Rabbitisrich

An interesting anecdote about Wells Fargo and the relative stickiness of the enterprise segment: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/169340/20110624/iphone-smartphone-blackberry-wells-fargo.htm Blackberrys, said one Wells Fargo Advisors regional vice president who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from the company for speaking out on the issue, are what the company provides those who work for the brokerage firm side of the bank. He also said IT employees don't like being asked about the iPhone for company use. "It scares them," he said of the iPhone.

This thread should be renamed "Who bought RIMM and who bought SD?"

So are the retail stores meant to attract to tourists to the restaurant, and the restaurant to attract diners to the kitsch? If retail brings more people to restaurant, then wouldn't they show above average gross margins, or higher restaurant sales per square foot? Has management discussed the metrics they use to evaluate the hybrid model vs. standalone? I've never been to a Cracker Barrel so I don't have a feel for the customer experience.

If you go back to the 4Q10 conference call, Steve Jobs predicted that your reaction would be widely shared. The whole call is a worthwhile review and it details his thoughts on Apple's competitive advantages vs. Goog, Rimm, and MSFT. We've now passed RIM, and I don't seem them catching up with us in the foreseeable future. They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company. I think it's going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android. With 300,000 apps on Apple's App Store, RIM has a high mountain ahead of them to climb.

Cracker Barrel has always been rather mysterious with its refusal to break out restaurant/retail margins. There is a lot of square footage devoted to the retail space.

Just days after management reported he was "supportive." I mostly agree that most market gurus are charlatans, or at least not as great as everyone thinks. When the fame and fortune was attained through one or two events (like betting against subprime) as opposed to a lifetime of good investing decisions, the "guru" status is even more questionable, no matter how well thought out the one mega trade was. This doesn't mean Paulson is not a very good investor, we all have our mistakes, but this cements the fact that comparisons of him to greats like Buffett are patently ridiculous. Buffett would of never gotten caught up in this. What about Gen Re?

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D ;) :D This is getting serious. Google core U.S. search share only rose by 0.1% to 65.5% in May. Can they hold off the Bing onslaught?!!

Woltac, I didn't mean to be so cryptic. I was referring primarily to the "obligations under leases" and the discounted operating leases. At the current price, and without a significant source of low cost leverage, you need an optimistic view of future ROA. Regarding cost of equity, while difficult to calculate, it is a cost that comes to bear when you issue more shares. The discussions about valuation may be theoretical but it is real cost.

Property360 also interviewed Stephen Way, CEO of HIIG and former CEO of HCC, who commented on pricing: . You can quote me. There’s no hope. Rates aren’t going up. In many cases, they are still going down. They are woefully low at this point, and if the industry didn’t have the reserve releases we’ve been seeing over the last 18 months, we would already be seeing red ink.]As to the market-turn inference, we are not at the end of the soft market. We might see some increase in property rates, but there is no hope of casualty business [hardening]. You can quote me. There’s no hope. Rates aren’t going up. In many cases, they are still going down. They are woefully low at this point, and if the industry didn’t have the reserve releases we’ve been seeing over the last 18 months, we would already be seeing red ink. http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2011/06/17/picky-hiig-seeks-unadvertised-specials

It's important to take matters into your own hands because, sometimes, parents just don't understand.

I'm still up in the low teens due to a concentration of insurance, media, and commodity stocks plus some fortuitous selling. I took a couple of retail hits, particularly with SPLS. In June, I made a big move into large cap financials, so if China weakens precipitously, or the Euro problem is bigger than it appears, this move will not look so good.

I'm ambivalent on his ethics, but I don't see a reason for stockpickers to purchase the stock at this price. The restaurant operations are not particularly cheap, and BH's cost of capital isn't particularly low.

Yeah, it's interesting that so much regulatory focus is on capital adequacy. That's fine if a "TBTF" bank collapses due to idiosyncratic problems, but the extra percentages will evaporate in a financial crisis. 10+ years from now, the capital requirements might actually increase the odds of another crisis by encouraging banks to get "creative" to keep up with rising market ROEs. Txlaw, that distinction is important. Fairfax shorts circa '03-'05 conveniently painted all finite transactions under the same brush, but that is about as analytically sound as measuring a bank by the dollar amount of its commercial real estate loans. In fact, AIG recently purchased finite coverage for asbestos claims from Berkshire.

A bemoated company can stay small due to limited reinvestment opportunities. Strong moats also tend to attract mediocre management. Avalon Holdings is a good example.

Have to completely disagree; it's a terrible letter where the author contradicts himself completely. Block's short thesis also consisted of refutable, or at least disputable, arguments. Compare his report on Sino-Forest to John Gwynn's claim of massive under-reserving at Fairfax.

Agreed with all the statements regarding Berg's ability. However, I do wonder how someone who appears to be so thorough in process maintains such a modest spread over the S&P. Presumably he requires a valuation haircut and conservatively assesses business results, so is he simply making a lot of errors to erode the margin of safety? Or demanding too little in the way of discount?

Interesting article. I wonder why we don't hear more similar stories of corporations laundering money that is subject to unrepatriated income tax. The parent could guarantee the subsidiary debt and dividend the amount borrowed.

I assumed that would be treated as a taxable repatriation. Otherwise, why aren't they all doing this? Company can then issue shares on the US exchange. Buy back on one, issue on the other. Repatriated cash. No, this must be taxable, that's too much of a scam. I think that you are right because when the repatriated income tax was temporarily lifted in 2004, most of the money went into stock buybacks and dividends, and 15 multinationals repatriated over half of the cash.

What is the dirt on him? I feel like I should know. His biography (per Microsoft): http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/bod/rgilmartin/ He was the CEO of Merck when salesmen were given special tactics to avoid discussing the cardiovascular side effects of Vioxx. It took four years after a study in 2000 pointed to heart complications for Vioxx to be pulled off the market.

What about Raymond Gilmartin's board membership?

Maybe you are recalling an interview with Jonathan Dash of Dash acquisitions: http://classic.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1497317094&play=1

Todd Sullivan put forth a similar argument for Sears Automotive and Autozone about three years ago. It's possible that redemptions or the like interrupted those plans, but it could also be that Lampert recognized a stable business model run by a profit focused team. Perhaps the GAP investment is similar in that he is focused upon management's handling of margins and cash allocation rather than the revenue trend. EDIT: Oops, I basically repeated JSArbitrage's comment.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/canadians-putting-more-cash-toward-homes-rbc/article2029516/ The problem is especially pronounced in Vancouver, where [Royal Bank of Canada] estimated families must now dedicate 72 per cent of their household income to pay the mortgage, property taxes and utilities on a bungalow. That's much higher than Toronto, where it would take 47.5 per cent. Good lord!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/business/17bank.html?_r=1 Officials in Eric T. Schneiderman’s office have also requested meetings with representatives from Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, according to people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. The inquiry appears to be quite broad, with the attorney general’s requests for information covering many aspects of the banks’ loan pooling operations. They bundled thousands of home loans into securities that were then sold to investors such as pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies.

Gross ratio of execs to prostitutes.