UhuruPeak
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Posts posted by UhuruPeak
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LOL! My first thought was "oh no, we got spam!"; then I saw the poster's name and HAD to check it out :)
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I've very much a fan (and holder) of Berkshire.
I believe "BH" was for "Biglari Holdings"
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So someone enters into a contract with a company, fulfills there end for 40 years. Then has Company default after collecting. This seems like a broken Contract. You think having your contract torn up when it comes time for the other person to fullfill thier end of the bargain is fair game. You dont think the enforcement of a contract has a place in Capitalism.
So now its socialist to bitch when you are basically defrauded?
It is not socialistic to bitch when you are being defrauded, but I take issue with the tone of the reporting: "bad lawyers, bad CEO, bad company". If a company goes bankrupt, the ownership changes - so why complain about the new owners, when the old ones already have been all but wiped out? by the way, the old owners were you and I and any one with money in some indexes or funds or pensions or what not; that would also include these same folks who are complaining about their own pension being slashed by the way. Hey, aren't you also taking issue w/ Greenspan saying "no-one could have known"? As they say in the CalculatedRisk blog, "whocoodanode" (i.e., "who could have known") - pleading ignorance shouldn't be a free pass to stupidity or inaction.
Any time you have a large part of society being disconnected from the consequence of their actions, bad things happen. They don't think they have any stake in the well being of their company or the economy - the same point that has been made over and over in this thread. I am fine with differences of opinion and political sensibility, I don't like slanted journalism. Come to think of it, that's probably why I don't watch television at all and stopped reading the Opinion section of the newspapers I do read.
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hey uhuru, I did not notice a socialistic slant, but I did not actually watch the videos... I only read the articles and interviews that they linked to on the frontline site.
I agree with your point about retirement as a recent development and how it has quickly become an entitlement, however, these people had defined benefit pensions that were supposedly secure, based on their contract with their employer. They were working under those assumptions for the last 45 years of their career... and then 2 years after they retire, poof.. it all goes up in smoke. If you include changes to their health care coverage costs, it was more like an 85% cut to monthly income..
If you read the articles on the site: they point out that it was leglislation introduced by US congress in the last 20 or 30 years which allowed companies to underfund pensions without making up the difference immediately. They point out that in the Netherlands the govt requires that the pensions be funded to 105% at all times which seems to prevent this problem from occurring when a company goes bankrupt (because the pensions are fully funded). If a company is going to have a defined benefit plan then that is the way it should be done!
Fair enough - I agree that a 55 or 60yr old wouldn't be able to much about it; not so with the 40yr-old flight attendant they interviewed though.
Ok, so I may be harsh. My own parents haven't saved a dime (besides a beautiful house) for their own retirement, and will be living on their pension/social security. As civil servants, they should be ok at least until inflation (aka 'stealth tax') eats away are their revenue - yet I have been telling them for at least 20 yrs that they should save for the rainy day. I guess I'm just wired that way: by age 5 or so, I already knew to defer gratification to buy that cool toy a year later with the money I'd save till then.
Myth, you think you are cheap? I'll give you a run for your money ;) What I really think is that we are all a bunch of misfits & psychos on this board :P
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This is a great documentary on retirements. Should be required watching. View it if you have time.
Frontline's Can You Afford to Retire - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid
Warning: rant coming below
I just watched this since I had time today - this is so slanted it is not even funny. I'll pick on the section on United's bankruptcy for example. The journalists never allowed that seeing United go bankrupt would have means (1) no jobs, (2) no heath benefits, and (3) no pension. This was just shoddy reporting, very socialistic (the government must provide, the company is evil) and seemingly rejects all tenets of America's founding. Yeah, it bites to see your pension go down by 30% while having to work more for less money on which you now have to also save for retirement - but life is not fair either. If uncertainty kept me alive at night like this poor flight attendant says it does, I'd try to do something about it: get a better job, try to understand more about my future needs and see what I can do to improve it, anything.
