zippy1
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Low propane and ethane prices may finally curtail the oversupply of natural gas.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704723404578207760445809162.html?mod=BOL_twm_mw
HIGH PRICES FOR NGLS had encouraged drilling, swelling natural-gas output. However, that support is disappearing. Only a few months after gas prices hit their 10-year low, producers were flooding the markets with ethane, a building block of plastics, and propane, a fuel often used in heating and cooking.Since then, NGL prices have nose-dived.
Ethane at the Mont Belvieu, Texas, trading hub, fetched 22.75 cents per gallon Friday, down from nearly 90 cents a year ago, and near an 11-year-low, according to Platts research. The price is so low that some companies can't justify the cost of separating ethane from natural gas, further boosting gas supplies. Propane prices are also in the dumps, trading at 87.2 cents per gallon at Mont Belvieu near the end of the week, 62.2% below the year-earlier level, according to the EIA.
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Happy New Year to everyone.
May you have a prosperous year in 2013!
May you be happy and healthy in this year!
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Who's afraid of the fiscal cliff,
fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff ?
Who's afraid of the fiscal cliff ?
La la la la la.
-- to the tune of , Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf
:)
Ha! :) Good one!
I know we still have quite a few "cheap" stocks around to be had. However, normally people would be worried about debt ceiling, no? It does not even seem to be getting any attention. I do wonder why...
Anybody can share their insight why there is this lack of "concerns" about the upcoming debt ceiling fight? Or that is going to be a non-event?
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Maybe an internal networking effect, where the more things you know, the better the chance that something apparently unrelated to a problem can be re-imagined to create a solution.
Richard,
Thank you for the thoughtful comments. The above is very well said. It would seem that some of the people do exhibit the above.
Another aspect of this is actually how one "defines a problem." Sometimes, it is the root cause of a problem itself that offers a wonderful solution for some other problems. A good example is the invention of non-volatile memories.
So my typical interview quetions are like:
"What problem were you trying to solve?"
"What was the nature of the problem?"
"How did you go about to solve it?"
"If you were to do it again, would you do it any differently? If you would, how and why?"
"Why do you think this problem is an important one to solve?"
I found that many graduate students are not ready to answer such questions. I even had a few telling me that they need to check their dissertation. ::)
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My comment about that I would hire a 2-year roughneck over a 7 year college degree implied that I did not want a college grad that took 7 years to complete a 4 year program :)
Cheers
JEast
Ha! Ha! True. Although sometimes there are other reasons.
I have a friend whose father was a small town pastor in Georgia. My friend was going to get a job after high school. My friend was told by his father that he is "going to college."
My friend then asked his father, the pastor, how they could pay for the college. The answer was that "You are going to earn it."
I think my friend spent 6 years and worked part time to get his college degree. He then worked for Chrysler for a couple years and saved enough money to get through graduate school.
A truely self-motivated and talented person.
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How do you define intelligence? I think that's a pretty important consideration. Is it based on the level of education the person has completed? If so, you'd be excluding many of the greatest business leaders of all time, as many of them didn't bother completing their formal education because they thought they could get by without it.
I've seen an argument made that having a degree from a prestigious institution is more of a way to signal potential employers that a candidate is both bright enough and dedicated enough to complete the program, but that those same people probably would succeed anyway exactly because of how driven and intelligent they are. It makes intuitive sense to me, but I am biased.
I suppose it could be useful as a filter. Acknowledging that there are probably worthwhile people without extensive formal education and then not searching for them anyway as a way to cut out time wasted on evaluating average people makes sense from a resource management perspective. Why bother searching for the absolute best when there's a high probability those people will make it through your filter anyway and, even if not, you're reasonably certain to find plenty of desirable candidates anyway?
Just random thoughts. I'm in no way questioning your judgment when it comes to evaluating people - I'm just curious.
Scott,
I am not sure whether the above is addressed to me or not. Assuming it is, I actually don't filter out people "automatically." What I want is to have "evidence" that my potential hires are self-motivated and have basic skills to be trained in reasonable time to contribute in their jobs.
