Kraven

That is a helluva way to get a date for the festivities. LOL! I think he's just trying to save some money. Cheers! ;) Gotcha. Kraven : Did you want them to post a pic? Likes and dislikes? Net Worth? My apologies if I offended you. I was just joking around. I suspect you may have been the one to ask Sanjeev if someone wanted to share a room. I feel awful now. I am truly sorry. Enjoy the meeting.

My personal opinion is that one should never view their primary residence as an investment and analyze it in those terms. It's nice to make some money and all that but to me that's just gravy. If you want to move downtown and its feasible to do so, do it. The fact that you walk away with a few bucks from your house is a bonus. But to view it in terms of it being an inflation hedge, etc is over thinking it. Life is short. Do what would make you and your wife happy and be grateful you are in a position to do so.

This is 3 year data, hardly statistically valid. In fact given the tumult, I would expect something like this during this period. That said, to me MF is a beginning, it gives companies to analyze. Whenever I hear this response I wonder how long is needed for something to be statistically significant? I've heard people claim 120 years of market data isn't enough to show stocks outperform bonds at a statistically significant level. Usually it's the amount the person saying it's statistically insignificant feels it would need to be to make them personally comfortable. On the other hand, if refuting someone's point any amount is statistically insignificant or questionable.

Not so fast my good sir. The bet was $7 bil returned to the COMMON. I was very clear about it and asked that you confirm. I can't find it right now but go back to where we bet. I am still winning here. I will happily pay when it's $7 bil to the common. There is still 9.5 months to go. I went back and checked...you sneaky bugger! Yes, you stipulated in brackets "(common only), no other security". I'm going to have to get Txlaw to read any agreement between you and me on a bet going forward! ;D Remind me to give you your "100 Grand Bar" in Toronto. Now I've got to cross the border to get one. Can any of you Americans coming to Toronto, pick one up! Cheers! Perhaps you can have Kraven buy it for you on credit and he can hold the collateral until you pay up. Good idea! Kraven, do you mind just buying a "100 Grand Bar", and I'll give you the dollar (CDN) in Toronto. Although it will be a loonie coin and your bank won't accept it in the U.S. Cheers! Ha ha. First, in terms of the bet itself its about language precision, my friend. I felt good and still feel good about what was going to happen with the common but didn't want to speculate on anything else further up the capital structure. No need to worry (yet) about my dollar or 100 Grand Bar. There is still 9 1/2 months to go. We will declare a winner on Dec 31. If you would like to concede then that is another story. In terms of Toronto I wish I could come this year but unfortunately will not be able to make it. I wish I could thought just to get that 100 Grand bar. I haven't had one in probably 20+ years.

Not so fast my good sir. The bet was $7 bil returned to the COMMON. I was very clear about it and asked that you confirm. I can't find it right now but go back to where we bet. I am still winning here. I will happily pay when it's $7 bil to the common. There is still 9.5 months to go.

That is a helluva way to get a date for the festivities. LOL! I think he's just trying to save some money. Cheers! ;) Gotcha.

That is a helluva way to get a date for the festivities.

Hi Palantir, I wasn't sure I understood. What stock are you talking about? Please explain. Thanks, Kraven

Palm, Atari, Netscape, Polaroid, America Online, Compaq, etc. All fantastic tech companies that might have been on this list at one time or another.

Congratulations, you have 2 great choices. Assuming money is no object and/or scholarships, etc are taking care of tuition, think of it this way. You are looking at 2 houses to buy. Both are roughly the same size and beautiful homes. The first one sits on a hill with an open view of the ocean and private access to the beach. The second one is in a nice neighborhood on a tree lined street, but it has a feature that you love that the first home does not. Maybe that feature is a wine cellar or a pool or whatever would be something you really like. You're drawn to that feature. However, what one needs to keep in mind is that an ocean view with beach access is always valuable and will never lack for demand. You can always add a wine cellar or a pool to the first home. First home = Harvard; second home = Columbia. Both are great choices, but going to Harvard provides intangibles and will open doors that no other school can get you. At the end of the day though you have to live with the choice and should go where you feel comfortable.

Of course it's only because they are releasing loan loss provisions. Because of course when profits are punished due to increased provisioning that's the way it should be.

OMG! I have been investing for years, but never knew what I was doing. I was floating in a sea of despair. I knew I was searching for the right way to invest, but the fact that I didn't know what I was looking for made it that much harder to find. They say when the student is ready the teacher will appear. And here you are. Look at this treasure trove. Don't time the market. Check. Buy a high value wide moat business! Check . . . um, could you perhaps explain this "wide moat" concept? Also, you mention "the intelligent investor". What is that? Who wrote it? Thanks very much!

Sanjeev, congratulations and happy anniversary!

Nicely done.

I couldn't agree with Oddball's comments on this thread more. Let's face it, it's not just value investors, but that happens to be where we are at the moment. Many people who do a certain thing want to feel that what they do is superior to the alternatives. It's like in high school. "Your" group was always better than the jocks, the popular crowd, etc (making the assumption of course that most people on a value investing board were likely not in the jocks or popular crowd). Everyone sits around the cafeteria at their table whispering about the other tables. It makes you feel special. At the end of the day who gives a crap how anyone invests. I invest the way I do, like Oddball said, because it makes sense to me. It's a part of me. I couldn't do it another way if I tried. People seem to take great offense though at someone who is a technical trader. She'll either burn out or she won't. But last I checked the name of the game wasn't investing as an art form, it was making money, pure and simple. There are many ways to get to investing heaven. As a related matter, I do agree though that separate and apart from "trading", when people are touting a 16 year old "guru" that is a bad sign for where the market is!

