ubuy2wron

I believe BRK has had at times some very substantial RE investments. my extremely fragile memory recalls that he has been a significant shareholder of one of the largest office properties REITS in the past I think it was vornado.

Having worked on wall street for 30 plus years I have some insight to this question. Why would any one buy this the answer is very seldom are these things bought they are sold. thousands of retail brokers are working the phones selling financially engineered ïnvestments" to their clients to earn the fees and commissions. I stopped attending dog and pony shows years ago when I discovered the two most frequently asked questions were how much is the commission and will it hit this months production.

I am sure the Weiss crowd will only approve of Sam Antar as head of audit committee....LOL

Good win for Overstock but given the sorry state of govt. finances does this issue of avoidance of state sales taxes by internet retailers not deserve a resolution. It realy seems to me unfair to brick and mortor retailers and also to anyone dumb enough to buy something expensive in a state with a sales tax. It seems to me that an agreement is required for online retailers to remit taxes to the state that some one is resident is fair.

Peter, Was one of the most respected value investors around and a truely decent and humble man . He ran marathons in his spare time and helped fund schools in Nepal after visiting Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary. I am glad I knew him, the world is a better place because he was here.

Mr. Einhorn is a very bright boy and he is prolly a darn good stock picker but he aint no eagle scout. http://www.deepcapture.com/notes-on-david-einhorn-the-predator-in-a-cute-t-shirt/

I am SOOOOOO tired of this game. I have no clue as to St Joe and its proper valuation and accounting methods but I will bet you a good sum of money that Mr. Einhorns friends at the SEC opened up the investigation at his request.

I have figure a personal bogey which is enough to retire on. My plan is when I have double that I will sell my business and find something else to fill up my day.2 times enough is my margin of safety in case those pesky black swans want to attack my nest egg.

I posted this about a year ago and promptly had a bunch of stuff thrown at me. If anyone was foolish enough to venture into this it is up 300% I am selling half right now and will see how the co does over the next 6 months before I decide what to do with the balance. PS I believe there were quite a few good ideas on this thread and a few real stinkers as well

Its always been tough, the future was just as opaque then as it is now. You might want to pull up a stock chart around October 1987 if you think it was all beer and skittles . ;D I try not to repeat the same mistakes but I sure am imaginative in making up new ones and the mistakes I make now cost me more money cuz the pile is higher. Its never easy and remember history is always written by the winners never the losers .

I have managed to generate a return in the high teens for the last decade. I suspect that my returns for the next decade will be lower, likely because I am less willing to take on as much risk I expect the markets however will produce markedly better returns for the average investor over the next decade vs the last.

Watsa , Ayn Rand changed my life, I was a lefty who read her works in college and her arguements convinced me of the importance of capitalism and private property. That said for mahkets to function properly they must be both free and fair. Think of a poker game where some players can regularly see what cards are going to be dealt next (insider trading) I for one and I am sure most rational players would choose not to partcipate in that game. One of the great advantages of the Western mkts is that they are generally percieved by most participants as being both free and fair, this increases liquidity and valuations and only good things flow from those features mI am sure you agree. Greenspans Randian cred certainly is difficult to challenge he certainly was an important part of her inner circle and I am sure considers himself a proponent of her philosophy. I have come to the conclusion that like all belief systems Randian models run into difficulty when they are transfered from the printed page to the real world.

As a foot note I did re buy JDSU, after the tech bubble burst it traded down to the point where it was close to a net net and I bought it for the second time and sold it 6 months later for a decent profit.

Parsad, If the truth is to be told I do kinda envy his personal hockey rink but I think the world might be just a bit better off if the shark was swimming free and Stevie was floating in the tank.

Parsad, Michelle prides herself in being somewhat to the right of Ayn Rand and Genghis Khan on the political spectrum. It never ceases to amaze me how some vehemently buy into a no rules, wild west form of market based economic Darwinsim as the only solution to societies ills. I guess in Michelles perfect world SAC would not be under investigation and Stevie could buy an even more opulent palace http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4b86fd387f8b9a9d5faf0100/cohen-house-greenwich.jpg and could spend even greater sums purchasing decomposing shark carcasses masquerading as modern art. http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/mediaManager/?controllerName=image&action=get&id=119784&width=628&height=471 PS If anyone is interested in the photo of Stevies house in the top left hand corner is his under cover hockey rink just to give you some indication of its scale.

