AZ_Value

Hahaha... I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read that too. Stupid us, it all makes sense now, RIM's problem is that they innovate too fast for their own good and need to take a breather every now and then. The attachment to RIM makes me shake my head and any mention of RIM and LVT together makes me cringe. I am not one to hand out advice especially not to Prem but this Buffett quote seems appropriate: "If I thought they needed my help in running the company I wouldn't have invested."

I tend to agree with Hester. When CIT says that they will not provide credit to some SHLD suppliers, some may dismiss it but I think it is kind of a big deal. It could trigger an ugly chain of events. History has taught us that liquidity always seems fine until it's not. The fact that Eddie has gone "balls to the wall" in SHLD is no news really. He's been knee deep in it for a while already. I, for one wasn't doubting his commitment to SHLD. I wasn't doubting it AT ALL!! I would still prefer him laying out his plan concretely for investors to decide whether to join him or not. His "group", for which he makes all the decisions, was already the majority shareholder; so whether he personally owns 15%, 20%, or 25% doesn't really add anything specific to analyze in my opinion. Unless I'm missing something, which I could be of course. At the end of the day we can talk about the Kenmore and other brands all we want, but SHLD is still anchored by a ton of big retail stores with a deteriorating moat. I think we can all agree on that, or if we don't, we can just drive by a K-Mart parking lot vs. Target, WalMart or Costco and I think we'll come to an agreement real fast. So there was talk of turning the stores around, but then they were starved of capital. Those two things don't go together. Is it a real estate play? Sell/Sub-lease properties and redeploy cash elsewhere? Some on the board have been saying this. Then he should say so. Others have said that he's not really sure because maybe his plan was to come in and start liquidating until he realized that it's not an easy task to come in and start sending hundreds of thousands of people home, so he has been improvising. The main problem I have is that right now we're down to just pointing at the fact that Eddie is buying and saying "Come on... He knows more than we do". Well, yeah... He runs the place. But that has been the case for a few years already, and how long do you go before you start feeling like you're the sucker at the poker table??

We all must do our part to fight the sith lord. Even if it means slowly bleeding your mutual fund's returns... Lol... Come on now, it can't be all about the whole deep capture story and them wanting to support Byrne in his crusade against the hedgies. I'm sure they see something in OSTK but to me that business just seems to be such a 10 foot hurdle to try and jump especially when the headwinds you're facing are called Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Kinda like the money Fairfax keeps dumping in RIMM, I don't get that one either. Is it Ontario folks sticking together this time? By the way, I took a look at the phones that Nokia and MSFT are starting to put out, and I am now ready to unilaterally call the death of RIMM. Iphone and Android were tough enough, now Nokia and MSFT just joined them. Somebody stick a fork in RIMM, they're done! All this being said I am a happy Fairfax shareholder and I have zero intention of selling my shares, probably ever! Prem has proven his worth time and again.

No banks? And so many distressed retailers. I think Chou held some BAC and JPM warrants last time I checked. I would really love to know what is the obsession with OSTK from the whole Watsa crew. I personally don't get it.

Not that big an expert regarding your situation but regarding this comment above, in the US, one of the most outrageous acts of highway robbery committed against the general public was introduced and still prevails under the concept of "carried interest", which allows money managers to pay capital gains taxes on their earned income.

Reading through the thread I couldn't help but tell myself "I hope Lampert reads this board". Because some of you guys seem to have much more detailed action plans than Eddie, or I should say than what he has communicated to shareholders so far. Which begs the question, why? Why is it that his investors have to spend all this time guesstimating what's next? Why not just say exactly what he intends to do so that investors can decide whether they want in or not? I don't think this is a situation where you need to keep all your cards close to the vest because someone might undercut you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody.

Good point, but Luda has never been in trouble with the law ;) http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-06-07/tech/30009132_1_picture-warren-buffett-photographs ;D Dude, you've just become the resident expert on all matters relating to Buffett's hip hop career. Congrats.

+1 And also, you haven't lived until you read the LVLT thread. That is a FACT!!

