luck

true, with analysts you never know what they'll come up with. that said, having another person might yield some time for due diligence in the plant, contrary viewpoints, etc. i believe guy spier is a mohnish sounding board to a certain extent. wonder if anyone has heard anything from him? personally, i appreciate pabrai quite a bit - even with zinc debacle. i sized zinc at 1% and made far more than that in fiat, gm, goog, bac - which were initially sized much larger. beyond money, i appreciate his sense of humor, generosity via lectures, etc. as well. great guy.

yeah, the bottom line is pabrai became a bit overconfident as he started doubling down until the cows came home. he once had a rule for capping exposure at 10% & then got rid of the rule. now he's going back to an even smaller allocation rule after this debacle. i imagine after 2013 with fiat, gm, etc. hitting big, it all got to his head a little bit. i believe with fcau, race, goog, gm warrants, he is sitting on a decent portfolio going forward & i am sincerely hoping that all his shareholders make their way out of this. so far, the only bright side is the tax loss to offset gains this year.

i know mohnish takes great pride in hiring his six or so part-time housewives/grandmas, but at this point he may want to break out the bank and hire an analyst. after a debacle like this (20+% position now close to 0), if i were a pabrai funds shareholder, i would like a few folks around him to keep him in check.

agree. everyone takes a zero once in awhile. it's the position sizing that is wild. i imagine smaller investors without pabrai's net worth with 20%+ in this were hurt big time. pabrai has actually made me a ton of money with fcau, gm, bac, which were all large positions. i have no ill will towards pabrai. zinc was a tiny position, but still an awful experience as we approach zero.

wow. down another 35% to around 42 cents so far. don't think the market believes zinc mgmt is going to make the payment. can't blame them given mgmt track record.

FWIW, Ali Alavi telling Pittsburgh Post Gazette that company planning to make debt payment by January 31st: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-news/2016/01/14/Horsehead-handling-questions-on-its-debt/stories/201601140060

fyi, this is one of ali alavi's responses from someone that emailed him. there was another similar response i believe posted before that was slightly different (i think). "I believe the volatility is related to an article published today by Debtwire that reported on a "missed payment" on our convertible notes. There is a 30 day grace period for such payments during which time payment is still considered to be on time. We are still within that grace period so describing it as a missed payment or failure to pay may be viewed as a bit of a mischaracterization in light of the existence of the grace period." i'm skeptical like everyone else. maybe we'll get a press release sometime soon.

yeah, 80 million. hard to have anticipated zinc price fall, but, with respect to plant issues, guessing cfo he brought into the annual meeting and others probably painted a false picture of hope. even now, management coming up with some "grace period" excuse. unbelievable that pabrai got into bed with this team. not to bash pabrai though, i made a tremendous amount of money on fiat, which was first brought to my attention by pabrai & spier. he seems to be a great person all around. i just think he has an almost insane appetite for risk.

don't think mohnish sized any of his other zero's at 20+% though (prior to drop). amazing. guessing he will provide some thoughts to his fund's investors. guy spier with the aquamarine fund, who was heavily invested, might do the same. posco, pkx, is another commodity position that has jackknifed down in both pabrai funds & aquamarine funds.

wow. -45% today. i believe pabrai brought one of the top zinc execs to his last fund meeting. wondering what he said? haven't heard anything out of spier or pabrai recently about $zinc.

wondering if anyone has heard anything from mohnish pabrai regarding ZINC. from what i remember, this was once a 22% (ballpark) position. wondering if anyone knows if he is still in it or has any recent thoughts? thanks in advance.

yeah, that's true. value act's g. mason morfit was on the board for quite some time. guessing no one asked the hard questions in the board meetings all these years.

from the recent wall street journal article, it looks like ackman is still in it after questioning valeant. wild that two of buffett's most admired investors, lou simpson & greg alexander were probably in this. the company really does need to come out and say something at this point with price under $80. if there were massive fraud, i think value act would have cut and run by now since there guys are on the board.

FWIW, Barclays keeps its $300 price target on VRX. Not sure if I can paste the link as it is on another investor message board. If anyone's interested, I can post the text I guess (pretty long).

cogitator, the guy who buffett once said was the best investor on the planet, lou simpson (previously with berkshire), had around 12% of his fund in valeant as of last q. with valeant, probably best not to rely much on 13F's given the complexity.