Martian

+40%. Did not buy or sell anything this year.

"ragnar is a pirate" (I think he was a member here) owned some rental properties and documented one of his experiences. here is is.. http://ragnarisapirate.blogspot.com/2012/05/sometimes-its-best-to-take-pass-40.html

up 9.53 %. So voted fro 0-9%. From the graph it looks like 10% + is an elite club. Anyway, learned a lot this year..especially not to put money in retail ::)

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ebix/short-interest Most of the shorts are still intact. The volume of the past few days will barely make a dent on the overall short position. I think most of them shorted at $20, so they might not have lost much so far.

“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?” - Warren Buffett With that said, since you are a fresher, the brand name recognition on your resume will be great and last forever. Your resume will stand out and that will open lot of doors for you than having a no-name company even if the role was really good.

Sony's Digital Paper System may fit your requirement, but it is expensive. It is available to public now at $999. http://store.sony.com/digital-paper-system-zid27-DPTS1/cat-27-catid-digital-paper

afaik, he did not sell because he was on the board.

Sony 13.3" reader will be available in May for $1100 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455696,00.asp

As you said the meetings are the key. May be today's 30 and 40 somethings are fashion conscious/want to use free apps and don't want to go to the meetings. But when they turn 50, the reality will in. The question will be fashion or healthy longer life. I think they will choose life. In future, people will be living longer than now. i.e the average age will be going up. So even if it is only for the 50's, the number is not decreasing. Human interaction is a very powerful tool and is not going away anytime soon. In 90's people speculated that the bank branches will disappear soon as everyone will do everything online. But the number of branches has actually doubled in this time. So unless we find a magic pill or any other company come up with a solution to make the meetings better than WTW, I think weight watchers will have a place.

You could argue - why isn't EBIX buying back stock hand over fist? I don't know the answer to that but I'm sure Raina has a good justification for it but that reason doesn't automatically mean it's a fraud. Raina addressed that in the last conference call, There were no buy backs and dividends because of lending covenants to maintain certain financial ratios. http://www.ebix.com/investors/Inv_call_13_Q3.mp3 (listen to it from 22:30 ) but why did they buy a lot of stock at higher prices the year before and why did he authorize a $100m plan if he couldn't execute it? and why does a company supposedly spitting out tons of FCF have to worry about violating lending covenants? No need to answer. the fullness of time will reveal all! Even at those high prices the stock was undervalued, so ebix bought back the stock. For no buybacks even after authorization, I think the lending covenants may have included some ratios related to equity and not FCF. When the stock hit 8, the equity ratios would have been very close to breaking. What was the guarantee that Greg Farrell would not have written another article connecting Raina to Mexican drug cartels and taken the stock to 3 ? I think thats why he opted to repay debt. Just because he did not buyback stock it does not mean he did not create value by paying debt.

You could argue - why isn't EBIX buying back stock hand over fist? I don't know the answer to that but I'm sure Raina has a good justification for it but that reason doesn't automatically mean it's a fraud. Raina addressed that in the last conference call, There were no buy backs and dividends because of lending covenants to maintain certain financial ratios. http://www.ebix.com/investors/Inv_call_13_Q3.mp3 (listen to it from 22:30 )

I'm still in. I think they were hoarding money for debt conditions/ any fine from the investigation. So far nothing has come out of investigation, so I think the mgmt feels confident in releasing money. I hope they will buyback a ton of shares at this price.

I don't think he advises to take home equity loan and invest. He says that lot of people have their savings in low interest paying accounts that have negative earnings after inflation. He wants them to put it into ETFs and bank prefs whose returns are better. He also does not want people to have an emergency fund which earns nothing. He says incase of emergency you can use the credit card/home equity loan for the time being and sell some of your investments that are fully liquid to pay it back.

I think it depends on how they save. If their 'savings' is in Gold or some offshore account which dodges taxes then it does not help anybody but themselves. But if it in the form of stocks, bank deposits or bonds then it definitely helps the company/economy which in turn indirectly helps the employees/public. (even if they do not do charity like Buffett or Gates)

http://www.firstpost.com/business/iphone-5c-for-rs-2500-emi-is-rcom-risking-it-all-with-apple-contract-1206815.html With zero down payments for 16GB models, a subscriber would pay Rs 2,599 per month for an iPhone 5c and Rs 2,999 per month for an iPhone 5s for 24 months to Reliance. As opposed to the upfront cost of Rs 41,900 and Rs 53,300 for iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s respectively. The deal is all inclusive of usage charges, which includes unlimited calls (national and local), 3G internet and unlimited SMSes.