Parsad

I'm not sure exactly what transpired there, but these guys have no idea what equitable compensation is. It's the main reason I never touched the stock when it fell below book. It had to fall to 60% of book for me to say, ok now I can consider this business because there are idiots in charge and I need a really significant margin of safety. How can you screw up a company that generates so much free cash, has no debt and you've just finished renovating 75% of the stores...and you've still got a ton of cash on hand? Well, you can go and continue to renovate, even through the incremental benefit from remodelling those stores will be far less than the capital expense. Thank God they came to their temporary senses in the last six months, and decided to slow down the remaining remodelling. This is a simple business in a cut-throat industry, but they have huge advantages over their competitors since coming out of bankruptcy with a clean balance sheet. This was not the way this business should have gone. Hopefully, somebody can ram some sense into management, or step in and takeover, but I'm not betting on it...thus the profit-taking as it goes up. Cheers!

Well, we generally sell early unfortunately. I'm sure you will walk away with more by being more patient, but we average in and we average out. In WINN's case, we started buying when it was down already, and it never went down much further. I think if it was run well, it should trade around $10-11...near book. I'm concerned about management, thus we aren't quite as patient. It was just dirt cheap and had great cash flows, so we bought when it had been beaten up badly. All the company needs is to spend less on renovations and capital expenditures, and put the rest back into share buybacks or a dividend. At least until the stock is near book, and then they should just redistribute whatever capital is in excess of normal operating expenditures. Unfortunately, you've got a CEO who thinks he can turn it into the next Albertson's in their heyday, but the market is very different and there is much more competition these days at various pricepoints and in various forms. Their competition isn't just Safeway, Publix, Kroger and Walmart, but Target, Kmart, Whole Foods, you name it. They have a niche, they should protect it with quality service, low prices and focus on the customer experience, while running it as lean as possible. The business will die over time, and all they can really do is keep it afloat as long as possible, and distribute cash out to shareholders through buybacks or dividends. But they can prolong that timeframe by doing the little things right. Blowing wads of cash into more renovations is just a losing proposition, as the return on capital won't be adequate. Same thing Sears should have done right from the get go. Eddie should have sold alot of the retail space when prices were good and redeployed those assets. Instead, he held on to them and the commercial market turned, while the underperforming stores continued killing the well-performing stores. Cheers!

We've been selling today. We bought in at $6.20 a little while ago. In the right hands, this could be something, but I'm not sure somebody will step in. I'll take a nice pop when I can get it. Cheers!

Could also be his kids were brats. We'll never know. Cheers!

Glad she said it. About time investors realized exactly what they are investing in and the risks involved...regardless of how minute they may be. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-11/fdic-s-bair-says-u-s-money-funds-destabilizing-to-markets-at-sec-forum.html

Article about how Wellington R. Burt decided to leave his children and grandchildren very little, but gave the rest to the generations after. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112715/shutting-kids-out-family-fortune-wsj?mod=family-kids_parents

with regards to the "Buffett premium," if one purchase berkshire in 1990 or 1980, what's the compound return? I know the book value rose dramatically, but I can't find data that old for share increases. Sanj, if anyone knows, I bet you do. Stock price end of 2010: $120,450 Stock price 1980 & Annualized Return: $425 20.7% annualized return Stock price 1990 & Annualized Return: $6,675 15.6% annualized return Cheers!

Article on a Munger interview: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Charlie-Munger-on-Berkshires-fool-1816838899.html?x=0&.v=2 Here is the actual CNBC interview: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000019591 Cheers!

Buffett will have a guest spot on the television show "The Office". Cheers! http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/10/news/companies/warren_buffett_office/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote

Foreclosures and short sales are keeping house prices depressed. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-10/home-prices-drop-in-three-fourths-of-u-s-metro-areas-realtors-group-says.html

Just a thought, how about other admins? I'm not sure if this was already discussed, or if it's possible. We tried that on the old MSN board. It was more work for me, not less. The board and FFH dinner are not at the stage yet where I need an admin, but it probably isn't that far away either. I'll approach this as time goes by, and add assistance only if it markedly improves everyone's experience...mine included! Cheers!

