Ballinvarosig Investors

I don't think it's a given that people will dump treasuries, at least not in the short-term. Remember, United States citizens have only 2% of their household worth invested in treasuries. If we were only to return to the long-term historical average of 5%, we would see yields plunge from even these low levels. Is this a completely ridiculous outcome? I don't think so, I am just trying to illustrate that when a trade becomes entirely one way, investors expectations may not always follow.

http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/domestic-finance/debt-management/interest-rate/yield_historical.shtml The 10 year has went from nearly 4% at the start of the year, to under 3% today, the lowest levels we've seen since the market crash back in March. The 2 year is now at an all-time low. I think it's interesting that the market has once again foxed the consensous of investors expectations (i.e. the future is inflationary and treasuries are a terrible investment).

Whitney Tilson is wrong about BP

Arrrghh, so much promise, but I can barely hear a thing :'(

Biglari continues buying - http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/own-disp?action=getissuer&CIK=0000093859 He really is trying to grab every vote he can to ensure that his compensation package passes! He now controls just over 14% of BH stock now. The key to whether this passes will be the institutional investors who control 36% (as of April this year). Other than Gamco (holds 9%), we have no idea of the intentions of other large shareholders like Dimensional, Vanguard and Fidelity will do.

Isn't that enough for you? ;D According to the Chinese commerce minister, average profit margins for exporting firms are a tiny 1.8% - http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90861/6936424.html All I know is that I wouldn't want to have any exposure to a Chinese exporter at this time.

There are also a few companies listed on the pink sheets that have large land banks and trade at a discount to intrinsic value. Limoneira (LMNR) J.G. Boswell - (BWEL) Keweenaw Land Association (KEWL)

Scale advantages, if any, would come out in the expense ratio, so one would have to compare the expense ratio for surety business at RLI to SUR's expense ratio. However, even though those comps are real, in reality, it is often a thorny problem, in practice, to allocate certain expenses directly to one line or another (but it can be done). RLI and NATL are high quality, no doubt about it. Has anyone looked at OTE? http://www.ote.gr/investor/Uploads/synopsi_1st_sem_2010_gr_new.gif Look at that pile of debt that falls due next year. Either they're going to have to try and refinance at much higher levels, or else raise equity.

That brought back memories of one of the smartest female investors that I've known, my Granny. When she lived in the United States when she was young, she invested in stocks like General Electric, AT&T and General Motors in the 50's/60's/70's and basically sat on them until she could use the huge profits to enjoy a comfortable retirement. A great company at a fair price will more than look after itself in the long-term.

Please excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard a thing about Tilson hedging his position. I only read the headline where he spoke of a 4% long position in BP (which he says he's increased since then). If you could direct me to where he's spoken of his hedging, I'd be grateful. Secondly, I don't think this could possibly be compared to Warren's Coke investment. Back in 1988, Coke was still a leading beverages brand that had fallen out of favour with Wall Street (look at the cash flows of KO even when it was supposedly "lagging" Pepsi - http://www.fwallstreet.com/postimages/24-1988-ko.pdf), rather than being subject to a substantial impairment. For the record, Goldman Sachs have come out with a liability of $130 billion - http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/06/11/bps-total-liability-80-billion-and-counting/

Tilson is an ass. Firstly, even the oil "experts" can't seem to agree on how bad this will be for BP, so I doubt Whitney has any extraordinary insights that they don't have. Secondly, why would you risk your capital on an open-ended liability when there are stocks out there that have been similarly decapitated (HAWK, ESV, etc), but without the risk of being sued into bankruptcy. Right now, getting into BP is a pure speculative play.

There's a very basic, free screener on Yahoo - http://screen.yahoo.com/stocks.html My Fidelity brokerage account has a much better screener, but the data is sometimes patchy and out of date. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for keeping your own records as many companies might only file though OTCMarkets.com or their own website (and not with the SEC). I own one company (Boston Sand and Gravel) whose only financial statement of record comes though the mail.

