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The O.biz site has so much potential relative to current sales. I think Eziba will end up being a flop. They need to remove the login requirement and increase selection. People who browse daily deal sites like to do it quickly for an awesome deal. I would like to see them soon get some local sites in foreign countries with local currencies and languages, but that kind of expansion is difficult with their current cash flows. Besides they have plenty of growth opportunity in the US left. The site is much smarter than it was only 8 months ago. I actually go there to shop a bit now, when i wouldn't have considered it before. This company is throwing a lot of darts at the wall. Eventually they will get some to stick.

There are several reasons, however, i was told the main was was that some luxury brands won't sell products on their website because they don't want their merchandise on a "liquidation" site, b/c it may cheapen their brand. The re-branding will enable more upscale brands to participate. I find it much simpler and natural to type O.co. I think it will be a good move in the long term

One of my relatives owns this asset mgmt. firm., where i first interned many years ago. His website has really good retirement calculators to play around with. http://www.fimg.net/services/financial-planning/66 down at the bottom of the page are the different calculators, that can incorporate annual income, inflation, social security, investment returns, etc.

Net Income came in a couple million lighter than i expected. Has anyone done research into what percentage of Overstock's revenues came from key word search engine clicks as opposed to direct overstock site shopping, via typing overstock.com into the search bar? Their page rankings have declined dramatically in Google since the tactics they were using ceased. Used to be if you typed in any of the following words (furniture, watches, cookware, etc) they were number 1 on search rankings. Now, they don't even make the first 5 pages of Google. I really wonder how much this will effect them in future quarters. I have noticed a lot more television advertising over the past week, which i don't think is a coincidence. -long ostk

Thanks for giving me this very nice piece of advice. My wife and I actually have been thinking about this for sometime and there are several aspects of it make me undecided. One aspect is, of course, will we have enough assets? We live in Taiwan, where the living cost is somewhat lower than the States, so this part is much easier. However, what makes her uneasy is to have me being a fulltime "home maker." Here the society values "corporate titles" very much. When I told my wife I think I should eventually quit my job and manage our investment full time, my wife actually wanted me to form a small company, a small investment partnership, so that I can: 1) keep the "going-to-work everyday" routine and have a job title and 2) keep relatives from thinking I am lazy to retire when I am 45. I wonder whether other members who work for oneself full time have to fight this stereotype or not. What will you suggest me do? Quit worrying what everyone else thinks and do what makes you happy. I was laid off at the end of last year from a good job and used my extra free time to travel all of SE Asia, Japan, HK, and Bali for several months. Friends thought i was nuts. "Who does that?"But it was probably the best time i have ever had and I made great lifelong friends! Glad i didn't listen to them or worry about what they thought. I think the biggest thing people overlook when retiring especially early, like in their late 30s early 40s is maintaining purchasing power for all those years and assuming conservative investment returns. My "magic number" after great thought is about $2.1 million at my current age assuming a conservative 5.5% rate of return and 3.5% average annual inflation for 50 years. At only 5.5% i would have enough left over each year to add to principal to reduce inflationary effects over the long term and easily maintain purchasing power. If some external shock were to happen to cut my wealth in half during retirement, i could easily pack up and move to a much cheaper location I enjoy like Belize, southern Spain/Portugal, or Argentina.

