Parsad

We haven't bought anything yet, but I've been digging around trying to find out what is the best way to take advantage of this. The actual natural gas companies haven't been discounted enough...hopefully they will soon as their hedges run out. Cheers!

I think like most CEO's, Byrne sells some shares annually and they are pointing out the fact that he sold at a good price. Big deal! If he sold a really big chuck of his shares, then it would be something to be concerned with. He sold around 2%! How is Dr. Byrne's father doing? I don't see him on the seven person board--just six--and I haven't located a PR where he left since re-arriving in 2010. It's there, dig around. He left the board as his health was not good. Cheers!

Excellent article on Li-Ka Shing. Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/where-asias-richest-man-is-putting-his-money-now/article2361681/page1/

Don't worry about market capitalization...worry about equity, because that is actually what they have to spend. Fairfax's equity was $2.2B...so if they spent even $50M a year, they could afford it...and their equity today is $8B! Overstock's equity was about $14M and bounced up to $30M at the beginning of 2011. They could not afford to spend $16M on legal costs. That's why they have a $17M working capital deficit right now. I don't see how OSTK can go BK anytime soon. It's not going bankrupt anytime soon. They have $95M in cash and they will generate about $30M-$40M in free cash flow this year if they cut payroll and legal as they have said they will do, and their traffic goes back up to levels before the 2011 google penalty. Traffic has rebounded quite a bit, and I think they will be fine. But they have to stick to cutting costs and marketing their retail business. Cheers!

They didn't need $16M to do it. They already had the attention two years ago, and they didn't spend anywhere near $16M. If they won this case, it would have been huge. But it has been dismissed so far and we'll have to see exactly what happens upon appeal. So the "win big, lose little" moto is at work...unfortunately, $16M for a $300M market-cap company, with $30M equity and barely profitable, was more like win big, lose big! Let me ask you...whose reputation right now would be ranked the highest...Prem Watsa, Steve Cohen, Jim Chanos, Daniel Loeb, Morgan Keegan, or Adam Sender? The answer is obviously Prem Watsa! Prem focused on the business and fought the lawsuit second...and the cost was not exorbitant for a company with $8B in equity. Cheers!

People have been saying this business should be able to grow at 10-15% a year for a very long time. I was reading old articles on OSTK this weekend just for fun, and almost everybody had modeled OSTK's revenue over $1.5 billion by the end of last decade. The VIC writeup in March 2006 had a "conservative" growth scenario of $1.7 billion in revenue by 2009 and an "optimistic" scenario of $2.2 billion. Effectively it has: - Growth in revenues 2002-2012 = 27% annualized But the last five years of growth has been one good year after one really bad year, over and over. And I agree with you, that cost has been a result of Byrne's distractions from the lawsuit and Deepcapture.com. There is absolutely no reason why a $300M market cap company had to spend $16M on litigation last year! Or why a small percent of Overstock's revenues were being spent to support Deepcapture. It's not his little piggy bank! At some point, and hopefully it's before they run into a truly stagnant period like Sears, Byrne refocuses the business and resumes his 15% a year trajectory. If and when that day comes, and I'm definitely betting on it, the shorts are in big trouble! Cheers!

Probably for Kirk Cameron as well! ;D Cheers!

You've only got about 30% float on the outstanding shares and over 35% of that is shorted. In other words, on any positive news or a share buyback, the shorts are going to get the shit squeezed out of them. When the shorts were targeting Fairfax, you had about 55% float and about 20% of that was shorted at the peak. If Byrne cuts legal by $10-12M, cuts across the board payroll and other expenses to get the $8.5M he quoted in the presentation, and if revenues get back over $1.1B, they should be able to earn about $18-20M after tax (since they will barely pay any tax for the next 5-7 years). That's about 6 times earnings, for a business that should be able to grow at 10-15% a year. Cheers!

Not sure if this was posted before, but Prem is getting an honorary law degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business on April 4th! Congratulations Prem! Does this mean you are now Chairman, CEO and chief legal counsel for Fairfax? ;D http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/stories/2012/February/watsa_to_receive_honorary_degree.html Thanks to our director Andrew Cooke for sending me the link! Cheers!

Mohnish presented for Dr. George Athanassakos class on February 15th. You are going to have to crank up the volume, as it is hard to hear. George, we have to find you a better way to record the Skype presentations! ;D Cheers! http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Resources/Video_Presentations/Guest_Speakers/2012/Pabrai_2012.htm

Are you two actually arguing with each other because you agree on the same thing? ;D What's the matter with you both! By the way, if any of you are still shorting Overstock, I think it may be a big mistake. Cheers!

First Glenn Beck, now Limbaugh! ;D Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/rush-limbaugh-controversy-12-companies-counting-pull-ads-164335691.html;_ylt=AoimWVbroZ8shkh5CPCcq4aiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0cTQwYWRiBG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEZQIFRvcCBTdG9yeSBSaWdodARwa2cDNzYxMmYyMDItZGE4OC0zYjhlLTg1OTAtYjk0ZThhNDVkNTUwBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzhlY2Y3YTIwLTY3YmMtMTFlMS1iZmFmLTMxYWFkNDU0ZWI3Ng--;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

It isn't Sam, although I think Patrick is now being forced to realize that they have to keep a tighter rein on costs. You can't just expect blow-out growth in such a competitive market, unless you have a killer product. They don't! What they are is in the online retail business, which could be very nicely profitable and growing over the long-term. But like any business, it isn't going to be worth anything if it isn't making money. They needed to cut costs and they need to focus on the business, not the lawsuit. I think they may have come to that realization after the case was dismissed and they had this really shitty year! Cheers!

