moore_capital54

Parsad, I am signing off here, but will do a Fund screen tomorrow. I think I will find a lot more than 50 managers that beat the index by 3% over a decade.

You're not alone. From the comments I've heard from people over the last couple of years, it seems as though Munger may have wanted to as well, based on those who attended a couple of his annual meetings. Cheers! Parsad is Munger an LP @ Pabrai Funds?

Obviously your are exaggerating in order to make your point. I don't think your assessments are fair. His timing with NFLX was clearly off. He was short (at least) as early as 2009 when NFLX was in the 40's from what I can tell. But that is the danger in shorting high growth, high PE names. They can run on you. Usually soon after you throw in the towel they seem to tank. His timing on his shorts during the meltdown were right on. He performed better than the market but not as good as he would have like due to how he constructed his portfolio. I believe he was using call options on some of his longs and wasn't viewing them on a "look-through" basis (assuming exercise) thus his long exposure was higher than he realized. Saying he lacks conviction would imply someone who does not make decent sized bets on securities he likes. While he is not as concentrated as some value investors, he is willing to make a position 5 to 10% from what I have heard him say. In fact, his recent under-performance is due to him essentially making a macro call and reducing their overall net exposure. Thus he did not participate in the markets rally in the last half of last year. Obviously he was wrong in the short run, but it was not due to lack of conviction or courage. His overall performance numbers based on having only a 60% net long position is very good. If after fees he can outperform the market with just 60% net exposure that is nothing to be ashamed of. You have laid out maybe 5-6 mistakes he has made in a decade. An investor, a fiduciary should not have made that many mistakes. A professional's job is to lay out a strategy and execute, not learn on the backs of his limited partners. Why did he even make a macro call? Is he a macro trader: NO The reason I started this thread, is because I totally agreed with his short thesis on NFLX and we went short big time on the name. When he covered a few days later we got squeezed and kept shorting, at one point we were down huge but kept the position, now we are very happy. I find it hillarious how he COMPLETELY changed his thesis because Reed Hastings made a blog post and it confirmed to me that he is more of an information whore than an investor. Just logging and deploying information. Did any of you guys watch Dan Loeb on CNBC? I am sure the ones that did asked themselves the following question: " Wow the guy seems pretty simple for such a successful investor" Some of you may have said the same about Einhorn when you first saw him speak. The best investors are soft spoken, not emotional, and are very steady in their demeanor. Tilson is ALL OVER THE PLACE. It is better to know a lot about a little than a little about a lot.

Some more facts on T2: If you had invested in 2001 in the T2 Accredited fund, 100 would be 133 After tAx (33% in a decade) If you had invested in 2002 than you would have about 112 After tax (12% in a decade) This is not superstar material. A bond fund would have delivered superior after tax returns with less risk and volatility. And if you guys think a decade is not long enough you are smoking something. More importantly to be an investor in any asset class in 04 05 06 07 and not have absolutely killed it shows you were completely out of touch with the environment you are operating in. Take 2005 , Tilson delivered a 2.97% return, absolutely pathetic. Take 2007 he lost -3.47%. The guy continually takes the wrong side of the trade. I have a lot more respect for Mohnish than T2. If Mohnish had the contacts T2 had he would be managing 4-5 Billion (if he so desired). Tilson is a nice guy hes kind of like the guy at the gym that can tell you about all the exercises, the best way to do them, the history all that, but can't even bench press 100 pounds.

Sorry Guys Ive been out today, just saw the posts. I am sticking to my statement that Tilson sucks as an investor. An investor with $100 in 2007 in T2 would have 88$ today and an investor from 2005 would only have a little bit more than that after factoring in taxes paid. Tilsons fund was miniscule in 03 and 04 so there is no point in even respecting those figures. His fund is still very small today which makes it even more surprising how badly he has performed. I think on this one you guys are wrong, and I generally am in total agreement with this board. There are lots of better investors than tilson, when taking into considering the weight and voice he has in the community. Compare him pound for pound to the people who he surrounds himself with. There is no comparison. If you remove the fact that he runs the VIC and mentions that ackman is his best friend in every convo with investors he would probably not have been able to raise any capital at all. I have attached a Bloomberg screenshot with the T2 Offshore Fund performance since 2003. Hedge Fund Managers are supposed to be superstars not deliver you an avg return.