Also, all these people complaining that now they'll have to work till they drop - is everyone forgetting that up until a few decades ago, retirement didn't exist? How fast people forget, how fast people feel entitled. "I want, I need, I deserve". Argh! >:(
Anyway - off my soap box... I don't mind pensions; indeed, I have one. The difference is that I don't count on it anymore than I count on SS; as far as I am concerned, they are just taxes that I 'may' see a return on. My retirement will be what I make of it.
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Two main things have been weighing on NRG's stock lately: Natural Gas is very low so margins are squeezed (in ERCOT particularly, the price of power is defined by the least efficient (gas) plant - so any one who ones base load (Nuclear or Coal) or efficient gas plants makes a killing). This low gas is also the reason why Energy Future Holding has been downgraded tons of times lately, and its bonds price in a near-certain bankruptcy; remember - WEB owns (owned?) ~$2B worth.
The other things that has weighed significantly on NRG's stock price is the nuclear investment discussion with the city of San Antonio. They were supposed to do a JV but the new mayor, Castro, balked when he heard that the price was going to be significantly higher than original estimates. Things appear better now, San Antonio will likely retain some ownership (say 5%) while NRG and Mitsubishi are looking for another co-investor.
I agree the company seems to be very well managed; they literally stole Reliant Energy (the 2nd largest electric retailer in ERCOT) last year, and already made more money off of its margins than the purchase price. I like the company, and think the stock is getting very cheap. Ultimately though, the stock won't go up unless one of three things happen: (1) Nat Gas goes back up to the $6-$8 range; (2) the nuclear investment gets more clarity; or (3) someone tries to buy the company like Exelon did last year.
Disclosure: I have made good money off NRG and a couple of other players (TXU, CEG, RRI) in the past couple of years but am not holding any stock in the industry at the moment.
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I currently live in CA (the state tax is ridiculously high), and thinking along the lines of Ericoploy's post, I hope to establish residency via a second home in a zero tax state in the future.
You will still need to spend >183 days/year in that other state...
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In addition to the many good points raised here, I believe there is another important parameter for those of us who plan on dying "rich": If I am not mistaken, you don't have to withdraw a set amount from a Roth IRA after you turn 70, and can essentially transfer it all free of tax to your heirs. I view this as a nice optionality, and will probably end up swapping my wife's roth for this purpose (hers has a lot less capital gains than mine since I was more conservative with her account early on)
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[...] but in my experience I've found it pays well to have price go up.
Quote of the month! :D
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Yes, I believe it is that very same article. I printed it a few days ago (didn't someone link it on this board) but have yet to read...
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I always jump to the investment section of the letter first to see what Prem has to say
LOL! "I always eat my chocolate ice cream before the vegetables" ;)
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Thanks for all the data guys. I did my research over the weekend and bought a slug on Monday and Wednesday. Now up about 10%. I see $2 - $5 on this one. It seems like everything went wrong in 2009 and everything thus far has been going right this year. Once we get a positive EBITDA it should really jump up and a merger / sale is just icing on the cake. Seems like a very simply story just a commodity play after the commodity has rebound, but before the earnings have appeared for the company.
Yup - it reminds me of Quadra Mining (brought up on this board a few years ago) in many respects. QUA's story was that earnings were hidden by an old hedging program but then the stock literally shot up, 3x in about 12-18 months if I recall. Sino-Forest (also offered by one of our resident investing geniuses here) comes to mind as well...
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He did also sell his sister's bike once. Without her consent.
That cracks me up. I wish I had thought of that when I was a kid! :P
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With a good year now behind us what does the future look like?
- Stock issues (twice in past several months) has led to some dilution of value.
- Shares languishing downwards on relatively low volume with no corporate capacity for buy-backs in fore-seeble future
- Continued soft pricing in insurance market
- Fading new opportunities for strong capital gains growth.
I like Partner's answer already, but here are a couple of thoughts fwiw:
1. dilution... how about a 35% increase in BV? I'd have signed up eagerly a year ago at that prospect (I did actually, like many here)
2. shares languishing... make me more excited. Actually, I'd like the stock to be even more volatile than it already is: buy in late spring or summer, and sell in late fall or winter; rinse & repeatr
3. lots of liquidity, partly induced by GVT's actions... this too shall pass, though I agree it is annoying. We are also due for a tough hurricane season one of these years
4. fading new opportunities... well, the #1 reason why I like this stock is because of HW's investing prowess; I trust them to find opportunities where few of us do.