I have also found that "top-ranked" graduates from second-tier schools often are every bit as smart but "harder working" than average graduates from the first tier school. Many chose the so called "second-tier" schools for family or financial reasons. Many of my fellow managers would go for the top-tier school graduates. The way I do it, I actually get to choose people without so much competition.
I think that, for most people, the advantage of working for a "master" is that it orients you towards going after important problems and also let you see in real life how a "master" operate. For this reason, it does increase one's chance for successes. An example is that so many people worked for Ben Graham ended up being successful investors. Some of them are very smart and formally educated as Buffett and Tom Knapp but others being of reasonable intelligence are also quite successful such as Schloss.
Having a degree from a prestigious institution, like you said, does open certain doors for you. However, once you get into the "door" you still have to deliver. I have seen my shares of Ivy League PhDs fell flat on their faces after they "got into the door," so to speak.
I also agree with you that for truly great people, with their determination to be successful, they will be successful anyway in whatever they choose to do.
A good example is Ted Williams, the baseball player. Everyone knows that he is a baseball all-time great. I read his book about hitting. Judging by the way he approaches hitting, I am quite sure if he wants to be an engineer, he would be a truly great one.
Oh, he was also a fighter pilot during Korean war and was the wing man of John Glenn, the astronaut.
Just my 2 cents....
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Yes, I can see why you might prefer the hard worker. There could well be something to the industry as well. I'm in tech. Some of the factors that impact my 10 times multiplier estimate are:
- A smart person will come up with a good design rather than a bad one. As a result, all subsequent work will be an order of magnitude faster. e.g. imagine if youtube, in its early days, didn't have an architecture that easily allowed the identification of bottlenecks impacting scalability. If that had been the case, you would not have heard of youtube today.
- There are types of problems that only smart people can perceive before they happen. Avoiding these problems is incredibly important because of the leverage you get in solving the problem early
- The cost of an error can be huge, potentially in the millions of dollars. Smart people make far fewer errors. It's another leverage thing.
- A smart person will come up with new ideas that can grow into billion dollar businesses. Hard workers don't.
- Smart people tend to think more probabilisticly, perceive risk better, and understand things like sunk costs. This tends to lead them to make better business decisions and gives you a fighting chance in recognizing and responding to new competitors.
- When smart people need to figure something out, they'll generally come up with the right solution far more often than average people.
- Generally, with smart people, black swans are to the upside, while with average people, they're more likely to be evenly distributed or perhaps more to the downside.
- Smart people drive others to be their best. Average people, even if they're hard workers, slow everything down.
- I don't believe your point that hard workers figure out ways to do things better. Smart people are bored easily, which leads them to look for optimizations to make work more entertaining, whereas average intelligence people are much more willing to do repetitive jobs because they believe that nose-to-the-grindstone is the path to success.
It's not totally on topic, but it feels like one of my favorite Bill Gates quotes applies, "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."
All that said, when it comes to managing and retaining someone, it's much easier to have a hard worker.
The discussion makes me wonder whether there's any tech companies who believe that hard workers are better than smart workers. Hmm, maybe Electronic Arts (putting the same sports video game out year after year.)
Richard,
I think what you said are all true and very well put; except that it is not clear to me why being smart and being hard working are mutually exclusive.
I am also in Tech, specifically in semiconductor devices. When I was in graduate school, I worked for a guy who led a team to build the semiconductor process for the CPU of the original Mac in the 1980s. The guy was extremely smart; yet, at the same time, extremely hard working. He was my first boss and at the time, I thought he was just an aberration.
After I joined the industry, though, I noticed that, in general, it is the "smart and hard working" types that accomplish big things. For example, I met this old gentleman, who had won the highest honor from IEEE for semiconductor devices, but he would come in on weekends to do his work for "fun." Oh, he got his PhD from Rice, was an All-American college football player before going to graduate school and was drafted by NFL in the first round back in 1950s. A very interesting combination to say the least.
Now I myself manage about 20 PhDs, including a few from Ivy League schools. In general, they are all pretty smart compared to the average. And I wouldn't bring in average Joes for their jobs as average Joes probably can not even learn the trade in the first place.
