Liberty

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/850693/000119312514340518/d788696ddfan14a.htm New filing by Pershing.

Got my copy. Looking forward to reading it.

Looks like demand is strong: http://recode.net/2014/09/12/larger-iphone-6-plus-sells-out-amid-strong-demand-for-apples-latest-crop/

Greg Maffei speaking at the Goldman Sachs conference: http://cc.talkpoint.com/gold006/091014a_ae/?entity=48_M0M8OLM

The Secrets of Berkshire Hathaway’s Success: An Interview with Charlie Munger http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/12/the-secrets-of-berkshire-hathaways-success-an-interview-with-charlie-munger/

http://agn.client.shareholder.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=870493 You almost have to admire the gall of these guys... "Notwithstanding Pershing Square and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.'s ("Valeant") efforts to change the subject, Allergan recognizes that what actually matters is value, and that's what the Company is focusing on delivering to stockholders."

The question is, what are those future cash flows? Do you think Tesla will be a "car company that sells to small niche consumers" in 5 or 10 years? What if they have a big energy business? What if they sell technology in partnerships with Toyota, Daimler, VW, etc? What if they keep building more Gigafactories and become the low cost suppliers to the whole car industry + energy storage industry? What if the Model 3 second generation is less than $30k and they sell a million+ units a year? What if Tesla's electric cars can sustain much higher margins than even luxury traditional gas vehicles because of fundamental technological differences? I'm not making predictions, I'm just saying that "valuing on future cash flows" means nothing unless you know what these cash flows are, and I don't think the bears know much more than the bulls. I have no horse in this race. All I know is I would never bet against Elon Musk on anything, ever.

http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/10/iphone6

To be clear, that's not what I was saying. I didn't mean that it's literally impossible to find a country anywhere that has a lower tax rate than you do. Just to be competitive with most of the countries that are comparable. Territorial rather than worldwide taxes, fewer loopholes/exemptions (more of a flat tax rate, in other words), and a rate that is closer to Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, etc, would be a good start. I bet that if you do that, any money you lose from the companies that are currently paying the full rate would be more than offset from all those who won't redomicile elsewhere, from trillions in cash that would come back to the US and be invested there (which are now kept away to avoid double-taxation), and from corps paying very low rates being brought up to the new statutory rate. Right now the system has incentives for companies to create jobs and invest elsewhere, domicile elsewhere, and lobby for exemptions/loopholes. Not exactly a fair or effective system. This has nothing to do with paying for infrastructure or whatever. A better system could probably gross more tax revenue and boost overall economic health.

Kind of hoping the Vodafone CEO comment doesn't amount to anything, at least for a long time. I want to keep Liberty Global as a long-term compounder :P

Guess I was lucky with my timing too (though who knows? maybe they announce Kami and Julienne Lake soon). Recently sold my ALS position. Just didn't fit in my portfolio anymore.

Convenient, that, given that he’d be giving himself and Buffett a massive tax cut. Sometimes the best thing to do is also convenient for you. That doesn't make it wrong. It's not because a pot smoker says the war on drugs should end that it's a bad idea. I think the idea should be looked at on its merit. I think there's a lot of merit to the US having a corporate tax rate that is at least competitive with the rest of the world. You can't have a significantly higher rate with a worldwide taxation regime and then complain when businesses want to move elsewhere, in the same way that businesses moving between different US states isn't morally wrong. I think there's a lot of merit to most US corporations paying a similar rate rather than some businesses paying over 30% and others paying in the teens because of various industry-specific loopholes and tax breaks. That seems a lot fairer than the current system.

A WSJ reporter just said that Ackman now has 35% of shares for the special meeting, according to her sources. So it could still pass above 25% even if his 9.7% stake was thrown out for some reason. Wouldn't be surprised if he got a few more percents soon too (the process is so cumbersome that it takes time)... Update: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/allergan-investors-owning-35-pct-143230388.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-11/vodafone-ceo-says-liberty-could-be-good-fit-for-right-price-.html Plus a nice little wifi partnership with Comcast: https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/comcast-and-liberty-global-announce-agreement-to-connect-us-and-european-wi-fi-networks-2014-09-11

