Liberty

I've been to Mikes and Scores and they're decent. Usually pretty full of customers, so at least there's that.

Thanks for posting that!

2 people, renting a 1.2k sq/feet apartment, no kids, late 20s. $40k last year, but we got married. In the $30k range this year, but we moved and bought a bunch of appliances and furniture. As long as I have books and a computer I'm happy, and my wife doesn't spend much either, so we're living pretty frugally. I'd rather save what I earn now and invest it since I'm pretty young and time will help with the compounding.

[amazonsearch]Confidence Game[/amazonsearch] Just started reading this and it's very interesting so far.

Words of wisdom. Thanks Parsad!

http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/youtube-wrapping-up-groundbreaking-deals-to-launch-channels-with-professionally-produced-video/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-14/eu-may-impose-rules-to-limit-commodity-derivatives-high-frequency-traders.html

http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/screen-shot-2011-10-12-at-10-12-5-13.png?w=640

Well, back then he did buy Gen Re using stock, so he kind of did benefit from that overvaluation of many of Berkshire's stocks :) I think our difference might be semantics, so I'll reformulate what I said: Sometimes it is possible to look at a business that appears fairly valued on a purely quantitative level, and some people might say that it should be sold, but some investors might see a significant margin of safety remaining in more qualitative attributes (moat, growth potential, management's quality, etc), and so they continue holding it. It is also possible that to some investors certain attributes are worth more than to others, so for example you might not want to sell the safest and most predictable business in the world and replace it with a much less safe and predictable business just because it's X% cheaper; to you, that safety and predictability might be worth a lot more than the difference over the long-term.. This is why what is "fairly valued" to one can be "under valued" to someone else. Sorry if I wasn't clear the first time. But this applies more to something close to "fair" value than "insanely overvalued", obviously...

It depends on your style and what kind of companies you are interested in. Someone like Buffett will hold KO at full value, or even above, because to him the margin of safety comes from the moat and the future growth, and because if he sold he might not find a better business to invest in. So what you said definitely applies to cigar butts, but not necessarily to good businesses. IMHO.

I know it's just Mr. Market and it doesn't mean much in the short term, but it's nice to see FTP back over 40. In fact, it was at 42 not long ago. That's up over 70% from the low it hit recently... Talk about volatility.

That part sounded very Keynesian to me. Reminded me of the famous quote about putting money in empty bottles, burying them in an old mine, and having people dig them up as a way to create jobs...

http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q3_google_earnings.html

http://www.stockmarketwire.com/article/4239257/Altius-directors-leave-Rambler-board.html

All that matters to me is what kind of return I'm getting on incremental dollars earned. For big mature businesses, it might make sense to pay out a dividend because reinvestment opportunities are mediocre, but for businesses that still have much room to grow and reinvest, it can be much better to retain earnings (more tax efficient too). Money productively retained in a businesses will be recognized by the 'weighting' function of the market over time, so dividends aren't intrinsically superior. Money that comes out of the business reduces the market valuation over time. If you really need x% of your portfolio to live on each year, you could just as easily sell part of it. I also think that looking at dividend yield based on initial money invested doesn't make much sense, unless you start to look at everything like that (ie. I bought stock X ten years ago and now it's worth 10x what I paid for, and it grew book value by 10% this year, or 100% of my original investment! Wow!).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-13/loews-seeks-hotel-unit-ceo-as-tisch-cedes-role-adler-departs.html

Anyone else having trouble finding the new TSX Alderon? I can see it in TD Waterhouse, but not in Google Finance or Yahoo Finance. I'm guessing it takes a bit of time for them to start tracking it in its new location, but maybe I'm missing something..?

I like the doom analogy. Brings back memories :) Technically, the original doom had a type of connection that meant that everybody was synchronized and nobody was lagging more than the others. But Quake had a client-host model where lag was very important. It's possible that later versions of Doom based on the open-sourced code use a similar model, though..

Also feel free to PM me at anytime. That goes for anyone else who doesn't want to ask something publicly. I'm no wise old-timer, but I'm more than happy to share the little that I know. And I promise that if I don't know the answer to a question, I'll say so. I feel that's a good start :)

A more official release: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fortress-paper-announces-the-commencement-of-the-final-phase-of-the-dissolving-pulp-conversion-project-and-the-signing-of-new-banknote-paper-orders-2011-10-12

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2011/10/12/219657.htm

Very cool. Have you considered the leasing, no upfront cost, approach of SolarCity.com ?

It's always the same, isn't it? Most of his current investors probably jumped in after his funds went up a zillion percent, and now they're wanting to get out after a massive drop. Buy high, sell low...

Thanks for posting! Great interview. November 7 is target date for Thurso, so less than a month. Still low 600s/ton on the production side, so very promising. Looking for a couple more acquisitions in the next 6-9 months, which would also be great if the conditions are anything as good as Thurso. But above all else, one more data point that tells me that Chad is very smart and knows his stuff.

misterstockwell, how do you like your system so far? How many kwh are you actually producing vs what the software models told you? What's your payback timeframe? Do you have any publicly available pics of your setup? Do you have battery storage? How much did the panels cost? Inverter + installation + batteries if you have them? I'm always curious about these things :)