Liberty

Congrats!

Not really designed for public consumption, but here's some of the stuff I look at: [] management interests aligned with shareholder? Pro-shareholder policies? [] moat around business? Durable competitive advantage? Low-cost producer? [] good runway for future growth? Small fish in big pond? Growing market? [] management has integrity, intelligence, energy? [] good track record? [] is stock undervalued? Sufficient margin of safety? [] good defense? Would it do well in bad environment? Over-leveraged? Dependant on external sources of financing? [] good capital allocation? [] transparent communications with shareholders? [] do I understand the business well enough? circle of competence? [] have I looked at the short thesis for this business? What would kill it? Can lower cost operator (china) come in and kill it? [] could I do better by being patient? [] do I understand the downside and upside? Opportunity cost? [] does business provide clear value to its customers? [] Are you looking at normalized earnings or are you looking at boom/depress earnings? [] vetted by investor(s) I respect? [] any pricing power? How would it do with high inflation?

Don't judge before you've tried it ;) Blind taste tests with similar products aren't as easy as most people think... Even wine experts often fail tests comparing pretty different wines afaik.

That will work only as long as they are right, though. They kind of have earned a freebie with their past work, and enough people will trust Block to make the stock tank, but if they are wrong on a big one, then the next one probably won't work nearly as well... Kinda like Buffett's line about a reputation taking a long time to build and but a very short time to lose.

;D

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/internet-adrs-rebound-on-bets-selloff-overdone-china-overnight.html

Or perhaps it's because you've read so much on the subject already (Buffett, etc) and because the basic ideas remain the same whoever says them... Maybe if you had come across this book before all of that it would have seemed more valuable. Personally, I quite liked the book. I find a lot of value in reinforcing key concepts periodically.

Thanks. I had only ever read Marks and seen photos of him. In the flesh he actually looks much younger than I expected. Anyone knows how old he is? I saw 66 somewhere, but I'm not sure it's a good source.

Indeed, though so far he seems to have done both, though too earl to tell if it'll stay that way.

As he says in the interview, it wasn't the original plan, but he had to put more in than he expected (possibly because of 2008).. Still, he's certainly go conviction and the ability to deliver!

Interesting stuff. Fascinating guy. We need more like him, tackling hard problems rather than building yet another Web 2.0 startup that intends to sell out to the first acquirer..

Watched it. Always fun to hear Warren speak, even though I can't say I learned too much..

Thank you!

If anyone has a link to the video archive of the whole thing, that would be great. thanks.

Thanks for posting. I think there's more of the interview here: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000102436&play=1 They also have Simpson & Bowles along with Buffett in the third segment..

I just finished the book. It was surprisingly good. I expected maybe a few useful ideas to add to a mental model, but not much... It turned out to be well argued, well written, and very motivating. A good companion to Waitzkin's The Art of Learning.

Sorry, in Dutch. It basically says that it will be able to post tweets automatically with your account and that they can change your account details. I've seen many people get it already, but I'll do this with a new account where I don't mind if they spam tweets under my name. :-X I believe that what this means is that you are authorizing one tweet, even if it is worded more broadly. I've seen many other sites (dropbox.com) use this feature. But I guess we could get confirmation from someone at MOI.

Bloomberg: [glow=red,2,300]S&P 500 Has Longest Drop Since May[/glow] Since may? Really? And we're all the way to early July. That must be historically significant! I know why they do it, kind of, but I can't help but find it funny.

Ha! I didn't mean that I use the iPad for phonecalls, but I can see how the juxtaposition gave that impression :) I do use the iPad for Facetime with the family sometimes, though, but that doesn't look quite as silly as what you had in mind...

I'm probably the only person here who has the cheapest non-smartphone that I could find running on a prepaid card of $100 for 1 year (about $8/month, hard to beat) :) I have an iPad 3, though..

I agree with you on how it's often used, but that doesn't make the number itself BS. It is exactly what it says it is, which is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. You can say that management is often full of BS. But saying that the number ITSELF is BS is itself BS, if you follow ;)

It measures what it says it does. How is that bullshit? I mean, if someone says that EBITDA is a company's owner's earnings, now that's bullshit. But if you use EBITDA a EBITDA, how is it anything other than what it is? In other words, if you pass someone's weight minus arms and legs as his total body weight, that's bullshit. But if you clearly label it as his armless and legless weight, it's accurate. How you use it, and why you'd want to use it, that's another matter. But it's just a tool, that can be used well or badly. EDIT: Kraven beat me to it while I was writing this...

[amazonsearch]Talent is Overrated[/amazonsearch] Not specifically about investing - though Warren Buffett is a recurring example that they use - but definitely useful to those who want to become better at investing (and to do that, you need to understand how one becomes better). The concept of 'deliberate practice' is definitely useful. I knew a lot of this, but they give an overview of interesting studies, and as usual, it's always good to reinforce mental models and get motivation from external sources. I haven't finished the book yet, but so far (70 pages in) it's interesting and well-written.

Thanks for the feedback. I've now finished it, and I gave it a grade of A in my list of books read. Definitely recommended to others here.

Well, P/E and P/B and all other ratios are bullsh*t too when think about it :) The question is: can some of them be used in useful ways, can we keep in mind their shortcomings and make proper use of them, and are we talking about an investor using the ratio as a tool, or about management trying to pull the wool over investor's eyes with pro forma bullsh*t? I think Munger was probably talking more about the use of EBITDA in company communications to shareholders than about its use by informed investors.