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I did switch from CFX.UN to SFK.UN in December after seeing a very large change in risk/reward between the two. I think that we are still at very attractive ratios today.
Nice timing, congratulations!
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For the next 2-3 months we can probably expect all kinds of pleasant surprizes.
Purely speculation,
At some point there will be the black liquor subsidy announcement. Assuming their share is roughly 3x the St Felicien maintainance capex -about a 15c/share increase.
Its highly likely that they are again profitable. We think they are actually a lot more profitable than most people realize as both the sales price & throughput volume have (probably) gone the right way - & significantly. When we see the numbers, it should be quite obvious. Maybe a 30-50c/share increase.
Its highly likely that they are building a mountain of cash, from both operations & the interest payment relief. For now they're probably building the stash, but during Q4 we half expect to hear of open market debenture purchases - especially if the subsidy has also been announced. Another 20-30c/share
Somewhere around $1.10 to $1.40/share by mid Feb next year.
SD
One word... "WOW!" :)
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I could have done better with my stock decisions, but my absolute worse decision was to remain in cash in our 401(k)s. I'd be sitting a lot prettier today :'(
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This scramble for shares could become a feeding frenzy.
Nothing wrong with that :P
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I have a copy of a presentation Mr. Parbrai made regarding checklists to the Columbia Business school. It is in a pdf so if anyone is interested I can email it (or is there a way to attach on the forum??).
If you click on the "Additional Options" below the post you type, you will be able to attach. I'd be very interested in this presentation. Thx much!
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Thanks Sanjeev. I heard Atul's interivew on NPR yesterday morning and was just thinking this morning I really should get the book.
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I don't see any response yet but I don't want you to think everyone is ignoring either. I have never heard that sentence, paraphrased or not. I googled it but since it was not a direct quote, I didn't get any good response either.
Sorry...
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So tying some other statements together, like "gold is money", well silver is also money and silver is not being debased. So why is gold crushing silver? And why is gold crushing the AUD when the argument is that gold is merely rising vs the USD monetary inflation?
Silver and Gold have much in common but also the 2 important differences:
- unlike Gold, Silver has industrial uses; pretty much all the gold ever mined is still available, whereas Silver gets used and disappears; yet it usually doesn't represent a high % of the end price so users are not extremely price sensitive
- the Silver market is much smaller and therefore much more volatile
=> When there is an upturn, Gold takes off first, then gold stocks, then silver & silver stocks a little later - but Silver's rise is then meteoric and ends up trouncing Gold's move. In a downturn however, Gold takes everything with it right away, and again Silver's action magnifies that move.
I have been following a newsletter for a few years (Zeallc, by Adam Hamilton); he or his associate post an article every friday on goldseek.com. His is the only newsletter I have ever purchased, and I have found his advice to be generally profitable. You may want to look at his free articles and check his website. (a warning to our fundamental analysis minded friends here, he relies mostly on TA even though he's also a CPA). For the record, he is currently as bullish on Gold/Silver as he's been in years.
Best Insurance investment right now? MFC, RE, CNA or RNR
in General Discussion
Posted
I guess the proof's in the pudding - what results are you getting? I'm sure Uccmal has done very very well for himself; I follow pretty much the same 'strategy' as he, and my own results aren't too shabby either. While too lazy to calculate precisely, I have done well over 200% in less than 4 years in the one non-taxable account where I have neither added nor removed any funds over the period. Eyeballing the performance in the other accounts is too much work for me, thank you very much ;D
Could I do better by working more? Sure, I'd hope so - eventually I hope to make this my job; for the time being however, my time is better spent earning a paycheck or being w/ my family. I do read a ton of stuff because I like to (just like Uccmal and most here I'm sure) but don't trade more than a few times a year max - if only because I'm at work during trading hours. I will never have Cardboard's, Wabuffo's or Ericopoly's returns but that's ok too.
So, is there just one way to go at it? No; if there were, the big boys would have a monopoly on the returns. Many ways to skin the cats, many ways to lose it all... but thankfully a few ways to do just fine too. To each his own.