Liberty

Buybacks are indeed limited by volume. I think they probably did deploy some cash during the last period of volatility (probably some via the partnership with Paul Van Eeden), but I have no idea where yet. They haven't disclosed anything so far, but they were pretty gung ho about it: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page66?oid=133091&sn=Detail

They spend very little and that's pretty much covered by their Voisey's Bay royalty anyway. They are sitting on the cash waiting for opportunities to deploy it when conditions are right, as they've done in the past. Note that the cash is self-generated and not raised from the equity market or debt..

Just to play devil's advocate for a sec: Does it matter if Buffett's friends or family like the book/the portrayal of some people in it? That doesn't make it accurate or inaccurate. People might dislike seeing their family member's flaws presented to the world, but if the goal is to have an accurate biography, that's a necessary evil. Yes, she did spend a lot of time on psychology, but my understanding is that this is a biography of the man and not an investment book. There's a lot about investment in it because that's most of Buffett's life, but that's not all that makes him who he is. I dislike many of the bloomberg articles that Alice S. has written in the past few years, and she seems to be playing a "gotcha" game with Buffett, but I did like the Snowball when I read it. I can't swear if the details in it are accurate or not, but since she had incredible access to primary sources, I would tend to trust her until shown otherwise, and Buffett's entourage disliking the book is not the same as them saying that it is factually wrong (though maybe they've done that too and I've missed it).

It also looks probable that in the next federal budget the 30-year amortization period will be killed, leaving 25 years the longest.

I just don't think he's found a 10-20 billion See's Candies for sale... and even if he did, he's still need to find a lot more with the cash it would through off. So it makes sense to invest in businesses that can also deploy capital at ok returns.

http://www.alderonironore.com/_resources/news/2012-03-21-NewsRelease.pdf

Schroeder seems to forget how large the sums of money that Buffett is working with now. Considering how much he needs to invest to move the needle, his investment universe is quite limited. He's doing pretty much as well as can be expected for a company of that size, and a lot of his recent investments won't show how good they are until a few years have passed anyway.

:o

Im writing this from my iPad3. It rocks :D

Dividend coming? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-18/apple-to-discuss-outcome-of-discussions-over-handling-its-cash.html

http://www.cbc.ca/labradormorning/episodes/2012/03/15/more-on-the-wetlands-in-labrador-west/ About ADV's recent meetings with locals. Interview with CEO during second part.

Indeed, but it's not an insurmountable problem (can be as simple as making it so that cars can't be put in drive as long as something is plugged into refuelling port). I bet when houses were first electrified it seemed like quite and exotic and dangerous thing too. afaik, CNG home refuelling stations already exist, so we'd have to look at how they do it.

I'm the same in what I want, but what I actually think will happen has more to do with the fact that for a while longer it'll cost less to run on CNG than to have a battery in a vehicle. But the CNG should just be a step along the way to 100% electric (and thus energy-source agnostic) vehicles.

So my iPad 3 is in the mail and I should be getting it Monday :) I'm wondering what are the favorite financial/stock market apps of the people here? I'm particularly thinking about a good one to keep track of a watchlist and look up individual stocks (preferrably with real-time info even for Canadian stocks), but anything else that you find useful I'd like to know about. Thanks!

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory

I wonder how long it would take for a significant portion of the transportation sector in north america to convert to CNG. There are already some CNG buses, some people have talked about creating corridors for CNG semi-trucks, and GM and Chrysler have announced some CNG pickup trucks. Honda has had the Civic GX for a while... All marginal for now, but if gasoline prices keep going up and NG prices stay low, there could be a tipping point. I'm starting to think that in 5-10 years, many more cars and trucks will run on CNG (and there will also be a lot more plug-in hybrids and BEVs). It would be cheaper, cleaner, and in places where there are natural gas lines, people can even refuel at home (still requires to buy a special compressor, but these could go down in price with volume production).

Thanks VAL. Interesting to see, though, as you say, I'm not sure it means much about any actual real-world performance this board's members are experiencing. The main difference that I see in the stocks listed is that some are just going through business as usual while others are waiting for catalysts. For the latter, it is the performance post-catalyst that will matter, because unless these don't materialize at all, I think most holders won't sell before then.

http://www.valuewalk.com/2012/03/whitney-tilson-howard-hughes-is-super-cheap/

-- Paul Graham I saw that too on HN, but there was a comment in that thread about how there are probably many employees at Apple who actually have no idea what the company is doing because they have such a culture of secrecy and of compartmentalizing different groups working on different things to reduce leaks. I don't know if that's true, but I think it's worth considering that the person making that comment doesn't necessarily know what they are talking about just because they work there. They could be right, but it's hard to say..

10K is out: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/814549/000081454912000006/ebix-2011x10k.htm The company has added some info about their acquisition strategy. It matches pretty well with what I've been saying for a while, IMHO: Interesting that for earnouts they count all sales. This means that someone looking at this info might conclude that more growth is coming from the recent acquisition than is really the case (because some sales can be existing products integrated back into the acquired division), leading them to under-estimate actual 'organic' growth (whatever that actually means in this case, because it *is* hard to know with this model what kind of growth is organic or not).

Mine's in the mail, should be here Monday. Can't wait. Haven't been this impatient about getting a product since I was a kid...

It's been a while since I have read the snowball but the point at which AS talks about active trading, options and copper futures was during a time where he needed to raise some money and it was not IMO portrayed as SOP. While I don't doubt over history he has traded more than most people think, I believe its the success of his concentrated bets that has set him leagues ahead of over investors. With small amounts, Buffett would probably also do more net-nets, cigar butts, etc.. which you tend to hold for shorter periods of time.

That's because Apple's products are better in practice than in theory. You read the list of features and look at the pics, and you go "yeah, that's pretty ok". But when you actually use it day in and day out, you realize that there's more to it than that.

[amazonsearch]Damn Right: Behind The Scenes With Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger[/amazonsearch] A few chapters in this one. Ok so far. Not much about investing, but I find pretty much everything about Charlie interesting so that's fine. Thought it probably deserved a thread here.

How long will they stay on 2G and 2.5G, though? If RIMM really is better in that environment, will that environment stick around long enough for them to turn around? The price of 3G gear is dropping year by year, and the first network to offer 3G in a 2G area will have a huge competitive advantage, forcing others to upgrade. This can't last forever.