LC

Well don't just bait us with that, what did Charlie say!? :)

The commons will probably be a smoother ride in terms of price volatility.

Yes but Google has generated SO MUCH customer goodwill by doing all this that customers continue to repay them by using Google search.

"Cigna will fund this transaction with an incremental $100 million of parent company cash, approximately $1.8 billion of investment assets supporting the run-off businesses, and an estimated $300 million tax benefit associated with the transaction."

How does one go about betting on deflation? Short gold or something like that?

Anyone else looking at MBIAs 5.70% 2034 issue? :P

Does the credit spread cause concern for you? I've seen it mentioned recently (either on this forum or other blogspots) that corporate credit is out of whack. That said, I agree with most of what you've written: most large-caps seem fairly valued to me. I'm not sure if small-caps as a whole are overvalued (the ones I own are trading around 15x earnings). Additionally last I checked, the ratio of Market Cap to Nat'l GDP was something like 1.2:1 compared to something like 2:1 during the bubble. IMHO I think the market is slightly overbought (we are near all-time highs without any noticeable "boon" in the day-to-day living of the everyday person, contrasted to the dot-com bubble or the real-estate bubble) but I can't foresee an event on the horizon which would trigger a giant selloff. That said I am about 20% cash but will probably allocate a bit to cash, up to about 25-27%, by taking some profits from some large caps which have become fairly valued and whose businesses I don't want to be in (POT for example).

I like screening for high margin businesses with low PE's. It won't capture everything but it's one place to start. I also screen for low P/B and sort by industries I have a grasp of.

Err...does that imply he completely sold out of AIG & BAC? Edit: NVM, this was from Fairholme's Fixed Income Fund. Apologies for any confusion I may have caused!

Yeah, I wouldn't mind that. As long as it is used. I don't want one job post in there over two years! ;D Cheers! My gut tells me there's more job seekers than job posters on this board, but I would LOVE to be proven wrong!

20%

10-Q out today as well as the conference call: Record quarterly revenues of ~10M, they did a good job keeping COGS down for a gross margin of 60%. Otherwise business as usual, two interesting notes from the conference call: -Management was asked about the competitive landscape and commented "one other product [Cupid] has received WHO approval, however that company is 'a long ways away' from being able to ramp up production to FHCO's level". -In terms of increasing FHCO's production, increased inventory levels are due to filling orders. Additionally, management said there is still room to grow in their current Malaysia facility but they are seeing the limits. However they are confident relatively easily acquire additional production capacity in the same area, and mentioned that forethought was put into their production facilities in terms of future production. They hope to ramp to 200+million units/year. For reference, 2012 produced 60mm units.

Is this a signal that it would like to buyout the minority Chrysler stakes now? Is it more advantageou to do the full integration now or later? I'm not sure what their intentions are. Marchionne says they want to "fix Europe" first before going after Chrysler - plus there is still the issue of what price they need to to acquire the minority stake. But I'm not sure what they need the cash for in the meantime. I think it makes more sense to acquire Chrysler and then figure out what to do in Europe.

Fiat approves 5bln Euro bond issue: http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/FIATY.PK/key-developments/article/2683318 Fiat declines 2012 dividend payment to improve liquidity (and b/c Chrysler restrictions): http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/FIATY.PK/key-developments/article/2683275

I've been buying as well under 14. I think the only person we know isn't selling is Berkowitz.

The way I see it, tech companies with the strongest "Moats" are the systemically important companies. I.e. if you got RID of their product, "chaos" would ensue. Imagine uninstalling Windows from computers nationwide. Nobody at a desk could do any work! Imagine cisco products evaporating and having networks everywhere stop working. There would be so many holes in computer networks that it would take so long a time for businesses to recover they would go bankrupt: hence it's cheaper to keep buying Cisco products/support. Is apple like that? If all iphones went "POOF" and disappeared, I think people would buy a Samsung and move on with their lives. But apple isn't a tech company the way MSFT/CSCO are tech companies. Apple is more like Coke than MSFT. If Coke wound up business, people would just drink Pepsi. So you have to look at apple in a different light than you look at traditional tech company when you analyze their moat. So thinking about it a bit more, what does apple compete on? Coke competes on the pleasure you get drinking a coke. MSFT/CSCO compete on their ability to enable work to be done efficiently. Apple, I think, competes on "pleasure of use". The ecosystem/culture of being an apple user and how using apple products "flow" is what their bread and butter is. Their ability to provide that "flow" to the newest consumer technologies will decide their case.

Well said, Hawk4value.

Would anyone have a scribd login or a downloadable link?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_Progress Has anyone seen this documentary? There were certainly some eerie moments (when the JPM Chase economist divulged his job was to calculate the future earnings of third-world countries, and it was JPM's goal to match those earnings to interest payments they would have to make to JPM). There were other bits related to the IMF etc in the same vein as Confessions of an Economic Hitman. But I think the main point was summed up by the line, "Our society expects economic growth to continue indefinitely, but this is strictly impossible on a planet with finite resources" (paraphrase). I assume we're all to an extent capitalist/profit-motivated here, so I find exposing myself to those who make arguments against capitalism-as-we-know-it can be an enlightening discussion.

My issue is there is no margin of safety. As a previous poster mentioned, the momentum/growth investors are probably pulling out. But are the underlying business economics as favorable moving forward? Apple was the first mover for an entire decade. They reinvented the portable CD player. They reinvented the phone/camera/"notebook". What can they reinvent next? Smartphones/phablets are becoming commodities and I don't buy the "stickiness" of their ecosystem argument. In fact I think Google has a stickier ecosystem, but that's another argument. I see Apple going two ways: either they (1) maximize their current products and turn into a mature cash cow of a company and repatriate their cash to return to shareholders, or (2) go the typical tech company route and burn through all their cash trying to reinvent their way to the top of the food chain again. I fear they will follow the latter route, and I don't think there is an obvious product they can reinvent (and integrate into their ecosystem) next. I'd love to hear any alternate perspectives!

Very good observation! It's also interesting that, when predicting the "decline" of each of these companies, no new competitors names are given. MSFT is going to decline but Win8 is going to successfully compete with Apple's ecosystem. Apple is going to decline but SIRI and iphone apps are going to cut into Google's share of the pie. GOOG is going to decline but replace MSFT as in the future as we all move to the cloud. It's like rock-paper-scissors, but everyone loses in the end!

I can't believe I actually know what you are referring to. They don't make them like Jean Claude Van Damme anymore. Don't mess with me, I'm a Kumite champion.

What do use to get those types of alerts?

The average turnaround takes 7 years according to Bain Research.... ;) Does that include Mitt Romney's political career? :)

Hah! If I were to stare myself in the mirror and ask why I like LEAPs more than almost any other instrument, this would be it. The only exception would be warrants, although it's a close tie given the leverage LEAPs provide.