rpadebet

We need to differentiate a bit here between outcome and process: Beating the market is an outcome. This game is far more enjoyable if the focus is on efficient capital allocation i.e. if you enjoy understanding businesses, their competitive dynamics, the environments they operate in, how they generate revenue, how they spend and how they invest, it is far more fun in my own opinion. This is true irrespective of the market conditions and price where it is trading at. As investors we are only serving as cogs in that wheel trying to move money to the best utilizers of capital given prevailing prices. If we keep doing it right, eventually we might beat the market, as good capital allocations must necessarily triumph over bad allocation. Hopefully we are not doing it only to beat the market, that would just make us keep staring at the scoreboard. Agree with Schwab in that the game seems to be as hard as it ever was. The tools have changed, but everyone has access to similar tools.

You don't need to be on an island 1,000 miles away to be forgotten about in the US: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty Do Puerto Rican's have a vote or elected representative for them in the US Congress? Does their vote matter in the Presidential elections? I suspect not, but then why not?

An auditor is required to be independent. No relations or investments. If so then CPA has done an act "discreditable to the profession" and will lose his certificate. This was a carryover of a conversation from a couple of other threads between Schwab and I The auditor is pretty famous now ..... at least over here! Don't think the auditor is related party/friend or has a business interest. Their 10K says the related party provides financial/accounting services other than audit services I think

" My biggest issue is that they sell pesto at high margins and I don't get it " Ha ha ... I guess there are ppl out there selling colored and carbonated sugar water too for centuries and super high margins

Thanks for your post Schwab Yes the risks with respect to suppliers and distributors are well understood, (I hope). Wouldn't it be too much to expect a diversified supplier and distributor network from a micro cap? Would we expect them to have the bargaining power of a large cap? Yes there is that related party transaction for all financial and accounting needs except audit. It might not be completely kosher from an independent score keeper/oversight point of view, but then again it's a micro cap on the pink sheets. Doesn't make something automatically a fraud just because other fraud's have done something like this in the past. There could very well be legitimate reasons for this. (Could it be that a related family/board member/friend is doing all the financial accounting work and doesn't want to pay an auditor that much for signing off on his work? Not saying it is a good idea nor do i know exactly what is going on here, but isn't it a conceivable reason? To me they seem to be living on the border of stingy/frugal) I am aware I maybe coming off as someone willing to give them the benefit of doubt or looking at the glass as half full, but I look at their history of operations, earnings, dividend payments etc and to me that swings the vote to the optimist side. IMO most frauds are in for the quick money unless you are Bernie Madoff and are riding a tiger you can't get off Very useful to have a skeptic's perspective though always. Investing is hard. It's an art when it comes to judgement's like these

Schwab711 could you pls elaborate

Pretty interesting that their filings refer to auditor in salt lake city On OTC Markets website it is Ocean city, MD with same name, same phone number but different email id to the one in salt lake city or the one covering amnf. Did he just move? Does he maintain different email ids for different clients? The PCAOB audits though indicate deficiencies with convertible debt accounting in 2015 and good will in 2011. Not much debt in AMNF (would be more concerned if there was some revenue recognition deficiency) - but I know this argument still doesn't kill the one cockroach theory. It just seems to me that they are an inexpensive auditor. Those audits also don't indicate presence of any other offices except for the ones in Salt Lake City.

The issue with them is they were spun out of FAB Universal, which ended up being a fraud. Other spin-offs from FAB have done terribly. LSYN still uses the same auditor that FAB used (Gregory & Associates, which is literally one guy in Utah). Almost all of G&A's clients have ended in bankruptcy or fraud. G&A has failed both of their PCAOB audits. The only semi-legitimate client G&A has ever had is AMNF. The cynic in me says clients use G&A for reasons other than auditor attention. I also passed on LSYN at 40-ish cents so I may be biased now. I have no opinion on LSYN otherwise. Auditor for LSYN might be a different G&A LLC than the G&A LLC auditor of AMNF. LSYN guys seem to be from Ocean City, MD AMNF guys seem to be from Salt Lake City, Utah Where do you see Ocean City, MD? I'm pretty interested if there is another G&A or if they have a satellite office. That would be news to me. I went off CIQ so they could be wrong but I just looked at the 10-k and it looks like the same G&A. I looked at the OTC Markets website for both. They could be a satellite office or maybe the OTC site has it wrong

The issue with them is they were spun out of FAB Universal, which ended up being a fraud. Other spin-offs from FAB have done terribly. LSYN still uses the same auditor that FAB used (Gregory & Associates, which is literally one guy in Utah). Almost all of G&A's clients have ended in bankruptcy or fraud. G&A has failed both of their PCAOB audits. The only semi-legitimate client G&A has ever had is AMNF. The cynic in me says clients use G&A for reasons other than auditor attention. I also passed on LSYN at 40-ish cents so I may be biased now. I have no opinion on LSYN otherwise. Auditor for LSYN might be a different G&A LLC than the G&A LLC auditor of AMNF. LSYN guys seem to be from Ocean City, MD AMNF guys seem to be from Salt Lake City, Utah

Too tough, they didn't disclose much 1. business in turnaround...much more valuable if it turns around and that will take time------plenty of names 2. Sum of the parts > market price .... again many names which fit the bill depending on what value you ascribe to which part. All they are saying is they are doing classic value investing....

Why bad? Increased employment->increased wages-> increased expenses/savings/investments -> increased revenues to corps -> higher top-line growth->higher stk prices at static P/S ratio? It would be more interesting to see how the US population will choose to spend the "tax-savings" in the aggregate at this stage of the economic cycle. Growth investors can find value in those sectors/companies if they guess right. Given the continuous/durable nature of these tax cuts compared to some of the other temporary ones we had, at this stage of the cycle, I would guess people would spend on cars and such higher order durable goods. Lucky for value investors these also sport some of the lowest PE's with good operating leverage. To the original point of the thread, there was a global rally in stocks last year. Did everyone think US tax cuts benefit companies everywhere?

If puts expire in the money, aren't you now exposing yourself to short term capital gains rate instead of the favorable long term rate at a time when your stock itself is down? Some of the companies we buy stay undervalued for years but don't we hold those hoping undervaluation would be cured? On the flip-side isn't it ok to have over-valuation persist for a while too? Why not let some good luck offset some of our bad luck. We are not all Malone genius. Investing is complex enough as it is without introducing this new tax dimension

Are you hinting at a use case for bitcoin? 8)

Don't they do this every year? I think it is a pretty good concert to get all the disparate small vendors, suppliers, associates into a room once a year and keep them motivated to continue to do business. Something similar happens in Omaha each year too I hear.

Yes VIG is a good ETF. I considered it. I liked the mutual fund VDIGX more though because it had 50 or so stocks in there. VIG has too many stocks to perform that different from a market cap index. Looking for an ETF which is more like the Magic Formula based ETF with low expense ratio, handful of stocks and fundamental based weighting. The idea being selection of companies and weighting in the index should be "price blind" as much as possible with the market price coming into the picture at the last possible step. An ETF which implements the Buffett-Graham-Dodd rules. Would also be interested in something which implements the Walter Schloss investing style