Liberty

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-20/walter-schloss-superinvestor-who-earned-buffett-s-praise-dies-at-95.html

What a horrible hosting website. Can anyone host it anywhere else? (depositfiles.com or dropbox or whatever)?

Very sad news. He was a legend.

http://www.oaktreecapital.com/MemoTree/Assessing%20Performance%20Records%20-%20A%20Case%20Study%2002_15_12.pdf

http://nikcub.appspot.com/posts/facebook-is-losing-e-commerce

Or they have, but their goldfish attention span made them forget it soon thereafter... ;)

The only way I've found to get an idea of management is to consume (read, listen, watch) absolutely everything you can find about them and the company and let it all aggregate and cross-pollinate in your head until you form an impression. More an art than a science, IMO, though if you had to make a checklist, there are certain things that would get more value than others (large insider holding bought with personal money, actions consistent with long-term vision, etc).

Saw that earlier. The pundits seem unwilling to believe that it's actually possible to succeed by doing simple things like focusing on your customer..

Down 7% to 388 this morning.

That's too bad. I remember you were one of the most vocal supporters of WDC back when I first gave it a look. Ultimately it wasn't a company for me, but I kind of expected you to be rolling in cash by now.

+1! Cheers! I'm starting to come to this conclusion as well. Me too. I don't think it was entirely luck... but a lot of it was because of his analyst (I forget his name) who came up with the idea of the trade and pushed hard for it. After that, it was probably hard to actually execute and stick with it until it actually started working, so he deserves credit for that, but not much more.

:-\

No surprise there, and there's not really any reason why their moat would be stronger in emerging markets over the long term. They really need to change what they are doing or they'll keep getting the same results. Doesn't mean there's no money to be made with the stock, though -- that I don't know..

Well done Allan! Very happy you are doing well!

He works for Columbia University Press? i had no idea.

Ben, did you just cut & paste this page? http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15368-3/the-most-important-thing

I loved that speech when I saw it on the show. It's definitely very Buffett-esque... Or even Munger-esque.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Inspiring! Thanks for sharing with us, Parsad.

Everybody here has the ability to look at who wrote a post and decide not to read it if they don't want to, or not to reply to it. Doing this requires very little discipline compared to the willpower required to invest money, so I think the people here should be able to manage it.

Thanks. Ackman is always interesting. I'll check it out as soon as I have some free time.

No matter how great it turns out to be? I find that statement a bit weird. Like saying that Buffett should have stayed in the hedge fund business no matter how great Berkshire turned out. (of course, Buffett's transition was cleaner and clearer to his investors, which makes a difference) But I think it does matter how things turn out over a sufficiently long period of time. Short term, anything can happen, though.

Ha! ;D

It's great, worth buying for future reference.

I wonder though if you were to open a spa in New York or Los Angeles, how much would customers pay to bathe in a bathtub full of cash? I dunno. Cash is dirty. But maybe if it was brand new bills (supplied by Fortress Paper?)...