Evolveus

I still mourn the loss of Google Reader, but alas, I must go on. At work, my PC has Internet Explorer which is pretty lame except for the ease of subscribing to SEC RSS feeds under the 'favorites' button. At home I have a mac that can run safari, firefox, and chrome. Chrome is my browser of choice but Firefox is a close second. Any suggestions on the best, cleanest, simplest RSS reader for SEC feeds for either of those browsers? I'll even use safari if it has a simple reader. Thanks in advance.

He is quoted as saying: "...i only invest in aggressive growth stocks..." Wow. Intereting anecdote in regards to sentiment when a national publication is highlighting that as the backbone of a 77-yr old's successful investment strategy.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html?_r=0

Found it on zenolytics blog but I cannot access the report on my phone. If you have the PDF of the report handy could you post it here? If not, I can pull it down tonight when I get back to my CPU. Do you have any color on zenolytics? Just heard of kingsway, and as I mentioned they seemed to be saying all the right things. Looking to spend a little more time on it. I've heard of joe stillwell but not the new CEO. I read some older VIC writeups to get some general info and get somewhat up to speed on the story. Thanks, No Thanks.

Kingsway "1st" shareholder letter. Very candid. So many value-guy buzz words, it almost makes me suspicious. http://t.co/A6FKU8hh7t

I was tracking the Dakshana Foundation holdings for a while, but I cannot find their Foundation Financials beyond 2011. The way I had read on their website, was that they had to file once per year. The filings I saw showed previous positions. Not sure how much that was woith though bc it seemed like they came into the foundation and then were quickly sold (I'm guessing cash for operations). I am no pro at reading foundation returns, so I could be way off. Anyone else run across this?

I'm going to auctions in two different parishes that I know really well down here. I have realtor connections that I can bounce valuations off of based on previous sales, and I can see that tax amount at the tax assessors office. I'm going to calculate at which is the lowest ownership interest point that I could double my money at, and if the property goes below that threshold, then I just won't bid. Not sure if I expect to bid on anything unless its a no brainer - but I want to be prepared.

I am referring to tax DEED sales, and yes Oddball is correct that each state has its own mechanics, so some of what I will put here may or may not be relevant to other states. I'm in Louisiana, and I have spoken to a couple of lawyers about the process and how it works here in Louisiana. Here is my understanding of it: The property taxes have not been paid, and the owner has been notified numerous times by the municipal official. Not sure of the specifics around that, but anyways, the properties are now up for auction because of the delinquent property tax. In a bid-down state, there are a couple moving pieces in the auction. One is the tax due + penalties, fees, interest, etc. In the auction, that number is static - it will not change and it has to be paid in full. The second variable is the Ownership Interest in the property. It starts at 100% and then bidders bid down with the lowest ownership interest bid winning. So the lowest bid wins? That didn't really make sense to me at first, so I kept digging. Here is an example: A property is up for bid, $20k due for taxes and I bid 100%. Then Sardar Biglari comes along and bids 85%. At that point, he would be the winner due to his lower ownership interest. So the lowest ownership bid wins. Ok, got that. What did I just Win and Why would I even Want to Win a Tax Deed? In my state, if you are the winner at the tax deed auction, you can hold the property for 3 years and if the owner does not redeem it during those 3 years, then you can file a suit to "quiet title". If the owner does not come forth within 6 months of the quiet title suit, the property then transfers to you 100% REGARDLESS of your ownership interest bid at time of the auction. And all you had to pay was the property tax for 4 years (the auction payment plus 3 successive years) and lawyers fees. If you've selected a marquee property (and you should), then that is probably as good as it gets. That is the best case scenario, so let me present a couple other hypotheticals to show other potential outcomes, both good and bad. I'll use extreme ownership interests for illustrative purposes. 1. Say you win the auction with a 100% ownership interest and at the end of year 1, the owner decides to redeem the property. In the event of that, the law states that they must pay you all taxes, fees, and penalties you had paid thus far, as well as a 5% penalty (based on tax liability) and 1% simple interest per month after you take over the deed. So at a minimum, you should make the 5% penalty then start tacking on simple interest every month thereafter. Also, the redeeming owner handles this transaction thru the municipality, so there shouldn't be angry mobs forming outside you bedroom window. 2. That same scenario applies if you win with a 1% interest in the property. You pay the full tax liability at the close of the auction and continue paying the full tax liability as the months go by. Upon redemption by the owner, you would be paid 5% penalty + 1% simple interest on the tax liability per month. So in the case of a redemption - it doesn't really matter what percentage you own, you still get paid the same amount. Again, those numbers are specific to my state, and I'm almost certain they will be different in other states, but I'd guess the general mechanism is somewhat similar. Where Ownership Interest Comes Into Play In speaking with lawyers who have fought on both sides of these cases many times, I was told that most frequently if it gets all the way to the "quiet title" suit, more times than not, the owner shows up and forces a sale of the property. The owner is obviously not going to pay the taxes, so might as well sell. This is where you r ownership interest is crucial. In the event of a sale, you would receive proceeds from said sale in the amount proportionate to your ownership interest. Say you have a property that has an annual tax liability of $20k and suppose you make it to quiet title and a sale is forced. If you've made it to quiet title, then that means you've paid 4 years worth of property tax, $80k, you've hired a lawyer to file suit, $3k, and you've probably had to do some sort of minimal upkeep on the property the last 3.5 years, $2k. So you're in for $85,000. Let's say the property will fetch $500,000 at sale. Remember, at a sale, you get your ownership portion of the proceeds - not the taxes, interest, and penalties you'd get in a redemption. Let's say you have an ownership interest of 40%. So how does that look? $500,000 * .4 = $200,000 $200,000 - $85,000 = $115,000 Not a bad haul. But is it worth your time? To me it seems that the key variables to know are: Value of target property Annual Tax Cost and any potential upkeep / maintenance At what point does ownership interest in a sale eclipse the amount of cash outlay to service the taxes. The Bad and The Ugly Let's say that same $500k property you have a 1% ownership interest goes to sale. You get proceeds proportional to your ownership interest of 1% in this scenario. $500000 * .01 = $5000 $5000 - $85000 (tax, upkeep, lawyer) = -$80000 That's obviously an extreme example and a terrible outcome, but I just want to illustrate how this can go wrong if your ownership interest in a sale will not be worth more than the tax servicing. In light of that it appears to me that you must truly know the property's value, know the annual taxes and upkeep, and then keep an ownership interest that would in a sale yield above and beyond what you shelled out in taxes. If you get enough equity in a forced sale, then eventhough money is tied up for 3 years paying taxes on a property you can't use, the IRR's can still be attractive. I have not done this before, but a friend told me about it and my interest got piqued so I started asking questions. I thought the board might be a good place to get some feedback insights, etc.

