Liberty

That's a good theory. My take on the flat trading so far today was that the market just doesn't know what to think. Probably likes the improved balance sheet and Landquart progress, doesn't like the cogen SNAFU, and who knows what to think about LSQ? I guess getting a partner would reduce risk so that's good, but if they mothball the project indefinitely is that good because it lowers uncertainty or bad because it lowers eventual earnings?... I suspect you are right about the shareholder base now having a longer time horizon. The announcement of the new cogen high-pressure water pump problems would have made big waves not so long ago, but now everybody's probably looking much farther out so they don't care as much if it takes an extra month to fix. Hopefully we learn interesting things on the call.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? Just that because the price didn't move around much, the market was already pricing what happened in Q2? Or something else. I'm not sure I'm interpreting your comment right.

http://www.fortresspaper.com/images/pdfs/FTP%20NR%20Q2%202013.pdf Q2 CC tomorrow at noon EST.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-14/paulson-cuts-spdr-gold-stake-53-as-soros-sells-out.html Paulson sold half his GLD, probably causing part of the decline. Could be a contrary indicator, as his timing has been pretty bad since 2009...

Thanks, these were good.

The grasshopper tests are SUPER impressive. The rate of progress is really quite good. Looks like every month the capabilities improve dramatically. Update: I like this comment that someone else posted on another forum:

People talk a lot about "good" and "bad" Sears stores as if they were static, but the question is, are "good" stores stable or improving, or are they also getting worse over time? Is the low reinvestment into stores combined with general shopping trends hurting the retail operations and slowly turning even good stores into bad ones? Is the improvement in the economy/housing market going to be enough to push back the needle far enough in the other direction and more than compensate, especially if it's slow? Maybe what ESL did with KMart in the early 2000s couldn't be done as easily today because e-commerce/Walmart/Costco/Target/etc are all stronger, and department stores are weaker.

Amazon's not making any money, though. If Sears tries to compete online while making money, they won't match the low prices, and if they play Amazon's game, they won't have margins on top of having to catch up with someone very smart with over a decade's headstart.

Ichan wrote on Twitter: "We currently have a large position in APPLE. We believe the company to be extremely undervalued. Spoke to Tim Cook today. More to come." "Had a nice conversation with Tim Cook today. Discussed my opinion that a larger buyback should be done now. We plan to speak again shortly." Guess I had good timing for once in buying some AAPL a few days ago.. Update: Icahn sure can move markets. His announcement added over 20 billion to Apple's market cap.

By deals, do you mean bought deals/issuing equity, or acquisitions? I think the Bertram deal was quite good for many reasons, and they didn't overpay IMO. I would be open to new acquisitions if they are as good as Bertram and Dando as long as they pay cash and don't issue new stock at these prices. They paid ±$150k for Dando + added a couple millions to beef up working capital. That business will earn millions once they have sold enough rigs and can do more high-margin servicing (kind of like the car industry -- they make more on the service than selling the vehicles themselves). Passing on more deals like that would be crazy if they can find them.

Going back to penny stock status despite the recent reverse split, it looks like :P

Agreed, but it doesn't seem like something Malone wants to do. This book was unauthorized, though Malone did many interviews with the author (not sure if they were specifically for the book or for newspaper pieces that the author did over time), and I feel like all those interviews were mostly about the business because Malone wants to keep his private life out of the spotlight. Not sure if he'll ever pull a Buffett and open up completely to a biographer.

Excuse my ignorance but what does the acronym "POMO" stand for? Thank you in advance I had to look it up too: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/permanent-open-market-operations.asp

Q2: http://sandstormmetalsandenergy.com/_resources/financials/2013/SND-Q2-2013.pdf

Elon Musk's hyperloop design is out (no patents, open source): http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf

Up over 20% today. Quite volatile lately. It'll be interesting to see the Q2 results, which are more mineral-heavy than Q1, to see if things have stabilized on that front.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-12/blackberry-forms-board-committee-to-explore-options.html

Think something more or less like Zellers.

Eli Wexler, is that you?

One view on iron ore's prospects: http://adventuresincapitalism.com/post/2013/08/07/Potash-Will-Not-Go-The-Way-Of-Iron-Ore.aspx

That might not be such a bad thing! Don't Lampert's annualized returns since 1988 eclipse Buffett's in the same time frame? You have to take the amounts of money they had to deal with in consideration for the comparison to be meaningful. I mean, Buffett said that the "knows" he could do 50% a year with small sums.

Agreed. The stock is overvalued, but people have been saying it was overvalued since the IPO ("how can they be worth billions having only sold a few hundred Roadsters?"). What's the catalyst for shorting? What if next quarter they sell even more vehicles than expected and pull out a few more surprise new features out from behind the curtains? What if they add a big partnership on top of Toyota and Daimler? As more details come out on the Model X, there could be surprises that will excite people even more. Then later Asian deliveries. I know they'll announce soon that they have an adapter that makes the Model S compatible with non-Tesla fast-charging stations, etc. In other words, it could stay overvalued for a long time, and during all that time you'll have Elon Musk working against you, pulling more rabbits out of his hat. As enoch said, there has to be easier ways to make money... But then, now that I've written this, the stock will probably crater, so nevermind... :P

Agreed. They might be prevented from buying before earnings and such, but that probably doesn't cover the whole period.

Model S gets 5-star in every category in NHTSA crash tests: http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle+Shoppers/5-Star+Safety+Ratings/2011-Newer+Vehicles/Vehicle-Detail?vehicleId=7769

I find the lack of buybacks very strange. Maybe they're about to close a big acquisition, though.