Liberty

Well, Pixar has done just fine without Steve Jobs running the company. John Lassiter (sp) is Pixar's visionary, though. Jobs helped, but he was never as involved as with Apple.

By my count they've bought back about 200k shares in the past 6 month. (I could be wrong about that, though, as it was just quick back of the enveloppe math)

Thanks for sharing!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/leucadia-national-corporation-completes-acquisition-of-control-of-national-beef-2011-12-30

I'm kind of wondering the same thing. I tend to prefer the kind of companies that Markel Ventures has been investing in (very niche manufacturers, mostly). But I trust that the FFH people have done their due diligence..

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/business/how-samuel-palmisano-of-ibm-stayed-a-step-ahead-unboxed.html

What I'm really wondering is what would Alderon do if China had a slowdown right now. Would it really make them consider delaying or giving up on Kami, or would they think "well, by the time we ship in 2015, chances are they'll be out of the hole and iron ore prices will have recovered". Because it's doubtful that a Chinese slowdown of infrastructure buildup would last for years and years, IMO. The stock market could crash, but I doubt they'll stop building stuff that easily.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-30/ackman-s-pershing-is-said-to-urge-ceo-switch-at-canadian-pacific-railway.html

Ordinary is, by definition, 100 IQ :)

What makes me comfortable with ALS is that even if commodities prices go down a lot, they'll be able to take advantage of it because of their huge cash pile and proven capital allocation skills. They don't have debt so even commodity Armageddon wouldn't be an existential risk (unless it lasts for decades). The worse that could happen would be for Alderon to unravel, Voise Bay to pay a lot less, and Paladin to stop developing. That would be really bad, but the cash on their balance sheet would still be worth par putting a floor on the share price (along with buybacks, most likely), and it would allow them to buy royalties and securities at very attractive prices, setting them up for the next up cycle. That's why I'm not too worried for the long-term. But short-term, who knows?

Been close to even lately, but for a long time I was down double digits.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/29/apple-and-android-gain-smartphone-marketshare-at-expense-of-rim-and-microsoft/

[amazonsearch]The Billionaire Who Wasn't[/amazonsearch] One of the best and most inspiring books I've read in a while. Chuck Feeney is not only a great businessman and investor, but also a most special kind of philanthropist. I highly recommend that you check out this book.

http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?mn=2&id=19715&latest=1

In my mind, Amazon is part of the retail trinity along with Walmart and Costco. They each have found a different way to give people what they want in a way that is hard to replicate for the competition and keeps them ahead.

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/12/28/rim-offers-hefty-discounts-on-playbook-in-india/

Amazon's pretty great. I ordered some speakers around the 20-21st of December, and used the Free Shipping option (it wasn't time sensitive for me, not a gift, but earlier is always better than latter ;) ). They upgraded me to UPS and I got them on the 24th (a Saturday). This is in Canada, not the US.

Also, as per an Economist article, it seems like infrastructure is so bad in India that many businesses are set up to do almost everything they need themselves rather than rely on the state. Businesses bigger than a certain size thus tend to sprawl and start to do a bit of everything..

There's also been a smaller insider buy by another director, Benz Hans U., of 1,000 shares at $21.24 (bringing his holdings to 79,780). Stock is up 5.55% today, after hitting almost 8% intra-day.

Thanks. I've already seen it. There's also a companion letter from Weinberg: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=241177&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1548151&highlight=

Here's a pretty good report on the spinoff: http://www.hamincny.com/docs/General%20Growth%20Properties%20Spin-Off%20Report%20October%202010.pdf

They're great and I've seen tons, but they're different kind of thing. If looking for free, MIT and Stanford both make lots of video classes available. Great place to look.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. If it's really not that special, I don't think I'll buy it. There are better things I could use that $60 for.. But I still think that site's concept is pretty cool. Probably best to explore topics you don't already know tons about (ie. get an evolutionary psychology intro by Steven Pinker or whatever).

This looks like an interesting one. I've starting looking at it, but very early stages. I'm mostly looking to learn, far from investing at this point. No updates in a while; anyone still holding it?

Just found this randomly: http://www.floatinguniversity.com/lectures-ackman $60 for a 1-hour lecture on investing by Bill Ackman.There's a sample video on the page above, and another one here: I've only seen the samples. Production values are great. Content is probably mostly stuff that we all know about, but going back over the basics over and over again isn't a bad idea... If anyone buys it, I'd be curious to know your thoughts.