Poor Charlie

Jolly Thank you for sharing this! If you have them would you mind posting the annual reports you got the screenshots from. Thanks

Disney War by James Stewart Good read. Some Disney history in the beginning but mostly about the Eisner years.

Thank you for taking the time to do this!

Gamecock. Do you have access to any of the 1974-1994 Berkshire reports? Thanks!

Thank you very much for posting these!

Does anyone have advice on direct access to the Russian market for a US personal account (paperwork/brokerage)? Are there any international brokers that provide access? I am looking at MOEX and Sberbank PFDs as well as a few smaller names. Anything would be helpful. TIA.

I would agree with the comments above, Grant’s is probably best viewed as an indulgence but I would also say you will find some actionable ideas. By way of example, Grant’s had a write-up on walnut trees a while back. We have farm land that delivers a very poor return in relation to other investment opportunities we deal in but can’t get rid of it for legacy reasons. I read the write-up and decided to call up my states forestry department. I find out that the state will give me as many seedlings as I want at no cost. 30-40 years from now we will harvest a few thousand trees on almost zero incremental capital. I have heard a few similar stories where someone read an article in Grant’s and it led them to a very interesting and unexpected investment (I believe Eisman found the CDS trade through Grant’s). If you enjoy obscure ideas like this, along with a few equity ideas and a little macro you will enjoy Grant’s. If you are just looking for on the run equity ideas you probably won’t enjoy Grant’s.

Bill Poorvu (HBS/Baupost) has some good books. I enjoyed 'Real Estate Game' and the case study book. I believe Poorvu was the HBS professor who tapped Klarman to run Baupost.

Grant's had a great writeup on the Korean preferred trade last fall. For PAs they mentioned Boom Securities Hong Kong (sub of Monex Japan). They also suggested talking with Kyung Suk Choi (Daewoo Securities).

Yes, the SEC has them. :) They provided a key breakthrough for the SEC in their investigation of Mr. Big Fish. ?? Does anyone on this board have them? I don’t have access to Pacer

Does anyone have the Loeb and Cohen deposition transcripts wrt this case?

Third Point one of two final bidders for Opap - http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_17/04/2013_494392 Third Point Partners recently seeded a Greek focused fund (Third Point Hellenic Recovery Fund) - http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-10/third-point-starting-greek-focused-hedge-fund-on-recovery-bet

Japan equity/credit idea http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/Article/3183653/As-It-Bets-Big-on-Japan-Chalkstream-Capital-Hopes-to-Lure-Smart-Institutional-Money.html#.UW7blL97Sa4

See attached 130266615-Howard-Marks-the-Outlook-for-Equities-March-2013.pdf

Both OPAP and EXAE are positions of mine. Opap is an incredible business (as it stands) w/ a strong catalyst. IMO at the current $ you are being more than compensated for FX and legal risks. Greece, broadly speaking, is very cheap (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-01/cleanest-dirty-shirt-or-3rd-most-expensive-equity-market-world) and a decent place to look if you don’t mind going a little off the beaten path. The political situation is very fluid and FX is a real risk but at under 5x PE10 it’s a risk I’m willing to take (for those of you who are into Shiller PEs there was a good paper on PE10s and EM last year: http: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2088140 ) . Don’t know if this has been posted before but it is worth a read: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-21/a-hedge-fund-hunts-for-greeces-hidden-gems Looks like Fairfax, BAM, and WL Ross are looking around also: http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kerdos.gr%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fid%3D1866823%26nt%3D103 A word of caution: I would question any news source that says Baupost is intending to increase (or decrease) their stake in anything. Baupost is very quiet about what they are up to, I doubt they would let it leak they are “targeting to cross 10% ownership” before they are forced to file. Leads me to wonder if they are trying to put a bid under their selling.

