Spekulatius

That's because 44% of the dealer's profit comes from parts and service. That will almost disappear if they are selling EVs instead of ICEs. So EV's don't need spare parts? I guess the auto part retailers will have even larger problems some time down the road. An ICE has over 200 parts, an electric engine less than 10. ICEs require a transmission, tailpipe, gears, and a bunch of grease-covered stuff, EVs do not. EVs do not require oil changes. Here are the motor and batteries in a Tesla, https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6235/6875778848_d9a5524e8e_b.jpg Proof is in the pudding though: http://www.consumerreports.org/cars-tesla-reliability-doesnt-match-its-high-performance/ I understand that the electric motors has less moving parts than a combustion engine, but a lot of reliability is due to the design and manufacturing tolerances. I have had quite a few vacuum cleaners go broke with way less operating hours than my car.

I think the issue with a lot of deep value investor is that they forget about rule #1 from Buffet (or Graham for that matter) : Don't lose money! With most of Choe's holding, I see a lot of ways where he can lose money - VRX, RFP and other are very very risky stocks. They may trade below intrinsic value, but there are huge error bars with those intrinsic value estimates. I think WEB had very low losses throughout his career, because he considered the downside much more than Chou does and stayed within a much narrower circle of competence.

The tubes are not the issue, it is easy to build tubes that are able to sustain athmosperic pressure, what do you think vacuum equipment is build of? The idea of a hyperloop sort of system is very old - I have a future tech book from the 70's, where Systems with tubes and trains under vacuum driven by electromagnetic fields were proposed. The problem is not to thinks this up, it is to make all that work, to put the huge infrastructure in place, design the trains, power them, find a way to sustain vacuum (how do you do that with trains getting in and out?), to power the trains and to do all this safely and cost effective. Itis going to be a long time, until we see something. Also keep in mind that conventional trains can do 250mph and more, Maglev trains can go even faster. the quantum jump of a hyperloop is not even needed, if we could just exploit current technology and put it into place. Even that is not happening in the US, because it is too expensive, at this point the hyperloop is just futuristic nonsense when we can't even put a decent high speed rail in place in the US.

That's because 44% of the dealer's profit comes from parts and service. That will almost disappear if they are selling EVs instead of ICEs. So EV's don't need spare parts? I guess the auto part retailers will have even larger problems some time down the road.

Well, can the taxes realy go to zero, if the property value goes to zero? A house may cost 30k, so if you keep the property tax at 1.2%, like it is in other parts of the US, this is $360 per year, can this really pay for firefighters, schools etc? I agree that property taxes are too high in some areas, but at some point, you need to look at the tax as the price for services provided, not a percentage of the value of the house.

Trading on Trumps tweets are Hail Mary's... I bet he doesn't even remember in the evening what he tweeted about in the morning, the ridiculous fact aside that he uses this medium to begin with. Didn't one of the he value guys state in his letter that the he majority of the Millenium generation trades on Trump's tweets? God bless them.

His banks stocks are working obviously. Who knows whether others will work at some point too perhaps. I guess if you are a value investor you should always look into the intrinsic value vs. the market value. Not market value as an absolute indicator... I think the intrinsic value of most of his holding has been going down. Someone in the SHLD thread brought up the great mental picture of a large sack of cash that is on fire. Well, it matter less how large the sack of cash is - the much more important question is if the fire can be put out at all, because if it can't, the cash will turn into ashes; is is just going to be a matter of time.

1400 shares isn't really that much, if you manage OP's money, is it? I can live with IB's reporting, but the lack of support for something as widely used as TurboTax is unexcusable. Every other broker that I know of, supports Turbotax, IB does not.

Chou' style seems to be to buy really crappy business at a very low price. This does not seem to work out well right now.

I am not qualified to have a medical opinion on this issue, other that I am hearing stories from my wife, who works as a nurse in a dialysis center. Most of these patient are sick due to loss of kidney function, with very high blood pressure being the most common problem. The dialysis only can do a fraction of the function that a healthy kidney can do. A kidney transplant, while not without risk, seems vastly preferable, but there are not enough transplants available and many patient are not eligible (weight, blood pressure etc). Also, transplants wear out due thenneed to use heavy medication that suppress rejection, so there are issues with that as well. It sucks have a kidney that does not work and not being able to per , since you basically can't dispose of waste. in addition, the kidney fulfills other duties to control blood pressure, produces hormones and dialysis by itself does not Adresse those at all. Just an opinion, by there is a real need for a better mousetrap and a huge unmet need to replace failing kidney functions. Hopefully someone will find a way to meet that need better than the current dialysis procedure, but there is nothing out there in the net 10 years, if not more.

It makes no sense to me either. This stock is owned by deep pocketed investors, not retail. I think folks short this as a derivative play of an SHLD short, because the borrow is way cheaper and there is more liquidity. It's appears a pretty stupid play, because a Sears bankruptcy will in my opinion not impact the investment thesis and in fact even may accelerate the value creation. I would laugh if SRG on the day of SHLD bankruptcy announcement gaps down $3 and then recovers the losses before the day is over. Wouldn't surprise me the least and I don't think there are quite a few in investors willing to step in when SRG shares fall, but what do I know. disclosure: I don't own SRG Don't you think SRG still needs some time to develop more properties to have the cash flows to stand by its own? If we see a Sears bankruptcy too soon, SRG might have to hold the bag with too many undeveloped properties and their existing costs etc. Perhaps you think SRG is already pass this point, not sure... I think they will be fine, even if SHLD were to go bankrupt tomorrow. For one, SHLD going bankrupt does not mean that all the stores will close and stop paying rent at the same time. They will have to close some and probably keep others open to liquidate properly, especially if they are cash positive on a store basis. I also think SRG would raise funds easily with a rights offering. Sure, the stock might go down a little, but even that is not a sure thing. I think Eddie would be happy to pump money into this business and WEB would not have an issue either.

