ericd1

Bill Gross has added muni shares to his personal accounts already... http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20101214/FREE/101219977 Excerpt - Gross added to shares in Pimco California Municipal Income Fund, Pimco California Municipal Income Fund II, Pimco California Municipal Income Fund III, Pimco Municipal Income Fund and Pimco Municipal Income Fund III on Dec. 9 and Dec. 10, according to SEC filings today. He bought 50,000 shares of the Pimco Municipal Income Fund III on Dec. 10 at an average price of $9.75, according to public records. That fund hit a 52-week high of $12 on Sept. 8. PMX (Pimco Muni III) closed today $10.05 15% premium to NAV - Distribution rate 8%+ ~8% tax-free with 20% potential gains ahead taxed at 15% -- seems like a Christmas present to me, not a gray goose... :)

Perhaps US investors will soon have an opportunity to invest in a Sprout fund (besides their offshore hedge fund - $500k min). They are buying U.S. Global Investors and two other companies http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSGE68L0I520100922

Interesting news for NICK - Up 18% this morning...I believe it is still under-valued http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NICK&ql=0 Disclosure - long NICK

Interesting article in the WSJ online today... "Market for Vacation Homes Is on the Rise" Basically said number of sales are up quite a bit, but for most areas prices are not... Excerpt...Still, in most markets where demand has improved, prices haven't. For Realtor Andy Twisdale in Hilton Head, S.C., it is too soon to rejoice; prices are down almost a third over the past five years. "People are buying at the very low end of the product," he said. "The financing is very difficult. Banks are requiring 25% down and crystal clean credit."

While I was reading this thread I noticed the ad at the top was for a prepaid Visa card...it has various "plans" that you can select from... The issuer of the RushCard is Bancorp Bank http://www.rushcard.com/index.aspx?referer=GCprepaidcard&gclid=CNr4_cLCrqYCFcjsKgodLjfdog Take a look at the fees...Holey-Smoley http://www.rushcard.com/whyrushcard/scheduleoffees.aspx

A year isn't a long time to measure, but I'll take the 23% return Quicken computed for me. High-yield bond and preferred baskets did well - up 26% and 34% respectively Several hi-yield stocks (FLY, BBEP, EVEP GLAD, PRM) and a reit index fund added 53% and 25% GE Options were up 54% China coal basket was up 40% Core Stocks (FFH, LUK, WFC, BAC, SU, and others) added 10% Emerging Mkts +7% Shipping basket lost 12% Lesson learned - Perhaps too heavily concentrated in FFH...Basket of FFH, BRK & LUK would have added several percentage points to results. Going forward it will be difficult to match these results without taking on more risk because pfds and bonds are nearing fair market values. Extending the 15% tax on dividends helped me make the decision to maintain my bond and pfd positions. Besides I enjoy sleeping!

I'm not a fan of RE, except REITs, for all the negative reasons mentioned, but I do consider myself a value investor. With that thought in mind along with "buy when there's blood in the streets" I think it is a terrific time to buy real estate. But not just any real estate. Personally I believe resort, vacation, waterfront property will do better than most anything else. There are some terrific deals out there, but you have to be a "scrapper" like the guy in FL making a low-ball bid on a nice property. He may just get the deal! Using rental income to defer expenses and lower the cost of ownership is a good reason for some folks to think about making the plunge. I have two friends that have recently picked up distressed real estate and are doing just that. One in South Fl, the other in Las Vegas. Both got attractive foreclosure properties from banks at what appears to be really good prices and so far have had good success in renting them out.

I don't think most RE investors would look at the total price vs net to determine their returns. It could be a back of the napkin analysis, but the actual return depends on the net profit (after all expenses including interest expense) compared to the amount invested. While it is true most expenses will go up, so will rents, yet the interest expense is usually a fixed expense, which at today's rates is pretty attractive.