They are getting older and there is a limited amount of time. Much of the same questions the journalists ask are the same ones asked in the shareholder meeting. He's also on CNBC so much and doing other interviews...is there really anything we don't know about Buffett and Berkshire? When I go to Omaha, it is non-stop from Friday to Monday morning with maybe 5 hours of sleep a night, and I'm exhausted by the time I fly back and my throat is raw from all the talking. So I can only imagine what an 82 year old and 88 year old feel like, and they do a hell of a lot more over those three days. Cheers!

Hi Alekbaylee, That's funny! I've forwarded the link and information to Fairfax. Cheers!

Roughly 10% of outstanding loans! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/student-loan-delinquency-reached-85-billion-in-third-quarter.html

Article on the stress tests. Results will be out next Friday I believe. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/lenders-stress-over-test-results-.html;_ylt=AuDv5aWmfcXmV8LuLs0g7SWiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0NmE1MG9xBG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEZQIFRvcCBTdG9yeSBSaWdodARwa2cDNmJhYjE0MDItZDc4Yi0zMzRhLWE3MzEtZTM2YmEwOTMyZGZmBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzk4MDQxYjMwLTY2ZTctMTFlMS1iYmVhLTNlNTc2NzJiZmY5NA--;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

This time it's a few of our run-off subs fighting against tort claims by "paralyzed kids", while the subs donated to lobbyists and political parties. I really think corporations should not be allowed to donate to political campaigns or these lobbyists. While they may pay tax, they are entities, not actual individuals or citizens. Fight it in the courts, not with your income statements! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/paralyzed-kids-employ-florida-lobbyists-with-millions-at-stake.html?cmpid=yhoo

You got to admit, Carl in his unique and annoying way, was right about Antar. It didn't take Sam long to come out with something. Carl, I would take it down a notch...the volume is getting too high! Cheers!

No, not at all. http://www.investorplace.com/2012/02/suncor-su-continues-to-profit-from-oil-sands-energy-stocks-to-buy/ Cheers!

Excellent article on natural gas: http://www.cnbc.com/id/46606934?__source=yahoo|headline|quote|text|&par=yahoo Combine the oil sands in Canada with natural gas production in the U.S., and I suspect those questions of how will the United States feed its energy needs over the next 50 years are put to an end. We haven't even touched on wind, solar, liquid metal batteries or nuclear energy. Cheers!

Yeah, those reductions will all have an effect from 1st Q 2012 on. I'm all for nailing these guys, but $16M in legal expenses for a $150M market cap company is an ill-advised gamble. The best thing for Overstock.com may actually be the dismissal of the case. Even if Fairfax's legal bill is four times that, that's a huge difference for a company with over $8B in equity! Prem can afford to fight this fight, whereas Overstock.com unfortunately can't. I think those two businesses are completely comparable. They be two of the most comparable online businesses you can find, even though their origins were a bit different. - Overstock.com ranks 550th as the most visited site globally, whereas Zappos.com ranks 601st. - Both hit about $1B in revenues at the same time. - Both launched around the same time back in 1999. - Both deal with online retail. - Both have excellent customer service. If you give them a run rate of about $4M in annual legal costs (so a savings of $12M from their 2011 number), and lop off the $8.5M in reductions they are making on the employee side in 2012, you have a buisness that would have about $20M more in pre-tax earnings. They have something like $160M in tax losses they can use. So they would have broken even...in a year when they were penalized by Google from mid-January to mid-April, and sent 8 of 13 customers to O.com instead of O.co during the Christmas season. Zappos was bought for over $900M by Amazon.com or about 1 times revenue. How can anyone say that Overstock.com is worth about 0.15 of revenues? Cheers!

They answered three of my questions earlier that coincided with another shareholder's questions (bonuses, Worldstock, expenses), and then no comment on the question on why two enormously different valuations between Zappos and Overstock.com. Cheers!

Actually, the call is pretty damn good! They are addressing some of the issues that we had, as well as some other large shareholders: - cut expenses - hire a reputable executive from a reputable company to take this thing to another level - legal expenses should come down this year considerably - stop the crazy marketing ideas like O.co...Patrick's idea And then unfortunately right now, Patrick said "I feel there was a serial killer on the loose...Goldman Sachs." They've got to move Patrick to the Chairman position, and just let the rest of the executives run this thing. Geez! Cheers!

Very disappointing! I've got a bunch of questions in to the webcast, so let's see how many they answer. Frankly, I don't know how you lose money when you have $1B in revenues. You should be able to squeeze out a 1% net profit margin. It's not like they are Sears and have all this capex and built in cost. Zappos hit $1B at the same time and sold for $900M...this thing is at $140M! Either they need new blood in there or people aren't doing their job! And why they hell would they pay bonuses in 2011 with a year like this? I'd like to see Fairfax and Francis throw their weight around a little more on this thing too. I know Sam is on the board, but this thing needs someone to turn it around like Netjets. Just no reason why it should lose money and be valued where it is! Cheers!