It makes no sense to me either. This stock is owned by deep pocketed investors, not retail. I think folks short this as a derivative play of an SHLD short, because the borrow is way cheaper and there is more liquidity. It's appears a pretty stupid play, because a Sears bankruptcy will in my opinion not impact the investment thesis and in fact even may accelerate the value creation. I would laugh if SRG on the day of SHLD bankruptcy announcement gaps down $3 and then recovers the losses before the day is over. Wouldn't surprise me the least and I don't think there are quite a few in investors willing to step in when SRG shares fall, but what do I know. disclosure: I don't own SRG

I would think that Hertz should resolve this, if their Fastrak does not work. My experience is that Hertz has come from best in class for service to sleazebags, who try to nickel and dime their customer at every opportunity that represent itself. I had a case where the charged me a ridiculous amount of insurance for a rental at a business trip to Europe, and pretty much decided that I will never touch Hertz again (i was Gold member). No surprise their stock is in the toilet, imo. P.S Nice talking to you the other day :-)

I agree with Scott here. conventional wisdom get you conventional results - if you are happy with that, fine. If not, think different! While I don't agree with everything that Scott writes, unconventional thoughts add much more value to these boards than rehashing the same things over and over.

IMO, this really is the key ;) Scott's shit smells better than mine. I personally love rubbing my nose in it

In my opinion, one should sell when the initial thesis to justify the purchase was found to be incorrect, or when adverse things occur, that have not been anticipated. Just empirically, I have found that the initial stock movements, as significant as they appear to be at that time, rarely are large enough to capture the full impact of change that occurred, which means that more declines are likely. I am not talking about 1c /share earnings miss here. I am talking about a significant shift, like a huge write off, and large unexpected loss, a severe decline is margins or revenues etc. that were not expected at all. If these occur, my rule is to sell as quickly as I can and then to re-evaluate.

I agree with Picasso here that I wouldn't give him a dollar of my own money. for me, it is debatable if he is a clown, since me made out extremely well for himself, projecting the image of an astute investor, while he really is a gambler. The clowns are the people who give him money to invest, imo.

Me too, just after I contacted the company again. Looked at it briefly for now. Same old same old. Here is what bothers me most about HNFSA, ever since I purchased the stock: When will the employee who is creating the photocopies, straighten out the pages before making the copies? I guess we are lucky that we don't see remnants of the employees breakfast or lunch on the pages, but still.

If the zombie status remains as it is right now, ithr common and preferred are zeros too, it just will take a long time until all hope isn't gone and the stock prices adjust accordingly. And its been discussed multiple times over the "zombie status" cannot persist. I beg to differ. Whatever can exist for 9 years can exist for 90 years. I have never heard a convincing argument why not. I agree that it those entities probably will not remain in the current state, but I think they could, especially since the status quo works really well for the government right now.

For US stocks, that depends on whether tax reform gets done in 2017 like they're aiming for. Assuming rates continue to slowly rise, then if the tax cuts are deep the market is not expensive. If they pass something mediocre, I'd say the market is somewhere between stretched and very expensive. If they can't pass anything, then bubble's the right word. Right now, the market seems to be betting something big will happen on tax reform before the end of the year. Time will tell. As for large cap US tech growth stocks, they're still between cheap and fairly priced. From what I've read, mid-caps are the most overvalued stocks. Relative to other stocks, I agree that large cap tech stocks are not overvalued. I think the case can easily be made that GOOG for example is undervalued, since it is a business with vastly above average prospects trading for not much more than the market multiple. I think a lot of overvaluation is in crappy small cap and mid cap stocks, as well as in somewhat cyclical business Tax cuts don't matter for the valuation, in my opinion, unless they favor stocks over other asset classes, which I don't believe to be the case.

I have yet to click on a FB ad as well. I don't do much FB either, I have used it more about 2-3 years ago, but found it a waste of time and now use it only occasionally. I am obviously in the minority based on FB business prospects.

Don't we have a bubble right now? Bonds, stocks, real estate... But then again, bubbles are only hubbles in hindsight after they popped. Before they pop, they re called secular trends, peak X, Outsiders companies etc.

If the zombie status remains as it is right now, the common and preferred are zeros too, it just will take a long time until all hope isn't gone and the stock prices adjust accordingly.

I don't know -- I've made good money in crowded, megacap growth companies. Should I give it back? You will. 8)

My longest held shares were Nestle, which I bought in 2003 and sadly had to sell in 2013, because I had to liquidate my foreign account in which the shares were held, because German brokerages would not do business with US persons any more, due to onerous anti- money laundering laws. I rebought Nestle again recently when the stock fell somewhat. My current longest term holding is LAACZ, which I purchased early 2012. I found that buying shares that don't trade much easier to hold, because they are harder to sell. ;)