zarley

Fantastic. Thanks for making that available.

On the netbook, I'm just running Mint. It came with XP, which may have been fine, but a more modern OS makes some things (like wireless networking) easier to configure. The netbook is just for surfing and playing media, so there's no need for me to dual-boot; Mint does everything I need. I dual-boot win7/ubuntu on my desktop.

If you don't have a linux distro in mind, I'd suggest Linux Mint. It's based on Ubuntu, but has all the multimedia drivers and whatnot already installed. I've got it on my netbook and it works reasonably well. I prefer it to the Ubuntu netbook remix actually. Also, consider a chromium browser; firefox is a little resource hungry for a netbook.

That's reassuring Bronco; thank you for that. :)

Can we infer then, that Buffett is 1 for 3 in his recent efforts to recruit capable investment managers? While I would love to think there are 2 or 3 seasoned and capable managers waiting in the wings who will be perfectly happy to join Berkshire in the near future, I have some reservations about this given the Combs appointment and the Lu / "mystery manager" news. As yudeng points out, Buffett is hoping for quite a lot from an established pro to come into Berkshire. Perhaps finding the proper motivation and ego to fit the situation is harder than Buffett may have thought three years ago. I have to admit, I'm feeling more uncertain about this process now than I have in the past 3 years.

I think this is an overly simplistic assessment of Buffett's 2008 article. Reread what Buffett wrote. Here's link to the 2008 NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html So, Buffett is wasn't arguing that stocks were cheap, or that a bull market would be coming soon. He argued that stocks in high quality US companies were a better risk/reward proposition than cash. I see no substantial inconsistency, while I agree that the potential for poor stock returns is real due to the likelihood of rising interest rates. I think the writer (Mr. Collum) was stretching his interpretation to make for a better story. ********* edited to fix Buffett quote. Moved my comment out of quote box and into final paragraph.

This poll made me go double check my results -- I was surprised by the answer. I knew that I had outperformed the market over the last three years, but I was a little surprised by the level of outperformance (a cumulative gain of approximately 35%). Given the relative performance of Berkshire and Fairfax over the time period in question, it shouldn't be surprising that a ton of people on this board have outperformed. Both holdings have certainly helped my own performance. Although, neither company was the most profitable investment I've made over the past three years.

Doc, I haven't followed up on Polaris since my earlier post, but I can't say I really disagree with your assessment. Given the assets they own and their business relationships (shamrock and cemex) Polaris really does look cheap. But, absent a buyout offer, the catalyst for improvement in their position really is heavy construction on the west coast. That will certainly happen eventually, but when? I guess if you look at potential downside vs. potential upside, even if it takes 5 years for the WC construction market to turn up, Polaris may be worth the risk at current prices (~$1). It's going into my "keep looking at it file" for the time being.

Just on a pure asset basis, Polaris certainly looks cheap. But, there are a couple things that make me wonder about current mgmt. First, the share dilution has been crazy (from 30 million to 53 million since 2006). When will that end? Second, the Long Beach expansion "strategy" seems a bit muddled. First they bought a location for $15 million, then changed their minds to lease a property and sell out the land they just bought. Even with the lease they need to put $5 million into capital improvements at the new location. It just seems like they didn't really know what they were doing there. I guess I'm not sure their expansion plans outside of the S.F. Bay area will come off as smooth as they're portraying it. In a take-over scenario, that may not matter as a new owner would hopefully have a plan for that. As a speculation on the assets and a turn in the West Coast construction market, it looks a little appealing. A take-over would probably be a best case scenario.

Amen. Excellent post coc. I've made more money in SHLD over the past 2 years than any other position I've owned. I've bought under $30 and sold over $100 and bought again at $60. It's still a large holding because I see it as an opportunity to do reasonably well over the long term. As for Fairfax, it's 17% of my portfolio, my second largest holding. It didn't start as my second biggest holding, but I got a good price, and continue to hold it as it is a very good company which remains reasonably priced. As an individual, perhaps I just don't have the time to find micro-cap cigar butts. Maybe I just wouldn't know one if I saw one. Anyway, I don't see them, but I do see reasonably priced stocks like FFH, SHLD, and BRK with decent upside. I'll hold on to them and wait for them to get overpriced and go from there. It may not be alpha-maximizing, but it fits my limitations, and IMO, offers a very good chance at adequate returns.

You seem to have little understanding of how taxes work, or what net worth represents. Not to mention that your fictional person's $50,000 savings alone is well above the median household income in the US. IMO, $250,000 per year in taxable income is a reasonable starting point for "rich." It's more than 5 times the median household income and puts one in the top 2% of all incomes.

For the record, I am not, in fact, the one and only Zarley Zalapski. I apologize for any confusion. Carry on.

Some sort of AZO/SHLD merger is certainly possible. ESL/Lampert owns something like 30% of AZO and nearly 60% of SHLD. From that perspective, a merger wouldn't be surprising in any way. How well they might fit together geographically or organizationally is hard to say. I really have no idea.

