Liberty

I believe it does. It's using the high-return, mature parts of the business to finance the early-stage, still loss-making startups within the large 'conglomerate'.

Thanks for sharing your first-hand experience.

Thanks. That's a good idea, actually. Sometimes it only takes remembering an idea to trigger the whole "mental complex" associated with it and reinforce it. I use a few reminders on my phone to once in a while remind me of a few concepts. I'd be afraid that I'd forget to look at the index cards after a while.

I wonder why Amazon isn't trying to beat WMT here? Maybe WMT is grossly overpaying? Amazon tried... but it's a good sign they're staying disciplined and not going all "strategic at any price!". Whatever AMZN isn't spending on Flipkart, they can still spend on India, and that might be a high return use for the capital.

Walmart Is Close to $12 Billion-Plus Deal for Flipkart https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-23/walmart-is-said-close-to-12-billion-plus-deal-for-flipkart

Maybe Fred can get us our Google finance back. ;D I thought he was way too nice with them. He made it sound like it was a bit of a step back, rather than a complete clusterf****...

Anyone can get there, the question is more, how long is it going to take, how much is it going to cost, what kind of return are you going to get on your capital, and is it cheaper to buy someone who has what you want than to build.

https://avc.com/2018/04/google-finance/

I think the point is that if wireless companies want to compete with cable with 5G, they're going to have to handle all these bits (mostly video), and that won't be easy on their infrastructure. They'd basically almost have to recreate a cable network, except that instead of terminating into homes with wifi, it would terminate into small 5G cells blanketing neighborhoods. 5G cells are almost closer to wifi than current cellular, based on what I know (higher speeds, but shorter range and a lot more trouble getting through obstacles, even trees and rain).

I think it was Rutledge who mentioned it a few times. Basically, when we think of mobile devices we might think of cell towers first, but 80% of the bits transferred to these devices come from WiFi, not cellular. The other 20% are still very valuable because they allow complete mobility, but when it comes to backhaul infrastructure, there's more going through other pipes.

http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-advantage-of-being-a-little-bit-underemployed/ Interesting read.

I thought the same thing because of the wording. I was expecting a twist at the end..

CSU also published its first written Q&A with analysts and shareholders: http://www.csisoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/QA-April-20-2018-Final-1.pdf The first and last questions are mine. I'm liking this format already... Two questions answered vs. analysts mostly trying to fill cells in their Excel spreadsheets (to be fair, a few of them had consistently good questions, or by accident triggered good asides from management...).

Mark Leonard's letter to shareholders is out: http://www.csisoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Presidents-Letter-April-2018-Final.pdf

IMO being right or not is more about focusing on the right things than about how long you look at something, so that can be done relatively quickly, especially with experience that helps you filter out the noise. Spending a lot of time getting comfortable with something is more about building confidence. If you've just spend 90 minutes looking at something and then buy, you'll probably be shaken easily by volatility/bumps in the road. If you know the company, management and industry very well and understand the various dynamics at play, it'll probably be easier to hold for the long term and actually benefit from a correct initial analysis. My 2 cents.

I don't remember how that deal came to exist, but TWC came with a perpetual MVNO deal with Verizon that they're now activating. Fromt he point of view of the wireless company, MVNO deals can make sense because it just increases utilization on their mostly fixed cost assets, so it's probably at very high incremental margins.

As you mentioned, reducing churn has big benefits, but there are also synergies when it comes to the backhaul capacity, the billing and customer service systems, etc. Imagine a cable network and a wireless company side by side, operating independently. If you made a venn diagram of everything they need to operate, there'd be a fair bit over overlap. That's where the synergies would come from. But cable is a better business than wireless, so it all depends at what cost you can make it happen. So far CHTR seems to be going the MVNO route, which reduces risk.

It seems to be the direction of things, but who knows how it'll play out... What matters most is that CHTR doesn't need to merge with anyone to get to quad play, and 80% of the bits going through phones are already going through its wifi, not through cell towers, so it's easier for them to absorb that extra capacity than for the wireless players to try to duplicate the capacity of cable.

Small software acquisition: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/booking-holdings-announces-it-has-signed-an-agreement-to-acquire-fareharbor-300632814.html Suggestion: Maybe some admit or Ross could edit the original post in third thread and change the title to "BKNG - Booking Holdings" for people coming here through the search function?

Malone mentioned this in interview with Faber about the offer (which I don't think was confirmed as 540, but as "something with a 5 in front" or something like that), and Malone basically said "I didn't see a check for that amount, show me the check". Meaning that he didn't want to swap CHTR stock for Softbank stock or whatever and be stuck with it with no control, repeating his AT&T mistake.

Thanks WayWardCloud, that's great.

Aren't bond ETFs going down because of the difference between the yield to maturity and the average coupon. So for example, if the fund has some older bonds that yield 5%, they are bought at a premium so that the actual yield you get isn't 5% but rather the current yield in the space... So over time, you get that 5% coupon but the market price goes down so that in the end, your actual yield is closer to what a recent bond would do. Sorry about the fuzzy terminology, bonds aren't my thing, and I could be wrong on this, but this is my understanding.

Interest how bears read this email and see a ton of negatives and longs read this email and see a ton of positives. This man and company truly are rorschach tests.

Depends how tax-efficiently you think they can eventually collapse back into CHTR or sell... I'd also consider whether CHTR itself is undervalued currently, meaning that there's a discount on top of a discount..

They won't be buying as much because they reached their target leverage. Unless they decided to go above to grab an opportunity, but I don't think we'll see anything close to a 12% this year.