It seems that one of the common attributes of great investors is learning from their mistakes. One of the common mistakes that value investors generally make is buy just because something is cheap and to sell often too soon just because it is not cheap any more. In the early 90's I was fortunate to purchase shares in a hot new IPO, JDS Fitel a Cdn co. which made lasers ,pumps etc which allowed users of their products to send more and more signals over a fibre optic cable. I understood something about the internet even though I did not own a computer and had never logged on directly to anything. To make a long story short after holding the stock for a period of approximately 18 months I sold and made a 300% profit. My selling rational was simply valuation JDS mkt price had appreciated so much in such as short period of time. I made a 30,000 profit on my 15000 investment. JDS later merged with a company called Univase Tech now called JDS Univase and at peak bubble pricing the investment I sold was worth approximately 6,000,000. So there is my candidate for worst trade ever ....I can be quite proud of being best at being worst.

I am a complete neophyte when it comes to the US Muni mkt. I sat for US registration exams 30 years ago but promptly forgot everything I learned on tax exempts as my career was to be spent in Canada. Prem has made some largish "bets" re the muni-mkt I believe which I am very confident will turn out to be the correct ones long term , however Mr Mkt. in his infinite wisdom seems to care little for long term outcomes when there are short term issues to fret over. Is FFH exposure enough to for me to worry what others may be worrying about.

I believe that EVT was the buyer of ABC's position. You have to imagine this like a tontine so if you are older than Hal Jackman u may not want to buy it.

Elf seems like a steal but what is Management doing to close the gap on the valuation and why the cross ownerships. I hate when things are more complicated then required. Have they eluded to increased buybacks or a take over or something? Sorry about the last post fat fingers. There is no need for any financing take out EVT and UNC the two trusts and use the ample liquidity there to take out the balance of ELF then when you do not have to share with any public shareholders buy the remaining Empire life from Dutch insurer desparate to sell assets IMO. Next step would be to sell insurance co's to somebody like Fairfax at some premium to BV. I can not believe that these insurance co's would not have ample bidders at prices more than BV. The cross holdings go way back and there is a reason mostly I suspect because of a desire to not pay tax. I would suggest you take a look at the older filings for Dominion and Anglo Investments which shows how the creeping takeover was started in the great depression and has resulted in some pretty amazing compund growth. One of the results of this digging is that the number of shares outstanding in EVT is actually materialy less than shown on financial statements. I think the worse case outcome is more of the same which results in a mid teen return over the next decade if the sun rises and sets pretty much like it has in the past. It may interest some the Frances Chou has been buying this name.

Elf seems like a steal but what is Management doing to close the gap on the valuation and why the cross ownerships. I hate when things are more complicated then required. Have they eluded to increased buybacks or a take over or something?

Stubble I own a more than small slice of ELF I have also recently purchased a piece of EVT which is about 50% invested in ELF and is a way to buy ELF at a discount. I have done a ton of DD on this name and it is my largest holding currently by a pretty significant margin. Book is approx 750 per share currently their P&C business is growing because their markets have hardened and their life business is doing just fine thankyou. A small foot note which I uncovered is that their P&C sub was founded by Canadas first Prime Minister Sir John A MacDonald. I suspect that the 20% of Empire Life their gem of a life insurer which they do not own may be available at an attractive price. It just might make sense for the Jackmans who have been involved in histories longest creeping takeover to speed up the process a little.

There has been a spate of articles recently describing the scope of the mortgage fraud foreclosure mess. Felix who has been one of my least favorite wall street scribes has written a particularly shocking article. http://seekingalpha.com/article/229999-the-enormous-mortgage-bond-scandal The banks have been generaly one of the weakest groups YTD. My question to the board is are we again entering value territory for some of the names or should this industry group just be thrown on the too difficult to ponder pile and move on. My own take on this is that the greatest risk likely lies with the cos that were the largest marketers of RMBS securities in the 2006 to 2008 period. It is interesting also to note that credit spreads for the banks have widened to levels not seen for a while.

Bronco, "funny how he "Buffett" does everything in his power to aviod estate taxes" It seems to me that all but the extremely depressed or suicidal follow Buffetts avoidance policy re estate taxes...LOL.

Is this not applying the same policies to companies that Uncle Sam already applies to its citizens. The USA taxes you on the basis of citizenship not residency like most countries. If you are no longer a resident of the US you have to pay taxes on your income you earn outside of the country if you die you have taxes to pay even if you nor any of your decendents are US residents or citizens. Most countries tax on the basis of residency not citizenship the US as a nation puts a pretty high value on its citizenship so perhaps this is fair the only way you can avoid this taxation policy as a citizen is to renounce ones citizenship.