beerbaron

I would be interested to see the impact of the S&L crisis on Canada. Anybody has some data to show? BeerBaron

Where did you get the supplement, it's not on SEDAR or their web site... BeerBaron

Pretty good documentary. I'm excited to see the rest of the story unravel in the next years! BeerBaron

Why do you guy see a popping of the bubble? Judging from the way Flaherty is handling the matter it looks more like a soft landing. Over here in Montreal, the prices certainly went up faster then the income for the last 12 years but I would not say it's a bubble. Vancouver is more worrysome, I have some indirect exposure to the real estate market in the west and I'm very nervous with it. What should I check very carefully to monitor the situation in the west? BeerBaron

That is a nice article. Here are my toughts on this: He is right, this is most likely a balance sheet recession. The amount of wealth destroyed will need to be filled by savings or other means. I disagree with it's opposition to monetary easing, I believe it's a much more intense solution then deficit spending. When the US government buys back toxic assets, it is actually cleaning the balance sheet much faster then trough government spending, therefore has much more chance of starting lending again. Nobody knows what that monetary easing will cause in the mean term but it's funny how he praised the Chinease that apply a solution and then worry about the effect... it seems to me both are actions with unknown effect. I hate when some economist tells people we should start doing unproductive work to start consumption again. There is a billion of investments more productive to society then building bridges that lead nowhere. As stated previously, how about using the money to reduce our dependence to energy consumption? Here is a funny story from Phil Fisher. On one of it's trip to China in the beginning of the 90's he was with some government officials and they were showing him how a canal was being built. There was thousands of workers with shovels digging. So Fisher goes: Fisher: "Surely you guys have mechanical equipment to do all that digging, why do you have manual labor here?" Gov official: "This is a work program, not a building program: Fisher: "Well is it work you are trying to do or building a canal? Because if you want to do work, then they should be digging with spoons" BeerBaron

??? I'm glad I don't own any MSFT shares... BeerBaron

Anybody compiled what's changed? BeerBaron

Both links don't work. Anybody has another link? BeerBaron

Premier Exhibitions does the "Bodies" exhibits, seemingly educational, but when you dig deeper, you'll learn that their founder was run out of Germany because of Nazi ties and doubts about where he got the bodies. He got a peirmit to bring his subsequent exhibit to the US, but these bodies now seem to have come from an area of China where the government had a prison where disidents were kept. One of the bodies in the exhibit a few years ago apparently had a bullet hole in the back of the head. In my opinion, everyone associated with this co deserves to go to the place they richly deserve to be. One of the investment newsletters I read did a write up on it. It seemed somewhat interesting but I didn't do any personal digging into the investment idea, however I did not expect the input that I read above. Interesting. Some of the best opportunities I have passed up in my life where because of something I didn't agree with. I look back and wonder whether or not I let me emotions dictate the decision to avoid a certain investment idea. Along similar lines, BeerBaron recently commented that he bought easyhome. They are a company who lease products to people who don't want to or (but more likely) can't afford to pay for them up front and we aren't talking about a car or your house (aka wants not needs). Admittedly, I haven't done any research on the company but my first (emotional) reaction revolves around the notion that a lot of our world's financial problems stem from people wanting and buying things they can't really afford and that companies similar to easyhome contribute to the problem. I don't want to look any further into the company because of my initial reaction. Is this irrational? Is it irrational to exclude an investment idea because a former owner (I assume it was a previous owner) has a dubious past? Yeah, I had some ethical questions about buying EasyHome. But I figured that if some people can't even compute the effect of interests rate charges then they are doomed to be eternal debtors. I have personnally helped 2 friends consolidate their debts in the last few years, and the only results was that after consolidation both of them took their new "disposable income" and bought a new car. It changed completely my perspective... it's like trying to teach an alcoholic to be sober, if he doesn't want to change it won't work. On this matter, I'm a classic case of someone that distorts it's ethics reality to justify it's means. At least I'm fully conscious of it. BeerBaron

I've never figured it out either. I understand the cost side better than the commodity price side. I just toss the whole industry onto the "too hard" pile. I'd love to understand it and be more confident. But I just ain't smart enough. SJ I second that. It's out of my circle of competence. BeerBaron

