Sportgamma

The Euro was implemented because politicians wanted it, not because it was an economically sound idea. The EU will either have to go forward with increased integration or step back, status quo seems unsustainable to me. Plan: very well put.

"Sugar is noteworthy as a substance that releases opioids and dopamine and thus might be expected to have addictive potential. This review summarizes evidence of sugar dependence in an animal model. Four components of addiction are analyzed. “Bingeing”, “withdrawal”, “craving” and cross-sensitization are each given operational definitions and demonstrated behaviorally with sugar bingeing as the reinforcer. These behaviors are then related to neurochemical changes in the brain that also occur with addictive drugs. Neural adaptations include changes in dopamine and opioid receptor binding, enkephalin mRNA expression and dopamine and acetylcholine release in the nucleus accumbens." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/?tool=pmcentrez

Hi Oddball, I looked at Precia the other day. Seems like a great company a with decent moat (razor blade, switching costs), not so sure about the price though.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-einhorn/fed-interest-rates_b_1472509.html

The governance and oversight risks are simply too high. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/fraud-heightens-jeopardy-of-investing-in-chinese-companies/?nl=business&emc=edit_dlbkam_20120425

Reykjavík, Iceland

Its probably more suitable to call this an online notebook rather than a blog, but here it goes: http://sportgamma.net/

You can also read the letters to shareholders, study compensation schemes and ownership.

If management has been there for some time, you could analyze its capital allocation track record. What kind of decisions have they made in regards to investments into operations, share buybacks or issuance, dividends, debt issuance or paybacks, aquisitions etc. See example here (conclusion nr. 3): http://seekingalpha.com/article/262159-fundamental-analysis-of-nutrisystem-a-look-at-2008-2010-results

The prospectus mentions Sears Canada and Orchard as non-guarantees and in the list of guarantees no mention is made of Craftsman or Kenmore. Can anybody explain that to me?

The biggest insider is the Greek government. According to a letter of intent to the IMF, they planned to sell their stake in 4Q2011, but obviosly, they are running behind schedule: http://sportgamma.net/2011/08/17/profile-the-greek-organization-of-football-prognostics-opap/ The most recent document on OPAP at the Greek Special Secretariat for Asset Restructuring and Privatisations (SSARP) that I could find was this one from September: http://www.minfin.gr/content-api/f/binaryChannel/minfin/datastore/bb/6d/82/bb6d8226765947df91d9acb6a4c5886a3048319f/application/pdf/OPAP+INDEPENDENT+VALUATION+RFP+020911.pdf Here is a recent article claiming thet they will sell their stake by March: "The target is to launch the tender in the first quarter, "the chairman of Greece's privatisation agency, Ioannis Koukiadis, told Reuters on Monday. Opap, which has a total market capitalisation of about 2.3bn euros, said on Friday that Greece had transferred 29 percent of its holding to its privatisation agency. Koukiadis declined to say when the sale was expected to be completed. "There are a series of issues involved in the completion (of the sale) which are not time-bound," Koukiadis said. "I want to believe we won't have any problems as there is strong interest." http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/11/52797

OPAP´s streangth (besides being a monopoly...) is the cost structure. Almost all of its costs are variable, as the kiosks that sell for OPAP get paid on a commission basis. Also, I´m not sure but I would think that they have strong control over their margins, as they control the odds that they offer. A big risk is competition from online betting sites.

Hello there moore_capital54, Might I ask if you have a position in OPAP? And if so, whether you´re hedged currency wise or not?

I think Greece has a way better bargaining power than most people realize: “by far the greatest advantage that Greece would enjoy in a restructuring of its debt derives from the fact that so much of the debt stock is expressly governed by Greek law (90 percent or more).” - Lee C. Buchheit & Gulati, Greek Debt - The Endgame Scenarios http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1807011 http://www.athensnews.gr/issue/13478/52264

If the business model is good and if scaling it up carries some efficiencies, perhaps it is a place to channel additional capital into?

Hi, Could you guys enlighten me on the phrase Parker stocks as I haven´t heard this particular phrasing before?

Has anybody here looked into Exor SpA. Financial reporting is a bit messy imo, but it looks cheap.

Interesting thoughts. I have been looking into Bunge myself. However, I feel that I do not have sufficient understanding of the business model. The way I see it, key driver of profit is volume. In the case of Bunge, variations in commodity prices are partly offset by different units. The trading and souring department benefits from higher prices whilst the processing division suffers from lower spreads and vice versa. Consider the following discussion from the Q&A session of the Bunge 2Q2011 earnings call: So as I see it, competitive advantage comes through the scale and efficiency of the distribution network. But, as I said, I´m far from comfortable with this conjecture.

Found it: "The decrease in common shareholders’ equity in the first six months of 2011 was primarily as a result of the net loss attributable to shareholders of Fairfax ($157.3) and the company’s payments of dividends on its common and preferred shares ($232.4), partially offset by the effect of increased accumulated other comprehensive income (an increase of $25.4 in the first six months of 2011, primarily reflecting a net increase in foreign currency transaction). Common shareholders’ equity at June 30, 2011 decreased to $7,310.2 or $358.60 per basic share from $376.33 per basic share at December 31, 2010, representing a decrease per basic share in the first six months of 2011 of 4.7% (without adjustment for the $10.00 per common share dividend paid in the first quarter of 2011, or 2.0% adjusted to include that dividend). The adoption of IFRS reduced book value per basic share by $3.13 from book value per basic share of $379.46 previously reported under Canadian GAAPat December 31, 2010 to $376.33 under IFRS."

I glanced through the 2Q report and I wanted to check if my understanding of it is correct. So my question is this: Is the reason why Fairfax announces net earnings of 83.3m but at the same time records a decrease in book value to $358, that the net earnings do not take into account Other comprehensive income, such as "Change in net unrealized gains and losses on available for sale securities" and "Change in unrealized foreign currency translation gains (losses) on foreign operations"? (It is a bit confusing to me because in the press release the earnings reported are for the quarter but change in book value is in the first half) Two more questions: - Are the amounts reported are in US$? - Is the main impact of the transition from Canadian GAAP to IFRS that changes due to other comprehensive income are reported as changes in equity in IFRS? - The change from Canadian GAAP to IFRS occured on 1.1.2010, so comparision between 2010 and 2011 is on a like-for-like basis? Also, in their reporting they start of with a statement of net earnings and follow up with a statement of comprehensive income. I would have thought it would be the other way around.