Liberty

Yahoo search is powered by Bing, btw. Yahoo's share of search is probably more valuable, though, because people actually have to go there and want to search -- it's not a typo-catching default in browsers and such.

Up about 18% in two days. Crazy volatility.

FFHwatcher, I totally agree, this is definitely a company that if you get into, you have to look forward and have a certain amount of trust in management based on their track record and their way of looking at things. No doubt. But on the other hand, if the cash flow was already there, it wouldn't be selling at this price. But your skepticism based on "well, if it's that easy why don't others do it?" elicits a few things: 1) it isn't that easy. Only a few mills worldwide can be converted, few people know how (FTP hired a team that did a couple of the only handful of conversions ever), and even fewer are even looking because 2) this is a contrarian play. Few people are looking at the forestry sector, and most of those that are in it have shown over the years that their capital allocation skills aren't that great (otherwise they might not be in this mess). Basically, your question begs the larger question: Take any business doing something good anywhere and ask "why isn't the competition doing the same?" A lot of the time when you find out that they aren't, it's because it's not as easy as it first looks and requires intangibles like the ability to find value where others don't see it and to have a long-term strategic vision when others are only trying to get through the short-term and are thinking more about cutting costs than in investing for something that will pay off in 18-24 months. The world would be a very different place if everybody had those skills. I think the proof's in the pudding. No new entrants in DP for the past 3-4 decades, only a handful of conversions ever and most mills aren't the right kind to be converted, Asian mills are at the top of the cost curve, and many new DP announcements seem to be delayed or unraveling. Once we have a few quarters of Thurso running we'll be able to confirm the cash flow, but everything I've seen so far makes me think that it should be in the ballpark of what management is predicting (and even a lower, more conservative number, would still be pretty good). But we can't be sure until it happens, so we'll see.

There's a big difference between the share price and the business's earning power, IV, and the value of the assets if they were sold. Management has shown with Thurso that they can execute - which wasn't a given since there's been no new entrant to the DP industry in like 30-40 years, and only a handful of mills were ever converted to DP - so I expect that the announcement of a new acquisition would have a bigger impact than the first one. Plus they can use cashflow from Thurso to finance conversion...

I'm always surprised by how big an impact these reports have, and how many people just follow analysts blindly. They say "jump" and people go "how high?". Oh well, I guess it means more opportunities for independent thinkers.

On days like this I always wonder if it's Mr. Market acting randomly or if info is leaking about an acquisition. These things are hard to keep secret forever, especially the way that Chad likes to do them (when you have everything buttoned up from the start, you reduce risk, but you also let in more people on the potential deal).

My bad, I misread. This is an Altius thread so my brain was expecting this to be about Altius. Sorry about that :-X

$5? Isn't that less than the cash? :o

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16486796

Hey, After reading about how people like Bill Ackman and David Einhorn noticed all kinds of changes in 10K and 10Qs (respectively in MBIA and Allied Capital), some of which were really subtle (a sentence somewhere was remove, a word or two were changed to alter meaning, etc), I got to wondering if I should start routinely running a program to compare the delta between the PDFs and see where the changes are and what stayed the same. Does anyone here do that systematically? What's your system? What software do you use? (Mac software, preferably) Thanks!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204124204577152503598025844.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/hunter-harrison-ready-to-take-the-reins-at-cp/article2298096/ The Ackman vs CP sage continues.

http://www.stockwatch.com/News/Item.aspx?bid=Z-C%3aADV-1917096&symbol=ADV&region=C

Unless I'm missing something, your link is exactly the same as mine.

[amazonsearch]Who Says Elephants Can't Dance[/amazonsearch] I'm only a few chapters in, but so far it's well-written and insightful. Helps better understand just how crucial good management and culture is to a business.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203686204577116853073660824.html

That's mostly my understanding too, but that's the broad lines. I think that if we zoom in a little, we'll find that it's a bit more subtle than that, and that in some cases it's worth going after certain specific patents either for defensive or offensive purposes, and that they can be used differently than the massive stockpile because they are of higher quality/specificity than the average BS patent out there. Not sure.

Did they not find enough patents with Motorola after spending $12.5B on them? Motorola looks like they're already losing marketshare: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-motorola-idUSTRE80522I20120106 I'm guessing they did an assessment of where they still had some vulnerabilities and patched those holes.

I might be missing something (does the federal government need to give approvals for ADV to get access to the railroad and to power?), but from what I know, it seems to me like the government that they need most on their side is the local NF/L government, not the Federal government in Ottawa, so I think that should be fine.

My best judgement told me not to reply to these people, but sometimes they write things that are so outrageous that I can't help myself. It's certainly not the most constructive use of time since these people rarely discuss fundamentals, and when they do its usually to misrepresent them.

It sure can't hurt to have these kind of political connections! Meanwhile, ADV is back above $3.

Buying more patents from IBM: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16409081

Hi Tom, I never took a position in DWA because I could never quite value their back library, and after thinking about it for a while, I came to a similar conclusion to the article you link; the value will be higher than zero (and will on average have better shelf life and long-term profitability than non-kid movies), but lower than at the recent DVD peak, which was kind of a perfect storm (in a positive way) for the movie studios. It's unlikely to happen again. A kid watching Shrek 100 times on Netflix or Amazon Prime (or on a downloaded copy) won't be as profitable... I also never got into it more because companies that I like a lot more were cheap, so I just added to my existing positions (I compare everything to my favorite companies, and so I tend to end up with a very concentrated portfolio).

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. The master at work.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/rim-chops-all-playbook-prices-to-299/article2289840/