LC

Check their recent IR presentation, they've made some moves recently and are trying to transition into higher margin product. I actually think it looks interesting, the valuation seems amenable, and it showed up on Clipper's 13F recently.

Ah yes I remember now seeing the shareholder list a few months back. I can confirm the ~14m shares. Not sure how much Mohnish controls in total, but his latest 13F was about $330m, obviously not including the foreign shares he owns. Maybe $750m, Fiat representing about a 20% stake. Buy a few Maseratis, Mohnish! :)

JK Bank does look interesting, thanks for bringing it up. Will suggest to some of my Indian friends.

I agree with FP. I've seen this type of greed before, and want no part of it. Ocwen can't charge a markup but Altisource "can". It reminds me of another company I knew. Company A was the main company, Company B had the same owners, office, etc. A would provide scanning services of documents to clients. It would hire B to scan and save those docs. B charged A $15/doc. A charged the client $150 for that service as a "reimbursable". Sounds very similar to what is going on here.

No ideas, I haven't heard anything mentioned. But next Q it will be interesting to see what % of the portfolio is Fiat.

Hey congrats! I love reading your posts and am glad to have you as a forum member.

Picture so everyone can see what having too much money looks like: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAiNulZzM8U/Tnf0ZssIj8I/AAAAAAAAANQ/b04-BvDhMIE/s1600/Alberto%2BGiacometti%252C%2BThe%2BChariot%252C%2B1950.JPG

LC, I started An Elegant Universe today. If you like popular books on physics, one of my favorites is In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin. Excellent, thanks for the recommendation.

Boilermaker, I wholeheartedly recommend an elegant universe. Fascinating and easy-to-understand storyline on major breakthroughs in physics. As a science nerd with no formal science education post university, it was great to read.

I'll take my GCD (garbage can device) in high gloss, please!

Well, they really need to take a tip from Apple. The Echo looks like a glorified trash can. Would it hurt too much to add a little high gloss paint? After all, they want me to put this on my coffee table or bookshelf, not behind the toilet. Whether these in-home devices will take off, I have no idea. I think they might be too early, but what do I know.

Nate, what leads you to draw that conclusion? My gut instinct tells me you're correct, I am curious if you have the data to share. I for one would love to see it.

I think about it more on a competitive basis. The company might have some machine sitting in the factory which they don't use. I'm not going to buy that machine if I were to go into business and compete with them.

Interesting. Do you find that technique works well for business analysis? I can see it being very productive for more routine tasks (TPS reports) but am not sure well it does when trying to assimilate information from different fields. Curious as to your thoughts. As to me, I also do 2-2.5 hr chunks of work, then take 30-60 minutes to do an unrelated activity: cooking, playing a musical instrument, reading sci-fi/fantasy, etc. Then I usually either do some light follow up work, or spend time synthesizing/reflecting on the work done previously with a fresher mind. I guess in terms of activity...I would say do something you've always felt like accomplishing, not money related, just something "cool". I always wanted to learn violin (people can have vastly different opinions of cool!). So I practice 30 min daily. But the point I think is to do something which uses your brain differently so you come back refreshed. Heck, it could be daydreaming about a future in which solar panels and solar plants populate the landscape, we all drive Tesla's, clean energy causes re-design of pollution-soaked cities, or whatever.

ukvalueinvestment, I think it would be a shame. I've experienced university in the USA and Canada. The trend of education in the USA is definitely a downward one, and Canada seems to be following suit. The days of academic learning and then "getting out there" in the real world are mostly gone. Look at pricing at private US colleges: it's all very similar. It resembles an oligarchy and the ones getting screwed are students.

Spoke with another friend in this industry, they own one of the largest pizzeria distributors in the NYC area. Their customers prefer them over Sysco because they are more flexible and can easily arrange that day or next day delivery. With Sysco they would have to work within the Sysco system, it is harder and more expensive for them (in terms of time lost). Seems like a classic area where customer service takes precedence. I don't really have a dog in this. I don't think there are any competitive advantages in this biz. I don't buy the claim that Chef Warehouse has a moat due to the variety of specialized product it offers. I think this is more of a roll-up thing, they go around buying routes and slashing expenses.

