cwericb

The world economy is in a mess. As most people here know we've been heading this way for years, but the sad truth is that most people still have no clue as to the reality of the situation - nor do they care. The only bright spot I can see is the tremendous pent up demand in Asia. So my question is this. There is little any of us can do about this on the macro scale, so what do we do to protect ourselves as individual investors? Any suggestions? Say what you like about gold, etc, but I have been invested in RBC Precious Metals Fund for the past 6-7 years and have no complaints, but I was caught off guard when it tumbled in 2008-9, just when I thought it would move in the opposite direction. Lately I have been moving a bit into dividend stocks like FTR but that's no guarantee. FFH Has just been given an upgrade by Cormack today, but I already a fair amount there. Never mind politics, what are you guys looking at for investment for the next few years? Sorry, but this seems to be more or less covered under "How much of your portfolio is in cash?" So just ignore this post if you wish.

Nobody knows. We can be optimistic or pessimistic but we can only guess. Even the greatest minds can be wrong - who would have predicted what happened in 2001? I usually stay fully invested. When the a$$ drops out its hard on the stomach and hard to sleep. But if you get out, when do you get back in? I have been caught on both sides of this over the years. Sometimes you can take a reasonable guess at how things will work out in the near future - for instance there are some prices that are starting to look attractive due to the children playing in Washington. One hopes that the markets will have a little bounce when that settles. Of course the question presupposes that the world economy will become healthy again, but we have to think that way don't we?

On the subject of being depressed and being in a philosophical mood ... Two snowballs. Corruption. Greed. Power. They coalesce into governments that eventually become so dysfunctional they are no longer a viable entity. Does it reach a tipping point where it collapses and we have to start over? The world economy seems to be a house of cards built upon a necessity of ever increasing demand which in turn inspires ever increasing debt. Do we eventually reach a saturation point where the house of cards will fall?

"Perhaps Obama should threaten to sell the gold in Ft Knox to pay the bills that would get the attention of the ideologues and force a compromise." That was mentioned in the news yesterday that they were thinking of that as an option.

Does anyone think those children in Washington have a clue about the effect they are going to have on people's savings and retirement funds? This is not 20 years ago when most people just kept their savings in the bank accounts and GIC's. Today much of that money is invested in the market and providing the stimulus for corporations to expand and hire workers. That in turn generates revenue and thereby taxes. I wonder how much capital gain tax is lost for every hundred points the market loses? I could develop this into a full blown rant but I would probably just be preaching to the converted...

At least if nothing else a 3 cent rise was welcome on a day the TSX was down 268 points.

On the subject of people being out to lunch. Perhaps if we all went out to lunch at the same time maybe we could provoke some sort of settlement with those clowns in Washington because the TSX is starting to get depressing and I really don’t want to go back to 2008 again.

Pulp prices have only softened about 1% yet are still at a higher than at any time prior to the first of June. While the Canadian dollar has been bouncing around due to the US fiasco, up until now has been reasonably stable. So all in all, not much has really changed since the first of the Summer. HOWEVER, for most of April and May the share price was nearly 50% higher than it is today running in the $1.50-1.60 range. So are investors just getting impatient and looking for greener pastures? I just have this uncomfortable feeling that management might be thinking of something that they see as a good long term move, while investors aren't prepared to wait around. I might consider buying more at this level but I probably have enough irons in this fire already.

Richard Chandler boosted his stake in Sino by 50% yesterday to 15% of the company. I believe their average price was $7.30 for yesterday's buy. TORONTO,July 27 (Reuters) - A large Singapore-based fund has increased its stake to nearly 15 percent in Chinese forestry company Sino-Forest , which has been accused of fraud, sending Sino-Forest shares higher in early trading on Wednesday. The Mandolin Fund, run by New Zealand-born billionaire Richard Chandler,disclosed on Wednesday that it bought more than 5.3 million shares of Sino-Forest on July 26. PS. It is rather surprising to see that TRE has probably been the safest place to be as the markets have tanked over the past few days.

Wish I had bought more! True story. Last week I was getting ready to put in a buy order in the $3.60 range. Then I got caught up in posting to this board, forgot to put the order in, went to lunch and when I remembered I hadn't put the buy order in the price was well over $4.00 so I decided I would wait to see if it slipped back again. That $4.00 looked pretty good today when TRE was in the $7.50 range. C'est la vie.

Was that Prunes or Doctor Faustus?

