PlanMaestro

Here comes housing. https://twitter.com/PlanMaestro/status/271312314140065793/photo/1 PS: What happened to moore_capital?

For-Profits Losing to Better-Rated, Cheaper State Schools http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-20/for-profits-losing-to-better-rated-cheaper-state-schools.html

Muddy Waters vs Olam: from New Zealand, with fudge http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2012/11/20/1271323/muddy-waters-vs-olam-from-new-zealand-with-fudge-2/

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8199/8204238260_95466d8577.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8341/8204252696_1125830ea3.jpg

Olam is a well respected firm. It would be a big catch if … I have not read the report but Bain & Co works in their post-merger integrations and a former Bain MD is a director. So I would be surprised if these acquisitions are only thin air. I have to concede there were allegations last year of wrong accounting too, so I'm open ears. http://www.theedgesingapore.com/component/content/26682.html?task=view Does anyone know where I can get a 10 year chart of its price? (Google Finance does not help) RR: http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=O32.SI#symbol=o32.si;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

And another one: “the most lucrative insider-trading scheme ever,” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-20/u-s-charges-mathew-martoma-in-insider-trading-scheme.html

The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him, lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses, rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones... Race straight past that coast! Soften some beeswax and stop your shipmates' ears so none can hear, none of the crew, but if you are bent on hearing, have them tie you hand and foot in the swift ship, erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast so you can hear the Sirens, song to your heart's content. But if you plead, commanding your men to set you free, Them they must lash you faster, rope on rope.

Do you guys remember Charlie Fernandez? http://news.hedgefund.net/default.aspx?story=14353

Good to see Brandon back. Any other interesting stuff twacowfca? What are the most talked concerns besides pricing? Thanks for the updates (and hoping that is not all work).

Starting to make inroads in General Motors, Lincoln National, and The Hartford warrants… I wonder when he will start buying Zions warrants too. What do you say MrB? Fairholme Capital 13-F filed: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1056831/000105683112000004/submission111412.txt GM and Lincoln National are added to the list of companies they are holding warrants on...

David Nutt has a book just coming out http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Without-Hot-David-Nutt/dp/1906860165 You should probably consider ecstasy instead :)

Strayer suspends dividend. 18% down.

Frequentist vs Bayesian. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7261/8169837118_dde2d687cc.jpg

Back to investing and just added to my checklist: Is this just math you do as a [fill-the-blank] to make yourself feel better or is this real

Small position. Not completely convinced with the CEO as with other financials. But they are doing what they said they would do and the warrants are crazy cheap. The warrants' strike+current price is less than 0.6x current TBV, and they expire in 2019. Another way to look at them is that they are already in the money while paying only $2 per warrant for the 2019 time value option. That is not happening with BAC, AIG or most of the other warrants

Ohio Polls http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/oh/ohio_romney_vs_obama-1860.html

For example, there is this guy called Chris Whalen that comments on banking. Once upon a time I called him smart but somewhat biased. With all the evidence accumulated over time, I think he is just biased. That does not mean I completely disregard his comments … only that there is very little probability to his views.

Bayesian inference. You compare polls and check the track record and adjust accordingly. Exactly what Silver is doing and just like investing. In 2010, Nate Silver of the New York Times blog FiveThirtyEight wrote the article “Is Rasmussen Reports biased?”, in which he mostly defended Rasmussen from allegations of bias. However, by later in the year, Rasmussen's polling results diverged notably from other mainstream pollsters, which Silver labeled a "house effect". He went on to explore other factors which may have explained the effect such as the use of a likely voter model, and claimed that Rasmussen conducted its polls in a way that excluded the majority of the population from answering. Silver also criticized Rasmussen for often only polling races months before the election, which prevented them from having polls just before the election that could be assessed for accuracy. He wrote that he was “looking at appropriate ways to punish pollsters” like Rasmussen in his pollster rating models who don’t poll in the final days before an election. In June 2012, Silver wrote that "Rasmussen Reports, which has had Republican-leaning results in the past, does so again this year. However, the tendency is not very strong – a Republican lean of about 1.3 points." Silver ranked Rasmussen Reports as having the third lowest house effect of the 12 polling firms that Silver analyzed. After the 2010 midterm elections, Silver concluded that Rasmussen's polls were the least accurate of the major pollsters in 2010, having an average error of 5.8 points and a pro-Republican bias of 3.9 points according to Silver's model.

Gallup historic party affiliation http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx The meme going around is that among Independents Romney is winning and that the polls are oversampling Democrats. Well, if Republicans don't like to call themselves Republicans … what would you expect? And add the electoral map math…

Man, I guess lottery tickets are always enticing. The last few days I was thinking about a career change, and betting against underdogs across all races both Republicans and Democrats. All underdogs are showing odds that are not squared with polling reality. For example, some people still think Brown has chances of winning… good luck with that one. And by buying a basket across parties you can hedge a bit possible party bias. I guess people are even more emotional about politics than stocks. PS: Party affiliation for Republicans have been plummeting the last few years while the Republican share of the Independents vote has been increasing. One hypothesis, is that Libertarians don't like to call themselves Republicans but at the end they vote for them anyway. That is the reason why sampling includes more Democrats, and historically… there has not been party bias.

Cost Curve ex-China http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8329/8142013827_02ef3cf3fc.jpg

How Flood Insurance Works http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203335504578089011702726402.html As Hurricane Sandy recedes, some homeowners will get a sick feeling as they survey the damage and pull out their insurance policies, learning that standard insurance coverage excludes flood damage. Flood coverage is not part of regular homeowners insurance policies, which cover property damage from fallen trees, wind and fires. Instead, flood coverage is sold through specialized policies, dominated by the federal government's National Flood Insurance Program, covering 5.6 million consumers and businesses.

Fannie, Freddie and the False Claims Act http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/10/29/fannie-freddie-and-the-false-claims-act/?mod=WSJ_qtoverview_wsjlatest In 2009, Congress passed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, known as FERA. The law broadened the False Claims Act and wiped out a court decision that said a person could be held liable only if they intended for a false statement to sway the government to pay a claim. It also eliminated case law that said the FCA could reach only false statements or false claims to the government. Now, the FCA can be applied to any request for money, whether or not the U.S. has title to it, if the money is to be spent on the government’s behalf or to advance a government interest and involves federal funds. “The law is much more broadly applicable now” to the conduct alleged in the Bank of America lawsuit, said Laurence Freedman, a partner at Patton Boggs LLP who defends companies in FCA cases. But there’s a catch. The complaint focuses on events beginning in 2007, and FERA can’t be applied retroactively, with one exception. The government alleges Countrywide, hurting from a loss of revenue, eliminated checks on loan quality in order to sell loans to Fannie and Freddie at a faster clip. We know what happened next. In 2008, Fannie and Freddie succumbed to the weight of millions of failing mortgages and had to be bailed out by the government. “It’s much more questionable whether the government’s legal theory holds for pre-FERA claims,” Mr. Freedman said. “There has to be government skin in the game when the act of fraud is occurring,” said Ben Vernia, a lawyer who represents both defendants and whistleblowers in False Claims Act cases. Mr. Vernia said that Bank of America could argue that “if we violated the rules, it wasn’t in connection with what we understood to be a government program.” “It’s not a pretty argument,” Mr. Vernia added, but it could be effective.

It is no just about overconfidence, a lack of ego can be a problem too — Howard Marks

The Wen Jiabao Family Empire (Graphic) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/25/business/the-wen-family-empire.html?smid=tw-nytimes