BargainValueHunter

Nearly THREE years later and natural gas futures are still in contango!! Anybody care to guess when one may expect a little bit of the 'ol backwardation?

I think these guys are brilliant but I think the blowout Q1 was less about great stock picking last year and more about the stupid levels many of the financial stocks (especially BAC) got punished down to last fall. The snapback coincidentally started almost exactly at the New Year (quarter). Q4 2011 looked a bit like Q1 2009 to me.

Eddie Lampert will be on CNBC Wednesday. Rare opportunity to listen to his SHLD thesis. http://www.streetinsider.com/Trader+Talk/Sears+Holdings+%28SHLD%29+Up+As+Eddie+Lampert+To+Co-Host+CNBC+Show/7318497.html

Eddie Lampert is shopping Land's End... http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/lands_end_game_5p3ePLWUD0sqSpTPERJGeM

More on Wang: http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20120327/FREE/120329922

Late last year the CNBC white noise generator told me that they were both losers so neither. ;)

This article also mentions Prem... http://dailyreckoning.com/the-biggest-fire-sale-in-history/#hl-banks

Brutal 5 years? The market is up 100% since the lows of 2009. Who knows if he was even invested in anything for 2007-2008. 2009? Wouldn't that be three years?

Yup! There is a best manager every year in the media. Cheers! Those kind of returns in one of the most brutal 5 years in decades are impressive. Micheal Burry had similar returns after 5 years. I don't know how long one has to be a manager before he or she is officially good and not lucky but what would worry me as an investor in his fund is his Madoff-like secrecy. I wasn't picking on him. I was picking on the title of your thread! ;D Cheers! I apologize. I went ahead and changed the thread title.

Yup! There is a best manager every year in the media. Cheers! Those kind of returns in one of the most brutal 5 years in decades are impressive. Micheal Burry had similar returns after 5 years. I don't know how long one has to be a manager before he or she is officially good and not lucky but what would worry me as an investor in his fund is his Madoff-like secrecy.

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/71859/stressed-hartford-announces-split

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/03/12/oceanstone-fund-james-wang/ "He reads all of the books of Buffett, and also Ben Graham, Philip Fisher. He's a bottom-up investor." http://fortunewallstreet.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/oceanstone_fund_total_return.jpg

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sears-adds-exec-to-focus-on-real-estate-assets-2012-03-20?link=MW_latest_news

The BAC shorts are really getting desperate now!! :) http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/03/19/bank-of-america-denies-market-rumors-of-secondary-offering/?mod=yahoo_hs Those shorts laughing @ Christmas were angry by St. Patrick's Day!

Saw this in today's WSJ (Wall Street Explores Landlord Business, A1-2): Buffett... said in an interview on CNBC last month that he would buy up "a couple hundred thousand" single-family homes if he could do so easily, given the high yields on rental investments. I've really enjoyed this discussion. Why doesn't Home Services of America open up a property management office in each real estate office? Buffett buys the properties and has his own company manage them...as well as for others. I'm sure there is plenty of demand for quality property managers who provide good service at a reasonable price. Should be no different than the real estate franchise business. Berkshire could become the largest property manager in the U.S., and is probably one of the few companies that can scale that across the country. Also creates more recurring income for Berkshire, and keeps another service business within the company in a related industry. Cheers! Better yet...Sears could do it as an add-on to its home services business! Don't think Eddie would go that way though...

If Apple is truly cheap then a massive buyback (retiring 10% of the float) would be a great idea. A dividend is fair but not optimum.

Isn't it trading near cash and with a crazy low p/s ratio?

Dumb question but, What would keep Buffett, Paulson or Ackman (who have indicated that this is a golden age for rental properties) from organizing such an effort and scooping up thousands of homes in Vegas, AZ, FL or CA? I think they could muster the resources to build scale in this space. They have all indicated that they "couldn't" do it in mass to the point where it was worth it (given the scale of their other investing initiatives).

I'm selling out of BP, formerly my biggest position. Those 0% credit card advance offers look interesting (4% fee then they jack up your outstanding balance to 18% in July 2013) to buy +4% yielding MLPs or mREITS but that is an impossible game to win.

Eager to see if Kyle Bass gets his 650 bagger!! http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120309-712280.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044363/Kyle-Bass-Meet-Texan-investor-millions-credit-crunch.html

European bank woes equals bargain buying for American banks like CIT... http://www.nasdaq.com/article/cit-bank-buys-200-mln-aircraft-loan-portfolio---quick-facts-20120308-00625

Write "just-out-of-the-money" puts on a company you wish to own. Once assigned, write OTM calls at a strike you doubt can be achieved within a certain time frame. ------------------------------------------- If possible buy "deep-in-the-money" LEAPS (calls). Hedge by buying ITM puts in an associated industry ETF. Downsides?

Just curious to see what others thought a good investment would be outside of the markets. A business (such as a franchise)? An educational venture? Art and collectibles?

Bloomberg has a pretty comprehensive piece out about Eddie, SHLD, Ziff and his trading history between ESL Investors and ESL Partners L.P.: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/lampert-gains-160-million-acquiring-050101774.html?l=1

I'd just love to ask Eddie WHY did he wait so long. If he really cared about the quality of the advertising strategy, store decor, customer service and overall iconic brand he MUST have seen the spreading decay and core rot YEARS ago. If he didn't then what the hell was going on at HQ??? The only thing that makes sense is he secretly couldn't care less about the retail operations and was just was trying to gather as many shares as possible to control cash flows from asset sales down the road. I'm not saying that is what is going on but I really can't figure out why EVERYBODY saw the deterioration but him.