Jurgis

Actually, I think it's quite good to be in that situation. Most investors in any company also have two different sources of emotions: company success and stock success. But they usually don't distinguish them (enough), since the emotions are in the same direction: company does well, stock does well, investors are excited (but about which one?). Company does not do well, stock does well - investors may still be excited and attribute that to "company is doing well" even if it isn't. In your situation at least you're clear what causes what emotions: the company or the stock/puts. 8)

I am totally with Mr. Big on this one. He's the only value investor that understands quality of life (well maybe ScottHall does too 8)). French Riviera, Monaco, yacht, posh hotel, supermodels, cigar (actually, cigar ewwww), French cafe. Dis is how you roll. Not some dinky house in Omaha, $4 McD breakfast, newspaper throwing competition, getting up at 4am to stand in line for Q&A session. Greed, gentlemen and ladies, is good. 8) For sarcasm impaired, yes it is. Actually, screw it, no it isn't. ;D

Thanks for correction about PDER annual. I did not remember what I got last year. 8) I definitely did not imply that PDER is 'bad' pink company. I was just saying that OTCM and brokers don't distinguish 'bad' no-info pinks from 'good' no-info pinks. Might be opportunity for some here. Peace. 8)

The booklet might be all you gonna get. PDER is currently Pink No Info: https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/PDER/overview Which also means that I would not be able to buy more at Fido (most likely). If I wanted to buy... ::) 8) OT? I also like how OTCM is trying to scare Pink companies to upgrade to OTC-something: Disclosure: I have some PDER and some OTCM.

Dis why I never say "short writeup" or "short thesis" anymore. 8)

What ScottHall runup looks like. 8)

Yeah, NVR is well known as the most conservative home builder with some nice characteristics (as shown in video). I've never invested on concerns similar to LCs: it seems like rather cutthroat industry and apart from conservativism, NVR doesn't seem to have a secret sauce, so why would they continue to perform well? But they do... And, yeah, I knew about NVR in 2007-2008, I think I even had some at one point. Did not buy, did not hold...

You're looking at the 2017 list that is no longer current one... 8)

The author makes good points about system failures and their unavoidability. However, he is also consciously pursuing this line of reasoning and overemphasizing it. He himself admits that there were issues with ValuJet and contractor safety procedures (as well as numerous FAA complaints regarding ValuJet) that are not just "complex system" issues. Apportioning all the blame to "complex system" and saying "it is unavoidable" is IMO rather misleading and unintentionally providing justification to bad practices. No dog in this fight, but I read the article. 8)

I agree with you. However, is it easy to predict that the business will take a dive? It's easy looking backwards by Monday Morning Quarterbacking, but is it possible going forward? I guess you could argue BBBY was predictable. I am not so sure about Weight Watchers (disclaimer: bought low, sold low, have not followed afterwards, Oprah saved them from BK?). Haven't followed SNBR, so no comment. Looking at: Sleep Number Corp. (SNBR) - I've looked at Tempurpedic when the stock dived. I don't particularly like the business segment. IMO the products are sleazy and overpriced. But then I'm cheap (got IKEA bed/mattress, totally happy with it). Other than that no comment. Corning Inc. (GLW) - I had a large position when the stock price was low, then sold out, then they went on tear... I'd guess they are at least somewhat cyclical, so they might be overpaying. I haven't looked at their recent numbers though. I think it's a good company although it might hit cycle when/if 4K TV adoption flatlines or drops. I'm speaking of the cuff though. PulteGroup (PHM) - home builder. If you expect something like 2008 crisis, then not a good company to invest. OTOH AFAIK housing starts have been low, so homebuilders may still have a lot of runway and it might not be overpaying... Have not looked deeper. Discover Financial Services (DFS) - somewhat strong number 3 (or whatever) CC business. Probably fair bet. Lear Corp. (LEA) - car parts? Cyclical. But I don't really know if they are heading for cyclical low and overpaying. Perhaps. Have not looked deeper. And you know what? I can pretty much guarantee that it's not the "good/great" companies that will have best return in April 2019, when the cannibal strategy reallocates to new five... 8)

I like Musk and I wish him and Tesla well. From his message though, I think that he's fighting battles in numerous fronts at the same time, which usually does not work well. I hope it does work out this time. Dum vivimus vivamus and all that. 8)

Hear, hear. Which might be an issue/question with new Sequoia...

RIP.

I think I should incorporate myself and my gun as LLC and when I shoot someone, the gun should take the responsibility and be jailed. 8) There goes the thread.

