Liberty

My comment was part of the discussion with Benhacker. I kind of assumed your comment was part of it too. Didn't mean to imply that you were short.

This was literally what I wrote originally, which was correct. I was extremely specific. I was obviously correct and it was misinterpreted as applying to 1Q15 guidance for some unknown reason. I can't control that. Is it not reasonable to discuss the most recent guidance? Generally, if a company does not update guidance it's because the # is still relevant (1Q15 EBITDA guidance was not updated so we assume it's unchanged). Complain to VRX about any uncertainty, not me. Wrong. As I already said, IBS-D is a specific indication for Xifaxan (irritable bowel syndrome - diarrhea) that they didn't have approval for from the FDA at the time in Q1 so it was most definitely not included in the overall Xifaxan guidance that is part of the 7.5bn EBITDA 2016 number. Management at the time would not even say how much they thought that indication would add to peak sales, much less include it in the guidance. In short: Xifaxan without IBS-D was in guidance, Xifaxan with IBS-D (which is a big deal) wasn't, unlike what you said. In other words, if we think in balistic terms, Xifaxan was on a certain trajectory before the IBS-D indication was approved. The Q1 guidance modeled that trajectory. After the IBS-D approval, the trajectory changed (growth more than doubled, from memory), but the Q1 guidance doesn't take into account that new trajectory. Pfizer doesn't seem to break out organic growth (they acquire less, but pretty sure they do tuck ins), and while it breaks down its biggest products, I don't see anything on pricing vs volume. btw, I think part of the reason why Valeant wasn't breaking out top products before is that none of them are that material to the company, unlike the blockbusters that most other big pharmas have. But it's good to have so I'm glad they do it now. For example, Pfizer's top 10 biotech products (getting a billion or more in revenue each) represent 54% of sales for that division (which itself is more than 90% of total). I don't think Valeant's top 20 products crack 30% of total (from memory), much less the top 10. Very different diversification profile, which can lead to different choices for disclosure.

The difference is that your bet against your team has no effect on the outcome of the game. Fair, though, with all due respect to all of us on the board, I don't think any of us are moving the reflexivity needle with our bets (long or short). That's always the question: If I throw a cigarette butt on the ground, am I making a difference? I'm just one person. But do all the people who think that, when combined, amount to enough to make a difference, even if marginal? It's certainly not helping things... I don't think there's anything wrong with you shorting Tesla. I just find it strange, because you seem to like them a lot. I wouldn't short Berkshire even if I thought it was overvalued, but that's just the shape of my brain. Different strokes and all that.

Schwab, do you still think IBS-D was included in Q1 guidance? You didn't address that. I have no doubt that in 2014 it's possible that price was more than half of developed market organic growth. That's totally fine. They had some big tail products (which are pretty much all in developed markets) that year and that's where they take the most pricing. If growth was 14% in there and they took slightly more than 7% on average (probably under 5% for the durable part, and more for the 10% of portfolio in neuro and others), that makes sense to me, and seems to be consistent with what others in the industry do. And since pricing was around flat in rest of the world, they had much better organic growth based on volume there mostly because they have fewer of those big tail assets skewing the average. I wish they disclosed more about everything, but they're already doing more than most pharmas. Many (most?) don't even break out organic growth... Even less about price vs. volume. They still disclose some info about price vs volume, but don't always do it product by product (they already do top 20 products with 5 quarters of revenue for each, maybe didn't want to add 2 more pages to presentations -- again, haven't seen other pharmas do this). Last Q they had a general statement (about half from volume, half price). Anyone complaining about VRX lack of disclosure should have a look at a Pfizer presentation: http://www.pfizer.com/system/files/presentation/Q2_2015_Earnings_Charts.pdf

People never got that mad about fossil fuel subsidies - not enough for much to change - and they add up to trillions of dollars (directly and indirectly, such as military expenditure to keep protect oil flows) over time. By the time solar subsidies are gone, solar will be cheap enough and the grid will be upgraded (storage getting cheaper everyday, some European countries already showing that massive quantities of wind and solar can be used). I wouldn't want to be swimming upstream against a Swanson's Law. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law

This is interesting speculation about the main features of the Model X being met for a self-driving car: https://medium.com/@gavinsblog/elon-musk-s-sleight-of-hand-ea2b078ed8e6 (doors that open themselves when they detect you approaching, back seats with storage space underneath them, side doors that open that wide and detect obstacles without human intervention, etc).

Seems like a solar mirror would be a hell of a lot easier, cheaper and safer than fusion bombs over the poles. In his original remark on it, Musk said that this would be the fastest way to do it. Not necessarily his favorite or the cheapest, just the quickest. When you want to release a lot of energy, hard to beat a series of fusion bombs...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-02/pfizer-raised-prices-on-133-drugs-this-year-and-it-s-not-alone

Speaking of Musk being awesome:

http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v24/224833124/zinc_block.jpg

That makes sense. Isn't it also possible that power rates will go up faster in the coming years because there's so much infrastructure investment to do to decarbonize the system, make it able to handle more intermittent sources and storage, turn things into more of a smart grid? It might be somewhat cheaper to buy upfront, but don't underestimate how people mostly care about convenience and not having sticker shock upfront. Car leases make no financial sense for the vast majority of people compared to owning, yet leases are popular.