Does anyone here have any experience in bidding on tax title sales. I am in a "bid-down" state. I've spoken with a few different lawyers and I'm pretty sure I've got a sufficient grasp on thet mechanics of it. I've isolated the variables on which to base my analysis for making bid decisions. I wanted to bounce my logic off the board if any one was interested in hearing further about it or had anything/experiences they'd care to share. TIA

An original Outsider Bill Stiriliz from Ralston now at POST.

Prem +1

http://moneyinstereo.blogspot.com/2014/02/graham-and-doddsville-winter-2014.html Also, here is the link to the CBS site where you can also download older letters. Some pretty good interviews over the years. http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/valueinvesting/resources/newsletters

Came from the fillm and music technical side in california. made a career path switch and worked with a financial planner and now a major brkoerage firm. The unfortunate thing is that there at the brokerage firm is an emphasis on asset gathering and activity, with value investing coming in a very distant second. Havng O'd on Munger and Buffett for many years, that's been a hard pill to swallow.

@GlobalFinancePartners I've been googling and Edgar'ing around to get a better look at Harney but not much luck. Any suggestions on where one could see the holdings, or is that not possible?

I am with you on that 100% +1

I would think since in times of inflation the costs of goods and services rises, a company may be able to raise prices for their services,but will it be above and beyond the rising costs of their raw inputs? Therefore maybe companies will high roe and intangibles like Moody's may do well. however higher interest rates of an inflationary environment may slow debt issuance and negatively impact volume at Moody's. but a good portion of their revs are derived from software licensing. Also MasterCard and Visa make sense to me because of the moat/network effect, but mainly bc they take a small percentage of each transaction. If the costs of goods shoot up then MA & V are still taking their same percentage, but of a bigger number per transaction, hence more profit for them. The same logic could also be applied to an insurance broker like Aon.

Here is a link to an interesting little write up on ARO. http://basehitinvesting.com/aeropostale-aro-might-offer-turnaround-value/ Still not sure what stock Parsad is buying though I'm glad the thread brought ARO to my attention.

Many thanks!!! ;D

Anyone have a PDF of the 400% man article? I wanted to share it with a friend, but that link is dead. Did some googling as well with no results. TIA

+10

Loews self-produced animated video about the company. http://moneyinstereo.blogspot.com/2013/04/frustrated-with-your-conglomerate.html

http://moneyinstereo.blogspot.com/2013/02/rare-interview-on-investment-process.html?m=0

A 1976 interview transcript with Ben Graham from his home in CA. He talks about his shift towards group approach with less emphasis on individual company selection. http://moneyinstereo.blogspot.com/2013/02/an-hour-with-ben-graham.html

Thanks for the suggestions!

Ycharts.com used to have this as a free feature on their site and you could quickly and easily see a graph of shares outstanding. It was always nice to see that graph line headed south. They've recently made this a subscriber-only feature, probably due to its popularity as a metric. Are there any other sites that quickly show a graph of share repurchases / shares outstanding or a similar website? Thanks in advance!