Is that part true? If it is, it really doesn't bode well for BRK post-Buffett. On the other hand, pardon me if I'm being sexist or something here, but hiring her straight out of school when he has turned down multiple super talents with far more experience (Pabrai comes to mind) who also offered to work for free/very little may not have been optimal either. http://nypost.com/2013/10/13/buffett-protege-caught-in-ceo-sex-mess/ Haha this is funny. A 29 year old exec hires her 36 year old friend's 61 year old husband. A marriage based on undying love, no doubt, and an executive hire based entirely on merit, I'm sure. Results: as expected.

Thanks for all the replies. For those interested, Punch card investing blog's recent post touches on roll-ups within the transportation industry: http://punchcardblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/c-h-robinson-and-two-sided-markets/

Thank you. I really can't stand scribd. Not sure how it made it to the internet at all. Maybe Amazon can use AWS to host PDFs which we can all read. A little corner of the page would display "powered by Amazon". Does Jeff Bezos read these boards?

I have a few screens set up that I use. They've definitely become much more broad over time (thanks in part to your advice, Nate). Something like fat gross margins and low/no debt. Then I just go from there, see what looks interesting or companies that I haven't seen before. Do some reading etc. it opens the door. Even having stocks in your portfolio is somewhat of a screen. Owning BAC opens you up to competition from other TBTF banks. JPM, WFC, etc. You become invested in what they're doing, who is doing what better, etc. Then you compare those to community banks (Nate, you again) and see what offers the most compelling investment opportunity. So it's kind of stream-of-consciousness a bit, bumbling around between traditional stock screens, industries, business models, etc.

Liberty you say you want to see them succeed at a "good" business, I have two counterpoints: -Succeeding at retail is really hard! Shouldn't this be a compliment of management team, versus succeeding at something where they own the patent and have no competition? -Most businesses aren't good businesses. Most are commoditized in one way or another. Being the low-cost operator in a commoditized business is the best position to be in. My issue with Amazon is growth related. I'm curious where you guys think the growth will come from? The US market is pretty tapped out, no? It's not like there's a state in the Union which has never heard of Amazon before. So is it a matter of pricing power in the US? I don't want to make an investment hinging on that. If the case is that they are the low-cost operator, raising prices defeats that purpose. So you look either domestically to offering new services (which they have I suppose a 50/50 record with) or expanding retail internationally. I don't think the investment works if you're depending on Amazon to get into another line of business domestically which will dramatically move the needle. So you're really looking at international retail expansion. How is everyone thinking about that? How will it be working with Euro/Asian delivery servicers? How competitive are those markets? How do those people shop? Population density in Europe and developed Asia is probably higher than in the US, I presume. Would retail-by-mail even work as well there? These are the questions holding me back.

If you're looking at a very high holding period then management incentives should be in the way of cash. Which metrics would growth in intrinsic value touch? Perhaps it is gross margins above a certain point, revenue growth, etc. Compensate via those metrics. Why would you want less of distributed earnings up front to recoup your investment? Also don't divvy out anything. Just return cash via share buybacks, then split shares, buyback more, etc. More tax friendly I think?

Sadly I am guilty of the same error. Your post made me think of this quote: "The term "value investing" is widely used to imply the purchase of stocks having attributes such as a low ratio of price to book value, a low price-earnings ratio, or a high dividend yield. Unfortunately, such characteristics...are far from determinative as to whether an investor is indeed buying something for what it is worth and is therefore truly operating on the principle of obtaining value in his investments. Correspondingly, opposite characteristics - a high ratio of price to book value, a high price-earnings ratio, and a low dividend yield - are in no way inconsistent with a "value" purchase.

A. Damodaran weighs in: http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2014/10/if-you-build-it-revenues-they-profits.html

JAllen, let me post that quote since it's not visible in your post: "The term "value investing" is widely used to imply the purchase of stocks having attributes such as a low ratio of price to book value, a low price-earnings ratio, or a high dividend yield. Unfortunately, such characteristics...are far from determinative as to whether an investor is indeed buying something for what it is worth and is therefore truly operating on the principle of obtaining value in his investments. Correspondingly, opposite characteristics - a high ratio of price to book value, a high price-earnings ratio, and a low dividend yield - are in no way inconsistent with a "value" purchase.