Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 That's right peter_burke_ceo, you can't have a "SHORT SQUEEZE" after a "security" has been decimated by a "SELL, SELL, SELL" ATTACK with PHANTOM, COUNTERFEITED SHARES! >:( Hester, I like your thinking a lot, and when I saw Overstock move up between 10-15 cents from $5.34 area to $5.45-5.48 pps on less than 8,000 possibly "double counted" Nasdaq shares--who knows the answer to that today?--I knew intuitively this stock's underlying owners have the power to give it great WING SPAN! He with the MIND SHARE to INFLUENCE along with the PRICING POWER behind the "CURTAIN" will make price by booking it how and when "Mr. Market" sees fit! I tried to address this with Mr. Munger directly in a recent question with specific inquiry asking him to compare the pricing of securities in the market today including HFT's to his halcyon days of "making markets" over at the Pacific Stock Exchange. My answer was confined to his own that "liquid markets" are not necessary and the writer of "algorithms" is doing the market a disservice! If Chou and Fairfax want this stock to go down for their own purpose and desires, it will. If that's a bet being banked by miscreants, like I told Sam, "I Am a Convicted Felon," go ahead with Dirty Harry and make their day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 peter_burke_ceo's argument is identified clearly in Dr. Byrne's tutorial on The Miscreant Ball and "The Dark Side of The Looking Glass." The Wall Street Miscreants decide deep down inside the caverns of their CAVES hanging upside down like the BAT CRAZY BASTARDS that they are, that the business sucks, and it is their divine RIGHT to DESTROY it by HOOK or CROOK, with the CROOK part being the only way to ELIMINATE RESISTANCE! >:( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 If Chou or Fairfax or another group of investors are designing a DILUTION PILL in the back offices by "stock issuance", the stock price is adjusting accordingly for this imminent news item reducing IV in the form of my Pizza Pie analogy that has been stricken from this board after a SKIRMISH ensued! Go ahead and make their day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sportgamma Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I´m a big admirer of mr. Chou and I´m trying to figure out where he sees the value in OSTK. Maybe you guys could enligthen me? As I see it, a rough estimate of OSTK´s FCFF today is about 15m p.a. A multiple of 7 would translate to around $4.5 of value per share. OSTK would have to skim about 30m of their operating expenses to bring it to $13.5 per share on a 7-times FCFF multiple, which is about the initial price Chou payed. Looking at the downside, about $900m of the 2011 revenue came from fulfilment partners. If sales where to drop, OSTK is not stuck with the inventory (only $23m per end of dec. 2011). What really struck my eye though was the fact that OSTK is getting better margins from the fulfilment business than from the products that they take on stock, which makes absolutelly no sense to me. Is this an accounting issue? Another benefit that I see is the "float" aspect. On average OSTK has about $90m in accounts payables compared to about $10 in receivables. Still, that would only correspond to about $3.80 per share. 2011 Direct Fulfilment Rev 163.609 890.668 COGS 149.660 725.529 Margin 9% 19% So what does Chou see that I don´t? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alertmeipp Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I think Chou is thinking scale first and cost cutting next thus improve the margin. If they cut cost by 1% and increases their pricing by 1%, customer will still stay? but all the sudden 20m more FCF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beerbaron Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Looking at the downside, about $900m of the 2011 revenue came from fulfilment partners. If sales where to drop, OSTK is not stuck with the inventory (only $23m per end of dec. 2011). What really struck my eye though was the fact that OSTK is getting better margins from the fulfilment business than from the products that they take on stock, which makes absolutelly no sense to me. Is this an accounting issue? What makes no sense, Overstock is an Internet company first and then a distributor. Why would Overstock be able to operate leaner then their partners? They tried a few years ago and they came to the conclusion that they are better off using partners. They used to have a lot more of stock before. BeerBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Sportgamma, why do you use the word "skim" from operating expenses? What multiple do you think is fair for FCFP on a public enterprise vs. seven years to earn back one's one dollar of investment capital representing approx. 15 percent per year? Lastly, where do you think the three percent missing "margin" is in the "fulfillment partner" column numbers you have pasted to this board's attention? tia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Beerbaron, Mr. Buffett likes to take your PRIVATE COMPANIES PUBLIC underneath his Berkshire PUBLIC UMBRELLA with FIVE MULTIPLES or FIVE YEAR PAYBACKS DOLLAR ONE. Why don't we just price Overstock that way so that he can bring his quasi son back to work for him? Go ahead and make their day! Can you say $3.43 pps with no consideration for tomorrow cash flows, and because this company really sucks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Let's say that Dr. Byrne borrowed $50M at eight percent, which I wouldn't pay if I were him, in order to buy back X amount of shares as he claims. Let's assume that Dr. B pays an avg. price of $8 pps for those