Liberty

Me too. But their track record is very good - they never overpaid afaik - so I'm not too worried.

New acquisition: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ebix-acquires-online-health-exchange-healthconnect-systems-2011-11-16

I liked it a lot. Better than Black Swan. Taleb is quite the character, and has a huge ego. But he also has interesting things to say. If you can get over the fact that he puts A LOT of himself in the text, I highly recommend this book.

Still waiting for the annual report.. wasn't it supposed to come out around August-September?

Hester, have you read Confidence Game? I had a feeling that you'd enjoy it quite a bit. Would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Here's a direct link:

[amazonsearch]Fooling Some of the People All of the Time[/amazonsearch] It's a well-known book, but I had not read it yet. After quite enjoying Confidence Game about Ackman's battle against MBIA, I figured this was the logical next step. I'm about 5 chapters in, and so far it's pretty good. I have a feeling it's just getting started, though. I haven't finished it yet, so I can't recommend it, but I thought this book deserved a thread here.

There's already a thread about this book: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/index.php?topic=5488.0

Ah, yes, I should have thought of that. The replay information was right next to the dialing info. Sorry, it slipped my mind.

They did, I listened in. Not sure how long it usually takes for them to show up on the website, though..

If someone followed you around, read a few biographies of you, watched videos of your speeches, saw you on TV, heard recordings, read the books that you have publicly said you have read, read speeches and books by your teachers and colleagues, etc.. They'd probably feel that you got repetitive after a while, especially if you were speaking mostly on just one topic :)

I'll miss reading about his outrageous antics in the Economist, but apart from that, good riddance!

I like how for EBIX double digit growth is considered just 'decent'. :) On the conference call they mentioned that ADAM is on track to generate 0.25 cents/share over the 12 months after the acquisition, much higher than the initial 0.15 cents target that the skeptics claimed was wildly optimistic. Overall I'm quite please. Nice growth in revenue and FCF, margins still high despite all the senior sales hiring, we already knew about the repurchases but that's great too, same for debt reduction. I like how they're restructuring sales to more easily go after big clients globally, rather than country by country. Exchanges still strong, and I'll be curious to see how BPO and carrier channels will do when the headwind turns into a tailwind (who knows when that will be, though? But economy and insurance markets can't stay soft forever).

The third edition is from 2010, if I recall correctly. Case studies so far are mostly from early 2000s (Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, etc).

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/fortress-paper-announces-third-quarter-2011-results-tsx-ftp-1583337.htm

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-one-chart-you-need-to-see-to-understand-mobile-2011-11 http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4eb7bd23ecad04184500000d-450-/us-phone-platform-install-base.png

[amazonsearch]Financial Shenanigans[/amazonsearch] I'm a few chapters in and I like it. I also got Quality of Earnings at the same time, but haven't started that one yet. It's certainly filing a hole in my knowledge about accounting. I like how a lot of the book seems to be based on real world examples. This is the kind of stuff that is best learn by case study, IMHO.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/markel-reports-third-quarter-and-nine-month-results-2011-11-07

If someone can make this good, it's HBO. Hope it gets made.

No idea, but if it happens in the next few years, I'll be looking to move out of the apartment to buy :)

Never noticed anything wrong with either banking or trading.

Never had a problem with RBC and Chrome, though it is not my primary broker.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/20588/millrock-resources-oodles-of-potential-within-its-project-generator-business-model-20588.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/canada-sees-biggest-monthly-job-loss-since-2009/article2225234/

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/w-r-berkley-corporation-declares-dividend-and-increases-share-repurchase-authorization-2011-11-03