Parsad

This is our 40th Anniversary and no cup yet. So we hope this is the year! It's starting to come together. We have the best powerplay in the league, and the 4th best penalty-kill. Consistency is a bit of a problem 5-on-5, but things seem to be improving. A long season ahead still, so barring injuries, we should make a really good run this year. Cheers!

You can't put a price tag on watching my Flyers kick the crap out of lesser teams (i.e. Canucks). You're just looking for a fight Bronco! ;D We'll be in the finals this year, but I'm guessing Pittsburgh is going to knock you guys out. Can you believe that? Sidney Crosby is going to beat up the "Broadstreet Bullies"! Cheers!

Hey guys, I am fairly new to investing on an individual stock basis. I've been reading 10-Ks and other relevant docs on occasion for a little less than a year now. I was wondering if y'all had any tips on how to read them efficiently. Do you read nearly every word or do you just learn over time what is most relevant to you? When you go back and read the last few years', do you mainly look for changes or do you read them with just as much detail? I know my way around an annual better than when I started but I've realized that it takes me a while to get through a 125 pg document especially when taking notes. By the way, I'm referring to really digging into a company, not just scanning for potential investments. Read the 10-Q's, 10-K's and all filings, including proxies. Some of the information you are getting is simply wrong. You absolutely need to read the financial statements, notes & MD&A front to back. Can they be manipulated? Yes, but they are still the foundation of your knowledge about the business. I cannot imagine investing in any stock without reading them. And you need to read three years worth at a minimum! The more you read, the more efficient you will get, and certain things will become more prominent. That is the starting place. Then combine that with other research on the company, it's operations, competitors, etc. Conference calls and investor presentations are the very last thing you should look at. The company's CEO is their best salesperson! Never make a decision to buy a stock based on management. Always focus on the fundamentals. If you do that, your batting average will be high. Cheers!

I expected them to do a little better than $1.1B for the year, and they look like they are well on target. Cheers!

I think a more likely and substantial target would be JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs. Cheers!

My favorite fund long time is the Vertex fund. They have some new products aimed at the US market as well...Worth checking out: I know Jeff McCord. They are good guys at Vertex. Their office is less than a block away from ours. Cheers!

Alan Kirshner, CEO of Markel, is receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment, and may be absent for 2 months from Markel. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-29/markel-ceo-may-be-absent-for-two-months-for-treatment-update1-.html?cmpid=yhoo

You know you are a hard-core Berkshire shareholder, when you notice that Elizabeth Banks is reading the 2006 edition of "Of Permanent Value", instead of looking at her legs! ;D I was watching the movie "Fred Claus" today, and there are two scenes where she has the book...one is when she's reading it at the table, and another scene where she's carrying it around. I wonder who on the set was reading it and used it as a prop? Cheers!

Click the picture...what do you notice? Read the second post to find the answer!

Article by Jacob Wolinsky with commentary by Whitney Tilson on his trip to Israel with Guy Spiers. They visited Iscar. Cheers! http://www.dailymarkets.com/stock/2010/11/20/whitney-tilson-and-guy-spiers%E2%80%99-trip-to-israel/

I would say that most people might disagree about the exact order, but the greatest players to play the game of hockey would probably be: 1) Wayne Gretzky 2) Bobby Orr 3) Mario Lemieux He spent his whole career there, and pretty much saved the franchise (took a piece of ownership, in lieu of his paycheck as the team went bankrupt), so I'm guessing the mural is well-deserved. He mentored another future Hall of Famer (Jaromir Jagr) and is a father-figure to the league's current best player (Sidney Crosby). In fact, I believe Crosby lived with Lemieux and his family until this year. And when he came back to save the team, he had done so after a battle with Hodgkins Lymphoma, and led the league in scoring that year! Tempermental when he was younger, he became a class-act as he matured. One of the most gifted hockey players in history. Cheers!

Steak'n Shake is looking for a new advertising agency. Cheers! http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=147246

Matt Miller, along with Joe Koster, are the tandem analysts at Chanticleer Holdings. Matt put together a terrific paper on Akita Drilling. Enjoy! Cheers!

