Liberty

Lampert seems to have completely disconnected himself from the informational feedback loop that any good CEO needs. He's basically scared everyone from telling him bad news, and he's even angry when they're don't succeed entirely at telling him what he's trying to hear. He's probably also driving away all his good employees that are employable anywhere else and keeping whatever remains. Maybe if he visited his stores and spoke to his workforce (and they weren't scared to be candid), he could learn a few things about what he owns. Lampert is no doubt a better investor than I'll ever be, and probably smarter too, but he's making a huge mistake with Sears. He's probably on plan D or E by now; he bought back over $6bn in stock years ago, then it was all about Shop Your Way and "becoming like Amazon and Apple" (didn't realize that his customers -- err, members -- where skewing much older and not interested much in e-commerce, and that to attract new customers he'd need much better stores and technology, and a low-cost structure), and now it's about liquidating the RE and selling brands (leaking roofs and cracked floors & al -- when all big retailers except amazon are having a hard time, the value of big box stores is probably not going up). I'm sure that at a certain price SHLD might be undervalued, but time certainly isn't the friend of this business, and the melting seems to be accelerating rather than slowing...

This is just... wow. Shows what can happen when one loses touch.

Yes, buy back shares (with debt?), maybe squeeze the shorts in the short term, and then keep bleeding hundreds of millions quarter after quarter after quarter as Amazon and other better retailers keep destroying the core business. Great plan. Maybe they just need to recapture the magic of Q2 2013...

They certainly haven't been able to innovate like Samsung on the explosion front, that's for sure.

More people should read this great book. Maybe this piece in the NYT will help spread the word: http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/nyregion/james-bond-of-philanthropy-gives-away-the-last-of-his-fortune.html

So SIRI is currently trading at approximately 14.5x next year’s FCF guidance. LSXMA has a further discount to that. They believe enabled vehicles might double by 2025. If true, anyone has an idea of what cagr in fcf should they be able to sustain? I mean: is revenue directly proportional to enabled vehicles? If so, have they means to grow fcf more rapidly than sales? Cheers, Gio There's a lot of operating leverage. Each new subscriber is their most profitable subscriber.

What other major things that they did during that period would you have them sacrifice to try to achieve that goal? It's not like they had spare capacity laying around, especially not 15 years ago. Personally, I don't think Apple pushing in the enterprise in 2002 or 2007 would've worked for many reasons, and their consumer efforts would've suffered from the lack of focus, so they'd be in worst shape today. But that's just me.

Speaking of content, there was this bit of news late last month: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sirius-xm-holdgs-ruling-turtles-idUSKBN1492G9

I know. They've given some guidance on spend for satellites in the future. They're expensive, but not nearly as expensive, relatively, to the company today as they were to the much smaller and less profitable company that first launched these satellites. It'll also be interesting to see how much lower the price of launches will go over the next few years as companies like SpaceX add competition to the launch market. The NOLs will also run out at some point. It'll be interesting to see if the US corporate tax rate is much lower than it is now by then, and if Malone and Maffei can pull their usually tricks to stay tax efficient.

Some 2016 numbers released, along with 2017 guidance: http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-releases/press-release-details/2017/SiriusXM-Exceeds-2016-Subscriber-Guidance-Issues-2017-Subscriber-and-Financial-Guidance/default.aspx So SIRI is currently trading at approximately 14.5x next year’s FCF guidance. LSXMA has a further discount to that.

Interesting post about Alexa as an operating system, and also an overview of what makes OSes attractive, with history about MSFT, GOOGL, FB, etc: https://stratechery.com/2017/amazons-operating-system/

Appropriate in 10-15 years maybe, stupid in the short term. Gasoline cars had so much help from governments at all levels with policies favoring oil, roads/parkings, and the removal of competition (tramways, light trains, etc). For decades. I think it would be stupid when EVs are at their infancy, to slow down their adoption with anti-EV policies because all of a sudden it matters to be "fair". Any help EVs are getting isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what ICE vehicles have received during the 20th century.

Here's a 1-minute trailer for the HBO doc:

CSU acquisition in the communication towers management business: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/volaris-group-expands-position-communications-vertical-with-acquisition-tarantula-global-2186008.htm http://www.tarantula.net

Japanese JV announced: http://www.csisoftware.com/2016/12/constellation-software-announces-agreement-with-hikari-tsushin/

To get extreme results you need an extreme personality.

Musk has always had kind of a stutter and been rough around the edge at public speaking (gets more comfortable in a 1 on 1 interview). Doesn't make him any less smart.

Such cool, lifesaving tech: https://electrek.co/2016/12/27/tesla-autopilot-radar-technology-predict-accident-dashcam/

http://www.fiercecable.com/cable/altice-offs-belgium-luxembourg-biz-to-john-malone-for-417m-as-anxiety-builds-among-u-s Looks like the economics just got better in Belgium.

https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/12/21/toronto-eclipses-vancouver-as-countrys-least-affordable-housing-market.html

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/13-605-x/2015006/article/c-g/c-g04-eng.gif Pretty sure it kept going up since 2014...

Interview with Jamie Dimon about Detroit, Trump, etc: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-22/jamie-dimon-on-trump-taxes-and-a-u-s-renaissance Here's the audio:

Edit: I posted the wrong link:

House prices going up double digits for years while incomes go up low single digits, the difference being made up with debt, which is taken on at generational lows in interest rates, which have already begun to rise. Mortgage brokers, private mortgage lenders, and cash-back mortgages allowing almost anyone with a pulse to borrow leverage of 19-20x for years. While Americans have been delevering, Canadian have kept levering up. Yes, no problems. It's not like our economy is rather cyclical and undiversified in nature. Toronto and Vancouver aren't the only places that have green belts and other restrictions to development, or that have immigration. And Toronto has had more cranes and high rise developments than anywhere else in North America (including NYC) for many years of the recent past, yet condo prices haven't exactly stopped going up. I think a lot of the reasons used to rationalize this bubble will be looked back later on in a different light. Every time things get irrational, people have plausible-sounding reasons, but it's like the Halo Effect -- price movement drives the justifications, and not the other way around. Animal spirits have a lot to do with it; Canadians think their RE is invulnerable because what happened to Americans didn't happen to them in 2008, and they think that a house is the only place to put their wealth because the dot-com and GFC events have made them mistrust other investments and because they can't get decent rates from GICs and safe bonds. Once something has been going up fast enough for long enough, FOMO kicks in and everybody's pretty much ready to pay anything to get in on the action. Besides, most people here seem to think that owning a house is a kind of human right, and you just pay whatever it costs. Your life isn't complete until you can watch HGTV from your own living room. What does it matter, interest rates will always be low and house prices always go up anyway, right? I mean, even San Francisco, which has even more supply restrictions (legal and geographic), and happens to be home to a few trillion dollars in market cap and much nicer weather and culture, isn't as expensive as Vancouver.