However, what I found is that the top performers in my group tend to be the "smart and hard working" types. The "smart but lazy" types really can't compete with the "smart and hard working" types in the high pressure environment.
So, in my humble opinion, there is really no need to think that being smart and being hard working are mutually exclusive.
- A smart person will come up with a good design rather than a bad one. As a result, all subsequent work will be an order of magnitude faster. e.g. imagine if youtube, in its early days, didn't have an architecture that easily allowed the identification of bottlenecks impacting scalability. If that had been the case, you would not have heard of youtube today.
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Titan to Withdraw Money From SAC
Another investor in Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors LP has decided to withdraw its money from the hedge-fund firm, which is facing regulatory scrutiny.Titan Advisors LLC recently told clients that it had decided to withdraw its entire investment from SAC, said clients who received phone calls from Titan
"They've told us they still think SAC is a good firm but Titan doesn't need the headline risk, and we sure don't," said Tom Taneyhill, executive director of the Fire & Police Employees' Retirement System of the City of Baltimore, on Friday.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324731304578193874156975406.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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This is turning out to be a bit anticlimatic. I am still here and I blew all my cash on women, and nose candy.
What's worse is that here in Taiwan, 12/22 is a makeup school day. All the kids are disappointed that they have to go to classes.....
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Japanese government actually contracted a girl band to sell its bond. I can't stop wondering whether they have run out of buyers. oh, hope you enjoy the video
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Interesting thesis by Broyhill Asset Management.
giofranchi
Gio,
Thank you. It is very interesting!
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Deepest condolence to the families of the staff members and children gunned down.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sandy-Hook-Elementary-School-Massacre-Memorial-Page/142591449223701
Connecticut police have released the names and birthdates of the victims. All of the children were in first grade: Eight boys and 12 girls, police said. The youngest of the children were six.1. Charlotte Bacon 2/22/06
2. Daniel Barden 9/25/05
3. Rachel Davino 7/17/83
4. Olivia Engel 7/18/06
5. Josephine Gay 12/11/05
6. Ana M. Marquez-Greene 4/4/06
7. Dylan Hockley 3/8/06
8. Dawn Hocksprung 6/28/65
9. Madeleine F Hsu 7/10/06
10. Catherine V Hubbard 6/8/06
11. Chase Kowalski 10/31/05
12. Jesse Lewis 6/30/06
13. James Mattioli 3/22/06
14. Grace McDonnell 11/4/05
15. Anne Marie Murphy 7/25/60
16. Emilie Parker 5/12/16
17. Jack Pinto 5/06/06
18. Noah Pozner 11/20/06
19. Caroline Previdi 9/07/06
20. Jessica Rekos 5/10/06
21 Avielle Richman 10/17/06
22. Lauren Russeau 6/1982
23. Mary Sherlach 02/11/56
24. Victoria Soto 11/04/85
25. Benjamin Wheeler 09/12/06
26. Allison N. Wyatt 07/03/06
May their memory be blessed and may they rest in peace. All family members are kindly asked to post photos and stories of their loved ones on this memorial page. God bless.
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At the same time, in Henan Province, China. A madman got into a local elementary school and attacked school children with a knife. 22 children and one woman were hurt. I wonder if China has the same gun control law as US, there would be 22 dead children and one dead woman instead.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1105731/knifeman-henan-attacks-primary-school-children
A knife-wielding man attacked 22 children and a woman at a primary school in central China yesterday.Police detained the suspect, who attacked the children at the entrance of the Chenpeng village Primary School in Guangshan county, Henan, at 7.40am.
All the injured were taken to local hospitals and at least two of them, one pupil and an 85-year-old woman, were in serious condition, Xinhua quoted local police as saying. The elderly woman and most of the injured children suffered head wounds, the agency said.
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Firearms have come a LONG way since the Right to Bear Arms was added to the Constitution.
I mean, at the time, they had muskets and flint locks. Did machining even exist as a process then? Did a machine lath even exist?
So has communications/publishing. Does the 1st amendment not cover what you write over the internet? The founders never imagined that you could write something and have it viewable by anyone on earth 5 seconds later.