It depends on the type of exchange. I’m sure this is not new to many of you but the economic value (ability to earn returns well in excess of cost of capital) of an exchange boils down to the network effect it can create. To have a strong exchange network you need to create a strong closed loop system in which new and old volume is ‘stuck’ in your network. Exchanges that are able to do so have products/markets that are deemed proprietary. Futures contracts are proprietary because the CFTC considers each contract proprietary to the clearinghouse in which it was propagated. Therefore, even though December 10Y Treasury futures offered by the CME are identical to those offered by ELX they cannot be transferred amongst their respective clearinghouses. In these instances the issue becomes who can aggregate enough volume to hit critical mass first. Once critical mass is hit the value (in the eyes of the customer) of having a deep and liquid market to trade in exceeds the incremental up-charge cost of going with the more expensive (but more liquid) exchange. Also some futures products (and options) benefit from simply having an explicit monopoly based on product IP. Unlike a barrel of oil equity indices are considered proprietary IP so, by way of example, if you want to trade SP 500 options the CBOE is the only show in town. In these types of markets (futures and some cash options) exchanges can increase trading/subscription prices without losing any volume (toll bridge). The problem with the NYSE (cash business not LIFFE business) is there’s nothing to close the loop. Cash equities are entirely fungible with the only differentiating factors being price and execution speed (at least for the HFT crowd). NYSE’s cash equities business may benefit at the margin from economies of scale and brand awareness (debatable) but I think they have lost the meat of their toll bridge. As a side note I think the CME demutualization is an interesting example of Munger’s lollapalooza effect.

Hayman Letter (11/15/12): http://www.scribd.com/doc/113621307/Kyle-Bass

What Kyle Bass does when he’s not shorting the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bNgR7NoFYs I'll leave the macro (& the high speed racing) to Mr. Bass, He's much more capable at both than me. Always fun to listen to though.

IILG - float/cash flow/pricing power

I’m looking for help finding a Munger Quote. I believe at a Wesco AGM, responding to a question about drawdowns, Munger made the point that twice in his life he‘s experienced 50% drawdowns which is an unavoidable hazard of investing and those not going through a similar situation have not lived a proper life. And no…I am not down 50% ;D

Fun article. Was mentioned in Confidence Game also. http://www.forbes.com/sites/monteburke/2012/06/29/the-fishing-guide-who-hooked-hedge-fund-titan-bill-ackman/

Thanks for posting the video. As a non-establishment (no NYC BB/large fund experience) value investor and someone w/ Asperger’s I find Mike Burry’s story truly inspirational. Greenblatt talks about his ability to understand context and ‘what’s important’ as his competitive advantage. Reading some of the 06/07/08 Scion Letters its incredible how lucidly Burry writes about the context in which he frames his investments (subprime/oil/credit cycle/etc). Even more incredible was his ability to understand the duration issues related to subprime. I do not short because I am uncomfortable with any situation where you can be 100% correct on the thesis and be wiped out due to timing. I consider Burry’s genius his understanding of subprime to the level of knowing when it would play out AND seeing it through despite massive external forces (LPs including Greenblatt). I would/do not have the balls to put on such a trade. With that said listening to the UCLA speech I kept thinking of Roubini and all the other perma bears. I don’t think you need to be Ray Dalio to realize that we are perpetually on the verge of the s*@# hitting the fan. Theres so much in the world that is unsustainable that at some point it will hit the fan, its just extremely difficult to know when. I just wish Burry (and everyone else) would drop the macro and go back to posting sick stock ideas on VIC/valuestocks.net

The S&P Index business. A royalty on the capital markets. -Very hard to recreate a benchmark index. S&P, DJI, MSCI have built their indices up over +50 years. -Requires VERY little capital with no incremental capital needed to grow. -Collects a fee based on AUM for ETF/MFs using S&P IP. These products have been growing like weeds and will likely command a larger percentage of global invested capital in the future. Even without inflows revenues will grow in line with capital markets ( +12% CAGR S&P 500 = +12% CAGR S&P ETF royalty revenue). -Collects per transaction fees for S&P derivative products (S&P E-minis, etc). Equity derivative volume has increased by 17%/ year for the last 30 years and has become a major part of the capital markets. Unlike equities that are fungible across exchanges, equity derivatives are proprietary and trade on a single exchange (monopoly w/ network effects). If the S&P DJ merger is approved S&P will get a percentage of gross profit of ALL equity based derivatives traded at the CME. All the benefits of being a part of the largest futures exchange without the clearing risk or capital investments (Think MA/V but without any capital investment). -Collects monthly data fees for access to S&P index data. Given the above I cannot see how the index business does not outperform the index ;D

Keynes & The Market by Justyn Walsh http://www.amazon.com/Keynes-Market-Economist-Overturned-Conventional/dp/047028496X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1333168039&sr=8-3 Have not read yet so I can't make an endorsement

Appreciate that Liberty but no credit deserved on my part. BTW, thanks for setting up the file share folder, my inbox needed a break. :o