augustabound

Found this one through valueinvestingworld.com Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do

Do you have a link to the thread by any chance? You bet, Buying Property In Phoenix, AZ

Buffett and Munger are worth paying for. I've read all of Jim's letters and while they are a good read, I wouldn't pay for them. He's definitely an odd character. Anyone who wants to read his thoughts and strategy on investing in U.S. real estate rentals only need go to the financial webring forum and read the thread there. Plenty of great insights, all free.

Continuing to be drawn off topic. :P I much preferred Bill Maher's ,"Religulous". No doubt it was done in somewhat poor taste, but he brought up some valid points.

I found a couple of interesting (to me anyway), TED videos. Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce. I think at the root of his talk was knowing what you want versus actually what you want. He's an interesting speaker, pretty charismatic and endearing at the same time. I had never heard him speak until watching this video last night. Peter Donnelly, how stats fool juries The first bit of the talk he goes over some probabilities of the coin flip. It's a different angle that the fact that your odds never change from 50/50, no matter how many similar flips preceded the next. You may just want to skip through the first bit until somewhere around the 13 minute mark where he talks about the case of multiple sudden infant death. He speaks to the probability and stats involved in a case against a mother with 2 sid deaths. Somewhat morbid topic but I found the math interesting.

I knew it, Becky Quick! ;)

Liberty I believe.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. ;) I think I remember reading an interview with Bruce Greenwald saying he couldn't pull the trigger on investments. He could research and value fine, but actually making the investment, he would freeze up.

Unfortunately the interest in baseball in Canada has been in a severe decline since Joe Carter hit the big home run. Also the Expos leaving Montreal hasn't helped either. Thank you Bud Selig. I agree with the non-stop radio and TV talk about hockey. The fan 590 still talks Leafs hockey day in day out. It drives me crazy. The Jays have an exciting team, which may not finish as high as some of the prognosticators say they will, but they'll be really exciting to watch none the less. Yet The Fan still talks Leaf hockey, all the time. And for the life of me I just can't watch the Raptors. I never could. Shitty name, shitty colours and a revolving door of annoying players. Mind you, I'm a Laker fan, so I know all about the most annoying player out there. Annoying enough to have run Shaq right out of town. ;) The talk on The Fan today was the prospect of Luongo coming to Toronto. It would never happen, but the all Leafs network has to speculate about it anyway.

In 1981 the Philadelphia Phillies traded Larry Bowa and Ryne Sandberg to the Chicago Cubs for Ivan DeJesus. I just can't for the life of me see Ryne Sandberg in a Phillies jersey. Sorry, couldn't resist. ;D

Stats Canada has all the reports on their website but it's separated per year and you have to read through the report to get the percentages of income/expenditures. For 2009 average household spending was $72000. Food 10% Shelter 20% Transportation 12% Taxes (not income tax, obviously) 20% Education 1.5% Reading materials 0.3% I can't seem to find any data before 1997 on their site though.

While searching for a Munger quote, I found this page from an Indian Prof and his University course. http://www.sanjaybakshi.net/Sanjay_Bakshi/BFBV.html

It doesn't appear to be a direct quote, but I found this; http://www.theequitydesk.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=799&PN=22

Very true on both accounts. Its all relative, and this is a broad reaching forum. I hope it stays that way. I hope so too, but we need someone to volunteer to move to one of the research stations in Antarctica. Then we would hit all 7. 8)

I spent the summer of '07 doing a renovation in Edmonton. Most of North America had a really early summer that year but in Edmonton they called the weather in June a "heat wave". The girls who worked at the store we renovated all complained how hot it was and they didn't know if they could take it. It was 22 C (about 75 F). At home in Southern Ontario a record was set for most days in the 30's C (about 92 F) for the month of June. :D It's all relative I guess. I'm sure if I went to Phoenix in August and complained when the temperature reached 30/92, the locals would laugh. It's really cool to see how diverse of a group we have here. I had assumed most if not all were from N.A. (although I do remember tombgrt saying he was from Europe). But if I've remembered correctly, I think this forum reaches 6 continents.

I found a site after a Google search for Ford stock certificate that shows one from the Ford Motor Company of Canada from 1908 that sold at auction. http://www.spink.com/news/news_archive/Ford.asp Of course I can't speak to the reliability of the site, but I did find it kind of cool.

Newmarket, Ontario

Frank has done 2 posts recently. http://www.frankvoisin.com/2012/03/16/james-wang-on-earnings-prospects-and-the-intrinsic-value-multiple/ http://www.frankvoisin.com/2012/03/14/james-wang-the-best-value-investor-youve-never-heard-of/

I learned a new acronym today. I didn't realize what EOM meant until now. :)

I agree. I guess to clarify my comments on blogs and value sites, I'm starting now to see the ideas that others like Nate and Adam post on their blogs and try to form my own opinion before looking at their analysis. I have a bookmark folder for "current ideas". So the plan is to research them myself and compare to what they have found.

See, after reading your post, now I'm not sure of the hours per se. I'm like you, always scanning blogs and value sites and I jump around pretty frequently, so it's not as if I'm spending solid research time on an idea. I was just thinking about this over the weekend when I was re-reading some notes I had on Berkshire meeting last year. (I was not there, I just keep notes on key ideas that the dynamic duo speak of). It was last years meeting where Munger has said (again) how much he loves Costco and they think that IBM is a fantastic business that most people just don't understand. Buffett's been reading IBM's annual reports forever, he followed BUD for nearly 30 or so years before investing etc. I'd love to be at a point where I had a list of a few businesses, maybe a dozen, that I knew inside and out that I would buy when the stock hit my price range. It was hearing Buffett and Munger talk about these types of businesses that made me realize that a great company doesn't mean it's a great stock. I mean, I've heard the great investors say it a hundred times, but it was with these examples from Buffett and Munger that it sunk in. So far my list comprises of BRK, FFH and COST. ;) I'm looking into FAST too. Companies like PG, JNJ, CL, CLX, used to be on the list but there seem to be too many variables that don't affect other companies that do affect them (other than the general economy). So am I so any tips on re-focusing would be appreciated. :) I'm actually better now than I was. I started "Your Money or Your Brain" on Sunday and I'm more than half way through it and that's with work and having a young family. Now I just need that focus to spill over to K's and Q's.

I have to say that I'm probably at the same point as you seem to be, about 3-4 weeks. It can take longer if I don't know anything specific about the company or industry (seeing the company on a screen, a value website or here). I'm going through the Intelligent Investor again and taking notes as I go. Your post reminded me of a passage in chapter 1, page 21;

Lol, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I've always been a fan of Geoff also, but now that he's exclusive to Gurufocus, I think he's writing too much. I'd rather have a great article every two weeks rather than a good article daily. Another one I like is www.frankvoisin.com

My four "must reads", oddball stocks and Greg Speicher as mentioned www.valueuncovered.com www.whopperinvestments.com hardcorevalue.com is a new one that I've just found also, looks interesting. startingat22.blogspot.com, I bookmarked you just this week. :) Looks like I'll have a couple more from this thread on my list too.