The revolution was won because of the fact that the colonists had access to the same weaponry as the British. This is sadly not the case anymore. The only way a government will fear its people is if the people have access to the same weapons as it does. The armed aerial drone or the attack helicopter is the modern equivalent of the mounted knight in full armor riding through the medieval village. Had the crossbow, then the firearm, never been invented we'd be living in the middle ages still today. If we don't want to go into another period of violence and stagnation what we desperately need is something to once again even up the power discrepancy between the rulers and the ruled.
So, weapon has come a long way.
Does "the right to bear arm" include nuclear weapon in people's view? The rulers obviously have nuclear weapons nowadays. If you want to een up the power discrepancy between the rulers and the ruled, isn't that the way to go? Should everyone get one? Would you advice that?
Or a M1 tank will do? Maybe a machine gun should be enough? a handgun? a shotgun? or a knife?
I am not trying to take away your right. I am just curious about how people think about this.
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Very cool, thanks for posting this. By the way, I have tried looking for anything and everything I can find on Schloss for years and have never seen 1985-2001 performance figures. Would love to see them as well.
I think you can get the performance figures from the section about Walter and Edwin Schloss's partnership in Prof. Bruce Greenwald's book. I happened to lend it to my co-workers.
Anyway, I happened to have an old 1989 copy of Outstanding investor Digest, which has an interview with Walter Schloss and Edwin Schloss. There is a performance figure table up to 1988. I noticed the 1984 figures are different than yours. I assume the numbers that Buffett published for year 1984 is not the full year figure. Below are the figures for years 1984-1988.
Year Annual return 1984 +8.4% 1985 +25.0% 1986 +15.9% 1987 +26.9% 1988 +39.4% -
Are you just indicating that people are willing to risk more at lower sums? If that's not it, how does 50k versus 500k make a difference?
I don't think it is just the size of portfolio.
When I was 30 just started working, I had a 2K portfolio and I am ready to risk it all. Now that I am 45, I don't feel comfortable risk 100% of my portfolio any more.
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Couldn't we just have some moderators also? They could help look through the new accounts and also delete inappropriate messages.
I vaguely remembered that this idea was tried once either on this board or one the previous board. It did not work for one reason or another. At that point, my guess was that it just seems too hard to find people with Parsad's temperament.
Some other board members may still remember this. Or am I dreaming?
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I found this story about how the crop insurance is being sold quite interesting. Also, one cannot compete on "price."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/17/158933382/competing-against-the-nicest-guy-in-town
The federal government spends about $7 billion a year on crop insurance for U.S. farmers. Policies are sold by private companies, but the government sets the rates, so the companies can't compete on price.That means the guys who sell crop insurance have to find other ways to compete. They try to out-nice each other. They are very charming. They wear polo shirts depicting hobbies. They have fun nicknames. And they know everyone in town.
Don "Dizz" Biefelt is the most interested, friendly neighbor you can imagine. He's 82 years old, and he sells crop insurance in Anchor Illinois.
I sat with him on Anchor's one public bench. His customers were everywhere. That guy over there, working on a truck — he's a customer. (And, by the way, the customer's wife just had a gallbladder out, Dizz says.) The guy in that house over there is another customer, as is the guy down at the end. Dizz knows their mothers, their nicknames, their wives' digestion problems.
But Don has competition. Brent "Hondo" Honneger works a few miles down the road. Brent also wears polo shirts and is charming and knows everyone.
The morning I meet Brent he has organized a Q&A session for farmers on how to file a crop insurance claim. Brent invited a bunch of Don's clients to this event. Just in case, he says, they're not getting all their questions answered.
Then he makes sure to stand by the door and personally greet each farmer:
There's one customer who Brent has been trying to poach from Don he's been trying to poach from Don for decades. "But he's like, 'I go to church with Don. I see him every Sunday.'"
Brent says he is always gracious. But he'll occasionally ask Don's customers a few questions about whether Don is keeping up with the times. "Does he mail everything still?" Brent will ask. "He's still operating like we operated 20 years ago."
Government subsidies for crop insurance have set the stage for thousands of tiny popularity contests in small farming communities all across the country.