Perhaps some of us realize our limitations :)

Myth, I like deep value and jockeys too...But as mentioned, sometimes deep value needs a catalyst, which may not appear for a long time. My level of patience has improved over the years because many times after I exit the position, it takes off...damn! So I've learned to trust my initial judgment and wait...I'll give an idea about three years unless it turns south (15%-20%)...then I'll cut and run because I haven't been successful averaging down or waiting for the recovery. Today I'm a lot more patience than 40 years ago and it has helped my returns.

SmallCap "It depends" -- $323K would buy a nice two-bedroom condo/villa. $500-600k for nice house walking distance to beach and $4M for a very nice beachfront home! If the condo has a good rental history you could get 15-20+ weeks of rental ~$15-20k, taxes ~$1.5k, ins ~$1.0k. You would also likely have association/condo fees $300-400/mo and then there's rental agency/housekeeping/maintenance. The p/l and roi obviously depends on the size of the mortgage! The downside to the rental program is you are limited to 14 days per year for personal use.

Packer, I'm sitting in Hilton Head Island SC thinking the same thing. Using numbers from Zillow.com the price of the average property on HH dropped from $603k to a current $323k. Because HH is one of the primer east coast vacation destinations I believe a lot of the carrying costs could be offset with rental income. It's not a slam dunk, but I think property returns here could exceed the market over the next five year to ten years. If I were ten years younger I'd lever up and give it a go...That said we bought a property here this year. Any ideas on how I could raise $25-$50M for a property investment vehicle? As to FL RE, I think a vacation destination or resort area property (i.e. close or on the ocean) would do better than other areas.

Remarkably faster...especially when streaming netflix videos...LOL

I have been holding several coal companies in China because of the reasons you mentioned below plus the fact that China's strong growth will require increased demand, especially for electricity. Coal is a primary source for their electricity and China is an importer of coal. The country is also in the process of rolling up the industry into larger companies to improve safety, operations, etc. Pretty much a state-controlled business, but I like the prospects for growth. YZC recently purchased a large coal mine in Australia (Felix) and is in the process of opening other mines in China. This is more of a theme pick than value play, but these companies also appear under-valued. Full Discloure - Long YZC, PUDA, SGZH (interesting cigar butt P/E ~4x)

I'm frugal (just ask my wife), but we enjoy SiriusXM and our Tivo... Virtually no ads...sometimes there's a Sirius promo for shows, etc... I sure missed this Peter Lynch opportunity--"buy what you like". After XM was acquired it might have made sense, but I passed...still limited earnings and a huge short position...Perhaps there's something here, but it's too much of a crap shoot for me!

I've been a subscriber (XM previously) for a number of years...Reason...We don't have a local jazz station and it's great when traveling cross country! There's some recent big buyers including GE... http://seekingalpha.com/article/236682-ge-takes-a-big-stake-in-sirius-xm?source=article_sb_popular_1

I've been thinking along these lines too...at some point rates have to go up...but then again they could go lower! There are both ETFs and mutual funds with inverse term bond goals: ETFs: ProShares Short 20+ Year Treasury TBF ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Trsy TBT 2x Direxion Daily 20 Year Plus Trsy Bear TMV 3x PowerShares DB 3x Short 25+ Year Trsy ETN SBND 3x - monthly reset and ETN ProsShares Rising Rates Oppty 30 yr RRPIX (goal 1.25x daily movement) Rydex Inverse US Gov Long Bd RYJUX There are also inverse high yield funds: Rydex Inverse High-Yield Strategy RYIHX Direxion High Yield Bear Inverse PHBRX Direxion Dynamic High Yield Bond Inv PDHYX

I don't think they charge you until your first issue goes out

Any reason not to add shares near the 52 week low? I think Mr Market is offering a gift... :)

Dataroma is great - thanks Parsad for sharing In a similar vain there's Mebane Faber's blog and website AlphaClone... AlphaClone is a paid site with info I presume similar to Dataroma...Faber wrote the Ivy Portfolio...which I personally believe offers a solid investment strategy if you're not a great stock picker...He also is behind a new TAA ETF - GTAA...which is based on the Ivy Portfolio strategy. http://www.mebanefaber.com/2010/10/29/what-hedge-fund-managers-are-killing-it-this-year/ http://alphaclone.com/ http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/markets-intrinsic-value-mebane-faber-piggyback-buys.html Faber's research suggests simply following some of the investment greats picks (via SEC filings) can provide superior returns. As detailed on my AlphaClone.com website, simply buying Baupost's biggest 20 stock picks with equal weights and rebalancing the portfolio quarterly would have resulted in a return of 14.4% per year over the decade through last December, versus --1% for the S&P 500 Obviously a good place to look for ideas...but has anyone tried to use a "clone" strategy?