Good post. I've been thinking more and more about my own retirement recently (though i am in my 30s), and would be perfectly happy living a modest life free of work. I thought i would share my family's experience to show the money one might need to retire comfortably (which of course is relative). My father (who passed away about 12 years ago) retired at 39. He was an mechanical engineer (and a stockbroker in his younger years). He passed away at 72 years of age. So he lived nearly half his life in retirement and traveled religiously for vacations during retirement to remote cheap locations like Central America for many months at a time. (Great memories). My mother has never worked since she married my father many years ago. --With the background out of the way... I manage her retirement money for her now and she is now 63 and perfectly healthy. She has raised 4 kids and put them all through college and graduate/law school (not leaving any of us with any student debt upon graduating), in what i would consider a very comfortable upbringing. She has a net worth of approximately $1.4 million now in investments (currently about 50% in mostly dividend paying equities and the rest in fixed income & cash) and a home worth about $300,000 which is a great modern 4 bedroom home (in the South that amount can buy a great home). So her net worth is $1.7 million including residence. She has no mortgage, and no debt. She takes about 4 vacations per year usually lasting about a week (or three) each time, and lives an extremely comfortable life without any need to worry about having enough money. Soon she'll be receiving social security that would add about $20,000/year to her annual income, which she really doesn't need, because that 1.4 million is more than enough to live her comfortable life in retirement, doing all the things she wants to do. How did you view work after a childhood of not witnessing your father going to work? I only ask that because I left the workforce two months before my son was born and my daughter was two at the time. They are now nearly 3 and 5. Some in the family have a theory that somehow they will be damaged by not seeing me routinely "go to work", but as for now I believe they benefit from having two parents with time to spend with them. That is a really good question. I think it did have a fairly negative effect on the way i viewed work growing up, not really viewing it as a necessity. Never seeing my parents ever work, and being on vacation several months of every year in a foreign country while growing up seemed normal at the time, and perhaps did instill a lack of work ethic type of mentality, though education and frugality was instilled at an early age and i think that would be an important thing to teach your children. It undoubtedly made my familial relationships much better than is the case with most other families. I think the bond in my family is much stronger than would otherwise be the case, as we are all incredibly close. I think the time you get to spend with your family much more than makes up for the message it might instill in the way your children might view work.

Good post. I've been thinking more and more about my own retirement recently (though i am in my 30s), and would be perfectly happy living a modest life free of work. I thought i would share my family's experience to show the money one might need to retire comfortably (which of course is relative). My father (who passed away about 12 years ago) retired at 39. He was an mechanical engineer (and a stockbroker in his younger years). He passed away at 72 years of age. So he lived nearly half his life in retirement and traveled religiously for vacations during retirement to remote cheap locations like Central America for many months at a time. (Great memories). My mother has never worked since she married my father many years ago. --With the background out of the way... I manage her retirement money for her now and she is now 63 and perfectly healthy. She has raised 4 kids and put them all through college and graduate/law school (not leaving any of us with any student debt upon graduating), in what i would consider a very comfortable upbringing. She has a net worth of approximately $1.4 million now in investments (currently about 50% in mostly dividend paying equities and the rest in fixed income & cash) and a home worth about $300,000 which is a great modern 4 bedroom home (in the South that amount can buy a great home). So her net worth is $1.7 million including residence. She has no mortgage, and no debt. She takes about 4 vacations per year usually lasting about a week (or three) each time, and lives an extremely comfortable life without any need to worry about having enough money. Soon she'll be receiving social security that would add about $20,000/year to her annual income, which she really doesn't need, because that 1.4 million is more than enough to live her comfortable life in retirement, doing all the things she wants to do.

no problem. I've gotten many a headache trying to reconcile form 4s, 13Gs or Ds, and 13Fs. Sometimes one of them shows one thing while the other shows something other figure for various reasons.

In the ownership section is where it mentions the converts. Shares reported as beneficially owned include Shares issuable upon conversion of certain convertible debt securities of Overstock. Also if you look at the "Date of Event which Requires Filing of this Statement", it shows December 31st, 2010, which is the same reporting date as the last 13-F. The date of event and being that it is day 45 of the calendar year, i think it is just their annual 13-G filing and not the typical change in ownership 13-G filing.

Both the sep. 30 and dec 31 13-Fs show the same number of shares and converts. The latest SC 13G/A i believe is just the annual update (from the 45 day window of the calendar year end) and not reflective of a change in ownership. The updated SC13G/A appears to include some of the converts according to the filing.

Let's try and not turn this into a dick measuring contest, or it will soon turn this place into Yahoo message board. I enjoy reading what one of those "prophets' has to say, too bad he rarely chats here anymore.

l was referring to my own emotions. ;D

Ahh, the warm fuzzy feeling of confirmation bias. :D

I'd stick with individual municipal bonds, perhaps doing a yield search through your broker based on a minimum credit rating, and then check to see if that rating is accurate and what it is backed by, and who if anybody wrapped it....generally sticking with GOs.. If you do go with a closed end fund watch out for those premiums to NAV, especially the pimco ones. Munis, on a whole, though very attractive relative to treasuries and even corporates in most cases, are still not yet at high enough yields to make me take any meaningful positions, other than in MBIA (though that is an equity)and more recently in AGO in the 14s is a good price.