This is pretty basic stuff for a CPA. It's definitely worth getting one. I don't recall the exact rules, but it's pretty straightforward for them. I think there are 2 general withholding safe harbors. The first is essentially your tax for the year. That is, you need to be right about what it will be. The second safe harbor is something like 110% of the prior year's tax. So both create issues. In the first case, you need to withhold based on what your income will be, but you might not be sure what it is. The second case is a problem if your income is lower than the prior year. In terms of timing, yes, it matters. It's not just a get it in by the end of the year problem. So income from the beginning of the year starts the clock around then and not on Jan 1 of the next year. There is a way the accountants allocate income across all 4 reporting periods to determine how much withholding penalty might be owed. Of course I have no idea if this is right or not. Talk to a CPA.

This whole thing is quite amusing. It's the equivalent of a battle between divas for finance and investing geeks. It would be great if Icahn points at the camera and says to Ackman directly: "I could break you, mate. In two pieces over my knees. You know it. I know it. I could buy you six times over. I could dump the stock just to burn your ass! But I happen to want the company, and I want your block of shares. I'm announcing a tender offer at 65 tomorrow. I'm expecting your commitment."

Well, the difference between tail risks and black swans is mostly one of perspective. Yes, DA14 is going to pass below the geosynchronous orbit tonight and asteroids (like cockroaches) are hardly ever alone. Russia is the largest country on Earth, and therefore the most likely to see an event like this, so perhaps you could expect something like this, even it is a very low probability event. But imagine that this thing had been slightly larger, or moving slightly faster, and you had just bought shares on Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, after convincing yourself of the management quality and the company prospects, and then see your investment obliterated by the violent vaporization of a house-size chunk of carbonaceous chondrite. That would certainly quality as a Black Swan. I would like to know how many russians (last week) thought that it was of any risk. I certainly don't consciously price in flying chunks of space rock into my investments... I think this is exactly right and why I find it extremely difficult to understand holding large percentages of a portfolio in a single position. One never knows what can happen. It may be extremely remote, but things change all the time.

A very fine movie.

I did a double take on that too! Back when Larry Auriana had some hair! Exactly. There are so many things in here that are great. The whole Iomega craze from Motley Fool. I remember all anyone wanted to talk about was their zip drive or whatever it was called. What was it, the "Jazz" or something? People standing in the lobbies of brokerages just watching the ticker symbols go by. Of course the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Thanks for posting. Fascinating stuff. Brings back a lot of memories. I laughed when they showed the ubiquitous Kaufmann Fund ad "Tough Guys Finish First" with the 2 of them standing there with sunglasses on.

The long ones.

Wow, pretty crazy. Looks like Sham just learned a very important lesson though. If you're going to try and take some swings and be a tough guy, you better be ready for someone who thinks their livelihood is on the line to get in the ring with you and swing back hard.

That's the thing. If the alternative is doing the work yourself, then I think history has shown us that people won't do it. I think that if Moody does the minimum to show that its aware of past problems and working to improve things, they'll stick around for a long time. But I'm not expert in that field, just my best guess. A couple of thoughts. Ratings became bastardized over time. They were never intended to be used as a substitute for anyone doing their own due diligence and analysis. Various legal and regulatory rules requiring certain ratings helped move the rating away from its intended purpose. Think of it this way. If someone picks a restaurant based on its Zagat's rating and they don't like the meal, they don't sue Zagat's. Of course if you were required by law only to eat at restaurants that had certain Zagat's ratings it starts to become bastardized. So there needs to be a change in law and regulatory requirements to move it back to its intended design. Second, most people apparently don't realize that ratings have nothing to do with market movements. A typical rating of a structured asset will relate to the ultimate payment of principal based on the terms of the instrument. Some ratings will include timely payment of interest. But technically for many of these securities it's not clear whether the rating was off or not. If you have a 10-30 year maturity, there is plenty of time left for another housing boom or whatever and for the rating to ultimately prove just fine. I'm not saying they weren't lax in their analysis, they were, but in addition to the points made above, ratings were never intended to relate in any way to market movements.

Are you sure you need to divest as opposed to applying for an exemption as Constructive mentioned? In my experience restricted lists are there to prevent people from buying the stock and selling the stock without approval, but if you already own it (or got permission to buy it) you can continue to hold so long as you don't have some kind of controlling position. I assume if you are working for a living you don't have a controlling position in BAC or AIG, so that would be ok. At the end of the day though some places are more strict than others with the stock of clients or even potential clients. It's not worth it to them to raise an issue because some guy on the team owns 200 shares. You don't want to mess with the restricted list at your work. That will likely be a firing offense. Don't try to get around it either, it isn't worth it in my opinion. Buy Fairholme or something, but don't try to play any games by trying to own it indirectly. Chalk it up to a missed opportunity and find some other cheap stock. Just my 2 cents.