sswan11

Tweedy has a report on www.tweedy.com "What has worked in Investing", I believe, detailing outperformance of low price to book value picks. Before they ran mutual funds (which are highly diversified, and TBGVX, which I once owned, is currency-hedged as well), they ran managed accounts, and I don't know that the managed accounts track record is publicly available.

Intel is expanding massively in Oregon, competitive advantage is the "moat" of fabs capital investment. Article in this week's Barron's: http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111903964304577418241846096930.html#articleTabs_article%3D1 I listened to a lecture by Dr. Leroy Hood at University of Washington (one of early Human Genome Project researchers); he predicts "embedded" processors collecting organ-specific real-time data will revolutionize medicine w/in next decade; "billions of data points". ps. As ancient as I am I just completed a graduate certification in Bioinformatics at Oregon Health Science University, funded by Uncle Sam (part of requirement for hospitals/physicians to adopt electronic medical records by 2014)! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Hood

Trader Joe's is owned by Aldi, one of the biggest German supermarket chains.

How about buying puts on the FXE (Currency Shares EuroTrust) as a speculation on Euro declines vis-a-vis dollar?

ps. what about eggs (yolks) and cheese?

The dangers of sugar seem obvious to me; but I'm a bit confused about bread and whole grain foods. My sister, who is a gastroenterologist, advises just to "avoid the whites" (white bread, rice, etc). Are the no-grain arguments backed by hard science? And if one drops the grains entirely, what are good substitutes? Some of the cardiologist vs diabetes arguments seem to me contradictory, ie reduce fat vs reduce sugar. That Cleveland Clinic cardiologist recommended the vegan diet, no milk, cheese or oils, but ok to eat starch. Oregon Health Science University recommends the "Meditteranean diet" to its staff. ps. I dropped 40 lbs, from 190 to 150 since cutting out "the whites" and sugar, my mother says I look emaciated! (the face gets gaunt).

Vancouver, Washington (near Portland, OR) - originally from Seattle, trying to get back (love the rain! :), or to Vancouver, BC!

But it will affect the basis of the shares, right?

Many years ago I lived in Vienna (Austria), and ended up dating the daughter of the Australian Commercial Counselor to Vienna, originally from Canberra. We went over to his house in the nicest part of Vienna near the Vienna Woods every weekend and drank Australian wines, which the Commercial Counselor was charged to promote into European markets (imagine trying to sell Australian wines in Austria, in the middle of the Central European wine region!). Aussies seem to have the good life of the US w/o the crazy right-wing stuff and seem to have a saner society (gun laws, low relative crime rates, etc). Also seemed to me have more of European ethics (read less work, higher income taxes) and morality... My first job out of the UW in Seattle. Would have been a lot richer if I'd gone to Redmond (this was in the early 80s)! What I wanted to say is, couldn't you just migrate BEFORE July while no tax is in effect, would that "grandfather" you in tax-free status? :)

I bought a few AAPL Jul12 395 calls on Monday. Very high premium, so risky - calls down interday today - obviously will be up tomorrow. Trying to decide whether to actually hold them, though I'd just intended to "flip" after earnings release. Sort of like house-flipping, but also like picking up quarters in front of train if one guesses wrong. I did the same last week with MSFT calls. 10% 1 day return on that one but keeps my anxiety level high for that 1 overnight hold!

Yes, but the 13s got to .21 on December 28 - less than a month ago! - and the 14s to around .64. 10strike still way out of the money but if one is confident BAC will be greater than >10 come Jan13 an interesting (if risky) bet...

This article apparently written by Chanticleer employee, Joe Koster (write Brk.b, BAC, SHLD, HNR puts): http://seekingalpha.com/article/316363-4-good-candidates-for-cash-secured-puts?source=yahoo Neither I nor any investment product I co-manage have sold puts on the stocks mentioned in this article. The company where I work - Chanticleer Holdings, Inc. - has just launched a registered investment advisor, Chanticleer Investment Partners, LLC. This entity will start accepting outside capital next month and at least one of the strategies will consider selling puts when the situation is attractive. More details on this entity will follow within a couple of weeks. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell a security. Please do your own research before making an investment decision.

The HP buy is interesting: new positions in three additional companies: Hewlett-Packard ($464m), Genworth Financial ($57m), and NovaGold Resources ($32m).

http://seekingalpha.com/article/288226-tom-gayner-entrusts-a-quarter-of-markel-s-equity-portfolio-to-3-brilliant-capital-allocators?source=yahoo

A small population (Australia and Canada) probably doesn't hurt (to afford it). Either. I'm curious how Australia tax system compares to neighboring New Zealand?

Having lived in a number of different countries, I completely agree with more pleasant, community-based lifestyles (elsewhere). One thing the US (still) has going for it is great universities and university-based research. But that may well change if funding declines. That's basically what happened to the UK research universities relative to the US.