Another engineer here...I also completed my MBA which provided good classes on accounting, finance and investing...If you have any desire to continue your education you can add to your career prospects and learn about investing through a MBA program. On the reading side I would suggest adding some of John Templeton's booksd - Global Investing the Templeton Way and Investing the Templeton Way...They are not very technical and provide good insight into the successful methods he used to pick stocks. Good luck!

Parsad, I passed... :(

Question for all...Let's assume the numbers on some of these warrants look good for a potential return greater then 20% with a decent margin of safety. That's a large enough compound return to make me interested. But because they are warrants, they might not trade in-line with their underlying stock until close to the expiration date. It could be that the required holding period would be until expiration in 2018-2019, or about 7, or 8 years. That seems like a long time to me to find out if my initial analysis was correct. Unless you are Buffett with a holding period of forever, I'm not sure these would have a place in my portfolio, even though they look attractive. So after the rambling, my question is--How long are you willing to hold an under-valued position to see if it pans out? If I were a good as Buffett with my picks I'd hold them forever, but I'm not...so my answer to the question is 2 to 3 years if I expect a double, or triple...and 12-18 months if the expected return is lower and the underlying business doesn't seem to be changing...

Baron, I appreciate what you are saying about ivory tower vs industry innovation, but it appears BYD has developed some interesting battery technology in-house and likely have more ideas coming...At least I hope so...A few tid-bits... Parent company BYD, which is the No. 1 supplier of lithium-ion batteries for cell phones, is now able to produce a high-performance ferrous-based lithium-ion battery on an industrial scale, company Vice President Lian Yubo said. Yubo said that with this battery, BYD has overcome three of the major drawbacks of lithium-ion batteries: high cost, low capacity and danger of explosion. The battery pack in the F3DM is low cost, high capacity and won't explode when exposed to fire, he said. The battery pack can be recharged using a home power plug in nine hours, the company claims. But with a special industrial charging equipment, it takes only 15 minutes to bring the capacity up to 80 percent. BYD claims that the battery pack has a life of more than 2,000 cycles, a range exceeding 320,000 miles or a life of up to 10 years, whichever comes first ---- Mr. Wang says BYD's batteries use a new technology that makes them safer than other lithium-ion models. He also says cheap abundant labor helps keeps his costs down, another factor that could sway consumers. In China, the F3DM is priced at 150,000 yuan, or $22,000, and BYD expects it to sell for a similar amount in the U.S. The Chevrolet Volt, by contrast, may be priced at $40,000 or more when it hits the market in late 2010. Mr. Wang says BYD's lithium-ion battery uses an iron-phosphate technology that is chemically stable and thus "inherently safe." He says it doesn't overheat to the point where it can catch fire. The technology is similar in design to that developed by A123 Systems, a U.S. start-up battery maker led by a group of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. GM is using their technology to power the Volt. Individuals close to A123 say the company plans to take apart BYD's battery cell to see if BYD has infringed on any of its technology. Officials at A123 declined to comment. The Chinese company says it has spent more than 10 years developing its own iron-phosphate-based lithium-ion technology without infringing on others' intellectual property. "Sometimes foreigners think every Chinese company is stealing technology and design," says Luo Hongbin, a senior BYD engineer. But, he says, "we have been researching electric vehicles for so many years."

There are some real deals in the hardest hit areas...I believe it was a Forbes article where a ~$500K house recently sold for ~$125K...The couple bid on 10+ foreclosures and finally won one...But who wants to live in Detroit anyway?