meiroy

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargo-provides-statement-independent-211200500.html "Wells Fargo’s portion of the cash settlement will be $766 million, which is based on the proportionate share of Wells Fargo-serviced loans in the overall IFR population. Wells Fargo expects to record a pre-tax charge of approximately $644 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 to fully reserve for its cash payment portion of the settlement and additional remediation-related costs. Wells Fargo will commit an additional $1.2 billion to foreclosure prevention actions. This commitment will not result in any charge as the Company believes that the commitment is covered through the existing allowance for credit losses and the nonaccretable difference relating to our purchased credit-impaired loan portfolio."

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130103000083&cid=1206&MainCatID=12 "The company described its car's system as "a perfect solution when the parking space is not wide enough for the driver to exit the car once parked" — in other words, you can get out of the car first and then park it by remote. BYD also said the Su Rui can be driven remotely from its parking spot to the curbside so the driver and passengers do not have to dash in the open if it is raining. A number of problems still have to be resolved, including using the remote control effectively at a distance and improving the clutch control. Another difficulty faced by the developers was ensuring that the cars could be driven at a slow speed." Would could possibly go wrong...

Haven't calculated exactly, should be over 40% somewhere. Mostly due to luck and the S&P going up itself, if it went down while my portfolio is up 40% then that would be something... One thing I'm proud of is that this year I managed to trim the weeds and water the flowers even when they looked smaller than the weeds. When the next fall comes I'll probably do fine. Going over the performance threads it seems to be missing the "goal", it's like some are disappointed they have not got high yields while investing in companies like BRK or MSFT, it's not like they are expected to double every two years... Having said teat, Kraven's post looks extremely impressive, would love to see his current team :) Working full time plus with busy family at home, this couldn't have been done without you guys.

Ericopoly, Could you explain this: "Over the past year or so BofA personally destroyed $100b worth of money by letting the LT debt roll off their books without replacement. That was deflationary. The Fed can then purchase $100b of MBS and it's a wash."

Happy Holidays!

hyten1, You'd categorize it as cigar butt, turnaround, what?

Wow, so to make money off this company one has to figure out where the HDD/Flash/whatever technology will be in a couple of years? I rather poke myself in the eye.

That does work with any meaningful impact? You'd still compare that 7500% to that 15000% and it would seem lower, right? What if, as now you only have one basic holding you'd make a portfolio chart showing potential future conservative portfolio value, i.e. 45000% in whatever year (it has to be a real estimate, of course). So when it goes down the potential for increase actually goes higher and the clear target remains. You're kinda anchored to the higher value.

The fun thing about emotional biases is that you can manipulate them as much as they can manipulate you. I keep this tiny position of the first stock I bought (complete nonsense) which is now down by 40%, with a nice red color. So when other stuff goes down by 20% or 30% it doesn't seem to be that much. Plenty other ways to abuse comparative bias.

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2012/2012-249.htm "SEC Charges China Affiliates of Big Four Accounting Firms with Violating U.S. Securities Laws in Refusing to Produce Documents FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2012-249 Washington, D.C., Dec. 3, 2012 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today began administrative proceedings against the China affiliates of each of the Big Four accounting firms and another large U.S. accounting firm for refusing to produce audit work papers and other documents related to China-based companies under investigation by the SEC for potential accounting fraud against U.S. investors. The SEC charged the following firms with violating the Securities Exchange Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires foreign public accounting firms to provide the SEC upon request with audit work papers involving any company trading on U.S. markets: BDO China Dahua Co. Ltd Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants Ltd Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP KPMG Huazhen (Special General Partnership) PricewaterhouseCoopers Zhong Tian CPAs Limited" This means a likely delisting of Chinese companies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIaORknS1Dk

*cough* http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/ot-comedy-hitler-misses-the-bull-market/msg8767/#msg8767

Fantastic. Thank you.

I don't know what else we can do to get Moore back to posting. We pulled out Sophia Vergara, as well as "Baramit". What else can we do? Cheers! i.e. sex and politics, add to that the cheap provocation and what's left is religion.

funny pic. It's a known bias that people might desire something once they realize they could lose the opportunity to have it, even if they did not really want it in the first place. Perhaps it's the greatest marketing play of all times. nah.

It takes time to get over a loss like that, maybe he's busy recounting the votes.

Haven't had any for a long time, though last week I watched *Zombieland again for the fifth time so I considered it for a few minutes :) * best silly movie ever made.

Macro is maligned because of the complexity involved making it extremely difficult to predict with success. The complexity invites what might appear to be sensible arguments as they are harder to refute and rely on hidden assumptions. In your example it seems more like micro than macro, though.

China to become largest robot consumer in 2014 http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20121112000048&cid=1202&MainCatID=12 Even though China probably already started its coming hard landing, and with it a possible instability, companies involved in robotics could benefit greatly. The famous foxconn announcement how they will increase robotic activity is well known by now, other companies will follow.

There are plenty of ways for the IT guys to read your emails and monitor any activity while you use your computer including visually seeing what you see and capturing keystrokes etc. Considering these guys set things up, the only thing you could do at this point is take the communication completely off the company's network and computers. Make new email accounts with password as they probably have these by now. Do not leave around any gadgets that might be used to access these accounts. I'm not going to comment about what this means business-wise at this point.

14.45% annualized since 1974 is pretty solid, though many have done much better. http://www.centman.com/investment-strategies/cm-value-i-all-cap-value/performance Many? You will struggle to come up with more than 5, maybe 10. Even if you would come up with 50 it will still make them a Superinvestor. They will certainly rank in the top 0.1% of the fund population. Great notes!! There are plenty of under-the-radar hedge funds/family offices that have done better; there's a guy out in California that has done 40% annualized since the early 80s. I can't confirm all of the records I hear about, but I hear enough scuttlebutt to make me believe that W.E.B. isn't entirely in a class of his own. With that said, Arnold Van Den Berg is a great investor. He was one of my recommendations to my parents when they were looking for a new asset manager. There are many good managers out there, but few go through the pains that CentMan takes to put clients' minds at ease. Customer service is usually the most neglected aspect of "value-focused" funds management. 40% annualized over 25+ years? surely this individual must be on one of those Forbes' list How do you get on the Forbes' list? Like if I just keep compounding my money as I've been doing the past 9 years, I'll surely qualify for the Forbes list at some point here. But do I call them up and tell them I'm rich so put me on your list? What's the etiquette there? Maybe some people are worth $5b but don't want everyone to know, so they don't tell Forbes. I've been struggling with this dilemma for a long time now. My friends are all pushing me to do it, but still not sure... To appear on Forbes front page only to be found out later that I don't really have the cash, that's a tough ethical question.

I have been thinking about this question since it was posted, I think what I would do is just before the market starts to decline I'd sell calls and then use the money to buy puts. x_O

Too late! I already applied and got the position. Instead of sending a resume I simply sent my best idea in one liner: Who? BAC! Why? Cheap! When? Now! They called me back within 5 minutes.

My take from it: those chairs look awfully uncomfortable! Oh, and, don't shoot me here, him mentioning good farms and good rentals sure sound a lot like Kyle Bass and some others. Did he previously use these two examples?

"“We had a hyper-leveraged economy and world going into the financial crisis," Bass said. "We lost trillions and trillions of dollars because of that leverage. The first several trillion dollars that were printed just replaced what was lost” and had no net effect on global money supply." Would appreciate it if someone could clarify this. Does he refer to difference between M01 and M1? Thanks.