I doubt it would be very receptive at the moment, but interesting nonetheless http://www.bondbuyer.com/webonly/-1023207-1.html

Congress Wants to Hear from Meredith Whitney on Muni Call -talk of subpoenaing her to appear http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/02/03/congress-wants-hear-whitney-muni/ _ update: Apparently, she has a calendar conflict. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-03/whitney-said-to-decline-house-testimony-due-to-calendar-conflict.html?cmpid=yhoo

Word is "the O" is trying to bring back a travel booking engine to their site, once again. i haven't tried to verify this though.

My favorite part of his analysis: BERKOWITZ: They’re worth significantly more just liquidating and just slowly dying a death, just running off the business, but that’s not going to happen. They’re going to have a vibrant new business, which is going to make them worth that much more.

You mean the Half-Marathon, no? That would be a heck of a Marathon time! I'm doing my first Half-Marathon in March and aiming for a sub- 2 Hour, 7 minute time. If you have never trained for one before, and want a good training schedule (for the Half), the one i am using can be found here: http://www.halhigdon.com/halfmarathon/novice.htm Good luck!

This thread 'part en couilles' as the French would say. Not gonna translate to English lest young eyes read it ;D That's funny. I just started cutting back on my sugar with coffee too. It's just not the same.

Moody’s plans to include unfunded pension liabilities into its credit rating for U.S. states’ debt, the New York Times reported. A chart showing the states with the largest bonded debt and underfunded pensions: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/01/27/business/27pension_gfc/27pension_gfc-popup.jpg

Agreed! About time!

Zero Hedge links to the court document: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/insurance-companies-sue-countrywide-over-massive-mortgage-fraud-find-91-securitized-loans-ar?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29

Everybody's favorite permabear, David Rosenberg, and his musings on the Municipal bond market. Are we getting close to another once in a lifetime opportunity, not so different from the corporate bond blowup circa 2008. Keep some dry powder. _ TIME TO FADE THE MUNI HYPE There is a clear buyers’ strike in the market for state and local government debt that is largely based on fear and misperception. The mass selling of muni’s, which represent the bedrock of the U.S. economy, is incredible ― nine consecutive weeks of net redemptions totalling $16.5 billion ($1.5 billion in the January 15 week). Talk about fertile ground for a huge long-term buying opportunity. First, even if you buy into the default talk, look at the yield protection you get now. There are some long-term muni’s trading north of eight percent ― even higher than junk bonds (a premium of over 100bps!). Long-term AAA-rated muni’s are now trading well north of five percent or 116% vis-a-vis Treasury bonds (typically, muni bond yields are equivalent to 82% of Treasury yields given their tax advantage). California off-the-run 30-year 6% bonds are now being quoted at a yield premium to dollar-denominated debts offered by the likes of Mexico and Columbia. Give me a giant break. Even in California, only teachers come in front of bond holders. In other states, the debt holders are the first to get paid. It’s amazing how few people know that. The spurious reasons beyond default concerns is that the lower levels of government are saddled with a huge supply calendar (partly because of the expiration of the federal Buy America Bonds subsidy). But in truth, new issuance this year at an estimated $350 billion is lower than the $439 billion in 2010. If we are talking about looking for what is S.I.R.P.-like (safety and income at a reasonable price), investors should screen for: Regions with a manageable refinancing calendar, A or better credit rating, low levels of foreclosure rates and excess housing inventory, low unfunded pension obligations, and growing population bases. And best to concentrate on bonds backed by a non-cyclical revenue stream like water and power. And have a read of Older Workers Are Keeping a Tighter Grip on Jobs on page B3 of the Saturday NYT. As we have long argued, the prime reason for this phenomena is that the boomers increasingly need income as an antidote to this last decade of lost wealth. And right now, in the muni space, we may well have the most compelling opportunity to add income to portfolios since the rapid meltup in corporate bond yields in late 2008.

PM'd the company to you.