This is probably for another thread but I have a question for the board members who were there in 2003-2006. Without the hedge fund attack would FFHs share price have reached the lows it did? Would they have had to raise capital at below book from Markel and Longleaf? Probably not. I am thinking that the severe lows at the beginning of 03 would not have been reached but that FFH would still have had to raise capital at disdadvantageous rates. Part of the low share price was justifiable and part was not. What do others think? Agreed. A number of us did very well from the leaps. I wonder if we would have done as well without the short attacks. My guess is that it would have been good but perhaps not as lucrative as it turned out. However, the real world was at play and we identified and stuck with our thesis so the gains are legitimate, but maybe, just maybe, I should mail Daniel Loeb a couple of hundred dollars to help out with his defense. Or maybe not! You're assuming Loeb made no money from his shorts, and that somehow his nefarious underhanded tricks allowed those long on Fairfax to benefit. Not true! They could have driven Fairfax completely under. You would have lost everything if Prem was not able to raise any financing. Al, you should be sending money to Markel, Cundill & Southeastern, not Loeb. Cheers!

Another interesting stat: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42957613 Cheers!

Sheila Bair, who did a fantastic job saving the United States banking industry, is leaving her position in July. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bair-to-step-down-as-FDIC-rb-1698044922.html;_ylt=AoMpJKJkbmp7pMMufBVbrGy7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE1bjV2MHRvBHBvcwM0BHNlYwN0b3BTdG9yaWVzBHNsawNiYWlydG9zdGVwZG8-?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=

CNN article and video. Cheers! http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-603905?hpt=Sbin

Another board member also noticed that Bronco has deleted his membership, which I find unfortunate. Bronco, you are welcome to post. My only request is that everyone treat each other with some respect, and we watch the amount of foul or offensive language strewn around here in the last few months. Most of the complaints I have received have been regarding such subjects. Generally, members should try and remain courteous and above the fray...turn the other cheek on occasion so to speak! Cheers!

I agree with that, and I've deleted any posts that suggested such a notion. Feel free to forward me links to any other posts that you feel were offensive, and I will review them for deletion. In the meantime, I suggest that boardmembers debate intelligently, and not let their comments become personal. I will delete any posts that become personal or abusive to other boardmembers. View it as a three strikes and you are out warning if this is ignored. You will get two warnings from me and if there is a third event, you will be booted out with no warning. Cheers!

Ok Folks, enough of the arguing. I've changed the features so that members cannot delete their own threads. In addition, Parsad made a comment at the end of the thread which I found to be highly unfortunate. Harry, I'm not sure what was unfortunate about my comment. You took a shot at another board member by saying that they lacked "good breeding". All I said to you was that when people use that phrase, usually its a reflection of themselves...that you demean yourself, rather than the person you were trying to dismiss. You add alot of good analysis to your ideas Harry, but you come off as very arrogant and I think many people on the board feel that way. Take it for what it is...criticism. I've been on the receiving end of it on here in the past and I own the board. I hope it makes me a better person and better investor when I view other people's perceptions of my own comments or actions. Normally I would have booted your butt off of here a long time ago, but I've learned better from the critiques members offered me. Perhaps, a higher level of tolerance and acceptance of the notion that everyone has something to add, and should not be so easily dismissed or deterred from participating. It's completely your choice if you wish to participate on the board. I think you add value, and I think the members here can certainly add value to your life...be it investment-related or otherwise. Cheers!

Anyone else notice issues on this board where posts just seem to disappear for a period of time? For example, right now I am trying to find Harry's idea thread. It's nowhere. It does not currently come up for me under 'Investment Ideas', 'General Discusion', Unread Posts or anything. But if I come back in a day or tow, it will reappear. I notice this (among some other bugs) on here pretty frequently. Actually, the Simplemachines software is pretty darn good. The open source nature of it means regular updates, additional modules and good community support. There are a limited number of bugs and they are usually fixed pretty quick. In regards to missing posts, the originator of the post can delete the thread they started. Otherwise, there is no way to delete the thread outside of me doing it. In this case, it was not me...soooooo...you can come to your own conclusions on who deleted it! As I mentioned in the previous post, I rarely delete entire threads. What you may see sometimes is me moving a post that was added to the "Investment Ideas" board, but it really belonged on the "General Discussion" forum. I don't put redirects on those because I don't want to clutter the "Investment Ideas" board with redirect posts. That board is really supposed to be a resource board, where members can click on the "Subject" bar and get a completely alphabetized library of investment ideas that have been submitted over time. All ideas on that board should be submitted in this EXACT format: ticker symbol - company name. That's it! If you have anything else in the subject title, it goes into the "General Discussion" board. If you screw up the order, as often happens, I will fix it and leave it there. The reason being so that the "Investment Ideas" board actually functions as intended as a resource library for companies. The other thing you may see from time to time, is if anyone doesn't take the time to click on the "Subject" bar in the "Investment Ideas" board before submitting a new post on a duplicate ticker symbol, I will take the latest thread and combine it with the original ticker thread, so that there is only one post on that ticker symbol. Again, I won't post a redirect as I don't want to clutter the board. Other than that, I only delete abusive, combative, confrontational, racially divisive or overly conspiratorial (Carl) posts. I've also learned not to engage members when they are overly emotional, so that I don't make emotional decisions in banning them. Cheers!

