augustabound

I'm guessing he heard Warren Buffett say the word Netflix somewhere. 8)

I've had the feeds directly to my google reader for a year or so and hadn't noticed that the posts stopped. Just checked his twitter feed also. He was a daily or almost daily poster and they stopped on Oct 2nd. Not sure......

I just finished Kevin O'Leary's "Cold Hard Truth - On Business, Money and Life". He may be better know as one of the dragons on the Canadian version of "Dragon's Den" and the American "Shark Tank". He gives his own experiences from getting through school to his Mother's $10000 loan that he built into a company that he and his 2 partners sold for $4.4B to Mattel. His angle on entrepreneurship is different than others I've found. He's very candid on strengths and weakness, when and how about taking on a partner etc. From anything else I've read, he seems very honest in how he earned what he has and doesn't fill the book with the same old cliches that are in other books. One of the biggest points he drives home for entrepreneurs is, you need to either make a decision right now or hire someone who is able to. To many failures occur from not acting. His golden rule for investing is to only invest in something that returns a yield whether that's dividends, bond yield or unit trust distributions (Canadian trusts before the taxation flip flop). He also feels that true entrepreneurs see everyday life as an opportunity to make money, everything else is a waste of time and energy. All in all it was a great read that I couldn't put down.

I used to love watching "Nails" play baseball. Old fashion, down and dirty baseball. He's apparently taken that attitude off the field with him.

It's been a couple of years since I read it, but it's definitely worth reading.

Happy 100th post Sid. :)

Same here, he seems like a guy at the club you'd sit and have a beer with and shoot the shite. It was similar for me with Charlie Munger. Before I'd heard him speak, I had this sophisticated semi-English, fairly soft voice........kind of like the long time Yankee P.A. announcer in my head. Then I heard the Buffettesque mid-West way of speaking and I was totally thrown off. ;D

They've also been decreasing square footage at existing stores for a couple of years. The recent renovation at the Toronto Eaton Centre and Scarborough Town Centre in the GTA have shrunk the store sizes by about 25%.

I can't believe that's "Chunk". :o

Just an update for anyone who does use the smf addin for their excel spreadsheets. Canadian tickers work if you use the ticker combo for each website, CA:XXX for MSN etc.

I like that you have it handy. I have a list but not as easily accessible, so it's easy to forget sometimes. Google finance portfolio/watchlist for me also. I also have the excel addin from Randy Harmelink's yahoo group page. The only problem with that group is they can't access Canadian stocks. For those who haven't seen it, it's pretty powerful stuff they've created in this group, led by Randy. (the group's name is smf_addin) Jae Jun creator of Old School Value blog, also uses the same addin for his spreadsheets.

Yes, everything you said here is what keeps me away from Apple.

It is the same as value investing principle. Investing only in your circle of competency is the way to determine what business has the staying power or what not . I think that's a good point. My gut told me that his style would be only suitable for him and not necessarily suitable for a smaller individual. I think I may have answered my own question in the O.P. with regards to the '08-09 downturn and friends investing in bonds and pref instead of common shares that had similar upside. Just sounding ideas on a boring, rainy Thursday morning. :)

I just read a post at distressed debt investing about value traps and one of Wilbur Ross' strategies. http://www.distressed-debt-investing.com/2011/09/on-value-traps.html The part I was intrigued by was this part, Wilbur Ross is one of my favorite investors. Here is the formula: Determine an industry that has staying power (i.e. will be around in 20 years) that is under severe stress Purchase the senior bonds of a company in that industry at distressed levels File the company, and convert your senior ownership to a majority equity share Clean up operations Wait My question to this board is, what if any, is this a transferable strategy to individual investors (minus the controlling interest part obviously :) )? I like looking at the contrarian angles, so finding an industry at a low point whether cyclical low or the one time fixable type is usually the easy part..........usually. Or is the most sensible course for an individual investor to find the best of breed in a distressed industry and buy the common shares knowing you may need years for it to turn in your favour (like some peoples thesis on USG)? I know I read and heard from friends during the downturn in '08-'09 who bought distressed bonds and preferreds, but when comparing some of them to the common they either lagged the common or were comparable in the rebound.

My biggest complaint isn't the speed when browsing, I get annoyed when pages don't load. It happens more in Chrome than it ever did in Firefox for me. When that happens, I have to close the current tab then re-open it and that usually does the trick. I may go back to Firefox for a couple of weeks just out of curiosity.

I've been using Chrome for the last couple of months and haven't found the speed that some claim it has. At first I found it pretty quick, but that didn't last very long.

That's the most bullish sign I've ever seen on Sears. (As little as I've payed attention to it). I may have to start paying more attention.

I haven't followed SHLD very closely, but with the way market noise can move a stock price, I'm surprised an announcement like this hasn't moved SHLD. A sign that most have given up?

And FWIW, library.nu is a pirate site. AKA copyright infringement. There are a million of them out there and suffice it to say, if you want something its probably out there.

Awesome, thanks for that Nate. I still would like to get the 3rd for the reason you mentioned. From what I've read, most people either swear by the 2nd or 3rd edition, so it would be nice to have them both on my bookshelf. Yes, my CD is the entire 2nd edition, all 895 pages.

[amazonsearch]Security Analysis[/amazonsearch] This is more of a question. I have the first, second and sixth (the second by default as it was on a cd inside the sixth). After reading Peter Cundill, "There's Always Something to Do", I was intrigued by the part that mentioned he had a copy of S.A. 4th edition that "devoured" Chapter 41, “The Asset Value Factor in Common Stock Valuation” It also shows up in the 3rd as chapter 38. My question to those who know the other editions, is there a comparable chapter in the 2nd or is it something completely new that Graham and Dodd added to the 3rd? I know sooner or later I'm going to order the 3rd edition from Chapters/Indigo anyway, I just wondered if the chapter is already in the 2nd with a different name.

Mohnish looks like a bright eyed, bushy haired kid just out of school in that pic you have Marlin. I love the pic of the boys with the Hooters girls too. WEB looks like a kid in a candy store but Bill Gates looks a bit uncomfortable. :D

Most things I've come across have been pretty good from MOI, but I'm not a subscriber. I fall into the "frugal" category that you do. I'm going to check out the freebies he posts though starting with "April 21, 2010: Graham-Style Deep Value". http://manualofideas.com/freepmr.html

In googling Singleton I found this article that names Loews as the smartest buyers from the '70 through '08ish. http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/6823/

Sweet, thanks for this. Packer mentioned it in another thread and I couldn't find it. The Manual of Ideas has a nice list of articles on Singleton and Teledyne, http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/315877-the-manual-of-ideas/30189-the-manual-of-ideas-on-business-leader-henry-singleton-founder-of-teledyne-audio