nodnub

ah, I found this, this free foxit reader appears to have the ability to annotate and save notes on PDF files. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/reader3.php

Tariq, this sounds great but only seems to run on Mac OS X. Are you aware of any similar software for use on MS-Windows?

IMO, it is an unreasonable request. Don't the companies usually send this to you for free if you contact them? I don't think most brokers would accept this request. If you want to use a full service broker you have already decided you are going to pay large amounts of commissions. They either provide value for that or not. Unless you have a $5million account which you let them churn regularly then I can't see them being keen to print hundreds of pages of documents and mail them to you. -- Regardless, I think it is a waste to pay that much in commission. You should move the bulk of your assets to a discount broker (you could leave a small percentage at the fullservice broker if you want to preserve access to them for advice or something)

Are you referrring to the AIG related subpoenas from January 2005 that are discusssed in the BRK 2006 Annual Report?

yeah, this choice is a no-brainer for companies. No one in their right mind is selecting Vista when they can have Win7. It would be like buying Windows ME after XP came out. Win7 performs better than Vista even on underpowered netbooks.

For some reason I was unable to download the scribd link as I usually do I found that the PDF can be downloaded from the original source here: http://www.jasonzweig.com/grahamspeech.html

Google finance is slow to pick up on changes and new listings on stuff like this. nasdaq.com has them listed under JPM.WS, WFC.WS etc. Use the symbol search on their page if you are having trouble finding other tickers. They have last sale price and volume but no bid/ask posted.

That's interesting, thanks. In the second paragraph are you referring to the $200 exemption? You would only have to move $6,666.00 at a $0.03 exchange rate profit to reach the $200 exemption. I think many people here would have surpassed this exemption many times over in a year.

viking, May I ask what instrument you are using to hold your cash? How do you figure you can get a 5% return this year with 93% in cash (continued bull market scenario)? Interesting thread, thanks all!

To the contrary, it shows 4 bids, the most recent dated May 10th at $750. The minimum bid increment is $100. That gives a minimum next bid of $850. The auction is open for another 14 days. In most long time period open auctions like this, the bid price prior to the final minutes is of no consequence whatsoever relative to predicting the hammer price. This is a signed first edition, donated by Seth himself, so I presume it is in reasonable condition. I doubt that this auction will close for less than $1000.

yeah, I'm not referring to transaction tax (Tobin Tax, proposed--never implemented)... I am talking about Capital Gains on "Other Property". i.e. foreign currency. I looked in the Capital Gains guide... http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4037/t4037-e.html#P816_66627 use this link and scroll down a page or two and you will find the following: ---- "Foreign exchange gains and losses" Foreign exchange gains or losses from capital transactions in foreign currencies are considered to be capital gains or losses. However, you only have to report the amount of your net gain or loss for the year that is more than $200. If the net amount is $200 or less: * there is no capital gain or loss; and * you do not have to report it on your return. Report your net gain or loss in Canadian dollars. Use the exchange rate that was in effect on the day of the transaction. If there were transactions at various times throughout the year, you can visit the Bank of Canada Web site, or contact us to get an average annual rate. ---- I would love to discover that this paragraph does not apply to the situation we are discussing. Do you have a definitive response from a CA on this?

Do you know what the Canadian tax treatment is for these gains?

oh, did you want that password book back? ;D Actually, I use and recommend the open source password database, passwordSafe http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/ It is also recommended by Bruce Schneier, one of the primary experts on cryptography and security. It does not do anything fancy. You have a master password to open the application, and then you can add new password, delete them, or view your existing passwords. I find it very helpful to have a single location to store the passwords to obscure accounts we collect over the years. It does not integrate with the web browser or autofill your passwords for you--and I think it is more secure than those that do.

I agree Did you ever hear the one about the farmer that won the lottery? They asked him if he had any plans for spending the $10million prize. He answered "No, not really, I guess I'll just keep farming until it's all gone."

Yeah, I am guessing that NBG is not exactly the Wells Fargo of Greece.

How can you say "Apple hands down." but then admit "But I also don't see a margin of safety (as with most tech companies). The company is very dependent on Steve Jobs" Are you aware of Steve Jobs various and ongoing health problems since 2004?

yeah, that rumour from stockhouse sounds like a typical pump and dump that appears on their message boards from time to time.

I agree with the points you've made. My thinking is that Indigo will break even selling the Kobo, but they will make their money selling the books. If there is an open platform it suggests that I may easily get books from non-indigo sources and put it on the device. I agree this is great for consumers, and could be a win for Indigo if it establishes Kobo platform as a winner in the marketplace and in the application development community. But I still think there is risk that people will just start pirating ebooks or buying them from sources other than Indigo and loading them on the Kobo. (people have been pirating ebooks for quite a while already just as PDFs)

I wonder if consumers will continue to accept the $9.99 price point on ebooks now that the booksellers will have much lower distribution costs, no stocking costs etc. One risk to the bookseller is that authors start to sell books in electronic form directly to consumer. This is unlikely to happen for the bestselling titles, but I can see independent authors and romance novelists making quick inroads in this fashion. This is what a lot of smaller musicians are doing now via websites like bandcamp one example: http://samamidon.bandcamp.com/ Artists are free to set their own price and I think they currently get to keep all the proceeds. Obviously there are a lot of coffee table type books that will be bought in paper form for the foreseeable future.

This looks like a nice device for reading novels. One drawback is that it does not have a keyboard so you can't search a document for specific words (for instance if you are scanning through SEC filings on the way to work). I do this a lot when I read industry publications on the computer. But I do think Kobo looks like a great device for the average user.

from the site I linked above: "All account owners, trustees, and custodians must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents with a valid Social Security number or Taxpayer Identification number. An account owner must have a permanent U.S. address that is not a post office box."

Magic Formula approach has 100% turnover per year. I think a disciplined investor could implement Magic Formula on their own, but for the average person I don't think it is suitable unless they have a managed account. Greenblatt's operation will run it for 1% of assets, but only if you are a US resident https://www.formulainvesting.com/profoverview_MFT.htm The question states that this is for an RRSP account, so we are talking about Canadian based investor. So they are going to have to implement magic formula on their own--and they will incur higher transaction fees than the 1% all-in fee that Greenblatt charges. They will likely also be tempted to make adjustments to the formula (human nature). The adjustments they make are likely to reduce returns (the average investor has a habit of making the wrong decisions at the wrong time).

It's somewhat of a coincidence that I'm hearing more about Crohn's lately (after hardly knowing anything about it). Yesterday my neighbor was telling me that people are getting treatment by exposing themselves to hookworms, of all things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy There was an interesting first person account of using hookworm to treat severe asthma that was posted several years ago on Kuro5hin.org. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/30/91945/8971 It was a more controversial topic when this guy originally did it. It is pretty fascinating account to read. Apparently this approach works on many autoimmune diseases by giving your immune system something else to attack (instead of your immune system attacking its own body)

but you know Benjamin Franklin would have brought those library books back... ;D

There was an article posted in another thread a couple days ago. I think this was it: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/insurers-say-airlines-not-covered-for-volcano-woes-2010-04-16 Basically stating that none of the airlines had business interruption insurance for this type of event. http://www.property-casualty.com/News/2010/4/Pages/Business-Interruption-Aviation-Volcano-Claims-Success-Unlikely-.aspx Obviously, there will be a large impact on many types of businesses, not just airlines and air freight. I don't know if any other businesses are insured for this type of risk.