Liberty

I thought this was an interesting read. Can anyone confirm the author's claims? http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/why-a-low-delinquency-rate-isnt-the-good-news-real-estate-story-you-think/

Even more stuff on Shannon: https://medium.com/the-mission/10-000-hours-with-claude-shannon-12-lessons-on-life-and-learning-from-a-genius-e8b9297bee8f The authors of the book wrote about their 5 years reseraching him and 12 lessons they learned from him. Also, there's a review by Vin Cerf (co-inventor of TCP/IP protocol on which the internet is built) here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v547/n7662/full/547159a.html?foxtrotcallback=true

Did you paste the wrong link, atbed? Edit: Guessing this is the story: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/us-bank-card-companies-to-seek-licenses-to-operate-in-china-in-months/article35748975/

Fiscal Q3: http://s1.q4cdn.com/050606653/files/doc_financials/2017/Q3/Visa-Inc.-Q3-2017-Financial-Results-Conference-Call-Presentation.pdf http://s1.q4cdn.com/050606653/files/doc_financials/2017/Q3/Visa-Inc.-Q3-2017-Financial-Results.pdf

Yes.... And one more reason to continue closing down the stores and recognize the value/capital tied up in the real-estate footprint while still maintaining a good portion of the revenue. Seems like a great move to me as they slowly wind down Sears physical presence. Haven't owned the stock since the 2014 rights offering that left a bad taste in my mouth, but I'm considering rolling some of these puts into an underlying position in the common to have the upside that may come from an accelerated wind-down that they seem to be gearing up for. Question is, does lower foot traffic properly compensated with higher online sales? Otherwise, higher cash burn from stores keeps eating into whatever value there is in real estate.

Q2: http://investors.danaher.com/2017-07-20-Danaher-Reports-Second-Quarter-2017-Results

If he has better opportunities to deploy lots of capital, it would be crazy to tie his hands in advance to buybacks. If BRK falls a lot, other things are probably falling even more.

SHLD selling Kenmore on Amazon… Isn’t this just giving customers one less reason to go to a Sears store?

And another one: http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/-2226880.htm

17 years at 26% is 50.8x Wow.

And another one: http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2017/07/oil-and-gas-news-petrosys-announces-acquisition-by-vela.html

Apple has started blogging about machine learning: https://machinelearning.apple.com/

Short interview with the new CEO: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-07-18/priceline-ceo-on-strategy-competition-and-china-video

btw, the book came out yesterday, for those who were waiting to order it.

Discovery and Scripps reportedly rekindle merger talks http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/18/discovery-and-scripps-reportedly-rekindle-merger-talks.html

China seems to have disabled Whatsapp, the last major FB property that was active there: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/technology/whatsapp-facebook-china-internet.html

I'm about 60 pages in and liking it so far. Very interesting to learn about pre-digital computers and how they could do fairly complex calculus simply be internally reproducing analogs to real world phenomenon with spinning discs and ball bearings and such. There's a funny anecdote about how Shannon was almost prevented from taking a flying class as a student at MIT because his professors recognized how special a genius he was and they didn't think it was a good idea to put his life at risk :) I also find it fascinating that Shannon and Turing met during the war, but couldn't really talk about what they were working on because it was so classified. Both of them together basically had all the theoretical pieces for digital computers.

Hope you didn't end up shorting it: #BREAKING: Netflix $NFLX Q2 Net Subscriber Additions (Domestic), 1.07M vs. 600,000 guidance

Valuing BRK on book makes less and less sense as time goes on. It used to be mostly insurance cos with a portfolio of publicly traded stocks and a few operating businesses on top, but now it's also bunch of very large operating businesses of various kinds. The two-column valuation method makes most sense, IMO. I certainly wouldn't compare the book value of BRK to GOOG or whatever...

BTC just went to 1800, ETH to 130... Talk about volatility for 'currencies'.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sprint-executives-have-engaged-warren-buffett-about-investment-1500055560

Did you cut & paste what I wrote on the Shannon thread? :D

“Our space probes still tethered to the Earth with thin cords of 0′s and 1′s.” (That’s good writing!)

Retail archaeology at Sears.

Congrats Keith, well deserved!