Gregmal

+1 Take a look at the sample of companies where investors have found large margin of safety: Loews Seaspan FTP Sandridge Sears Fairfax Altius St. Joe The common pattern is they get a large net asset value and market price is at a fair bit of discount to that. This gets many investors excited, they see a large margin of safety, stupid market, etc.. The thing to focus on is to look out a few years and see what the earnings are going to be. Maybe 5 years or 10 years. Focus on where the earnings are going to be. Those are the fundamental drivers of a business. Not what discount you are getting to current net asset value. OK. This is the easy one. Take the case of some companies that are currently experiencing problems. You would say, I do look out over the next few years and I am going to capitalize the earnings of the business when they normalize. Fine. Except that many of these businesses are in industries that are getting disrupted. And you do not want to invest in any company that does not sell for less than 10x earnings. So a large portion of the investment universe is out of bounds. I would suggest to look at where value is actually being created. Vinod Many here would rather own those listed companies, because the understanding of being a badge wearing "value investor", is buying shitty companies, or at best, ones with questionable fundamentals, at a big discount to IV(while forgetting that maybe, just maybe, that discount is warranted)

I think the thing is to understand the fundamentals, but also be aware of the context. If you look some of the great long term compounders, in hind site they are easy to see. Duh. But what is easy to see is also capable of being extrapolated and applied to ones search for current companies with those characteristics. Google, again, just using it as an example, is a dominant, one of a kind company, regardless of where we are in the grand scheme of things, and will be, with almost 100% certainty, in the future. So now that I've determined this to be my foundation for owning a name, next up is price. Which at the end of the day, for a high caliber, established and dominant company, IMO(and I say this with a lot of caution for myriad reasons), is not really all that important in the grand scheme of things; all things considered. Why? Look at how long people have been talking about Amazon being overvalued(I am one of those people). Plot that chart and tell me how many times you could have bought it and how many times, over the long haul, you would have regretted it? Draw downs are just part of the markets glorious opportunity. You could have bought Apple before the GFC, Priceline during the tech bubble, etc. With proper risk management(averaging in slowly, a bit of diversification, continued diligence making sure you continue to own quality) the odds of getting hurt are very, very, small, if not, dare I say, almost nonexistent. Versus just sitting on a large pile of cash and being the grumpy old man that complains about why things are so expensive... It always makes sense to own great assets. The prices paid for them changes with the times. If you stay flexible with your ability to adjust(going overweight/underweight) as the price paid changes, you will make out quite well. But I have a hard time convincing myself it EVER makes sense, not to own ANYTHING of a great company.

Its an interesting scenario. I've argued for a really long time that the market isn't really expensive all things considered, people are just looking at things the wrong way. In the spring/summer/fall, I do a lot of fishing. When I go out, I always have a cooler with me for drinks and whatnot. Doing this, I would invariably run through a lot of ice. Spending $2.25 for an 8lb bag will take a long time to add up, but in time it will. Nonetheless I started thinking, and honest to god truth, Yeti coolers are the only coolers that ACTUALLY do as advertised and keep things cold for 6+ days. All the others say they do, but you're lucky to get 24 hours out of them. If in the course of a week I go out 5x, and instead of buying ice 5x, buy it 2x, the payback period is not that long and its actually quite beneficial. So, I was able to find a value proposition in a $250 cooler that my entire life I had thought was grossly overpriced. Your last paragraph is an example of that. Managers are using the wrong tools to evaluate some of these great businesses. Much like Buffett has said about missing Google. Its not, "we buy the most expensive assets and add as they go up", it is "we buy tremendous businesses and they appreciate at a greater rate than crummy ones".

Yawn. Basketball sucks.

MSGN.

I would think Buffett, like any semi intelligent or better, successful entrepreneur, would approach this as a unique opportunity to exchange thoughts with an individual who has done admirably well using a non conventional approach; one different than his own, and as such, this is perhaps an opportunity to learn something.

Trimming CRSP.

AAL, CTO and more GOOG

GOOG, GOOG, GOOG

I need to cycle back into refineries again. I bailed from MOC (at a small profit) and like Buffets former pick of PSX better, as it is better run (imo) with better capital allocation. It’s not cheap enough me to buy though, so I got some DOW instead. CLF‘s dividend raise is supposedly trying to bolster confidence, but the yield is too small to matter and won’t support the stock, imo. Yea PSX and MPC are the ones I like. They're small, as are a lot of my positions, so I don't have to give myself grey hairs worrying about aggressively managing it. I try to find levels where things get interesting to build starters, and then just scale in on further pullbacks. Agree on CLF, but if you listen to the calls, Goncalves has talked about his preferences for capital allocation. Given dividends are way down the list, I think this bodes well for what is being done with the others. They already ripped through about 10% of the shares outstanding since October if I remember correctly.