I bought the new Kindle Fire mostly because the previous kindle just wasn't suited for all the PDF documents I read. I have been reading various PDF documents since I got it and I took a PDF version of BAC 10K to read on my thanksgiving trip last week and I have to say it is much much better; But on this aspect I would assume something like the Ipad might be even better but I'm too cheap to pay that price. The other features (web browsing, videos etc...) have all worked well so far also but I don't demand much on that side.

Smart move. I'm out too. I've seen this movie before.

How is "Iscar Metalworking" which makes cutting tools a technology company again? Because they use robots to make those cutting tools? Amen to this. With that being said I refuse to believe that Sarah Palin contributes anything to anything and it has nothing to do with her being a woman. It just has to do with me having ears and a brain to process information that my ears deliver to it. You can fault my parents for that.

I'll be damned if anybody predicted that Buffett would put $10B in IBM!! (Unless his name is Dave Sokol)

Interesting. Watsa has been saying that sooner or later the natural resources/minerals guys will suffer a correction; He does put his money where his mouth is.

I really like Bezos too and I do think that by being patient and executing his vision he has built a moat around Amazon. The same way Buffett talks about the mental space that KO occupies in the minds of people around the world, or the fact that Google is now synonymous with "Internet search"; I think if we ran a poll on this board asking board members when was the last time someone recommended a book to them and their reflex wasn't to buy it/look it up on Amazon, we'd be surprised how present Amazon is. I personally can't remember when that last time was. And now Bezos has managed to put a Kindle in many of our hands to make it even easier on us. But management is key here, it wasn't that long ago when families around the country wanted to watch a new movie the reflex was more and more "add it to our Netflix queue"! It seemed like Netflix had us all at their mercy especially after driving Blockbuster into the ground but management dropped the ball. The business is tougher than KO's where management's number one job is to make sure that they don't lose the formula for that coke syrup, because by now it just sells itself. But I trust Bezos.

How is Global GDP a zero sum game? If one country somewhere is growing another country somewhere else HAS to be regressing? I don't get that.

I've had to learn to live with this problem for a while now. Someone needs to disable my Amazon account until I work my way through my current reading list. It's starting to get ridiculous. But I somehow always get excited and order a new one.

Hey Sanj, Anyway You can repost this file also. The link seems to be broken. I've always been fascinated by the arbitrages opportunities WEB was able to find over the years. Thanks man.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Culture plays a huge factor in it too. Finland, Sweden, Norway etc. are doing well and they're pretty socialist too.

That's a consequence of aging. When aging sometimes progresses to borderline dementia, expressions often become stereotypical with merely a limited number of stock phrases and pat stories in the repertoire. However, I wouldn't worry too much about Warren in this respect. His thoughtful remarks at the AGM show that he hasn't lost it, although many of his illustrative anecdotes are canned comments that his fans have often heard several times before. :) Isn't it also a function of being asked the same questions over and over again for years/decades? Do you want him to change his answers if his mindset hasn't changed? Having watched him so much I pretty much can tell what his answer is going to be based on the question he's being asked.

No doubt that, if given the option, the Greek population will vote down any additional austerity measure. Right now Angela Merkel et al must be busy sending out emails and memos all titled "Dude... WTF??" (or however you say that in German). So what was the point of all the negotiations if the goal was to then turn down the financial aid they're ready to send your way? Which is what the Prime Minister is inherently doing by putting this up to a referendum. Should be interesting to see what will happen.

:D won't go as far as Paul in proclaiming my love but thanks a lot Jacob. This is awesome.

99.99% of the population agrees with you on this one. Shit, I was a hedge fund manager and I agree with you (as does all the managers I know). But that .01% is very powerful. Personally I cannot understand why this carried interest thing doesn't get changed first thing Monday morning when Congress opens for business. This is one of the things that make me give up hope on Washington. The entire country can agree on the foolishness of it and yet we can't even get that done.

LOL - IF SD backs to 13 bucks. I will break even and then some. :) "IF"?? You mean WHEN SD goes back to 13 bucks. ;D When it does I'll be posting saying that I doubled or tripled my money lol

Was up about 80% heading into this crazy summer. Got slowly but surely killed during the correction but I bought a lot, now trying to replenish my cash as I deployed a lot of it. Now up about 25% and hoping that the cash deployed this summer will payoff big long term.