An employee of an expert-networking firm, that provides market intelligence to hedge funds, has been charged. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Expertnetworking-firm-worker-apf-2131151926.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

The one thing that I've thought about for a long time now is exactly what is CNBC's relationship with many of the people they cover. We know that Patrick Byrne was ridiculed for insinuating that he had knowledge of a specific fax machine at CNBC where information was sent directly, and we know that CNBC reporters have good relationships with certain hedge fund managers...for example Ron Insana worked for SAC Capital in some capacity from late 2008 to early 2009 after his hedge fund collapsed. Some of the journalism practices at CNBC vary markedly from other outlets, say for example Bloomberg. I would like to see the SEC investigate emails and relationships at CNBC, although I'm sure that will be difficult as they will hide behind the first amendment. I've had the same concerns with Buffett appearing so regularly on there as well. I hope Prem never shows up on there! Cheers!

Surprise, surprise! Cheers!

Shane, I find enterprise value to be a fairly useless metric. Most statistics in and of themselves are useless. The reason Fairfax has a negative enterprise value is because they have little debt and alot of cash. AIG has alot of cash, but they have a ton of debt...more than equity...thus the positive enterprise value. Now if you were going to invest in one of those two companies, and you only looked at enterprise value, you would think that AIG was in better shape relative to valuation. Not true. As well, in insurance, the quality of the underwriting and future liabilities also have to be considered. Using a single metric is absolutely futile, and even using a few together is just as useless. You really have to examine each financial statement, over multiple years, to get a good picture of what is happening to any business. Cheers!

Why is it that all roads lead to SAC in this investigation? Hmmm! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-23/ex-sac-capital-traders-implicated-in-u-s-insider-trading-probe.html

Yes, I believe it has to do with making the end result somehow fit the prediction. ;D I think you may be asking the wrong board Elltel. Cheers!

Parsad, If the truth is to be told I do kinda envy his personal hockey rink but I think the world might be just a bit better off if the shark was swimming free and Stevie was floating in the tank. That's pretty damn funny! I also like the rink and he's probably got a pool, but the whole monument to myself thing is just so wrong on so many levels. Guys like him need that much space simply because they need somewhere to put their massive egos...it just won't fit anywhere else! Cheers!

Bringing things back to valuation, is there any monetary value in this or just protection of reputation for FFH? Don't include it in any valuation...treat it as a call option. It could be a significant monetary gain if they win, but I think it would be dragged through court for many, many years. At the very least, it would be a moral victory, but there is always the possibility of some sort of settlement if the courts back Fairfax. Cheers!

CNBC journalist Michelle Caruso-Cabrera says that there should be no insider trading rules, since the markets should allow the free movement of information...Milton Friedman told her so, ok! In that case, Warren Buffett's children should be freely allowed to trade Berkshire stock based on what he tells them about each upcoming quarter's results. What a stupid article, and I'm wondering if the recent insider trading investigations may put a damper on exactly where Cabrera and CNBC get some of their information from. I'm sure they can all start hedge funds at SAC like Ron Insana did...and then run them into the ground like he did as well. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/40318804

The problem is that it's like the mob. The top guys are smart enough to keep a hierarchy, so you send the minions out to their own shops, not related to the main shop. When the Fed comes, they take out the feeder arms but it's very hard to take out the head honcho. Hopefully this isn't another useless investigation, but one that finds real evidence. Cheers!

I'm not completely negative on Tilson. He donates a lot of money and time to charitable causes and I think he is genuinely one of the "good guys"... I think you are probably correct. But I think a small portion of Tilson's network (Chanos, Herb Greenberg, etc) left a bit of a bad taste in the mouthes of some observers...yours truly included. Whether that taste also arises from being a Fairfax shareholder, his public persona, or past experiences, can always be debated...but it exists nonetheless and there are unfortunately quite a few people who feel the same way. A shame considering the terrific results the T2 hedge fund has produced over the past ten years. I can attest that Glenn Tongue is definitely one of the good guys, and I have nothing but respect for him and Tilson's partner in the Value Investing Congress, Dr. John Schwartz. Cheers!

It's coming up next year. I believe both Fairfax's and Overstock's trial dates are around September. Fairfax's in particular should be very, very interesting. The shape they are in now, relative to then, and the information that has come to light regarding some of the people in their suit, is quite illuminating and would be pretty effective in court. Cheers!