LOL, this is huge outperformance IMO. If you find someone who can do this, send me a pointer. I might even give up on my principles of not filling K1 and beg them to take my money... 8) Edit: I assume you meant 7% annual. If you meant 7% total over the 10 years, then I'll edit/remove my comment. Sorry if I forget someone from CoBF or outside CoBF (feel free to speak up for yourself or anyone you know 8)), but from people managing other people's money I may not know anyone who had such outperformance. I'll take that as a compliment. 8) Now get off my lawn! :P ;D 8)

Just to be clear, I never said that. 8) What oddball and ScottHall say IZ DA TRUTH. 8) But even though I know that, I choose not to spend time on selling or on honing the sales technique. I don't find that interesting and/or exciting. Yeah, I know if I focused on sales more, I'd likely be richer (have better job? maybe; have higher salary? probably; have better wife? no; have better friends? maybe). But I'm fine with what I have. And honestly if I really wanted to make my life better (TM - in some way), I'd find a way to spend less time on investing and more time on doing AIish projects. But then I am at a point in life/wealth/etc. where I am mostly fine with what I have and what I will have, so maybe it's OK if I slack off on selling. 8) For young people and overall people who want to achieve something: listen to oddball and ScottHall! Dey are da messiahs! 8) ---------------------------------------------------- On the topic of performance, management letters, clients and niches: Some time ago I was looking for an outside money manager(s) and even did invest with someone. I pretty much gave up on that, so possibly I'm very bad and very non-representative client, but here are some thoughts. Performance matters - a lot - for me. If performance was better, I would not have walked away even though I had other reservations. Letters matter for me - I do read them, racemize. 8) Cloning Buffett is possibly trap - if you clone Buffett, I can clone him too. If you invest in BRK, so can I. So... OTOH, if you go full Bruce Berkowitz and stuff your fund with Fannie/Freddie, Sears, etc., you'd better be generating these 30-50% per year returns, cause otherwise I'm definitely not investing with you... 8) If it's SMA and you trade like there's no tomorrow, please don't. I'll hate you at the tax time. 8) Minor quibbles why I don't invest with outside managers (just ignore this paragraph): I hate doing the whole accredited investor paperwork - some people don't ask for much, but some require info/papers that I'd rather not give; I still hate the whole K1 form, so no hedge funds... ; majority of my money is in IRAs/solo-401(k) which are a pain to move and a lot of SMAs/hedge funds don't handle. OTOH, if stahleyp is looking for huge outperformance, most of the time you can't get in: the outperforming person gets swamped with money. Also, you have to think what you gonna do when/if that huge outperformance craters... Pull out? BTW, if a non-investor friend or relative asked me for advice on investing, I'd decline to give one. But if I was pushed, I'd suggest XX% in market index, 100-XX% in bond fund. I would not suggest any hedge or mutual funds. Sorry guys. 8) Anyway, sorry for ramble, don't get offended, have fun and lots of performance and fees. 8)

You mean you started a hedge fund? Go to some meetings with CoBF folks (like DJCO, Fairfax, maybe Berkshire). Get them to know you and like you. If oddball or someone recommends you on the forum, you might get a bunch of investors. Or maybe various parties in SYTE orbit would invest directly... I can't speak about the limitations of advertising. If you write good letters with good results and they are posted here by people who get them and there's interest, you might get some investors too. Good luck. 8)

If you want to pwn Facebook, heavy regulation would work much more than theoretical data portability. China did it. Europe might do - a lesser version of - it. I don't care about it much either way. I now have some money invested in FB, so I'm immediately biased, but overall I don't care much. I think the whole data ownership and portability is not very workable, not very useful and not gonna improve anything (much), but if people want to work on it, power to them. Maybe they'll do something useful, who knows. 8)

This may be well intentioned but really meaningless. Show me a single social network or forum or whatever that allows you to export your data (ah, btw Facebook does allow you to export your data haha 8)) in a way that is then importable somewhere else and it just works... Right. Crickets. People who write these articles probably think that if they write it, someone will just magically do what they suggest and world will be a better place . In reality, the "magically" part is really really hard. And unless there's a huge strong push by a visionary team, none of it is going to happen. Especially when suggestions require interoperability, portability, etc. Edit: homework assignment for the talented people everywhere: if I export my data from CoBF, which clearly refers to other people in CoBF, their posts, threads, etc., how exactly this can be imported into some-CoBF-clone-forum-social-network without losing most of its meaning? Bonus question: how do you preserve context without violating rights of others? Edit2: I forgot: the solution is to put everything on blockchain. There. 8) ::) ;D Color me skeptical. 8) But I am all for world peace, rainbow unicorns, and users owning their data.