Maybe it's not a forum bug then, but are threads on here just deleted with no notice somewhat frequently, and if so, why not just lock the threads so people can still read them, rather than deleting them entirely? Deleting threads from spammers and trolls is one thing, but I'm confused why an engaging debate on a company from 2 long-time members of this board would just be deleted. Hi Folks, I didn't delete that thread. I actually let it go, because I thought there was a good debate going on regarding the gaming industry, outside of a couple of odd shots taken by the two combatants. I don't delete too many threads. I will delete individual posts that are confrontational or abusive, but not entire threads. The only way that thread could have been deleted is by the originator of the thread. Cheers!

Let me just nip this little subject in the bud. We will not be implementing an "ignore" feature, nor will we be instituting a "recommend" feature. I think both features are available on various message boards, and all they do is instill a degree of naivete and ignorance of the opinion of others...good or bad! The one thing I've always done is monitor the messages; instill a touch of civility; and try to foster a strong discussion on value investing and how it can influence one's life. I think we've done a good job doing that, and it has been borne from the contributions of ALL members. That being said, let me acknowledge the three members I get the most complaints about, and how I have to constantly monitor their messages! The first would be Harry Long, whose ego is about as self-contained as a Kepco nuclear reactor. While Harry's lack of decorum and common sense tend to rub people the wrong way, yours truly included, he does do terrific analysis and brings intriguing ideas to the attention of boardmembers. If he could only focus more on the analysis, and less on the bravado, I'm sure both he and the board would be better off for it, and I would constantly not have to put my finger on the trigger! The second member who tends to wear out his welcome regularly is ValueCarl. I happen to know ValueCarl, and he's actually a completely harmless fellow, loving family man, and a good value investor. I figured Carl could post here some time ago, so his wonderful family would enjoy a respite from his LVLT and conspiracy theories, yet it seems the board is suffering from a similiar fatigue. I don't know anyone who knows more about the LVLT business, and Carl could teach the best investors in the telecom sector a thing or two about LVLT. If he would focus on LVLT or other value investing ideas, rather than Sith Lords, Zionist warlords, Muslim radicals or how Rand Paul could save the United States, the board would be better off and so would Carl! Finally, the last of the triumvirate is the punchy Bronco. Bronco is a knowledgeable, published author who provides some answers, but plenty of invigorating questions for the board. I think members find his inquisitive nature valuable, since it leads to some terrific discussions. As well, he's endeared himself to the moderator of this board by his love for the most formidable sport in the entire history of mankind...hockey! He's from Philly, so unfortunately I let his handicap slide more often I probably should. Nonetheless, I'm sure Bronco has far more to add to this forum than subtract. So there you have it. Really we have no need for an "ignore" feature, nor a "recommend" feature, if we can get the three members above to converge their energies, rather than diverge the board membership. I hope they realize the comments above are meant in jest and with a touch of candor...candor being the operative word! Cheers!

About friggin' time! Let's hope they actually implement some important systems to monitor activity. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-07/high-frequency-traders-to-face-more-sec-scrutiny-chairman-schapiro-says.html

Article on the rumours floating around today. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Greece-denies-report-its-apf-1569823859.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=6&asset=&ccode=

inflation/deflation/stagflation? too many smart people on opposite sides of this argument, which has enough paradoxal elements to make your head spin. we're approaching the crossroads but it doesnt seem fore-ordained yet which direction we go. hence, the fence where i'm concerned. True! Investors shouldn't care one way or the other. You buy when something looks very cheap, and you sell as it approaches intrinsic value. Worrying about anything else is a mug's game...but it is fun to speculate! ;D Cheers!

Idle manufacturing with inflationary inputs is simply stagflation. Over time, as the economy slows due to the inflationary costs associated with manufacturing, you will get deflation. We discussed this at our AGM in response to why our thesis of a current environment of stagflation differs from Prem's view of deflation. We used an analogy of a chess game, and our limited ability to see only 2 or 3 moves ahead, while Prem's deflationary view was 6-7 moves ahead. We are already experiencing a stagflationary environment...especially on global terms where rates are starting to rise and the economy is slowing. Parts of Europe will be facing negative growth as they balance budgets due to austerity measures. The weaker U.S. dollar is actually preventing this here to a certain degree, but deflation will come as the global economy continues to slow down over the next couple of years. Cheers!