Is it "terrible", or is it just not as good as buying the system upfront is you have the capital to invest? The way I see it, you get a lower energy bill each month and don't have to pay upfront. For most people, that's better than what they're doing now, and the energy is clean, which many people also value and are ready to pay for.

So I did a tiny, tiny bit of detective work and found who created the ValeantPricing.com website (the one with no dollar amounts anywhere) that the shorts have been passing around lately: http://imgur.com/8imJh7e http://i.imgur.com/8imJh7e.png Edit: Well, apparently it was mentioned in the Citron report that he made it. Guess I either couldn't make it to that part or didn't notice, but it doesn't say anywhere on the site that the author is a short seller and who it is, and the URL is being passed around so much lately on a standalone basis that I had no idea who the original source was. Still good to know. I think what irked me about it is that the site was made to go be passed around, doesn't say anywhere it was created by a short-seller, kind of supposed to look like some grassroots thing from outraged citizens with torches and pitchforks.

Looks like the acquisition of Silevo is paying off (well, technologically at least).

That's all I was saying. To me, it would cause cognitive dissonance if I was shorting something that I wished would succeed. If SpaceX ever goes public, and they're trying to keep it private but you never know, I couldn't on one hand find what they're doing amazing and exciting in root for them, and then turn around and short their stock.

Wait, you're rooting for Elon and like that he can raise capital at a good price but are shorting the stock? Or did I misread that?

I actually laughed out loud at this one :D

NPR interview with Tim Cook, some privacy/security discussions: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/10/01/445026470/apple-ceo-tim-cook-privacy-is-a-fundamental-human-right

I'm sorry, it wasn't clear to me. What I think happened is they were going to beat their overall guidance but EM slowdowns and FX made them land in the middle of it, which isn't bad since it was +40% YoY. These things won't always work against them. FX was big this year, but if it just stabilizes or if the USD falls, next year could be interesting. Same for EM getting healthier.

http://i.imgur.com/wNKecLB.png http://i.imgur.com/BcoNcCt.png Looks pretty middle of the range to me.

It was approved during 2Q15 (as Liberty's slide shows). They already stated approved Salix products are included in guidance. Why wouldn't it be included in guidance? The 7.5bn guidance was announced in 1Q15, before that.

Facebook is now driving more traffic to most sites than Google is. I don't think there's less content generated overall. Maybe on your feed, though? If you don't care about facebook, you probably haven't been curating much, adding new people, "liking" new organizations, etc. Facebook is starting to get big publishers to host content directly on it (NYT, etc) and will share ad revenue with it. But not having to pay for your own content is a benefit, not a problem. The thing about teens and facebook is way overblown, IMO. A lot of that was based on the article written a couple years ago by a young teen saying that nobody at her school used facebook, etc. Well, she just wrote a new article on Medium (can't find it right now), and she's in high school now, and says most people uses facebook and/or instagram... I don't even study facebook the company that much, and I'm certainly no investor. But I don't think your reasons for shorting it are very strong. Facebook has become part of the internet's infrastructure, like Google, and they'll collect their toll... Branding advertising and native advertising are the next thing, and facebook is well positioned.

I wouldn't trust google trends for that kind of stuff either. Grey is right about autocomplete of URLs, but most people go on facebook in an app on a mobile device now, so they're not even going to Google search... I don't think that's quite what Ben Thompson is saying here. It sounds similar, but it's not the same. He's more saying that there's now a gigantic market for attention without intent, and it's very huge and very valuable to both users and advertisers in a way that is aligned for Facebook's interest. This is more about market structure, with people demanding what you offer (people just want to pull out their phone whenever they're bored and see what their friends are up to, see some news, message people, etc) and facebook being solidly entrenched (network effect, can buy competitors, etc). In the typical "the market is huge" example, you usually don't have a dynamic like that, you are trying to ram something down people's throats that they don't necessarily want, they're not beating a path to your door.

I replied this morning to your private message on Twitter.

Why do you care about GAAP? They are reinvesting what they make in restructuring their acquisitions, which they get a huge return on and avoid taxes with by not showing a GAAP profit. And they've shown these are truly one-time costs when they lapped B&L (they just keep acquiring new things, so there are new one-time costs). If you have good places to reinvest the money, why would you show a GAAP profit? In less than a year of owning Salix they are already getting close to 530m in synergies, and how much did that cost them? I'd rather they spend the money in severance pay for the duplicative back-office and to consolidate manufacturing at the B&L plants or whatever than show a GAAP profit and miss out on those recurring cost savings and pay taxes on that GAAP profit... Real value creation trumps the optics for wall street, IMO. Unlike what you said before, they don't need to show GAAP profits to refinance their debt. Malone has almost never had any GAAP profits anywhere, and as long as he has the EBITDA earning power, his lenders are fine with it. If they want to pay down debt, they can just slow down on those types of investments (acquisitions, restructuring) and the money will pile up to be used for that, as they've shown last year. If you want to see GAAP profits, don't look at businesses that have more than enough reinvestment opportunities for all that they generate.