NormR

Forget 3D printing, I want a computer driven / google car. ;D

Beware,... we might soon get some free Halloween-like graveyard tour at next years AGM ;D LOL It has taken a while, but I've made a silly multiple from Service in recent years. :)

Didn't Francis have some bad things to say about U.S. death care firms a few years back? (But I might well be misremembering on this point.)

I think reminding people of the donation option once in a while is a great idea. It doesn't even have to be done by Sanjeev. I'll set up a calendar reminder :) I agree that a way must be found to stop the spam. The fee would work, though I suspect that $1 would work as well as $50 (spammers will never ever pay anything, and if they are stupid enough to do and give you their real email/name via Paypal, you just ban them as soon as they spam and keep their money, and report them to their ISP). But better spam-catchers OR getting trusted volunteers to do some admin duties would also work. Most really popular forums end up with a team of admins/moderators, so it would probably be a normal evolution here to delegate some tasks. Just food for thoughts. Good ideas. Perhaps a hybrid? A one time fee for newbies plus quarterly donation drives, sort of like PBS?

I was wondering how bad the spam was here. Your experience seems to match up with what I've heard from other sites. :( I suspect that even a small fee will get rid of most of the spam.

Just to clarify, I'm looking for the "best of" and not sticking to 1-3 picks for a whole portfolio.

As a followup to the copycat investing thread, if you had to pick 1 to 3 stocks that are currently held by Fairfax, and a similar number from Berkshire Hathaway, which ones would be your top picks? (I'm going with "cloning" instead of "copycatting" because Mohnish used it in his talk that was linked a few days ago. Oh, feel free to add a few picks from Mohnish too :) )

Well, prior instances of default (many years ago) did lead to the confiscation of land. Usually the whole country. But it did require extra expenditures in guns and men. ;) More seriously, Greece should just default.

http://blogs.smeal.psu.edu/grumpyoldaccountants/archives/742 Dig a bit and you'll find more. Hint: take a look at the past history of management.

A difference in the quality of management and it isn't clear how much repeat business they get.

Related ... http://www.scribd.com/doc/30716260/How-EMH-Has-Damaged-Our-Industry-06182009-James-Montier http://initiativeming.blogspot.ca/2007/01/capm-is-crap-by-james-montier.html

It is a hypothesis. EMH= Efficient Market Hypothesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis

Yes, it's alive but not very well IMHO. Problem with the EMH is that it isn't totally falsifiable. (It has to be married to a pricing model and so only joint tests can be made.) As a result, it is hard to kill. However, ask anyone who likes it to explain the persistence of momentum which trivially violates the weak form of EMH. I've yet to get anything close to a clear response to that question. (I'd have pointed them to value but a bunch of EMHers seem to have tried to appropriate value investing for themselves without so much as a mention of Ben Graham. :o)

There are relatively few free Canadian screeners. You can probably get globe gold via a discount broker. Mind you, data on Venture listed firms will likely be sparse. Even Bloomberg seems to fail at the small cap end in Canada. CPMS/Morningstar might provide better coverage for the space but I don't use their 'pro' products at the moment.

One of them used GNP instead? (Btw, doesn't it make more sense to use GNP instead of GDP in any event?)

+1

I was reading In Praise of Copycats, which reminded me of Mohnish Pabrai's talk and thought I should take a more disciplined attitude to copying good investment ideas. So, I've a few questions for you. Which portfolio managers to do follow with an eye to swiping their ideas? When looking at the portfolios of said managers, how do you narrow down the list to the best few stocks/securities? What sorts of things should you keep an eye out for when copycat investing? Any other wisdom on the topic would be appreciated. :)

Strikes me that one should discount the estimates to account for analyst enthusiasm. I forget the current average rate, but by about 10%? (They also seem to have a problem identifying big jumps.)

Let's see, market cap and shares outstanding. How do I calculate market price again? Bad Norm ;)

It's not a bad idea at all. You'd just not stop there in real life. The idea is to start by excluding all of the intangibles and coming to a guesstimate of value without being influenced by the intangibles/qualitative. Then do it again with everything. As a result, you put a price on the squishy factors. It is also a good idea to avoid looking at stock price to avoid being anchored by it. At least initially. So, overall, not a bad idea. IMHO. Added: Might be a fun interview tool too. Better than some of the crazy Fermi question stuff that infects tech interviews.

Try getting the data from yahoo instead of from google for your google spreadsheet. At one point google had a hard time with almost all Canadian quotes.

Keep in mind that the government backstops mortgage insurance in Canada. At least to 90% IIRC.

Has anyone ever seen a dislisting that didn't depress the stock price - at least in the short term?

Another here.

You have the wrong business model there. It's much better to charge 2 & 20 for the service ;D