My sister is a gastroenterologist - I just talked to her yesterday - she and her family (her husband a surgeon) eat fish everyday. She believes in HDL's. She said that Esselstyn's theory's don't jibe with generally accepted current medical kinowledge (no surprise there - she didn't watch the video though). How do you eat salads w/o any oil? I started just trying to avoid sugar and carbs, this no oil thing has be wondering if I need to go further (though I have no cardiac history family does have a slight problems w/ elevated blood glucose)....What about nuts & oil from nuts? I don't see mention of randomized controlled trials in his published articles, which might provide "proof". These seem to be more cohort studies.

I watched the Esselstyn video, now I'm confused. Cut out oils - including olive oil? No dairy at all? No fish (or chicken)? What about fish oil? Cholesterol < 150? But whole grains are ok --

Some pre-crisis comments on bank valuations by Thomas Brown of bankstocks.com: http://www.bankstocks.com/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=6320&ArticleTypeID=2

Interesting post on Yahoo Finance from AIG-WT board: C warrants 9-May-11 08:38 am The following guest commentary was written by David Bunting and Brett Haire, the two principals of Brave Asset Management. Prior to starting BAM, they ran the Equity and Government Bond Trading departments at First Boston Corp. where they were responsible for warrant trading and corporate finance valuation. Almost 2 years ago, on July 14th, 2009, we published a guest commentary piece on TheStreet called "Treasury Should Auction Bank Warrants." We think the attention called to the TARP warrant situation then saved the U.S. Taxpayer some serious money and allowed John Q. Public a very interesting investment opportunity. Since then, over a dozen TARP warrants have been auctioned with generally benevolent results. However, the largest warrant auctions, (the A+B warrants for Citigroup>©), have not fared so well and in our opinion, represents an interesting opportunity. Sometimes gray hair and an appreciation for financial history pays dividends. We think this is one of those times. Think back to 1988. An unfriendly bank takeover of the Irving Trust Co. by the Bank of New York>(BK) had been consummated. To bridge a valuation gap, the consideration package included a 10 year non-callable warrant on BK. Turn the clock ahead 20 years, and change the dynamics a little: The bank being taken over is Citigroup, the rescuer is John Q. Public and part of the consideration package, is once again, a 10 year non-callable warrant. Mark Twain suggests that while history doesn't repeat itself, it does rhyme every once in awhile. Here are some interesting similarities between today's Citigroup warrant pricing and Bank of New York's 20 years ago: * After issuance, both warrants suffered significant price erosion and market disdain; * Ultimately, at its nadir, sometime in 1991, the Bank of New York warrants visited $1.00. Citigroup's B warrant at its recent low traded at 18 cents. * Close to expiration, in 1998, the BK warrants traded higher than $200.00 / warrant * From a valuation perspective, here are some relevant comparisons from when the BK warrants were trading at a buck: ...BKNYW.... C/ ws / B Time to expiration.....7.5 years...7.5 years Strike price.....$62.00.....$17.85 Common stock pric....$14.00...$4.56 Warrant price....$1.00.....$0.19 Common / Strike .....22.5%................25.5% Warrant / Strike .......1.6%.................1.1% In 1991, BK was not a ward of the country like Citigroup is today. However, benevolent economic and yield curve conditions, coupled with an exceptionally long life, propelled BK from almost single digit price levels to a split adjusted price of over $280.00. This environment provided stupendous linear results for the warrants which moved them from $1.00 to well over $200.00. Can history repeat itself? The U.S. Treasury was fiercely determined to nurse Citigroup back to health and rescue the banking system so... isn't it reasonable to assume that Citigroup with 7.5 years to go, could catch a similar break and enjoy some tailwinds that could also provide the warrant holders with huge BK like returns? Something to consider Patch

Covered his MBIA short.

I have a computer now with only Open Office installed so I have to use it and Google Docs. Docs are one area where "feature rich" seems to be important. Inevitably, importing Word docs into one of the free products, then saving as Word doc seems to screw up formatting for anything slightly complex, like footnotes.

Morgan Stanley (MS) getting lots of insider buys (from Yahoo Finance). Still a buy?: Insider Transactions Reported - Last Two Years Date Insider Shares Type Transaction Value* Aug 5, 2011 OLAYAN HUTHAM S Director 5,000 Direct Purchase at $20 per share. 100,000 Aug 4, 2011 TAUBMAN PAUL J Officer 50,000 Direct Purchase at $20.38 per share. 1,019,000 Aug 4, 2011 PORAT RUTH Officer 25,000 Direct Purchase at $20.50 per share. 512,500 Aug 4, 2011 GORMAN JAMES P Officer 100,000 Direct Purchase at $20.62 per share. 2,062,000 Aug 2, 2011 OWENS JAMES W Director 5,000 Direct Purchase at $22.04 per share. 110,200

Lost 25 lbs on low sugar-low carb diet. BMI around 21-22.

In the short/medium run, is the stock likely to be hit?