Swizzled that's from April, here is the most recent letter from Whitney: From Whitney Tilson: September 1, 2011 Dear Partner, Our fund declined 13.7% in August vs. -5.4% for the S&P 500, -4.0% for the Dow and -6.4% for the Nasdaq. Year to date, it’s down 22.1% vs. -1.8% for the S&P 500, +2.1% for the Dow and -2.2% for the Nasdaq. I think Whitney falls into the class of investors that spends way too much time teaching, and is a brilliant writer. That presentation you posted is a perfect example. A responsible investor would not waste so much time on a 100 slide presentation. They must have spent an hour just cutting and pasting the logos of each berkshire subsidiary. Lot's of quotes and motivational BS. A long presentation should look like Ackmans on HKD bet. Filled with data and facts.

Does anyone else have this feeling? I have been following the guy for almost 5 years now, his timing is always way off, and he has very little conviction with his good ideas. Take NFLX for example, the guy had a good thesis but balked because of Reed Hasting's SeekingAlpha article. Sometimes I feel Whitney Tilson just doesn't have any ba**s to be a real investor.

Very good movie, got a chance to watch it at TIFF

This is a tough one because I have personally walked the mine and saw silver veins 1 foot wide running above my head. But on this same trip (3 years ago) When asking Mr. Rui how he was allowed to mine without a permit, he told me and the rest of the group that if a regulator comes they will just " cover up the shaft with ore". What I am trying to say is that no doubt this is a rich mine, and on that front Alfred Little's analysis is absolutely wrong. His attempt to grab ore from trucks and having them still assay 30 g/t AG just shows how much of a fool he is, as that is a damn good grade for a grab sample of ore from a truck passing by. But, my personal experience also shows mgmt disregarded rule of law 3 years ago. I don't own a position. I try to stay away from Chinese names.

Great Book, I also suggest the Panic of 1907 which is similar. http://www.amazon.com/Panic-1907-Lessons-Learned-Markets/dp/047015263X

Sesnath scroll down to the bottom of the page where you can view an "aerial" image of the property. It may even be larger than 30,000 square feet. I don't think many billionaires have houses as big as Mr. Weschler.

UCCmal don't worry about it, we found ourselves reducing CSCO yesterday even though we love it to free up cash for "cheaper" buys. More important is to focus on avoiding permanent loss of capital.

A friend just sent this to me, Not my style but some gossip on Mr. Weschler that he is definitely not the simple southern boy he is being made out to be, he lives on a 100 acre 30,000 square foot house, and plays polo etc. Not sure how reliable this but here is the link I was sent: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1906-Garth-Rd-Charlottesville-VA-22901/79010639_zpid/ Personally, I don't care just funny to see the media portraying him as a carbon copy of buffet, he is definitely not.

For the younger investors here, I have an idea for you to take a crack on: It's Eurobank EUROB GA Would be happy to hear your thoughts (keep in mind its merging with Alpha)

CA FP is a lot less risky than Telefonica. But Telefonica has 227 million mobile phone subscribers, tv subscribers, internet subscribers. This is equivalent to an entire US population worth of subscribers. Telefonica will do fine over time. AZ I would like to hear about some of your local ops companies as I enjoy your posts, and feel as though you are a talented investor.

Or for all the Indians on the board, take a look at Reliance Communications (RCOM IN) We have been buying this as well. Truly undervalued here compared to global peers in the space. Wonderful company.

OR Telefonica (TEF SQ) pays me 11% while I wait for the market to come back... Great companies trading at valuations that don't make sense. Even if we revert to a barter economy, these shares will be worth more than these valuations.

The european stocks I follow are all lower than 2008/2009. Take CA FP for example (Carrefour) why wouldn't I buy it here? I get a 7% dividend yield while I wait for things to get better and I am getting the co at book value and am buying it at 2x 5 year trailing ebitda.

