Rabbitisrich

I dunno, he didn't offer a real thesis on interest rate directions except to offer a variation of "they can only go up". Similarly, the statement about japanese flows is descriptive, not explanatory. It's like saying that Mcdonald's outperforms because they get customers who pay money for food. Does anyone follow FPA? Why were their returns so low despite holding so much cash leading up to the market drops? Did they let the cash allocations blow up when their stocks collapsed?

The hardware is undeniably great. The 3DS is an AMAZING product. The Wii U is a very logical progression. However: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/handhelds/nintendo-exec-lack-of-great-3ds-games-killed-momentum-990613 http://mynintendonews.com/2012/05/04/miyamoto-says-lack-of-playstation-vita-games-is-killing-handhelds-prospects/ http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/700315/nintendo-admits-losing-momentum-with-wii-blames-lacking-games/ Of course, those articles are based on impressions of numbers, not the numbers directly, but they do cover a period from '09-'12.

The Wii U looks interesting. The old complaint about Nintendo is that they come out with amazing products (Wii and DS), but overly rely upon old brands in those first few months after release. http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/nintendo-wii-u-console-demo-6-15-12/1406484

Some of the lost reputation is healthy for the firm and for its clients. Supporters were getting cultish and credulous because of ECRI's track record. Even now, it is a great record, and Achuthan has been more specific with his criteria recent interviews.

I can't really say because I'm only about 70 pages in, but even if the rest of the book was to start sucking, just what I've read so far would be worth it IMO. Some insightful stuff about mindsets and avoiding bad decision downward spirals, psychological resilience, etc. Some stuff I already knew about, but always good to refresh memory, just like re-reading Buffett. Looks interesting, thanks.

Whoops, I said that it was quarterly in the post above. It's an annual dividend.

I may have imagined it, but did anyone see a newsticker showing that Dell will institute a $0.32 quarterly dividend next year?

Some of the Amazon reviews imply that the techniques Waitzskin offers aren't broadly applicable. Have any of you found practical uses? I read similar critiques for Joshua Foer's book, but the basic descriptions of mnemonic techniques have been extremely productive.

Good book. One interesting nugget was that, according to Richard, financial publication editors measure story "success" by next day market impact.

Pretty interesting, thanks for sharing. Have you seen any responses from AHA representatives or "lipophobes"? The payments for the commercial use AHA symbols were amusing.

It would be more interesting if Biglari achieves insider status and does NOT push for reduced capital spending. Management doesn't share the reasoning for the retail/restaurant split, but there must be some internal research to justify square footage allocations.

I heard a couple good investing related allegories this week. A fisherman noticed that his catch had been particularly good in recent days and decided to mark the location. After making careful measurements, he precisely drew an X on the floor of his boat. An economist absentmindedly drove his car until he felt a thump. Heart pounding, he looked behind and saw a prone figure. With a cry of "I must fix this", he hit the reverse.

Mostly PNC and BAC. I'm still finding financials to be very attractive, though perhaps that demonstrates that I'm getting some major themes wrong.

The problem with the March YTD thread was less about luck, and more about the use of short-term market results to validate business theses. It's an easy habit to form, and fairly dangerous.

There was a March thread about YTD results that was a definite warning sign. When the Corner of Berkshire and Hathaway starts reporting YTD results in March...

Vinod, have you seen any report on this? Nothing that directly addresses the question of causes behind low NIM. But a good paper that goes into the issues is by IMF www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2000/wp0007.pdf Vinod The first attachment looks at the stability of Japanese bank NIMs despite the zero boundary and rising credit costs. The second attachment covers a later period and describes some of the factors that led to improving ROEs despite diminishing NIMs. Tsuyoshi_Oyama_and_Shiratori_Tetsuya_-_Margins_Of_Japanese_Banks.pdf Loukoianova_Elena_-_Changes_In_Japanese_Bank_Profitability.pdf

The downside of being so rhetorically aggressive is that wounded parties don't want to listen: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/the-breakeven-point-wonkish-but-terrifying/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto Paul McCulley held a similar viewpoint and received walking papers from PIMCO for his perspective. Every country can point to unique villains (Greenspan) so it takes a while to see common threads.

Imagine you have $100m that you want to save. What are your alternatives? You don't have FDIC protection (and there is no reasons why bank accounts can't have negative rates), and you can't put that in a safe under your bed. Sure, regular Joe's with $5,000 don't have to accept negative rates, but they aren't the majority of deposits. Not arguing that we will see those rates, but I'm just saying that there is some reason for why T-Bill yields sometimes go negative. It could happen for longer dated issues too. Ben To protect $100m you only need to purchase 400 certificates of deposit -- each one from a different bank. The $250,000 in FDIC protection is only the limit of protection that you have from each individual bank. FDIC coverage is unlimited for non-interest until the end of the year.

I was referring to this quote of his: "...gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939 but civilized people don't buy gold - they invest in productive businesses." Maybe I am interpreting it wrong but he is basically making fun of people who buy gold thinking the shit will hit the fan (hence the holocaust reference.) I was taken aback by the comment as well. But Liberty's interpretation is probably the correct one because the statement doesn't actually make sense if intended to denigrate refugees. Munger probably (hopefully!) meant "civilized" to refer to people living in civilization, and not to connote culture or elegance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/woman-who-couldn-t-be-intimidated-by-citigroup-wins-31-million.html

Any community bankers want to chime in on this company? Does the drop off in charge-offs and special mention look temporary? Comparisons to BBCN from an operational standpoint?

I understand why some investors avoid smallish CRE focused community banks. It can be frustrating to see a good balance sheet go to heck in two quarters just due to the nature of the asset mix. But these guys wrote 68% of their CRE at under 70% LTV pre-Mirae. That shows discipline at a time when your customers' credit reports show more competitor names with every application.

Still looks pretty good to me. One thing the CEO could advertise more is that the NPL/(Gross Loans) figures include FDIC loss shares. Covered non-performers make up a hefty portion of total non-performers.

To clarify, doesn't "notional amount outstanding", as reported by the ISDA, refer to the cumulative notional amount transacted? For example, a $5M par contract purchased five times is recorded at $25M.

I agree with that, other than the 2 additional quarters. I think it will take a little longer because of all of the legal overhang. Why wouldn't WFC maintain a premium vs. BAC, given that USB maintains a premium vs. WFC? Do you see a pathway for BAC to depart from historically inferior unlevered profit margins, and to compensate for the leverage handcuffs of Basel III?