Should this be required reading for everyone on this board? At worst it is entertaining, at best it is downright depressing and scary. I would tend to dismiss much of it IF I was not familiar with the whold FFH story. The fact that Deep Capture has not been sued only lends credibility to their claims. When you make public accusations naming names, giving specific dates, and details you would think that the ‘victims’ would not hesitate to take legal action to defend their reputations. After all we are talking about the most litigious nation in the world and these guys are no strangers to the courts. Just today we see another attempt to sue Fairfax once again with another seemingly frivolous lawsuit to distract from the main lawsuit. Is it just unfortunate that the mainstream media have not done stories on Deep Capture as well as the accusations they make. Or then again, is that simply more evidence of what Deep Capture is saying?

MONTREAL, July 25, 2011 /CNW Telbec/ - Fibrek (TSX: FBK) will release its 2011 second quarter results after market hours on Wednesday, August 3, 2011. President and Chief Executive Officer, Pierre Gabriel Côté, and Patsie Ducharme, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will host a conference call on Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. (Eastern Time) to discuss financial results. Members of the financial community will be able to access the conference call and ask questions.

When you see something like this you have to wonder if someone knows something we don't?

Frustrating as hell watching the share price erode day after day. Used to be the price would run up wildly before reports were released, then after the release the bottom would fall out. Perhaps this time it will be the opposite. This is me trying to be an optomist. :)

“If you are referring to the opinion I expressed” I wasn’t referring to anything you said oec2000. This was a remark made some time ago. Please read my previous posts. For about the 10th time I am not, nor have I, defended Sino other than to say that I suspect Block’s claims were exaggerated. I have never advised anyone to buy TRE. This could be XYZ company and the report could have been made by Bernie Madoff. I am simply surprised that so many gave so much credibility to the report report without waiting for more supporting information. End of story.

:) Of the numerous previously posted questionable items about Block's background, education was by far the least important. But if you only read what you want to... As far as Wellington's track record is concerned one might suspect that perhaps, just perhaps they have had some successes in the same period? then again Davis and Chandler are losers in your book as well? Here's an interesting little article that just came out: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2011-07/sinoforest-corp-adding-to-yesterdays-strong-showing-up-another-5-today-and-near-5-mark.aspx?storyid=86627

I am sure that by now people are tired of my trying to make my position clear time after time. Unfortunately it seems to be beyond the comprehension of some here. For the record and for the last time: 1) At no time have I ever defended Sino 2) I have never said that Block’s report is completely false 3) I have never said that there is no fraud involved at Sino 4) I have cited numerous points of concern about Block’s background. WOW! Hester that is so wrong it barely deserves comment. If Bernie Madoff wrote the report, would you make the same statement? If Sino put out a glowing report would you believe that? Consider the source. I am beginning to wonder - do you perhaps know Carson Block personally? A report is no better than the person that wrote it. I have looked at a lot of things about Carson Block that has given me serious doubts about his credibility. Aside from the fact that he is by no stretch of the imagination an unbiased party, he has already seen a major part of his analysis embarrassingly discredited * and he has also retracted significantly from his original position**. * Standing lumber issue ** From “a multi-billion Ponzi scheme” to “an overstatement of hundreds of million dollars” I believe the PWC report will likely show some problems at Sino. I also think that there are probably a lot of public companies that could not undergo the microscope that PWC will put them under without some dirty laundry being exposed. However, I doubt those problems will destroy the company and I believe shares will have value. Perhaps I was under the misapprehension that value investors looked for opportunities in companies that were out of favour for one reason or another. This may (or may not) be a classic case. Time will tell. Until relative recently I had never held shares in TRE. I did, however, pick up a small amount under $3.00 - which look pretty good at this point. (And FYI I have owned FFH for years before you joined this board) PS I have no intentions of getting into a pi**ing match with other board members her because I respect and learn a lot from them - even the ones I disagree with :) .

"Can you quote anyone who is arguing the short position using Block's authority standing?" No, I don’t know if anyone has. I am just surprised that people have been so quick to jump to the conclusion that Block’s report is completely legitimate. And when someone expresses the opinion that this debate has no place on a value investors board I keep wondering... suppose Block's report is shown to be mostly inaccurate and and exaggerated? Would people have just missed an excellent oportunity?

