west

Fair/cheap prices for good businesses may have occurred regularly in the 1950s. However, that's not really the case today. For this reason, I doubt you could replicate Claude Shannon's returns today using his Philip Fisher-like approach. That is, unless you were *really* patient and *really* good at picking your spots.

Mostly just venting here, but I signed up for an IBKR account last December and haven't used it too actively. I generally try to buy undervalued securities and then hold them until they reach fair value. Sometimes this happens quickly. Most the time, however, it takes at least a few months. I'm sure you're all familiar with this dynamic. So unbeknownst to me, since June I've been getting charged "Activity Fees" (or perhaps "Inactivity Fees" would be a better description). I talked to customer support about these fees to see if I could get a refund for these fees-from-nowhere (from my perspective) or if I could get around them some how. Nope. IBKR is for traders. If you're not a trader, tough cookies. Use IBKR the way it's supposed to be used. Needless to say, I'm closing my account. Like I said above, I'm mostly just venting here. However, in case it hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet (and I'm sure it has), IBKR is for traders and will charge you a monthly fee if you haven't had any activity, regardless of your account balance. So if you're not a trader, you might want to look elsewhere.

Ok, maaaaybe I'm looking into it too much... buuut... So, for some background, I've recently been reading the Berkshire-Hathaway Shareholder Letters. I started with the first one, and I've slowly been getting closer to the most recent one. In his 1997 letter Buffett talks about how Berkshire-Hathaway's investment in US Airways finally turned around. In the end, he summarizes with one sentence: Whaddya guys think? It's the 1997 letter. And Pulp Fiction came out in late 1994. Coincidence?

Thread hijacking here, but... There are plenty out there. However, none of them I found were really up to date with the turmoil that's currently happening in the industry. If I were going to do it again, I don't think I'd need much more than the UN statistical yearbook (and other UN data), the USGS Minerals Survey and Minerals Yearbook, and all the data put out by the individual companies in the potash industry (there's not that many). This is not an industry that's lacking information. I'm pretty sure if you used just the above information, you could model 90%+ of the world's potash production specific-mine by specific-mine. It might take a little bit of time though. :)

There's always something to do. While you're waiting for a fat pitch, how about working on your swing? Try to tear apart and understand an understandable industry. Like the Automotive Industry. Or, say, the Fertilizer Industry. This way when a nice looking pitch comes your way you'll be ready for it. Right now I'm digging into how the Potash industry works. And, to a lesser extent, the fertilizer industry in general. It's crazy complicated, but I think it's understandable to a very large degree. And, if you look at the industry in the right light, there might be some incredible bargains in it right now. I still haven't decided yet myself. :)

If you've seen a Value Line, it shows you all sorts of financial data, along with the company's price graph. I think he's suggesting to look at Value Lines for a company while simultaneously reading about its history to better understand how the market reacted to different events related to the company. Along with this, for cyclical companies you could see how and why the industry cycle turned in the past. And, in theory, this could help you better see cycle changes going forward.

Thanks! I'll make sure to check it out.

According to http://www.futureblind.com/2012/08/charlie-munger-on-business-education/, Charlie Munger said the following: I plan on doing this. While the strategy is applicable to more than the automotive industry, I figure I might as well try it there since I'm considering investing in FIATY. Getting historic Value Lines is easy enough. My library has them going back to at least 1980, maybe earlier. However, I'm not well versed with all the automotive industry/GM books out there. Does anyone have any books they'd recommend? For what it's worth, I'm thinking *decades* of history here, not just, say, the last decade or since the financial crisis. And, while I'm not opposed to reading multiple books (say, for multiple/different decades), it would be nice to minimize the total books needed to be read. Thanks in advance! west

This would also allow people who didn't start the thread to open up virtual positions as well.

Ditto here! I wish my portfolio had performed as well as the, count 'em, one stock I started a thread about. :D prunes, perhaps suggest to posters to add to their future posts the following text: OPENED LONG POSITION AT $XXX.XX CLOSED LONG POSITION AT $XXX.XX Or something of the sort. That would be very easy to scrape. And ditto for shorting but say SHORT instead of LONG.

Hey! (As an engineer) I resemble that I remark!

