goldfinger

What are you doing with Altius in such an environment?

Happy Birthday!

Where the heck is SA manipulating markets: http://screencast.com/t/uYjYFgQGfN They have multiplied the amount of rigs by 2 in the recent years just to maintain production close to a previous peak... All this old production is getting tired frankly.

That's a giant stimulus instead...

What about avoiding white wheat, white rice, corn, sweets, sodas, pure sugar etc... to a certain extent. These foods give you high levels of sugar and high acidic content in your blood stream. This might be a leading long term cause of cancer much more than many other suspected ones... and these are some of the main foods today... Especially "white" carbs combined to proteins like meat being eventually stored as fat in your system... Same with potatoes when eaten with proteins... What about considering that too many chemicals in veggies is just wrong and bad for you. But high quality veggies (especially the good kinds - you need to do some research - it is too long a subject for a board discussion) + good quality proteins is actually good for you. Agriculture has selected over time the most productive veggies to grow - not obligatorily the most nutritive. What about considering that ingesting fat is actually necessary to healthy life and that salmon's fat is only good to you if not overcooked? etc... etc... etc.. What about avoiding the standard "medical" way of thinking and doing you own research + applying good sense to it like you are doing with value investing? There are very knowledgeable people out about health and healthy eating and they proceed a little like value investors - by doing their own research and using a rational but also empirical approach... For non sugar BBQ I am not sure why anyone needs sugar with a good piece of beef or chicken... But with pork ribs you can cook'em with honey and soy sauce and 5 spices - painting the ribs every 5 minutes with this mixture and this will be just divine after 2 hours. This sugar is not going to be that bad for you by the way...

From his quarterly letter, loud and clear: "Oil Costs vs. Oil Prices (or Oil Profits get Crushed!) In the long run, when the costs of producing oil rise, the prices will rise. But in the short run it is not always the case, and in such occurrences it is easy to confuse the effects of changes in costs with changes in prices. When global oil costs rise, as they are currently doing, global growth must suffer as we are forced to use more of our capital per unit of oil discovered and thus limit our capital investments in other growth opportunities. This is true even if prices simultaneously fall due to a temporary supply/demand imbalance. The current fall in price does nothing to offset the squeeze on the total economy from rising costs. It merely transfers massive amounts of income from one subgroup (oil producers) to another (oil consumers), in a largely zero-sum game. Oil consumers tend to spend more and save less than oil companies so short-term impacts are favorable. But we should not be carried away with enthusiasm because the declining investment from the oil industry will lower future growth. When, as now, oil costs are still rising even as prices fall there is of course a particularly savage effect on the profits of oil companies, squeezed from both ends. They must and will rapidly adapt by reducing expenditures and therefore oil production with the fairly obvious result that prices will rise again. The only longer-term price relief and net benefit to the economy will come when either we reverse recent history and start to find more oil more cheaply, which will be like waiting for pigs to fly, or when cheaper sources of energy displace oil." So until oil gets displaced (maybe by solar and other) oil prices rise high...

Nice little analysis on shale oil and Bakken production sustainability: http://peakoilbarrel.com/bakken-sweet-spots-petering/#more-5238

Well at least Hamm doesn't seem to believe in any kind of glut: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/06/us-contl-resources-ceo-hedging-idUSKBN0IQ18R20141106?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Agreed on legalization and gangs. However a lawyer who breaks a fuse can go out and shoot at kids in a school with an AK47. Once is once too much. So please ban them too.

Happy Birthday Sanjeev!

Yet I would have loved being in AAPL stock when Steve Jobs was turning it around!

Thanks Vinod, this was good. So slow painful adjustments to a more consumer centric model with some de-leveraging along the way and better quality in business/financial practices through reforms but no total collapse right? That seems to be the most probable outcome.

Chinese households have around 7T$ savings in bank accounts (deposits + savings accounts): http://www.thechinamoneyreport.com/2013/09/12/china-has-the-highest-total-savings-in-the-world/

Can't the Chinese government fight the tape with almost 3.5T$ in reserves, given how interventionist it has been in the past?

another perspective on China: http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/ryan-puplava/majors-versus-minors

With his left hand on a "Dakshana" folder... It is Pabrai himself!

I agree with some of what you say except that I think Russia is after recuperating the lost republics of the soviet era only. Russia did not digest well the splitting of their empire after the fall of the soviet union, especially Ukraine with its agriculture and other resources and lots of russian speaking people. Germany was after all Europe and more because Hitler believed in the need of a vital living space after all these wars that they had to fight for centuries being located in between so many empires and kingdoms.

You just got mine too! ;)

Sanjeev please do not change a thing! I know I do not post that much (mostly a matter of time and respect for others intelligence!) but I am grateful to have found a gem like this site to open my mind on investing etc... in real time. I love the simplicity too (even though I am a hard-core engineer). I just wanted to congratulate you on the creation of this board and for operating it once again!!! THANKS ;)

You hit it on the head!

I work hard! ;D

Trained as a generalist engineer and software engineer. Been in the tech business (silicon valley and before Paris) as manager, developer and architect for more than 15 years.

Only 25.96% this year, too much cash for too long. My mistake...

BAC (common + warrants), FIATY, Altius, GNCMA, cash