Ballinvarosig Investors

Bizarre choice. Land and property were some of the assets that went to the most extreme prices during the credit bubble. When you pull trillions of dollars of credit from the system, it's extremely hard to see how prices can even remain as high as they are. Burry has either lost the plot, or he sees something that no one else does.

I see that China Marine Food have been at the same carry-on. They made a wonder acquisition in January 2010 that has led to the cash balance mushrooming in the recent quarters. The only thing I don't understand is that insiders are buying, rather than selling - http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/own-disp?action=getissuer&CIK=0001099977

I just don't get it. They have a real auditor and a growing cash pile. If the company was a fraud, there is no way in hell that Deloitte and Touche would not have unearthed the inconsistency in their findings. On the otherhand, the financials look almost too good to be true. The margins are crazy high, cap-ex is tiny and the growth is unreal. I own a tiny position, although it's more to do with morbid curiosity rather than sound investment strategy. Can any experienced accounts throw any light on the legitimacy of the numbers?

What Warren Buffett might say, and what he does can be entirely different things. I personally think that Buffett does pay attention to macro factors, but he may do so without even realising it.

If you're worried about deflation, you should consider Annaly Capital Management (NLY).

My first thought was the loss of the Munger's annual meeting as opposed to what I would get for my single share of Wesco :-\

I had my wires crossed on USB, sorry. Having said that though, there are things there that would concern me. I don't trust the loans that they took over from the FDIC and I don't feel there as well capitalised as they should be. I still think BAC is a lemon though.

Very good article, I have to say. Did anyone else ever wonder why Bank of America and US Bancorp were in Buffett's portfolios? These two are not particularly good banks.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93859/000092189510001303/sc13ga107428red_08202010.htm I noticed that net income and cash flow were down quite a bit in the most recent 10Q, maybe he's decided that the business isn't so appealing, or maybe he needs the cash for something more enticing :D Then again, maybe that poison pill that the board have put into the company has turned him off.

I have been a net seller since the last version of this thread was posted. Stuff I have been buying: Star Buffett United American Healthcare (own x% of this and it's complicated) Stuff I have sold: Fortress International Group Aspen Exploration Signature Eyewear Manhattan Loan Stuff I am still holding: AutoInfo Penn Miller ITEX Solitron Devices

The RSS alerts on the EDGAR site are brilliant, they just make your life so much easier. I use personally use a desktop application called RSSOwl to gather my feeds. I like it better than Google Reader because it's that bit faster and I like the layout better. I have 400 company feeds currently set up and ever day I usually get a few new filings to look at. My only problem is that I simply don't have enough time to read everything :-[

I own some VMWare. I started buying in April when EMC started purhasing stock (they still are buying by the way). To me at least, it was pretty clear that once they started buying, they were hardly just going to buy a few thousand shares and stop. The cloud computing nonsense is obviously pushing the stock up too, but the emc effect can't be ignored. Insider buying - http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/own-disp?action=getissuer&CIK=0001124610 It would not surprise me if they tendered for the remaining stock.

You've done it now. My first guess was Core-Mark, I think it fills your criteria. It's small cap, been around since for ever, is steadily growing sales and cash flows, has no debt, is below book, cheap relative to earnings and has been around since 1888. It's got nice, long-term growth as well.

Tim McElvaine is Chairman and 31.5% shareholder of Rainkmaker Entertainment.

Fremont Michigan InsuraCorp announced quarterly results, and they weren't pretty - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271245/000119312510188834/0001193125-10-188834-index.htm Harry correctly expressed a worry about the growth of their personal lines business, and now it looks like the chickens are coming home to roost. What scares me most, is that they're still growing these lines at breakneck pace.

What a weasel! The vote doesn't look like going his way, so he pulls the damn thing, probably an an effort to concoct something equally unpalatable for shareholders to digest.

Market hasn't reacted too well to the results. I'm guessing that the increased debt is an issue?

I see that Sonic used debt to buy back $560 million worth of stock in 2006 when the share price was in the $20 region. Four years later, the stock is under $9 and the CEO is still in place and Sonic are loaded with debt. The free cash flow generated by the business is sweet though!

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93859/000092189510001206/sc13g07428007_07282010.htm I must say, I'm a little surprised that Biglari is concentrating so highly in the restaurant sector.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/29/news/companies/buffets_mr_fixit_full.fortune/ Excellent article on David Sokol. I didn't know he had a book out, I'll have to buy it!

In fairness to him, when he's getting interviewed by half-wits from CNBC, they're more interested in the speculative topics, rather than silly boring things like profits and annual reports. It's much better to guess which company will have the next blockbuster drug, or which company is going to make us billions from cloud computing.

The article doesn't give specifics but says that without BYD, Lu's performance as a hedge fund manager is "unremarkable." I'd like to know the author's definition of "unremarkable." ;) I guess they mean that once BYD is stripped out, performance wasn't great?

Yet you're still happy to hold CCME?

There have been quite a few people investigating Chinese companies that are listed here on American stock exchanges, and a lot of red flags have been raised! Motley Fool have done an interesting peice on a company called China Sky One Medical (CSKI) - http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/a-lack-of-logic-around-china/416849 Much of their research came from a man named John Bird, who goes into quite a lot of details listing inaccuracies between the companies American, and Chinese financial information. For more information, look here - http://www.waldomushman.com/Intro.html Since then, I've noticed that another person has emerged doing similar things. He alledges that Orient Paper (ONP) and China Marine Food are also fraudulently reporting their numbers - http://www.chinesecompanyanalyst.com I have a tiny interest in China MediaExpress (CCME) and am considering dumping it. I can't find any hard evidence of fraud, but the numbers just seem too good to be true. Thoughts?

http://www.gurufocus.com/stock-market-valuations.php United States stock market as a percentage of GDP link I forgot.