More CLF. Mexico tariffs? F you market, says Lorenco Goncalves, lets raise the dividend 20%...

While I dont disagree with much of the sentiment, at least on an academic level, what I think is flawed is the notion that equity risk is high relative to future returns. Granted, no one knows the future, but people have been saying this for at least the last half decade and returns have been more than adequate. There is little reason this can not continue to be the case. At least not any more reason than there is to make the case that it can not continue.

Got some FRPH at the close. $46.70 Ill take all day

Sold 10% of my BX. Still cheap, but I think short term its overshot.

Work a couple more years and then get a municipal job and just invest my own money and live life.

GOOG

The problem with the strategy is that if the stock goes straight up, you just get 10c/ share. Plus you have to pay short term capital gain tax, and tie up the cash in the account until put is expired. Like Warren said, if you like the stock, just buy it. Eating like a chicken yet shitting like an elephant... Not my cup of tea.

There seemed to be plenty of optimism about new ad units being released. Could that explain the price jump? I was going to buy more this morning but decided to buy something else once GOOG jumped. Yea I had an order ready to go right before the close yesterday as 1120 seemed excessive. I ultimately convinced myself to hold off because I'd deployed a fair amount of cash elsewhere recently and todays move is what I get for being a pussy. Google I find tends to overreact often. More times than not it is to the downside but there is no reason to be buying a stock like this on a +4% day.

MPC is quite interesting from a value POV. Their cash flows that can be used for buybacks or dividends exceed their earnings due to the cash stream from the MLPs. Twas the toast of the town, best of breed, sector champion maybe a year ago...now its poo poo. I don't see much that has changed to warrant such sentiment shift.

I can't figure out how to make money with CRSP and EDIT but found the following useful as it covers (the basics) the playing field. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/what-is-crispr/ Thanks. Its tough, and really nobody knows for certain with anything in these fields, but its also something very unique and for me at least, a worthwhile speculative allocation. There are winner take all elements to this and of the three public options, I've only really been able to determine a couple things for sure. CRSP will be first to market, EDIT has the strongest and most diverse patent portfolio and will be second to market, and NTLA is basically behind everyone in both cases.

More CLF, CRSP, EDIT, AAL, started MPC, bid in for CTO

CLF calls

Part of the key to the first part is who you do business with. Most people have no shot to get the IPOs you want. This is why taking the placement and selling at the open works. Typically the stuff you do have access to, speaking in terms of the normal retail investor, is the crap passed over by all the bigger boys, and stuff you dont want to touch. This strategy, unless you have an in, will purely come down to judgment calls.

You sound like a Jehovah's Witness spreading the Value Investing word, with the caps and all. Such dogmatic thinking won't do you any good. I'd advise you to get off your high horse. And if you don't approve making money one way or another, how about you leave this thread alone instead of bitching about us being sinners? I enjoy making money very much and approve of it. Good luck with your strategy of getting long term wealthy, by speculatively participating in "hot ipos" at the top of a ten year bull market. What could possibly go wrong :) Buying the IPO and selling at the open? What could go wrong? Probably very little. I mean even if this goes down immediately, lets say 10%... if capital is properly allocated, is that really such a big deal? Thats probably the worst case scenario and highly unlikely. But the beauty of the market is that very soon we will see who is right and who is wrong, and if there really is so much to be scared of out there.

Some people look to find opportunities to make money in the markets. Others look to show off their "value investor" badge. I consider my strategy to have a value approach, but take the first 100 times out of 100. Finding "value" is just as much about identifying mispricings or instances where there is a mathematical edge, as it is about buying some shitty business below intrinsic value and then waiting 5 years for it to do something. I don't gamble. But I know someone who on occasion bets sports. They guy's logic is "this line makes zero sense"... and to my knowledge, the games he bets, which is probably just a handful a year, he nails. Not my cup of tea, but if one can make it work, that's great for them. To each their own. Same as merger plays. If you run it 100 times, and you come out net positive, you may be on to something.. Re: IPO's Ive never seen or gotten notification at IB despite being signed up for a while. Would imagine if they do have availability it is for good reason, and not likely something worth getting into.