ragnar and oddball, you definitely have good points. Although you may feel that you only get second guessing and critique, you are likely also getting support and investments. Though like ragnar said, it's not clear whether even the support is a great thing. Looking from investor's point of view, you as an investor meet the management, read their stories, hear about guys working until 4am, about efforts put into the business. You might hear from the management on the forum or meet them at a meetup. You see and hear how smart and nice people they are. And that affects your attitude as an investor too. You think "maybe I should cut them some slack, they are really trying, they are good guys, etc.". But is that good from investing point of view? Maybe, maybe not. I guess like ragnar says objectivity would be good. But it's quite hard if not impossible to be objective and even harder the more you know people involved. In any case, best in your businesses. 8)

I was curious so I just talked to one of the leading lawyers in the country about this and he said that there have been a couple notable cases in the US where people refunded negative performance and the SEC or whatever regulator found that to be impermissible because even though it wasn't in the documents - it looked like a tacit guarantee of performance. Like the General Partner had told its investors "if you don't make money we'll refund it" which runs contrary to the risk disclosure basis for private investment funds in the US (you know all the language about "All investments are risky; you could lose money.") I guess their concern is people running around raising money saying in their documents "You could lose money" but meanwhile telling their investors "If things don't go well, we'll refund your losses." Anyway its kind of an interesting legal question, but really a side note to this story. From what I've been told from this attorney, the issues that people had in the past were that since you can't make a guarantee before-hand - rebating losses after the fact looks to some regulators indistinguishable to guaranteeing it beforehand - so they don't allow it. Though in a couple of instances - regulators apparently did allow it - but they likely had a slightly different structure. I should note - there is a way to set-up a fund so you can do this legally in the US and in every state - but the "loss rebate" requires that the fund be structured a little bit differently. I'm not an expert on this - but you said it up more like a PE fund so the first portion of what is left belongs to the limited partners and then over certain benchmarks the general partner starts to get more ownership of it. You can set the benchmarks such so that it effectively means the general partner gives up any ownership below the loss threshold. In reality, this is not an issue hardly ever, because very few funds and people would do this when they shut down a fund with losses. We need more terrific people like Parsad. OK, thanks for elaboration. I guess whoever else did it in US might have flown under the radar... Also with what racemize said, not sure how Chou's fee forgiveness works... (edit: Chou fee forgiveness might work under mutual fund rules... I'm really out of depth there). But yeah, we should not discourage people like that. 8)

Parsad - that is exceptional of you and I believe exactly the way Charlie Munger would want us to behave. Good on you. This is more of an aside, but there is a terrible provision in most US state securities laws, and for federally registered investment advisors, that as it has been explained to a friend of mine by a former SEC lawyer, that in the US it is mostly impossible for investment advisors to do this legally. It comprises a "guarantee of performance" whichever for whatever reason is not allowed by investment advisors according to securities lawyers. I know this because I have a very good friend who tried to do something similar as you Parsad - who was convinced by leading hedge fund lawyers that it was against the law - because it would have constituted a "guarantee of performance" which is not allowed. Anyway, the technicality of US securities laws aside - I admire you for behaving that way and I hope that I would do the same if I were that situation. I am not a lawyer, but what Parsad did is likely legal in US. He did not provide a guarantee beforehand, he just made some partners whole. And what he said in post about 100% guarantee is a figure of speech rather than written guarantee that would have legal implications. I am pretty sure someone in US did this too... Pabrai? Can't remember. But, yeah, check with lawyers and all that. To put my $.02 into the topic about managers earning multiple income streams. Somehow people don't rebel when big-name manager X runs a bunch of mutual (hedge) funds, a bunch of separate accounts, goes on lecture circuit, writes books, runs an investment company and gets money for all of these. Or is it OK when you manage billions, but not OK when you manage just couple millions and post on forum? 8)

Or this could happen: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/business/china-bytedance-duanzi-censor.html

A hole in jeans is a fashion statement that makes jeans more valueable. So I smell win-win solution. 8)

Senator: You're walking in the woods. There's no one around, And your phone is dead. Out of the corner of your eye you spot him... Zuck: Shia Labeouf ------------------------------------------------