watsa_is_a_randian_hero

Tim - Wondering why you classify Teton as "deep value". I definitely agree with you that its illiquid (lol), but I'm it appears valued at standard multiples for its industry.

Thanks for sharing Nate and Tim. PDRX does look good. A few ideas that haven't been mentioned (skipping most ideas that I've seen already mentioned on this board somewhere): FCBN - very large holding for me. Good for a someone with very high patience. Great mgmt. No catalyst in sight, but very cheap relative to historical levels. While ROE has been lower then historical levels, a major transaction seems to be announced every 12-18 months over the last 8 years. All have been priced very well, with cash. DIT PKBK BOBS TSX:CAL MOCO - not cheap compared to many microcaps, but should be priced higher due to low risk TSE:7122 BMBN - prob at FV now, bought lower SUBK - same as above NNEMF - Sprott is on board; mgmt had past success buying/selling mining co's. Others: TSE:8031 - not microcap but goes along with King888's point of international OGZPY - same as above

Nate - How have you valued FAVS? Despite what you say about core operations being solid and profitable, and the management focus, it doesn't seem cheap. They still have about $8mm of debt/preferred stock for a total EV of around $18mm... stand alone financials are not available, but annualizing the last quarter would get you 3mm in EBITDA for a 6x multiple. In addition, backing out goodwill and the balance sheet doesn't look great either. Are you looking for margin improvements/organic growth with new management? Is your ownership all based on management at this point

Mechanically no he cannot remove the bulldozer - but does that 1% owner have a 1% ownership stake in that bulldozer via his/her 1% ownership stake in the firm? Or does he/she not have ownership until the firm (if and when it decided to) distributed the 100 bulldozers proportionately to the stockholders? Bottom line - the collective MSFT shareholder base "owns" the cash on MSFT's balance sheet, thus MSFT mgmt should have the shareholder in mind when it spends the cash. MSFT mgmt behaves as if they/the Company owns the cash and can do whatever it pleases. I would say it is dangerous to think a 1% shareholders "owns" 1% of the cash and add this cash directly to a valuation of the shares (with no discount). A 1% shareholder owners 1% of the firm. The firm owns the cash. Unless the 1% shareholder can persuade others to join in a proxy battle, control of the cash lies with management (for better or worse). Therefore, if management has a history of letting cash idle, poor investment choices, poor acquisitions, or anything of the like, then that cash may be worth less to the shareholder then its stated value on the balance sheet. On the flip side, if management can be trusted, then I believe the cash is worth its full stated value to the shareholder. Either way though, the cash does not proportionally belong to shareholders...all of the cash belongs to the firm, and the firm proportionally belongs to shareholders.

The way the question is worded, I answered "no," but I wasn't exactly sure what you were getting at. A 1% Common stock holder of a construction company with 100 bulldozers is not entitled to go remove his proportionally owned 1 bulldozer from the firm's parking lot...all assets are owned by the firm, unless and until you can control the firm or persuade a majority block of shareholders to vote with you.

Extremely cool! I had a suggestion to Parsad a while back that the board should somehow incorporate feedback so a viewer could quickly sort posts (because there are so many) to find the ones that would be considered most valuable (from the perspective of that viewer). This would be very helpful for that! My original suggestion was something where other viewers rated (thumbs up/down) posts and posters. One issue with basing feedback merely on thread creator is that multiple posters can be long the same idea and contribute to the analysis on the thread, but only the thread creator gets analysis under this construct. Tough to solve. May I +1 this, and also suggest adding the S&P 500 return since the first post as well?

Chicago...2nd largest financial center in nation and plenty of hospitals. Cleveland...Decent-sized finance market and large medical market. I'm sure you could both find jobs in LA or san fran if you didn't have too much of a niche and the cost of living didn't turn you off. Those would be much better to live due to weather in then either of the 2 cities above. FD: I'm from Cleveland originally and work in Chicago now (in finance).

what is the source of the float. Float from reinsurance is not the same as float from auto insurance.

Perhaps you are not aware that the author was a daily poster on these boards a couple years back. For those who are unaware of the backstory, he was a frequent poster who had a reputation for arrogance and would rudely insult others for their ideas while contributing very few of his own. He would often refer to his quantitative approach ("our systems") wildly outperforming...but would never share performance data. I believe several times Sanjeev threatened to ban him for using insulting language (I also believe he insulted Sanjeev himself)...though when I search his posting name nothing appears. I'm not sure if his disappearance was due to an actual ban or not, but I would suggest the board is better off without him. As you can tell from his book title and the few pages available on Amazon, Harry writes as though he has a well-established track record and deserves the respect of the investment community. However, in reality he is a kid who graduated from Rice University within the last few years (I believe 2007, but his linkedin profile is no longer public) and has never had a real job (or at least according to his former linkedin profile). I was always suspicious that given his background of no career history that he was someone who was just playing around with family money...and then upon googling his father's name today (whom he dedicated the book to), I found this (which mentions a son Harry): http://www.cruisingworld.com/news/yachtsman-sumner-huey-long-1921-2011 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081859/ Not that lack of age and experience means anything with regard to potential success (Michelangelo produced the Pietà at age 24)...or that ease of career due to access to family money means anything either...but in a case of an individual under age 30 with no career history and no disclosure of a track record the extreme level of arrogance certainly appears baseless. Which brings me back to the same conclusion I mentioned earlier...Not sure if trolling or just stupid.

What a joker. I believe the value of this board has increased in his absence. Attached pic is relevant...it was my reaction to half of his posts.

this could be skewed if you are an individual vs family.

