NormR

I second this. I might make a trade or two a year. Some years (2008-2009) there were many trades. Other years, none at all. I've held some might good investments for over a decade. Quick action is not a requirement.

I liked the book, but it did scream survivorship bias. (That is, how many other people following the same strategy failed? You might be looking at 1/10 or 1/100 success rate.) Nonetheless, good for a business book if you keep this in mind. (Warning, I've a low bar for business books. One good idea is enough for me. But may business books fail on this count ...)

I tend to favour quant stuff however 2 points 1) Database errors: All of the stock databases that I've come across contains errors. Some value screens can be pretty good ways to find the errors. Some human intervention / cross checking is required. 2) Humans own the capital: Quants can't get rid of the behavioral stuff because, at the end of the day, people provide the capital and are prone to pull it at very bad times. The quants themselves are prone to give up a inopportune times. As a result, pure quant approaches can't be followed in practice. But they can be handy tools.

Don't get me wrong, not a big criticism, just having fun. (Certainly no knock on your business friend's success.) It was hard as nails to buy such blown out things at that time. I did some, but not enough, buying myself.

Luck is a mighty fine thing. ;)

Very brave, I don't know the firm, but the chart make it look like a near bankrupt / liquidity problem case, no? (Sort of like TCK in Canada)

You must have been in some pretty beaten up stuff. Care to share the names after the fact?

I suffer from many a glutenous sin, but thankfully Coke isn't one of them.

Yikes, 25g of fructose/day is too much for the liver to handle. That's hardly anything.

OSC rescinds order for Sino-Forest executives to resign WTF!

Isn't it 10 years these days? (My memory is hazy.)

Value investors snap up stocks in pummelled market

Wow, a good deal of heat in this thread. Rather unexpected for a value investing group. Mind you, I'm having my doubts about some. I wonder how many people are playing squash the hedge fund / mutual fund these days. Paulson seems to have been a recent target and Fairholme seems to be a target. I wonder how big their recent redemptions have been. (It's mighty fine to have a stable capital base. :) )

So, which is better? BAC or BCS?

Thanks for the overview!

Sorry, none at the moment, just wait, they will eventually go on sale again. ;D

While I like buying Canadian banks at nice discounts to book value, I have to arch an eyebrow at banks selling at ~1/3 book value. They seem to have a nasty tendency to go under. I'm sorry that I've not kept up with the BAC discussion, but what's the thesis here? Is it a too big to fail / not enough merger partners left thing? Can someone give it to me in a nutshell?

He's still going! Right on. 8)

Sell them stocks, go to cash! Oh, wait a minute. ;D

Um, go back a few decades and make the same point about the U.K. ... Just because the U.S. is at the top of the heap at the moment doesn't mean that they can't spend like drunken sailors. Time to tax more, spend less, default or some combo of the three. Seems like inflation (sort of like a slow default) is the preferred, and potentially very dangerous in the long-term, option. But I think the wave of boomers will require a bit of the first two soon enough.

U.S. meet wall. Wall meet U.S. So, who gets screwed? Filthy-rich cigar-chomping bond holders or little old grandma? Bettin money says grandma wins the first few rounds ...

Humm, the KFT split is a little unexpected. I'll soon have 4 stocks formerly known as MO. :D

One could just hold, say, 10 value stocks and 10 momentum stocks.

Sorry if I'm being thick, but do 300k homes actually get bulldozed (otherwise destroyed) each year in the U.S.?

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/06/30/exposing_the_demonizers_of_shale_gas_99107.html