Liberty

Maybe it could also double as a IKEA showroom, with price tags on everything and a terminal to order furniture in the lobby ;)

...what would it be? Some context: I realize there are many ways to look at this. I mean it as a light-hearted way to find out more about what small caps people here think are high quality and have bright prospects. I'm not looking for someone saying they'd buy some net-net and then liquidate and keep the cash, or for people to find the most undervalued company close to 1B mkt cap regardless of operational quality in the long run. This isn't so much about the market valuation as the business itself. Rather, think of it as waking up one morning and magically wholly owning said businesses, and then operating it for years, with your future wealth tied to that business. ... I think my pick would be EBIX. Some reasons: Toll road/picks & shovels in a slow-changing industry that isn't going away (insurance, and now some financials and health), high operating margins that should be sustainable, high FCF, low capex, low debt, benefits from Metcalfe's law (network effect moat), highly diversified customer base (no customer more than a couple %), highly recurring revenue streams, doesn't sell its IP but rather licenses it, geographical diversification, small fish in big pond, provide real value and efficiency gains to its customers (most are still using inefficient paper processes or old fragmented software systems) and thus has a product that should sell in both good and bad times, has decent pricing power, early player in a land-grab scenario, tight cost controls, good capital allocator at the helm, old NOLs should keep US taxes minimal for a few years, and IP is made in low tax jurisdictions (india/singapore - not some gimmicky loophole either, they've had real operations there for a decade), proven relationship acquisition & cross-selling strategy, etc. So what about you? What would you like to own?

I guess if people just ride Buffett's coattail they won't need to watch CNBC shows that tell them what to buy.. :P

In fact, if you are in a bubbly housing market like Canada, it's probably the opposite.

I haven't yet read it, so I don't know if it's any good, but WIRED has an article that should interest those who are interested in all that high-speed computer trading: http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/all/1?viewall=true And here's some discussion about the piece, with at least one HFT guy piping in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360742

+1 :)

This problem is fixed for me today.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/08/06/chart-of-the-day-hft-edition/ It takes a bit to get going. Notice the date in the bottom left. More context provided in the Reuters article above. http://i.imgur.com/DxWer.gif

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-06/berkshire-s-cash-hoard-swells-as-buffett-pares-consumer-stocks.html They even have a quote by Andrew Kilpatrick :)

I just want to say that it's always nice to see civil discussions here. Not that it's out of the ordinary here -- most discussions are very respectful. But it's still nice to see that it doesn't descend into ad hominem and such.. It's certainly not like that on many other internet forums :)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/buffett-railroad-beats-coal-slump-with-75-gain-in-oil-freight.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/berkshire-benefits-as-buffett-wagers-on-u-s-housing.html

I've had the same problem intermittently today for Canadian quotes. Expecting it to be just a temporary glitch.

Not about investing, but I know a lot of people here follow Musk: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0801-morrison-musk-spacex-20120801,0,3336380,full.column

We'll find out when it's available. If you had told people a few years ago that average consumerw would have terabytes of storage, gigabytes of RAM, video cards with hundreds of cores, etc, in their home, it would have sounded pretty far-fetched and overkill... Once the capability exists, entrepreneurs figure out ways to build things that use it.

I think they're trying to be a catalyst and don't really want to have to do it all themselves. Same as how making the Chrome browser lit a fire under the whole browser field and improved things for everybody. Providing fiber in some places will make other telcos move much faster than they would have otherwise. Their bet is that the faster and more useful the net is, the more ads they can sell via search and adsense. I don't think they plan on making much money directly as an ISP. iirc, they bought a lot of dark fiber pretty cheaply after the dotcom crash. They've no doubt used a lot of it internally, but they've probably figured that they can use some of it too as a ISP. Might as well do that instead of leaving it dark; chances are that the long-term benefits (including indirect benefits, such as other ISPs offering better fiber options at cheaper prices) will more than pay for what they're investing in that project.

Of #4, no exit strategy ;)

I think you can use Wordpress for free, though if you want your own domain you'll have to pay a few bucks for that. http://en.wordpress.com/features/

If you excluded California, Arizona, Florida etc the US didn't look too bad either, that didn't prevent prices from falling everywhere. Some of the Rust Belt was the worst, no appreciation and large price drops, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland. I hope for your sake there is no bubble in Canada, but if there is it's unlikely other areas will escape especially if all the major metros are affected. That's my thinking too. Real estate is such an emotional investment, when things go south, it'll go down way past "fair" in the panic. And I live in an area that is generally not considered one of the most overvalued places, yet that's only a relative term. Prices still went up by almost 100% in the past decade, while incomes have stayed almost flat and the price of everything (food, fuel..) has gone up. Yet everybody I know's buying a house with very little down... How do people make the difference? Debt, of course. That's not sustainable.

What data do you base this on?

Almost done reading this one and it's great. Highly recommended. We need more books like this that call what is too often un-challenged B.S. in the business world...

The book sounds interesting, but kind of expensive and the local public library doesn't have it. Would also love to get feedback from anyone here who has read it..

I don't short, but I rent. That's my way to play this one. We'll only look at buying a house after a significant correction in prices.

I don't think he would have doubled-down if he wasn't (which doesn't mean that he's right about them..), but I think he's a bit afraid that all the media attention could mean that Fairfax gets punished for something that is proportionally not that huge a deal for the company.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/facebooks-slide-deck-explaining-its-so-so-second-quarter/260388/ The serious slides are here. #9 looks like it's giving investors the finger.