Parsad

It also begs the question...if things are so good and improving in Europe, why would a Euro country resort to such drastic measures? Are they simply playing the North Korea of Europe and bluffing for an easier to implement plan? If so, at what point to other Euro nations get tired of the bluffs from Greece, Cyprus, Spain et al, and say go fu*k yourself! I'm still of the mindset that a monetarily united Europe, is not possible without a fiscally and politically united Europe...we're in the 3rd inning of a 9-inning game over there! Cheers!

That would be mostly correct. The amazing thing was that it was backed by good analysis, not just plain dumb luck over years and years. Cheers!

I don't really care which way the analyst wind blows, but I thought I would still report what Meredith Whitney said about BAC today. Cheers! http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2013/03/18/bank-of-america-is-undervalued-whitney-says/?mod=yahoobarrons

Ok, thanks Ross! Seriously great looking spreadsheet when working. Cheers!

I watched the first couple episodes of "The Following", but it was too easy to figure out what was happening. Cheers!

Hi Ross, Great idea and looking spreadsheet, but I can't get it to work properly. When I enter the ticker symbols and then go to Main and click "Scan List", it just gives me errors. Anyone having problems? Cheers!

LOL! Incidentally, we finally got "Homeland" here, and I've seen the first three episodes. Very good show. I haven't gotten my anti-terror fix since "24" disappeared. Cheers!

SAC's Plotkin Said To Have Been Tipped By Analyst: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-17/sac-s-plotkin-said-to-have-been-tipped-by-analyst.html Cheers!

They made a terrible mistake. Genie is now out of the bottle regarding confiscation of assets. Something that people other than gold bugs have never thought about before or even possible is now contemplated as a real practical solution by politicians. Markets around the world are now coming down. S&P futures are down 1.1%. 1.1% happens once every week! I remember when markets were down 8% on consecutive days...now that's a shitstorm. Cyprus is the canary in a very small coalmine...investors should get concerned when Italy or Japan contemplate doing the same thing. Cheers!

Elon Musk! ;D Cheers!

Bill Miller had $200 million of Bear Sterns. He gave a short talk the morning of March 14, 2008 explaining why Bear Sterns was a good investment. As he was talking Bear Sterns was crashing. LOL! Yeah, I remember that. Alot of things were crashing, while alot of people were talking in 2008, though. He's long Groupon, so let's see if that was a canary in the coal mine in a year or two. Cheers! Groupon has no long term debt and cant even be compared to bear sterns. If you think groupon dies in a year or two this wont look good for overstock either. Did I say that Groupon dies in a year or two? It was a sarcastic comment about the Bear Stearns interview he did, just like right now he recently said he was long Groupon. Cheers!

It's a barbell strategy with asymmetrical and convex payoffs for most investors on the board who have had 20% to 30%+ annual returns over the last 7 to 12 years. This means ultra concentrated positions often with non recourse leverage through options or leaps or warrants for high conviction ideas. On the other hand, it means having enough in reserve to live to fight another day if a high conviction idea doesn't work out or if that idea takes longer to work out than expected. Interestingly, this strategy can be less risky (in the sense of permanent, destructive loss of value) if well thought out than conventional "low risk" strategies that equate volatility with risk. :) That sums it up nicely. Parsad, Dont you mean your fund is in the top 0.1%, rather than top 99.9%. :-). Thanks Al! Yes, I meant top 0.1%. Top 99.9% isn't quite that exclusive! ;D Cheers!

Not in the U.S. But I can easily see a 20-25% correction in the U.S. Let me ask the bulls just one question...do we have a central international clearing house for derivatives yet? Some of the black boxes at financial institutions are now transparent, but has the world gotten any clearer about derivatives risk or dark pools of capital? With all of the financial engineering going on around the world right now, do we really know what could happen if China's property prices drop 40-50%? Or if Italy's government bond rates rise 3-4%? Things are much clearer in the U.S., and I've been saying that for the last three years, but I cannot say that with any confidence about the rest of the world. We are still long good, cheap U.S. equities, but we also have a third in cash and we thin out the herd as prices rise to intrinsic value. Cheers! Yup. But I have no restrictions on the amount in any one idea in my personal account. I can go 100% BAC if I want. Whereas we have an internal cap of 25% for the fund. So generally, unless there is an abundance of ideas, cash will always be higher in the fund than my personal account. Cheers!