I've been short the long bond futures for some time now. I've also sold TLT options puts/calls for income and to manage the trade's risk level. I'm up about 10.5% in a year and a half (on the notional behind the futures)...pretty good run considering that implies a 10.5% loss for the longs, who are getting paid a coupon (implying the capital loss is higher once backing out coupon income). For what its worth, at this point I've been selling TLT puts reducing my net short exposure, and I'm looking to exit the trade completely in the near future. At 2.5%, shorting the long bond was asymmetrical; low risk/high reward potential. At 4.0% the trade is no longer asymmetrical IMHO.

something odd is going on...amazon was down for 30 minutes yesterday, it seems a lot of websites were loading slowly (even this morning wikipedia pages were timing out for me).

I think he was saying we'd have a billion loss between all of these events...the floods, the tornados, the storms, the interest rate spikes

Did you count taxes in this equation? An unlevered stock mutual fund pays no taxes. You will own taxes once, on the original cap gains/dividends as they pass through to you. All else the same, FFH has to earn a higher return on investments to generate the same net return to investors because of the double taxation in the corporate structure. This mitigates the benefits of cheap leverage to some degree.

many things to consider: -GP of the partnership is typically an LLC owned by the managing individual, so you will need to set this up separately. -subscription documents, partnership agreement, and PPM all need to be drafted. -taxes - K1 will need to be issued for each partner as Cunninghamew said. Your partnership will need to file taxes as well. -Audits are not necessarily required; but you better have this disclosed in your partnership agreement and PPM if you are not planning on getting audits. -you will need to file form D with the SEC within the correct timeframe of offering, and renew at relevant points. -depending on your situation, you may need to register your LLC as an investment advisor. -most funds typically have venders each fill separate roles...admin, custodian, primebroker, etc. you should outline what your intents / limitations are within your documents you draft. I had a partnership I ran for family for a bit and then had to close due to conflict of interest. I still manage separate accounts though. I can tell you from experience that running separate accounts can be a lot easier from an administrative standpoint. All you really need is a PoA for that...you can have other docs in place too such as a advisor agreement, but there is much less involved from a regulatory standpoint.

I watched the whole game...crawford was awesome as usual

http://www.drudgereport.com/

How old is the child? Do they have an earned income? Can you (or others) pay then to do legitimate work (chores, etc)? Set up a Roth IRA (you need to have earned income). I have one set up for my godson at TD Ameritrade. Benefit of a Roth IRA for a child is most minors will not earn enough money to pay taxes. So you pay 0% putting the $ in, and you pay 0% taking the money out.

caledonia is one that I am in that is similar with african exposure and low pe. While the PE is not 1x like banro, they have also paid significant dividends.

you would need to model this net of hedges 06 and 08 look the same right now, but really with hedges accounted for they were very different

Big cost inflators drive higher prices, in my opinion. Non are related to the US being a "private" market. All are related to government intervention. 1. US has a HIGHLY regulated managed care. To call it insurance is a misnomer. For the most part, these are are low-deductible plans which equates to prepaid healthcare. The large cost drivers here are the government regulating what HAS to be covered by insurance. A high-profile example: not everybody needs/wants a plan that covers contraception; but now regardless it is forced. That is a low-cost example. However, conceivably in a low-regulation environment you would have insurance plans that did not cover certain hospital procedures, such as open heart surgery; or certain high-cost cancer/aids drugs. Basically you can not buy a kia health insurance plan; you have to buy a Cadillac. 2. US hospitals are forced to provide care regardless of ability to pay. This burdens managed care companies for making up for those that don't pay, which drives higher prices. 3. US pays higher prices for drugs (that cost the same to produce), basically covering the cost of innovation for everyone, because other countries will limit price that can be charged. 4. Insurance/medicare is on a pay-for-service model. This incentives doctors to require additional tests, screening, etc they can charge for. 5. Tort reform is needed. This affects costs in multiple ways, not just the judgments themselves. Out of an abundance of caution, doctors will perform tests, screening, etc to cover-their-ass in situations where there is an unreasonably low level of risk. Example - my uncle (a doctor) removed a skin tag from my back last summer, he asked if I wanted testing on it. It would have cost about $125. I asked what the risk level was; he said he would normally recommend it to patients but the risk level was extremely low. I asked what he would do if it was him; he said he would not have it screened, and just monitor it to see if it grew back. 6. End of life care is extremely expensive. We need death panels (or whatever you want to call it) to manage this care. Medicare currently allows reimbursement for procedures that will not significantly extend life or a quality life. This should not be paid by medicare. If someone wants these services (ie, a $50,000 procedure expected to extend an 85 yr old's life by 2 years), they should be forced to pay privately (out of pocket or have a private insurance policy to cover this type of care).

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/19/lululemon-discovers-what-men-have-always-known-yoga-pants-are-see-through.html I was confused about all of the hullabaloo about sheer,” a New York City-based consultant and avid yoga practictioner who wished to remain anonymous, told The Daily Beast. “I never thought it was an issue, I thought it was a feature.” same thing I was wondering

I've reduced my position in JNJ...still own a little though.

I would do: Premium / (strike*multiplier - premium) ie, MSFT $27 Jan 14 puts are $1.90 right now. The return would be 7% over the next 10 months (if MSFT is over $27 in 10 months). That is the unlevered return. Anything else (assuming broker collateral required, or probabilities of exercise) may produce a result that is an inflated estimate of return due to application of leverage. I'll sell puts on something if its getting close to a price I may buy at (or if I already own, using a stike at a price I'd want to buy more at). and the inverse for calls I'll sell calls at a strike at a price I'd be willing to sell at.