Liberty

It is fairly popular among investors in Canada (or at least in the East), along with Couche Tard (ATD.B). Probably not that well known outside of the country, though.

Apple would prefer you buy a new one rather than a new battery. BTW it isn't impossible to replace it, just extremely difficult. Most consumer electronics are past the point where you should get a screwdriver and fix it yourself. If Apple encouraged people to try to open up their iPhones and Macbook Pros themselves to try to figure out what the problem is, on average they'd probably cause more damage than they would fix (and the number of people who would want to do this is likely very low single digits anyway, so why not optimize for the vast majority of people?). Batteries used to take up maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of a laptop's volume and be in some corner, easily accessible from a little trapdoor. Now most of the volume of a super-thin laptop is batteries (no more DVD drives, and the motherboard is now tiny -- look at the new Macbook), and to keep it thin and reduce the number of seams and screws, everything is packed together very densely and the frame of the laptop itself is mostly milled out of a single block of aluminum... In short: If you want a new battery, bring your laptop to Apple and they'll do it for you with their specialized tools to open things up and seal it back up properly.

Thanks for the link. I understand that there's a difference in value, I'm just surprised that this difference would be 15%+ in the case of this family-controlled business. Another one that is weird is LILA vs. LILAK, with the voting shares being worth less than the non-voting ones (in that case, it's probably a liquidity thing, but still, the spread is wide). I would expect that to close once LBTYA distributes its LiLAC stake to shareholder, increasing the float, but who knows?

New rumors about a Siri API and a new Echo-like device (or maybe incorporated into the next version of the Apple TV?) coming for WWDC next month. The Siri API is way overdue, so that would be nice. It's also been rumored for a while that Siri is coming to the Mac on the next version of OS X (which is also rumored to be renamed MacOS...). Rumors rumors rumors. We'll see.

This one has been doing well lately, though the A shares still are $10 cheaper apparently because they have 1/10th the votes (that discount might never close... who knows?). Reporting Q1 later this week. Not as cheap as it was, but I still expect good things from them over the long term.

Here's the timeline: http://i.imgur.com/tual04N.png http://i.imgur.com/cKCi8eM.png

Maybe the revenue estimate for this private company by that website could be off or way outdated... If you go to their website here and register, you can download a corporate overview brochure that has a lot of interesting stuff: http://www.ddc-web.com/about.html There's a timeline in the brochure and it only shows one acquisition in 2013, but lots and lots of product launches. Seems like mostly an organic grower, unless they didn't include other acquisitions... Some of their platforms here: http://i.imgur.com/qPUBAtp.png

It'll be interesting to see how much they disclose about it during the next call. Things that are probably better than at Telair to account for the higher price: margins, growth potential, ratio of aftermarket, ratio or proprietary sole source. Here's the info they initially gave on Telair: As you can see, aftermarket is only 45% vs 70% for DDC, and sole source is 80% vs. "nearly all of the revenue from proprietary and sole source products" for DDC.

http://www.transdigm.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=196053&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2171734

Another thing to keep in mind is that a rise in interest rates would help them. From the most recent call:

Q&A with Malone: http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/john-malone-brian-roberts-charter-time-warner-cable-merger-comcast-1201778366/

It's been more or less fine, but with a discount. Today's lack of tracking has to do with the 10:9 exchange in old CHTR for new CHTR shares. More details here: http://ir.charter.com/mobile.view?c=112298&v=202&d=3&id=aHR0cDovL2FwaS50ZW5rd2l6YXJkLmNvbS9maWxpbmcueG1sP2lwYWdlPTEwNDQ0MjEwJkRTRVE9MSZTRVE9NDgmU1FERVNDPVNFQ1RJT05fUEFHRSZleHA9JnN1YnNpZD01Nw%3D%3D (the ratio is 0.9042 to be exact, fractional shares get cash)

Sears do not give out a breakdown of revenue, so the above is an approximation. Regardless, I would still be very concerned about this valuation of the on-line business. If revenue is falling, then it suggests that on-line sales are dependent on a physical retailing presence. The true online sales could be very small. Some people said when you buy in store, the checkout stand would use the online page to check you out, so the number is categorized as online sale, store pick up, exactly what Eddie envisioned and pushed. :D The store checkout guys do this because they probably get a bonus when online sales grow. Initially the online sales figure grew strongly because more store clerks started to do this. Now that physical store are doing worse and worse, the "online" sales figure start to shrank. Wow, that is incredibly cynical . . . and sounds plausible. Metrics-obsessed higher management that is far removed from the people on the ground, who probably don't feel much love for the company and just want to get their bonus... Yeah, sounds very plausible.

Andrew Left is now long Valeant. Beautiful. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-16/short-seller-andrew-left-says-valeant-s-a-buy-as-big-funds-exit

Filing for BK: http://www.wsj.com/articles/sandridge-energy-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-1463404621 Now 2 pennies a share on the pink sheets, down 99.94% since 2007.

If you believe management that they're getting IRRs in the 30%+ range on the new builds that they're doing (project lightning in UK, etc), you want them to spend that money on growth capex rather than see it end up as FCF... They also did many acquisitions in the past few years that have restructuring charges and synergies still going through the pipe, so that impacts things. They've been blocked from doing as much buybacks as they want recently because of the CWC deal. The moratorium ends on May 18. That might have an impact on price, we'll see.

Apparently Fries was on TV today and all but confirmed that LBTYA would distributed the LiLAC shares. Also, http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-05-16/john-malone-should-revamp-liberty-lilac-tracking-stocks

Not Warren, not sure who. Todd if I had to guess...

BRK reveals 9.81m shares stake in AAPL.

Book written by the founder of ISCAR, which was bought by Berkshire a few years ago. The book was recommended by Buffett at the AGM, I think. There's a writeup about it by RationalWalk here: http://www.rationalwalk.com/?p=14669 Book available here: http://www.amazon.com/Habit-Labor-Lessons-Struggle-Success/dp/1468310860/ I haven't read it yet, but I think it could interest many here, and that starting a thread so that people who have had a chance to read it can share their thoughts is a good idea.

SIRI increasing stake in Sirius Canda on the cheap: http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-releases/press-release-details/2016/SiriusXM-Enters-into-Agreement-to-Back-Sirius-XM-Canadas-Going-Private-Transaction/default.aspx

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/12/reuters-america-apple-invests-1-bln-in-chinese-ride-hailing-service-didi-chuxing.html

You need to read that in context of the date of the article (1969). This was the end of the "conglomerate boom". The conglomerates were the FANG of that era. Teledyne had an 89% peak-to-trough drop. The "good" teledyne came after. I thought KFC was a more interesting example since this would be in Buffett's core competency. But there was also a "franchise" boom during the 60s, so it makes sense in context. Of course, I'm just curious to know if Buffett volunteered Teledyne as an example or if the journalist just picked a conglomerate himself and ended up on the one that was run by the person who Buffett considers the best capital allocator (and if you had bought Teledyne even during the conglomerate boom, you'd probably have done really well afterwards).

There we go: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-12/charter-twc-merger-clears-final-hurdle-with-california-approval

Thanks for sharing it, I appreciate it. Wonder if Buffett gave the Teledyne example or if the journalist came up with it. Funny either eay. Conglomerates not his thing? Guess he didn't know he would be running one... Though to be fair, his model is different from what was popular at the time.