merkhet

I agree the Republicans are giving Watt all the ammo he needs, and more, to declare an end to the conservatorship. Watt is also on record now saying the GSEs are "stabilized". That alone is justification enough for him to return the GSEs back to shareholders and recapitalize. Either the Dems don't have a clue of what is going on, or they do and are avoiding entirely the opportunity to object to the errors and inconsistencies in the Republican statements such as "GSE haven't paid back the taxpayers", or Royce's assertion that the Housing Trust fund payments are bad for the capitalization of the GSE (but the alternative of sending the same money to the UST is somehow better?) I think the Democrats DO have a clue. If your opponent is well on his way to hanging himself, you should not get in the way -- let the Republicans get on a roll and hand them more rope. :)

The countervailing point that I tried to point out earlier is that you have to compare oil & gas jobs to jobs that come out of increased consumer spending because of oil & gas savings. I suspect that the economic multiplier effect is much higher for the latter than the former.

I suppose there's no harm in letting out my theory now. If anyone else is watching the House hearing right now, there have been multiple people who have been jumping up and down on Mel Watt because he's diverting funds to the housing trusts while Fannie & Freddie remain undercapitalized. (As of this moment, I can count 4 Congressmen: Luetkemeyer, Royce, Duffy and Mulvaney.) I think Mel Watt has played them all like a fiddle. The Administration would like to push the housing trusts. The Republicans will play the undercapitalized card substantially, and Watt will push back and say that they should just push through housing reform. Republicans know they can't make that happen. Watt, then, would be more than happy to push through an administrative reform of recapitalizing Fannie & Freddie since the Republicans say that it's undercapitalized. Democrats get to preserve their housing trust payments, and they get to say that the Republicans have no reason to be mad because Watt just did what they told him to do. Republicans get to say that the Administration is playing it fast and loose with the law. Shareholders get a nice payout. (Also, as a side note, there's a joint status conference tomorrow that I'll be attending. -- See attached.) 2015-01-26_Joint_Status_Report_Regarding_January_28_Status_Conference.pdf

It seems to me that you have to look at the economic machine. Is the "economic multiplier" greater when money goes to the O&G industry via higher oil & gas prices or is the multiplier higher when the money goes to consumers?

Has anyone ever used Costco to buy their car?

Huh, interesting. I didn't know that.

Yeah. That's most likely. He may not be able to answer these questions due to legal restrictions. Even if he could, the mom and pop investors in his fund would not understand. I kind of have a feeling that every time he is pressured to put out a reassurance conference call, his fund jumps up huge the next two years. :D Well, I think he's only done it once, so that's a small sample size. :)

I saw that. I'm not sure we're going to get a heck of a lot out of him at this conference call. It's not like he'll reveal litigation strategy and/or settlement talks in a public setting. It's more of a reassurance conference call like the Brian Moynihan call a few years back.

Dshachory, those MM would be people that are starting out with very little capital. For example, if you put your money with Einhorn in the 1990s ya. But he is too big now IMHO. Sure we'd all love to know who is the next upstart. If I knew I'd be rich. But I think it is as difficult as picking the next top draft pick in the NFL. I would add that it would be like trying to pick him at the age of 7... I respectfully disagree guys. Einhorn is in his late 40's, Kevin Byun is probably is in his 30's as is Mecham. If you took this approach with Buffett saying Berkshire was too big in the 80's you would have left A LOT of money on the table. Ah, I misread. Based off your first sentence, I thought you meant that you had to pick a guy who had literally just started. (No track record, etc.) I would disagree on Einhorn. I think he's a fantastic investor, but it's difficult for him to continue to outperform given that he's running a $10 billion fund -- not saying he won't, but the odds are against him. Both Byun & Mecham are good picks. If I had to choose, I'd probably choose Mecham.

Richard Koo, "The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics"

Dshachory, those MM would be people that are starting out with very little capital. For example, if you put your money with Einhorn in the 1990s ya. But he is too big now IMHO. Sure we'd all love to know who is the next upstart. If I knew I'd be rich. But I think it is as difficult as picking the next top draft pick in the NFL. I would add that it would be like trying to pick him at the age of 7...

This is what I've been waiting for... http://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=398622

Well, let's just hope I don't inadvertently turn this into the LVLT thread. :) I'm hoping that we start to see some movement on the litigation front soon -- though the longer Sweeney waits to rule on the motion, the less likely there is a burden on the government to produce.

No problem. I put up my disclaimer to remind people that they get what they pay for. :)

On one hand, there was the filing that says discovery may conclude in mid-January. On the other hand, the filing also says there were still significant documents not turned in yet. Is it really possible to conclude in mid-January? Anyway, if discover concludes now, it seems to make no more sense to either grant or deny the Government's motion to stay, right? No, the filing said that "responsive, non-privileged documents" would be provided by mid-January. There are still privileged documents that the Government has been providing and will continue to provide past mid-January, so discovery won't be ending completely in January but probably soon thereafter and probably before the previous March/April timeframe. (i.e. I don't think there are a ton of documents that are privileged that the Government still needs to provide.) The reason it makes no sense to grant the Government's motion to stay is that the Government is once again trying to end discovery prior to the production of the documents that they don't want to produce. Remember when they said the world would end if those documents saw the light of day? My guess is that Sweeney sees through that.

I would humbly submit that you are asking the wrong question. Or, at the very least, focusing on the wrong attributes. There are plenty of reasonably smart people who look at companies all day that don't end up becoming above average investors. Instead, perhaps the question should be "how do I develop the temperament to become an above average investor, assuming some basic level of intelligence?"

You sign up for a PACER account to read the court filings.

I don't see Sweeney stopping discovery. Joint status report filed today that indicates no need for a conference, so it seems like discovery is still chugging along.

Are you referring to ERICOPOLY's recent lack of posting? ;D No, when I wrote this I was thinking of HarryLong and a few others of his time. If I remember correctly, HarryLong slinked away because, despite loudly proclaiming his market crushing returns, he was never able to provide anyone with actual evidence of his track record. ERICOPOLY, on the other hand, has a 70% CAGR verified by Parsad himself. I suspect that much of the pushback on jmp8822 comes from the fact that he is (1) new to the board, so there is little to no insight into his investment process from previous threads, and (2) he hasn't provided anyone with proof (to my knowledge).

Agree with Kraven & oddballstocks. Thanks for sharing your story mrholty. Hope to see you on the boards more often.

I must have missed this part of the discussion, but why do we care what Jeffrey Gundlach says? http://online.barrons.com/articles/SB50001424052970204442204576144662301971254 From Feb. 21, 2011: Well, I suppose he was right that 2011 ended up being a tough year for equities, but we're still waiting for the S&P 500 to hit 500...

Public sentiment changing, indeed. Thanks Matson. That makes two high-profile individuals who have both said that Fannie has paid back the taxpayers. (Mayopoulos & Schumer)

I think there was something on this in Klarman's Margin of Safety.

It's difficult to compare ten years ago to now. You have to go where the opportunities are at any given moment. And that's a different question from just AUM limitations, which almost certainly exist for a fund his size.

People take the ascetic heuristic too far sometimes. Many good investors are frugal. However, non-frugal people are not necessarily bad investors. And a person who goes from frugal to non-frugal does not necessarily have to stop being a good investor.