, there must be some value in having so many of your new tablets in customers hands already, albeit at a large cost.

With so many sales just over a couple of days, they should keep doing this for a month or so, and then "change their mind" and keep the Touchpad running.

Watsa, Bezos, Dell, etc. The list could probably go on for a while.

An interesting article by one of HP board members: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html

Is anyone shorting gold? What's the best way to do it?

Thanks all, I'll try wiring next time. I was using EFT all this time -- this is from Canadian bank to IB Canada. I was getting something like 0.6% on USD at my bank last time I checked, and about double that for CAD, but it could be lower now.

How is everyone holding their cash? I got into a problem last week of not having enough cash in my Interactive Brokers account. Transferring additional funds from my savings account took 4 business days, which were pretty volatile, and I had to mostly sit them out due to this purely logistical mistake. The only reason I hold cash in a separate savings account is the measly interest rate I receive. Now I'm trying to see if there's a better way to hold cash withing IB account and receive some interest on it. What would you recommend? An ETF like SHY? Anything else? I was even thinking of something like WMT, a pretty good valued stalwart which barely moves anywhere through thick and thin, and pays almost a 3% yield. But it's still equity though.

Klarman initiated a new largish position in BP.