Bill Miller had $200 million of Bear Sterns. He gave a short talk the morning of March 14, 2008 explaining why Bear Sterns was a good investment. As he was talking Bear Sterns was crashing. LOL! Yeah, I remember that. Alot of things were crashing, while alot of people were talking in 2008, though. He's long Groupon, so let's see if that was a canary in the coal mine in a year or two. Cheers!

Yup, pretty much. Or they know that the system can be dragged out for over a decade, and there is still the possibility it will fail the prosecutors making the case with no financial settlement. Cheers!

Not in the U.S. But I can easily see a 20-25% correction in the U.S. Let me ask the bulls just one question...do we have a central international clearing house for derivatives yet? Some of the black boxes at financial institutions are now transparent, but has the world gotten any clearer about derivatives risk or dark pools of capital? With all of the financial engineering going on around the world right now, do we really know what could happen if China's property prices drop 40-50%? Or if Italy's government bond rates rise 3-4%? Things are much clearer in the U.S., and I've been saying that for the last three years, but I cannot say that with any confidence about the rest of the world. We are still long good, cheap U.S. equities, but we also have a third in cash and we thin out the herd as prices rise to intrinsic value. Cheers!

Smart guy, a few bad decisions. You are only as good as your last game in this business, so he was a hero for 16 years, and then a zero for four more years. I'm not sure public perception means anything, and investors can still learn from him...both successes and failures. Cheers!

Doesn't look like SAC and Steve Cohen's problems are going to disappear anytime soon, even after the record settlement at Sigma. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-16/sac-criminal-probe-may-expand-on-sec-lawsuit-allegations.html

Are you suggesting I need to read these threads seriously and carefully rather than spending my time making inane gutter-minded comments about 16-yr old stocktrading actresses? What a drag. Palantir, you're a smart guy...you can do both! ;D Cheers!

I think you'll both be quite disappointed within the next two years. After that, I suspect we will see another long multi-year bull market. We are only at the beginning stages of the deleveraging in Europe and I think the China bubble has finally popped. The best indicator will be to watch home prices through Asia, Australia and Canada. If you start to see them going down, things will slow down everywhere outside of the U.S. North America will not be immune to the Asian flu, as the recovery has been underway here, but headwinds are coming. That's my macroeconomic prognostications for now! ;D Cheers!

$2.6B! ;D Cheers!

Exactly correct. In the case studies here, you get the actual emotion that comes out from the underlying investment...you don't get that in a completely sterile and analytical paper. That's why many analysts are terrible investors...the underlying psychology is no different than everywhere else. Cheers! I'm not superinvestor. Our fund is in the top 99.9%, but those guys are head and shoulders higher in returns...granted they used their own personal funds and we have a public fund. Nope, nothing unusual. I thought the stock was cheap, we averaged in on common and we'll wait for development of the underlying assets, a sale of part or all of the assets, or any other form of return on capital. No leverage, no options. I think TPG and the new board will make money for shareholders, while maintaining a prudent balance sheet and a keen eye on capex. All of the excess compensation and conflicts of interest will also go. Cheers!

Exactly correct. In the case studies here, you get the actual emotion that comes out from the underlying investment...you don't get that in a completely sterile and analytical paper. That's why many analysts are terrible investors...the underlying psychology is no different than everywhere else. Cheers!

As cute as she is, Mila Kunis has rotated from cash to stocks...she's been studying internet-based stocks! Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mila-kunis-rotates-cash-stocks-112538935.html

Unfortunately, the case studies are all in the board...years of posting their ideas and comments...including the old MSN Board. Cheers!