Did anyone see the market rally today over the last few minutes? All that was due to a rumour about China buying Italian debt. This market will light like a firecracker due to the artificially depressed interest rates. Just imagine we get a single dose of good news. All I see is bad news all day every day on every station. My wife and I had dinner with a very wealthy couple in Toronto on Friday. The wife couldn't stop talking about the demise of the dollar and the US and how we are so lucky to be Canadian, the husband an heir to a media fortune, said they sold all their equities and are only invested in gold bullion and Canadian gics. These people have no equity exposure since mid August. The market moves so quickly, I can see with our investors the same trend. Equity markets have lost almost 10 Trillion in wealth since mid August. I bet you all that equity market exposure has declined substantially for the avg. joe investor. The market can literally shoot back up on any dose of good news. Nobody likes to earn 0.25% interest, that only looks good when equities are declining and there appears to be headline risk. The market has declined for 19 of 25 days, things will turn here soon.

Bmichaud I don't agree with that. European equities are extremely attractive here, and if we go through the cycle you mention interest rates will be kept artificially low creating, at some point significant demand for equities. I absolutely despise going into all these analysis as I am primarily a bottoms-up investor. But your last argument is effectively a gamble that equity values can decline more, after the STOXX 50 has already declined by 28% and the DAX is down 26%. I am not smart enough to know whether equities will decline further or today was the bottom. I just believe that buying stocks here will produce better returns than cash over time. I am not satisfied with the quality of my posts today, due to a headache and absolutely no free-time, I apologize for the short-responses.

Bmichaud I am not sure if I answered your question. In short, I do believe that on a risk-adjusted basis today at least for me is a safer environment to deploy capital into equities than march 2009, even though back then valuations may have been a bit cheaper (for 5 days maybe) From a grahamian perspective all that matters is margin of safety. On that basis, yes securities were cheaper in march 2009 (again for maybe 2 weeks max during the capitulation phase) but I personally am comfortable with the risk adjustment I have made to account for the fundamental shift in the way markets work. I find it crazy that nobody else has picked up on this. Lets recap: 1600-1971 - Central Banks - Had to maintain reserves made up of percious metals which could not be increased at will. Impact on Equities - When things got bad equities could truly decline until demand returned due to fundamentals. 1971-2008 - Central Banks - Are now Fiat-Based, can print money at will, but do not do so, opting instead to increase or decrease interest rates, when markets declined, at most the central bank would decrease interest rates. - Impact on equity markets - When times were bad, an investor would have to wait for the cycle to run it's course. Very predictable cycles. 2008-2009- Central Banks throw out the rule books, print as much money as they need to sustain the system exchanging newly printed money for any asset so long as it stablizies system - Impact on Equities - Never before seen valuations, in the context of 1971-2009 remained that way for less than a few months, following which the surge of liquidity made equities extremely attractive. So now in 2011, when I see some equities trading at March 2009 levels, (Think BP, CSCO etc) why would I not buy hand over fist? I have the cash to deploy, and my job is to invest it. Why wait? I am not a market timer. These exogenous events will correct themselves and if history is an indicator it will most likely be due to an artificial intervention by central banks.

Ned is a genius, one of our larger positions in the resource funds.

We were only about 50% invested in March 2009 lows, and about 30% in really attractive preferred/fixed income situations but the difference in my view was that 2008/2009 was uncharted territories I personally did not know that central banks had the right or authority to backstop the system the way they did. It only started resonating towards the end of April and even then it was kind of a new element that we had to incorporate into how we viewed the market. So today I view the market knowing that, central banks will always step in to support any systemic crises with the creation of new money ad infinitum. We can argue about whether that will in turn cause money supply to expand or not, I am not debating that point, because I feel comfortable buying some of these equities at 5-6% dividend yields and 3-4x EV/EBIT. With that said, and in full disclosure, this view has not served us well, as of today we are down about 11% YTD in our equity portfolio, resource funds are still up over 10%. But I just don't think I am wrong about this. I don't see any of the issues we are facing as more dangerous than a potential shut-down of the economic system which is what we faced in 2008. ECB Can play all the games they want, in the end they will print just as Ben will print and even China will print if it ever comes to it.

Today is the first day we became fully invested in equities since 2003. I am prepared to increase leverage from 0 to 20% as well. Either im wrong or equities are extremely cheap here.

Very good piece that ties into everything I have been saying myself on this board.