Rabbitisrich It was a couple of weeks ago and may have been in the Globe & Mail but I am not sure. I believe that the reasoning behind this was that some of the analysts felt it would be premature to make the tour before the PWC report was released. Given the fact that PWC are doing an investigation into the company one might think that Sino’s hands may be tied until the report is released. Since their whole business has been called a fraud, until the independant report is produced I doubt analysts would trust anything Sino says at this point. As far as analysts dropping coverage, are they dropping/stopping coverage or are they just suspending coverage until the PWC report comes in so that they know the results. I’m sure analysts would be reluctant to express any opinions until they know if Block’s report holds water - muddy or not. There is some good information on the SEDAR site and the Gengma situation is explained there. See “other” and "News release - English", both June 20. http://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00001894

Not at all. I am simply saying that we have two sides of this question and I feel that one side is simply more credible than the other. On one side we have one individual (and MW consists of one person, Carson Block). Block’s credentials are somewhat dubious and he has stated that Sino is a complete fraud and a multi billion dollar Ponzi scheme. By no stretch of the imagination is he an unbiased analyst. He is a self styled short seller who’s goal is to drive Sino’s share price down. Furthermore, he promised a release of further supporting evidence of his claims that he has never produced. For those reasons I think that, at the very least, he has overstated his case for his own gain and therefore I view his assessment of Sino with a lot of suspicion. The other side is simply composed of two entities who have said nothing. But actions speak louder than words. One has just purchased 11% of the company and the other has increased its holdings to a similar level. Now if they believed Blocks assessment of Sino, would they have done that? They have the ability to have far more detailed research into Sino’s operations than I do and obviously they believe that Block’s report is wrong or at least vastly overstated.

Correction on Chandlers purchase. I believe that they only increased their holdings by 10% and purchases about 2.5 million shares yesterday. Still their net ownership stands at slightly less than 11% and it would seem to be a positive sign since they are buying rather than selling.

Libor, I was quoting from Hester and that was not aimed at you. I think that you and I are the same page, it is just a matter of degree. On the credibility factor, MW also released another report on a different company (I forget which one) and it was shown to be false. If he accurately uncovers fraud, more power to him, but if he tries to take a company down with innuendos and false or misleading information, then that is a whole different story. Also, I don't care how big a company is, no company blows $100,000,000 without a good possibility of return. Yes it may be small potatoes on the grand scale of things, but don't you think that if they lost $100,000,000 that some people are going to have to account for that? Companies just don't work that way. A hundred million or so may not be a significant portion of their net worth, but I can assure you that it does matter to some department and in turn some employees. "Sorry boss but I just blew a hundred mil on that Sino deal but it's no big deal cause we've got lots more." Don't think that would cut it. And now that another fund has come in at over $4.00 wouldn't you expect that they feel the company is worth much more?

"Besides if MW went the legal route, some other firm would eventually short the stock, write research and end the fraud much quicker than the legal process ever could." Once again you make the assumption that Block's allegations are correct. What, other than Block's say so and a belief that all Chinese stocks are frauds, leads you to this conclusion? Just a note of interest to all those who put so much faith in Carson Block. Do you just ignore the fact that Wellington has acquired 11.5% of this company. Do you really think they would do that if they believed this was a multi billion dollar Ponzi scheme? And now it has just been announced that Richard Chandler Corp has just purchased 10.9% of the company at about $4.06 per share. So, going back to the credibility issue, who do you believe? These separate funds, who have jumped in with both feet and invested hundreds of millions of their own money or Carson Block?

I guess I don’t do a good job of making a point. Point: Why do you all accept what Block says and nothing that Sino says? Maybe you don’t like Sino, maybe you don’t like Chinese stocks or China in general. I don’t care. My question is simply why some here are so willing to accept Block’s accusations at face value and yet completely dismiss anything Sino says. I am not saying Block is wrong. I am not saying Sino is right. The truth may lie somewhere in between. But I do find it a little hard to swallow Block’s statement that Sino is a milti-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Believe what you may, but if you are going to base your opinions on what someone else says than that individual’s credibility becomes very important. Couple of comments: “objective evidence” Haven’t seen any, let’s wait for the PWC report. “Nobody should base investing judgement on anyone's reputation, good or bad. I'll stick to the Sino specific facts.” Seriously?? And yet you believe Block’s unsupported accusations? And what ‘facts’ are you sticking to? “However, Globe and Mail uncovered supporting evidence of misrepresentation and TRE cancelled an investor meeting.” Okay, well firstly regarding G&M ‘supporting evidence’. Did you not read the reply to that filed by Sino on SEDAR? Secondly, to say TRE cancelled the investor meeting is a distortion of the facts. To clarify matters, it was an analyst’s tour in China that was postponed. But it was the analysts that asked Sino to postpone the tour. Yes it was Sino's tour and therefore technically only Sino could cancel it but it was the analysts who asked that it be postponed. To simply say TRE cancelled the tour is misleading. Analysts correctly wanted to wait for the PWC report? And furthermore I would hesitate to use Chou and Watsa’s name in the same sentence as Block. If anyone thinks that their backgrounds are similar than perhaps they haven’t researched these parties very well. PS. Does it not concern anyone that Block serves his own interests by driving down the share price? Do you not think that may effect his credibility and objectivity?