Right now, in the worst drought since 1956, most farmers have generous insurance coverage, and I can confidently report they're getting very good service.
For more: Why does the government subsidize crop insurance in the first place? We try to answer that question in our latest podcast.
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I wonder whether from the political point of view, saving an insurance company, return it back to the private sector, and make some money for tax payers is acceptable; while saving FNMA and FMCC and returning them to private sector, and making some money for tax payers is not acceptable because some people believe that "government should not be in the mortage business in the first place?"
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I wonder how the board view this news. If one becomes a shareholder, how can he be sure that the government is not out to "get" him?
Aug 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury said on Friday it is changing the way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will repay taxpayers in a move the Obama administration said would accelerate the winding down of the government-owned mortgage financiers.The finance companies, which buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them as securities for investors, will now be required to hand over all their profits to the U.S. Treasury instead of the 10 percent dividend repayment required under the terms of their government bailout.
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With all this discussion of premium services or paid subscriptions, I have decided to add my own such service!
Beginning July 4th, I will start a premium service for $10 a month where I will list one monthly burger restaurant recommendation...no not as an investment, but which one produces the best tasting burger! Each month, I will cover another restaurant in a different state or province. I will not be travelling to the locations on most occasions, but just getting them to Fedex me a burger wrapped in aluminum foil. I expect this to be the best paid subscription burger recommendation service on the internet.
After the first six months, the fee will increase to $128.88 per month...I like the Feng-Shui around that number and expect alot of my future subscribers will be from booming Mainland China, who will pay up for the stupidest things right now just to get their money out of China! For my compatriots in India who do not eat beef, and for my vegan friends who do not eat meat (Dave that would be you, as I only have one vegan friend), the subscription fee will be $12.50 monthly if you are going to make me eat chicken and tofu burgers simply to serve your needs.
After a year, I will start the super-deluxe monthly paid subcription which includes a stock pick and burger recommendation. A la the Motley Fool premium service, I will charge you a fortune and give you nothing but anecdotes and a screen of five ideas based on statistical ratios that you could have done yourself on Yahoo Finance. The burger recommendation comes free with this service as I would have jacked up the monthly fee to $499.99.
So, I look forward to all of you long-time members signing up right away...Uccmal, Ericopoly, Cardboard et al...this price is only good for six months and then after that everything is fair game! Cheers!
PS. If you haven't realized it already, because the markets closed early today I have little to do, and thought I would blow a little time on how I feel about "paid subscriptions" in this expansive, albeit lazy, attempt at sarcasm!
I checked my calendar to see whether this is April 1st or not. But burger joint recommendation probably will be worth it. In fact, information about when you will be going out for lunch will be highly valuable, based on my little experience. ;D
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Thank You for your response. It gives great prospective.
Do you guys have the same debt problem as the US?
Is there a unofficial peg to the USD?
Dose it feel like it was back in the 90s over there ?
Do you think those owners will blow up if interest rate rise by a few hundred bases points ?
I am not sure whether there is a debt problem as in US. I just moved back in 2006 from US so I am not sure about how this one compares against the late 1990s. My guess is that this one is less severe than the one in 1990s. In 1990s, there was also a stock market bubble at the same time. For the last 5-6 years, though, people in general are quite pessimistic about the Taiwanese economic future.
People appear to have enough cash flow based on current interest rate. However, if interest rate goes up to the 4-5% range from the current 2% range, I am sure plenty of people would be in trouble.
The NTdollar exchange rate vs. US dollar appears to fluctuate between 28 and 32. Right now NT dollar is around 28 and considered on the high side. Most of the businesses would like to have NTD devalued as they are suffering from appreciating NTD. Many Taiwanese companies have cross margin of 3-5% so are worried about any NTD appreciation.
By the way, in here, the "real" RE speculators, are very leveraged. Since land are expensive, new development projects tend to be 13-15 story buildings. These can take up to 2 years to build. When you buy, you put down 3-5% of the buying price, and over that period of 2 years, you pay maybe another 3-7%. This essential gives you an "call" option on the apartment. This "option" is transferable. There are "RE investors" just flipping apartment units this way. I didn't know that there are "options" like this before I moved back.