You're kind of contradicting yourself there. As you've stated, Harry Long has been on record regarding Fremont Michigan for quite some time. Secondly, he does have a point. People here are supposed to be value investors, so it's amazing that anyone could recommend something like MFC. Maybe you have some insight that I don't, but I see a lot that scares me, balance sheet that isn't exactly transparent (who knows what sort of corporate bonds they hold), high variable annuity exposure (even sideways equity markets will hurt MFC), etc. The AIG debacle should serve as a lesson to insurance investors. If you don't completely understand everything you're reading about the insurer, you're at risk of 100% capital loss

Only because he didn't fill the form out properly! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Biglari-Holdings-Inc-prnews-1654543524.html?x=0&.v=1

Remember Warren Buffett was hauled infront of the SEC for buying Wesco stock after he and Munger nixed the merger with Financial Corp. of Santa Barbara. When Buffett and Munger bought stock, at least they were decent enough to pay the original merger price and not screw shareholders. It's actually getting more and more sickening to see Biglari trying to portray himself as the next Warren Buffett.

By the way, are we even allowed talk about Biglari Holdings anymore?

I notice that Biglari Holdings has rebounded substantially from its recent low of $257 a share. Well, not we know why! http://houston.citybizlist.com/YourCitybizNews/detail.aspx?id=80157 Here's a link to the actual SEC filing - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93859/000092189510000893/sc13da1807428lio_05272010.htm Cooley has bought a few shares as well.

Taxation at the holding corporation level in Europe is higher than that of a similar US holding corp, so that explains part of the discount.

Have any folks here dipped their toes into European stocks that are getting pummeled? Telecoms stocks such as France Telecom (FTE), Deutsche Telekom (DT), Telefonica (TEF) are huge cash generators with 10% dividends, strong balance sheets operating in oligopolistic markets. If telecoms aren't for you, then you've got several large cap insurer with strong balance sheets, generating huge cash flows and selling below book value, Aviva (AV), Allianz (AZSEY). Veolia (VE), Groupe Danone (DANOY) and Total (TOT) are other large cap companies trading at low P/E's and paying high dividends. I'm not specifically touting these stocks, just illustrating that relative to US stocks, Europe looks cheaper. Is anyone actively investing in this domain?

I don't know about investments, but it sure is fun watching CNBC now. Last month during the 52-week highs, their guests couldn't have been more bullish. Now they can't get out of the pool fast enough.

Microcap performance from late 2007-2009 was horrible. I had RLOG and ITEX which at one stage lost over 75% of their value despite the businesses being fine. I think the reason why they haven't declined too much as of late has simply been because they were so completely oversold in March 2009.

ZeroHedge Remarkable statement from Klarman.

Apparently his fund focuses on international opportunities these days. His old fund (Himalaya Capital) doesn't appear to have made any filings with the SEC and his new fund (LL Investment Partners) hasn't either. The only investment of record that he appears to have made is a 2% stake in BYD.

I've never been on the Biglari bandwagon, but that's not fair at all. On point 1, what Biglari does with his own money is his own business. Even if he decides to blow cocaine up his nose with $1,000 bills, that's his perogative and not my concern. Point 2 is fair enough. On point 3, Buffett was certainly guilty of using Ben Graham as a marketing tool, when his style was anything but Graham-like for the majority of his career. In point 4, Buffett has managers that work for him for less than what they could get outside of Berkshire, and we've already seen Biglari design a compensation package that was extremely generous for Western Sizzlin' CEO, so he's not completely self-serving (mention in the NFI letter to Biglari - http://www.noisefreeinvesting.com/blog/?p=112). Finally on point 5, have you taken a look at the Berkshire board? It's filled with family members, old cronies and certainly a few sycophants. Anyway, we're completely off-topic on this thread, maybe the Biglari stuff should be split off so we can keep this the Parsad love-in going. I certainly don't agree with everything he says, but that's probably why he's a much more successful investor than me ;D