NormR

Seems like it's being kept 'alive' due to the continuing lawsuit ...

Good talk. A bit light on specifics but entertaining nonetheless.

Yes, of course. How else will they learn wisdom from resident expert James East - and a host of other notable value investors - while having a bouncy bubbly beverage? ;D Seriously, all are invited for some casual value talk.

All of the popups that repeated what Buffett just said - as breaking news! - are incredibly annoying. Shesh.

He's just not going to defend a particular price. He's putting traders on notice that might think he will. No biggie.

Just that he won't buy every share available at a certain price. Instead, he'll wait to try to buy cheaper. Makes sense to me

It was good. I've a paper copy but no scanner. I expect that someone else will provide :D

I might observe that some books have negative value. (Not necessarily the one in question because I've not read it.) There's the opportunity cost - as in that's X hours I won't get back. Even worse is the cost of absorbing poor mental models. Those can be quite expensive ... As a result, I've become rather more selective in my book reading over time. (Wow, that was overly grouchy ;) )

At some point the penny will have to go. Or perhaps a simple revaluation. 10 old dollars for 1 new dollar. One can't inflate forever and not run into such issues.

:(

Fair enough Sanj! ;D and don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have my money with FFH! As an aside, whenever someone has called me up about a stock it has been a perfect negative indicator. I was once lectured by a blowhard CEO about a poor quant rating I put on his stock. Turned out he was about to/in the process of selling his shares and departing the firm. Another one came out of the blue on the short side. I think I've about tripled my money in the stock since the call. ;D Fabrice has been a useful negative indicator on several occasions. ;)

I think Sanj might be referring to Bronte. Anyway, I wanted to make a couple of points. 1. I think that it's perfectly acceptable to lay out the bear/short case and to try to make such a case via the media. Indeed, the law tends to be slanted against the bears. 2. It seems apparent that some on the short side went way way way too far. If half of FFH's complaints are true - and I've no reason to doubt them - then some of the hedgies/etc should be in the grey bar motel. Despicable seems to be a good word to use. I personally don't short. But I always find a good bear piece interesting. It helps to understand the other side of what is often my bull case. If a good bear case is basically BS then the bull case is improved. The thinking behind a well thought out bear case can also be useful in other situations. In this way, I find the Bronte blog to be interesting when it comes to other firms. (Sorry Sanj!) But one must be armed for a certain amount of dissembling from bears/bulls with big amounts of money on the line. Some hedgies seem to particularly aggressive in this regards. I also often appreciate the bears for providing me the opportunity to buy cheap. ;D

It's not at all clear that even mentioning this creep helps Francis. Don't wallow with the pigs and all...

2012 Pre-Dinner Event Wander over for friendly talk about value investing in a casual atmosphere before the FFH Dinner. The pre-dinner event will start up at 3pm this year for the few hearty souls who get in early. (Let me know if an even earlier start is desirable.) It will then run until just before the reception at the dinner (~5:45). I'm going to suggest going to C'est What again unless there are strong opinions against. It's close to the main event (10 min walk, here's a google map) and has a good selection of drinks. Come armed with a good value stock to discuss ;D

One moment everyone is talking about how Apple is losing share, declining after losing its visionary, is no longer relevant, etc. Next moment they're in the anti-trust zone? Which one is it? Well, I do suspect that the loss of Jobs will hurt in the long run and the firm is due for an anti-trust probe. So, a little from column A and a little from column B.

Welcome to the anti-trust zone Apple. Enjoy the soon-to-arrive government minders.

Lol, I didn't notice immediately that it was the day before the FFH annual meeting. For those who don't want to spend the $500, you can get a ton of value by dropping by the per-dinner event that's been running for several years now. Casual drinks in a local establishment and value stock talk for those who arrive a little early. Actually, I rather suspect that the value-to-price ratio will be rather higher at the pre-dinner event. :)

I went to one of these a few years ago to hear Prem. (A fine talk as per usual.) IIRC, I sat beside Brian Bradstreet and generally made a fool of myself. It was a nice day. It had a bit too much non-value stuff at the time but it seems that they've corrected that issue this time around.

I'm not surprised by that feature, it is very common with value stocks and other stocks more generally. For instance, Dr. George Athanassakos had a paper on low P/E & low P/B stocks but one of the more interesting features (IIRC) was that he provided both average and median returns. The averages were larger than the medians which indicates a skewed distribution of returns. I've also come across studies on the market as a whole re: skew but I'm forgetting the authors at the moment. Anyway, as a rule of thumb, in a 10 stock value portfolio you might see a few might do really well, most so-so, and a few poorly. Nonetheless, you can still get outsized overall returns. That's largely been my experience.

LOL, I hope not.

Now now, Fabrice can be a useful market indicator. I've often loaded up on stocks that he was panning. ;) Anyway, his 1 year numbers seem to be fairly good. Btw, I'm not sure that the letter is affiliated with the Globe. IIRC, the reverse is true. While I'm at annoying FFH folks, I've found Hempton's Bronte to be an interesting read. Mostly for some of the thought processes and not the specific trades. For those who don't know, I owned FFH when these guys were saying bad things about the firm. While I don't hold it against them, I can understand why some might hold a grudge, or two, given some of the deplorable methods employed by short sellers at the time.

While I tend to agree, something has changed. The dividend remained flat which means that FFH will get the boot from dividend growth indexes and from the funds that follow them. I'm not sure that it's a big effect in Canada, but being added to the high-yield aristocrats index was worth a 15% move on the day of the announcement on a U.S. stock I follow. So, there will be some down pressure based on the quant portfolios out there. But again the pressure in Canada may well be modest. For instance, the Claymore S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend ETF (CDZ) follows a dividend growth approach and holds FFH. But only ~$7.7 million worth. Which amounts to about today's volume.

Get another PC & use steam to download games. You'll save money on the software.

Most excellent! As Fry says, SUATMM! ;D For the truly dedicated or just those who get in early, I'll arrange the third annual a pre-dinner event. 8)

Thread title had me LOL ;D