At the time of the closing, that is the time you become "the owner", you pay the builder the rest, with loan up to 70%. Most of the speculators will not wait till this stage as amount of leverage will have to be reduced.
Of course, there are also the landlord types, who buy apartments to rent out. Since Taiwanese interest rate is so low with mortage rate around 2% and one year CD around 0.25%. A 3-4% gross yield on the property price, appears quite high. Since the house price quotes are not available daily, people tend to think that prices are stable. If the interest rate goes up to the 4-5% range, "investors" with borrowed money will have cash flow problems, I guess. "Investors" without borrowing may move their money back to the bank also.
Taiwanese Central bank actually has reduced the upper limit on the loan-to-value ratio recently and has issued orders that loan amount per square feet can not exceed certain numbers. It has also summoned heads of various banks for "coffee drinking" (a taiwanese term of moral persuasion) about the real estate loans. I am not so sure about what Mainland China is doing though.
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It seems similar situations has occurred in twain and Hong Kong before but on smaller scale. can someone out there share their experience?
There is probably a RE bubble in Taiwan also. Walking out my apartment, within 10 minute walking distance there are about 4 or 5 selling offices for RE agents.
Here in Taiwan, due to the limited supply of land, RE prices has always been high in the Taipei area. People appear to be willing to spend more money (in terms of so many month's salary) than in US. But I am not sure whether we have really pushed it too far this time.
A small apartment here in Hsinchu costs about US$150-200K. In Taipei, the price could easily double. To give you an idea about how affordable the prices are. Engineers with MS degrees typically make about US$25K a year. Teachers, considered well paid locally, proabably make about US$20K a year. Starting salary for college graduates is about US10K a year.
Another way to look at it, I was renting an apartment for US$1K per month a couple years ago. The apartment owner wants to sell it for about US$330K. It would seem to me that the price relative to rent is quite high.
In Hsinchu, where I live, I was told by several co-workers that there was a mini-bubble in late 1990s, when the science park here was expanding quickly. There was a crash following the burst of 2000 Tech bubble. It took 6-7 years to recover. So people do know that it is possible to lose money "for a while" in RE here in Taiwan.
One thing may be interesting this time around is that here in Taiwan, one can only get "floating" rate mortgage. I have not been able to find any banks wanting to make loan with a fixed interest rate. I often wonder why people here are confortable with these large floating rate loan. I also wonder whether the low monthly payment is pushing the prices too high since the mortgage rate is around 2%.
The property tax is less than 0.1%, as far as I know. Holding costs of a property is quite low here it appears. So many people seem to be willing to hold on to their properties.
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Lets be fair here. Francis Chou is a very honourable man, but he is not clairvoyant and every investment of his will not be successful. Believe me I know, as I have invested in his funds for several years. And while he is certainly not in the same league as some of those people mentioned in Hesters post, shouldnt posters be allowed to express dissenting and critical views of investments and/or fund managers? Are certain topics to be above criticism?
This board is of very high quality entirely due to the fact that our moderator spends a lot of time ensuring that it stays that way. We all respect and appreciate Sanjeev for what he does because without his work this board would degenerate into something like the Yahoo or Stockhouse boards.
However, the beauty of this board is that it is a forum where we get intelligent and informed debates and opinions on topics that illustrate the pros and cons of the subject at hand. Surely we dont want to censor posts just because we disagree with them.
Hester once made the point that shorters provide a good balance against the paid PR departments pumping their companies. So long as information is reliable should we not have access to it whether we agree with it or not?
I respect short sellers for they offer me opportunities to see my own possible mistakes.
However, I just don't see why Hester has to drag Francis Chou into this discussion for holding a minute position in his fund. It appears to me that Hester is just trying to be spiteful and provocative. It says more about Hester than Francis.
Loeb vs Ackman - This ought to be fun to watch
in General Discussion
Posted
Wow! This even makes it to NPR!
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/11/169172202/hedge-fund-titans-bet-billions-on-success-or-failure-of-herbalife