Care to share the other 2? Yes, as soon as I have bough what I need. It's 2 small caps. BeerBaron DCG, I'm done stacking up on one of the twos. I was buying EasyHome, it's a canadian stock that leases to home consumers. Here my thesis: Great cash flow machine Their collection losses have increased from about 2.3% of sales to 4.5% of sales in the third quarter + restructuring charges. Which pushed the stock price down a lot. However, the current management did a complete turnaround of the business in 2001 (and it was suffering from the same problems) and they clearly know how to repeat the same process. In the last conference call they claim to be able to reach 3-3.5% in Q4 and I believe they can. (Rent-ACenter and AAron seem to be able to maintain about 3% in todays conditions). It was a 10%-15% grower, good balance sheet. Still has room for 25% more stores in Canada. Can buy under BV. They intend to deploy their new capital into easyFinancials, which is a high return on investment business. They were really prudent with easyFinancials, it took them 3 years to fine tune their recipe. I estimate 1.5M to 2M profit in Q4. Nice share buyback as a bonus. #1 Consumer lease business in Canada by far. Hopefully I will be able to share my second idea soon with this board as well. BeerBaron

It's a nice addition to my current list. Thanks a lot. BeerBaron

Jim Chanos has a nice talk about China in this video.I know you guys don't like him but still... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99HNFCn5RP8&feature=PlayList&p=F034B25AE78645B8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6 What worries me the most is the 5 Billion of commercial real estate beying built. Anybody can confirm this number with a reliable source?

Arbitragr, nice table, where do you get such tables? BeerBaron

You are probably referring to Parizeau.... Yves Michaud said the same thing too. Both great mens. BeerBaron

Let's face it, we all profit from the public lack of knowledge. The dices are rigged against the uninformed investor. BeerBaron

The dots are too far away to connect them together. As brilliant as Buffett is, he also like simple plans he can understand... because they are the ones that succeed. Interesting insight on future of railroads, especially about the wind farms. BeerBaron

I started asking Toyota owners this week if what is happening influences their opinion on Toyota and all of them said they would buy another Toyota tomorrow. So I don't believe there is long term harm to the brand. I would recommend you do the same thing and ask people around, the peoples around me are not a great sampling. I work in the product production field and this kind of stuff happens one day or another. This is inevitable, the only thing you can do is reduce the odds trough good QC, Engineering, Trough Testing, etc... Now if I would buy Toyota... I have no idea. I find it hard to put a valuation on this company. Maybe others on this board have done some analysis they want to share. BeerBaron

Care to share the other 2? Yes, as soon as I have bough what I need. It's 2 small caps. BeerBaron

I won't buy more unless I can average down. I bough some at 365 CAD before the dividend announcement so now my minimum purchase price is 365$-10$=350$. I will reevaluate my target on feb 19th! It's good because I have got my eye on 3 companies (including FFH) to buy right now and they are all getting close to my target. For me that's very exciting because my pipeline is usually empty most of the time. BeerBaron

Anybody has a good stock screener for the Canadian market? So far I have used ADVFN which is ok but I find their database tend to be outdated. BeerBaron

Anybody believe Buffett, played the BRK.B split to get into the S&P 500, raise it's share price and therefore reduce the amount of shares issued? It doesn't sound like a Buffett play but it would have been pretty wise to keep an this ace up it's sleeve, waiting for a huge stock acquisition to use it. What happens to the deal if the BRK.A shares pass the 120K$? BeerBaron

Did anybody do a backtracking for a stock with: 1- Low PE ratio (or high yield) 2- High dividend distribution And apply the same principles then the magic formula (lowest score is the best) The way I see it the MF gives Fisher style and the other would give Graham style. In our kind of environment I would prefer Graham as past return on investment might have nothing to do with future. BeerBaron

There is probably no difference in the borrowed money. The hedge funds were probably using high leverage as well it just did no show on their balance sheet. Anyhow, I don't understand why any pension fund would borrow money. They should be aiming at average results with the least friction costs possible. BeerBaron

10.54$ with Questrade. Beerbaron