I think the first thing is that if it wasn't offloading some functions to the iPhone, it couldn't work. Maybe in a few years we'll have the technology, but right now, if the watch had a cellular connection and a GPS, you'd probably have to charge it 3-4 times a day... And without cell access and a GPS, both the fitness and the internet-connected apps would become mostly useless. You'd also need to pay yet another separate cell plan with a telecom just for the watch -- I don't think people would like that very much. Tethering wouldn't work if it required people to buy a device that few people have and/or want. For example, if HTC comes out with a Watch that requires a HTC phone, their addressable market will be fairly small. But the iPhone is the best selling phone in the world, it owns the high-end, and there are already hundreds of millions of them out there (I think the Watch works with the iPhone 5, so by the time the Watch is released, most people with 4S phones will be updating, and those who are too cheap to do so probably wouldn't buy a Watch). The iPod required iTunes on a Mac or (later) Windows PC to tether to. It was fine, because most people already had a computer. In theory Apple could open the Watch tethering to Android like they did with the iPod for Windows, but I don't think that'll happen. The situation was different with the iPod, as the Mac had a much smaller relatively market share, the Watch experience wouldn't be as good with Android (because control over iOS and iPhone hardware matters), and Apple will like it just fine that the Watch pushes some people to keep buying iPhone, making the ecosystem even sticker than it already is.

You're right that nothing else has been the iPhone, but I don't think anything else ever will be (it's bigger than the PC, which was the biggest thing until then). There are big paradigms in tech that come every few decades and mobile computing was one. I'm not expecting another one of those every few years. But there doesn't need to be for the company to succeed. I think their current products are the best they've ever made (current laptops are the best laptops they've ever made, current desktops the best, current phones the best, current tablets the best, etc), and that they're as good if not better as what anyone else makes. As soon as they release a generation that is worse than the preceding one (and I don't mean the speed of the CPUs, GPUs, etc.. that's always going up. I mean the design, the software, the product as a whole), then I'll be worried. I think the Watch will be like the first iPhone in some ways. It's early in that field. In a few generations, battery life will be much better, they'll iron out some problems, entry prices might come down a bit (though it'll be segmented all the way up to high prices, I'm sure), there will probably be even more branded collections, etc. It's just beginning. The original iPhone didn't have apps, fast cellular data, a GPS, etc..

Except for the iPhone, no Apple product intro really "blew people's minds". Most times, the stock actually tanked. It's only in retrospect that people look at most of their products so fondly, with the benefit of hindsight. People were really disappointed with the iPad at first ("just a big iPod touch") and now it's 1/3 of the company. While Jobs was a genius, part of his genius was creating the company (it's his Berkshire Hathaway, so to speak), and most of the products that are attributed to Jobs actually had a lot of other people in them. Jobs was always more an editor than anything else. Jony Ive has that role now, as he also did in good part when Jobs was around. btw, I'm not big on saying that Apple is revolutionary and game-changing and all that. Maybe I should pick my words more carefuly because it might be easy to read into them, but I mostly see them like Pixar; a well-oiled machine with a very specific culture and processes that consistently leads to really good stuff. I don't care if the products are revolutionary or not. If they make the best products in the categories where they play, they'll get the top end of the market where most of the profits are.

Embrace Kindle! Reduce Clutter! Not a bad idea. I read about half/half on iPad vs dead tree. Maybe someday I'll switch entirely, but some books I still prefer on paper. I'm not entirely sure why.

Amazon is taking its sweet time sending me my copy. I'm guessing the publisher is part of Hachette... :-\

http://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.ca/2014/09/buffett-on-market-valuation.html

;D Don't get me wrong, I like that most people don't get it. Wouldn't have made this much money on Apple otherwise.

It does. But it's mostly because they exactly copied the existing "nice watch" look. Problem is, they didn't really think about how a smartwatch has to be different from a traditional watch to provide a good experience, and the downsides of a round screen with what people will mostly be looking at on it (ie. not round things except for the time). It's also too bad that the bottom part of the screen is black (more like the Moto 270 than 360), it's too big for half the world's population, the software isn't very good, there's no health/fitness stuff, and it has to be charged twice a day: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/09/05/stern-270 It also doesn't look quite as good in real life as in that rendering: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/moto-360-review-beautiful-outside-ugly-inside/ http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/IMG_00405.jpg

At least you're not taking this personally..... ;) Nothing personal about it. It's just tiring to constantly see this adolescent mentality. People always focus on what is easily measured instead of what matters... People use the wrong metaphor: They think this stuff is a race, a kind of competitive sport, but it's really more like cooking. It's more important to make it a delicious experience as a whole, with all the ingredients working well together, than to be first out of the kitchen and to pack the most stuff on the plate. Apple's claim to fame isn't that it constantly does things before everybody else anyway, it's that it does them right at the integrated product level.

http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2014/09/alibabas-coming-out-party-valued-right.html

Yeah, because a product is just a list of specs, and being first with something means you got it right ::)