Maybe I'm naive, but is there any reason why you can't contact IR (if it exists) or someone else at the company that issued the debt and ask them directly? I mean, keep it causal/not implying intent/"exploring the risks of an equity investment in your company" vs "I want to buy this debt" and getting the answer might be pretty straightforward.

No offense, but it seemed like a typical hard left "I'm frustrated! Why does the world work the way it works! It must be because of the ruling class!" style article. No real solutions. Just pointing and complaining.

I'm just going to leave this here... http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipad Same warrantee as a new one, and all the refurb stuff I've ever bought from them (about 5 items) has looked and worked like they're brand new. Not an apple fanboy tho! Please, look at the google/amazon products and let me know if they're better! I love saving money. :D

Well, I didn't read the article, but I do have to say: 1) I'd be surprised if Buffett didn't know about practically *everything* with one of his investments. 2) Buffett has not let "morality" interfere with his investment decisions in the past (see China National Petroleum, with the Darfur genocide, for one example).

Level III guys, how did you do? Me? I passed! I'm done! Well... not quite. Now I just have to get four years of experience :D

Now you are making me want to buy all 3 books mentioned. My library is already stuffed. Same here. Damn you west - I thank you, but I hate you. Seriously though, I have visions of an early death under a ceiling-high avalanche of as-yet unread books gleaned from the various recommendations on this forum. You have that fear too! I like to joke, when people are shocked when they see my piles of books and other reading materials, that one day, when I least expect it, all those dead trees are going to topple and get their revenge! :D

Now you are making me want to buy all 3 books mentioned. My library is already stuffed. Don't buy The Art of Profitability! It's a rabbit hole of (required, but all awesome) books to read! Seriously tho, it's an amazing book. I have no idea why no one knows about it.

I thought it was great and recommend it as well. I'm pretty sure it was co-authored by a mass-market, easy-to-read author guy as well so, yeah, very easy and quick to read. Derailing the thread a little bit, I read it as part of the readings for the Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzsky, probably the best book I've ever read for understanding how different businesses work. One of the "assignments" in the book is to read Made in America and Pour Your Heart into It (the Starbucks book) at the same time and look for similarities in their business models, business strategies, and how the two companies (Wal-Mart and Starbucks) first got off the ground. Suffice it to say, your mind will be blown if you actually do the assignment in full. The two companies really are cut from the same cloth.

I went through the first 13 1/2 chapters over the weekend, it really is an excellent book. I can see why he made his employee read it. Overlay = margin of safety. I think it was Munger that said, “We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one." That's exactly what this book teaches. +1 on this being a great book. Bottom of page 19 to page 20 is especially great. I can see how someone can gain psychological experience through betting on horse racing relatively quickly, and then parlay this experience into better psychological control when investing.

Does anyone have any pointers on or good links to articles about asset repatriation (?) tax rates? I'm trying to value the cash a company I'm looking at has overseas. How much of that cash would be given up due to taxes if it was brought back to the US? As far as I can tell they have already paid taxes on it in the respective foreign jurisdictions. Thanks!

So I was digging into why this one company I'm researching (looks like it's going to be a dud) had filed 10-K/As for the last couple of years. I found a really sweet way to see the difference between the beginning doc: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946454/000143774913002596/ballantyne_10k-123112.htm And the ending doc: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946454/000104746912008454/a2210776z10-ka.htm By using W3C's tool here: http://services.w3.org/htmldiff Example: http://services.w3.org/htmldiff?doc1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sec.gov%2FArchives%2Fedgar%2Fdata%2F946454%2F000104746912002480%2Fa2207794z10-k.htm&doc2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sec.gov%2FArchives%2Fedgar%2Fdata%2F946454%2F000104746912008454%2Fa2210776z10-ka.htm Enjoy!

Three cheers for the man who runs this excellent website! Happy birthday Parsad!

Are you on some sort of professional subscription? $910 seems *incredibly* high compared to the subscription rates I've seen. Maybe worth a look: http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/general-forum/topics/logic-how-wsj-prices-subscription

In regards to Level 3, it was the opposite for me! I hate that written stuff. It's so easy to make a dumb mistake. Hopefully, they'll grade it leniently... I guess we'll see in August!