I agree with your whole post premfan, but the above point is the one I've been thinking of lately, seeing as Lampert/ESL own nearly 60% already. Excepting situations where Lampert is forced to sell his SHLD holdings or goes to jail, I think most scenarios for SHLD are pretty good. One bad scenario, as a small SHLD holder, is that Lampert takes his ownership up to some crazy % like 80+% and then stops retiring shares and starts paying out cashflow as a dividend. That way, ESL/Lampert can redirect the cash however they want in other areas. This is only bad from my perspective because I will lose out on the potential benefit from having Lampert allocating the cash for me. Yes, I'll get a nice dividend (presumably), but I'll lose Lampert's investing skill. I think this is probably unlikely because of the extra taxes on dividends, but it is possible. Nearly as bad would be Lampert opportunistically taking SHLD private a some depressed price that doesn't reflect the true value of the company. Minority shareholders get squeezed out and lose the opportunity to have Lampert investing for them. This option is potentially worse than the dividend option, depending on the take-out price. My preferred scenario involves Lampert closing ESL and turning SHLD into his investment vehicle. Yes, it's the BRK/Buffett scenario, but I think that would be the best outcome for the minority shareholder.

While I think MSFT does look reasonably cheap (not stupid cheap) at the moment, I'm leary of their Win7 mobile efforts. After the Kin debacle, the new Win7 phones need to be top shelf to compete with iPhone and Android. From the previews I've seen, the Win7 phones look like the zune of mobile phones. Good overview here: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/windows-phone-7-in-depth-preview/ I see a UI that is different for the sake of being different (not better) and a feature set that's uninspiring. If not for the good connectivity to Exchange and the potential usefulness of good Office integration, I'm not sure why someone would want one over an iPhone or a good Android handset. MSFT is in 4th or 5th place in terms of mobile; they'll need to bring their 'A' game to compete in that market. I don't really see it yet.

From the filing:

Schroeder's devolution from author to inflammatory shit flinger has been spectacular. Her headline is Sokol threatens to shut down NetJets. Which is bullshit. Nowhere in the email she posted does he threaten to shut down NetJets. I can only guess that this part of Sokol's letter is what is construed as a threat: From that she gets Sokol threatens to shut down NetJets? Really? She's lost it.

By position size: BRK.b FFH SHLD cash VZ XOM TBL ATVI Recently sold: GNTX

This. To my own financial detriment I didn't buy Fairfax a few years back around $90 when so many on this board (the predicessor actually) were pounding the table on it's value. I hadn't done enough of my own research to understand what made Fairfax tick, so I reluctantly passed. I have since mended my ways. I agree with the point that message boards can be an effective echo chamber one way or the other, which can lead to significant confirmation bias. On the other hand when a sesible person (or people) on a good board says something I disagree with, I certainly try to take the hint and give the issue more thought.

I resubmit my claim that those who do not have the intellect to answer a question this easy should not be influencing the policies of this nation. Agreed. We should disenfranchise millions of people based on a shitty quiz ginned up by Zogby and the WSJ. Further, I think only white male landowners who can pass my own personal intelligence test should be allowed to vote. Fuck the rabble, they're beneath us, and need to be herded.

The distributions are to both Lampert and Crowley, so it's hard to say. It will be interesting to see how big the follow-on distributions are in July. Perhaps they're the only partners with sufficient ownership to have to report the distributions formally? In my imagination, Lampert is winding down the partnerships to focus solely on running SHLD (and to a lesser extent AN and AZO). And, (still wildly speculating) by the end of the year there will be a merger of SHLD and AZO announced.

Very curious. Some filings by Autozone have a little more detail. Once again, this involves distributing shares (SHLD and AZO) to Lampert and William Crowley. AZO filings include lock-up agreements for Lampert and Crowley's holdings of AZO. Something curious is going on with ESL/Lampert and Crowley. Perhaps Crowley is cashing out? Or, could this be the first steps to closing up the partnerships and letting Lampert own/run SHLD and AZO directly? Coincidentally, I saw a bit from PRnewswire: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/to-all-owners-of-sears-holdings-corporation-common-stock-95607739.html that noted that Crowley is resigning as an executive officer of SHLD. Related? Something's up.

Something like Vanguard's STAR fund (VGSTX) has a low minimum and low costs. It's an asset allocation fund of funds, so it's returns won't be stellar ( ;)), but I think it would be conservative and somewhat consistent with rule number 1 (although it did drop 25% in 2008). It's one of my favorites for starting small in a tax advantaged account.

Part 1: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1391001953&play=1 Part 2: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1391031740&play=1 Part 1 is a lot of politics and Joe Kernan being a douche. Part 2 is pretty amazing. In the first ten minutes he shits all over the Kraft/Cadbury deal, talks about the Berkshire split, and states directly that Berkshire is somewhat undervalued at current prices.

Cashing out William C. Crowley? http://people.forbes.com/profile/william-c-crowley/8783 He also filed a Form 4 for SHLD AN, and AZO.