shares "retiring" 6.25M shares from his books. Let's also assume that without any "SKIMMING" because that's a DIRTY WORD, that Dr. B makes 30M in fcfp while using my partner's numbers presented earlier including but not limited to "Legal Expense" savings. Good God can you believe we're partners the way we sometimes chastise one another here including banging heads from time to time, and I still accept him, as he accepts me, because when a man is reasonably right he deserves such respect. That's called mutual friendship, respect and admiration even when we disagree, which can only be expected from any human relationships and interactions. Life just isn't a straight line, nor is it perfect. Let's also conclude that the claims against these criminal ROBBER BARONS are a complete CF, and there is NO SETTLEMENT from Goldman and the rest. Finally, let's apply this curmudgeonly SEVEN multiple to the $26M FCFP forward including having subtracted the $4M interest expense on the new straight debt at 8 percent. I get $10.71 pps using about 17M outstanding shares after the buyback, or a 33.88 percent return on the $50M invested as follows: 2.71 value creation/$8.00 cost=33.88 percent How are those MARGINS to be delivered by Dr. B compared to investing straight into his business in creating simultaneous VALUE? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 So, if I had this close relationship with my personal banker at US BANK CORP., one which continues along amicably including them granting "waivers" by intimately understanding the favorable underlying trends tied to my "internet" business, even accepting and "capping" interest rates at "DIRT CHEAP PRICES" on my ongoing "credit line" with them, and knowing that their COST of FUNDS from the LENDING WINDOWS of the Masters of the Universe(MOTU) who have been enacting ZIRP or ZERO INTEREST RATE POLICIES for an ungodly amount of time, are also near ZERO, I would propose a SIX PERCENT borrow cost to my favorite LENDER, or seek a new LENDER willing to assist my cause at such rates of return. Depending upon my ultimate $50-$100M borrowing capacity, I just saved my owners another $1-$2M in annual operating cost savings. This is how banks can assist in building America again, versus trying to kill the GOOSES that lay the GOLDEN EGGS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Beerbaron, there is one more learning point which should not be missed by you and yours in THE PRIVATE SECTOR. The reason Mr. Buffett is more than happy to pay Wimpy on Tuesday FIVE TIMES the FCF's that his hamburger stands are producing today, is because Mr. Buffett knows intuitively and historically that PUBLIC MARKET multiples during BEAR MARKETS PHASES are TEN, and as much as TWENTY when BULL MARKET PHASES return for most PUBLIC ENTERPRISES' FCF's. The other fact that must not be ignored, is the GOOD NATURE as well as PUBLIC TRUST including sending their CAPITAL into the hands of those WALL STREET OPERATORS, which makes this magical OVERNIGHT COMPOUNDING EFFECT occur on Mr. Buffett's books beginning Wednesday morning. Is it no wonder that if a man believes in the longer term, underlying honesty as well as "integrity" of the capital markets, aka, financial markets in his country tied to capitalism being distributed around the globe, that he would "BELIEVE IN AMERICA" going forward, and another BULL MARKET might resume? Sportgamma, I am still waiting for your explanation of the 300 basis points missing in the "fulfillment partner" margin line. The calculated margin is 22 percent but quoted as 19. tia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sportgamma Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 ValueCarl, When using the phrase skimming, I was mearly refering to a dairy related process. I was unaware of its negative connotation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skim_milk I´m not familiar with FCFP but I was using a free cash flow to firm multiple which would be comparable to a EBITDA+Capex multiple. FCFF = EBIT(1-t) - (Capital Expenditures - Depreciation) - Change in non-cash Working Capital According to Damadoran the average US EV/EBITDA multiple is 7.37 and EV/EBIT is 9.70 (updated in january, n=5891). If you look only at e-commerce EV/EBITDA is 22,08 and EV/EBIT is 32.60 (n=57), so you do have point there. However, I´m more comfortible with a more conservative estimate of fair value. http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/ Regarding the fulfilment partner margin, I´m not sure what you are refering to. The numbers are taken from the latest 10-k, note 22 on page F-40. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 That means shorts are borrowing, begging and stealing shares to short right now! Who is lending...can only be a few people really...Fairfax, Chou, White Plains, a myriad of smaller investors? Don't know, but that is a very big short interest. Cheers! I cannot see how this could possibly be true. If shorts are really "begging" to borrow the shares, IB wouldn't have the HTB fee between 1-2%, which it was when I checked last (earlier in the week admittedly). Furthermore, when shorts are falling over themselves, it spills over into the options market, and places heavy premiums on put options. Currently (per yahoo finance) the Sep 2012 $5 puts sell for only about 70 cents, and they are pretty liquid (meaning that's a real price). An extremely heavily shorted stock would see a premium of at least a dollar for those puts, probably much more. Compare this to a stock that is actually heavily shorted, SHLD. The Sep 2012 $75 puts (stock trading at $80) last price was $21.23, or the equivalent of about $1.40 for OSTK. Everybody on here is overestimating just how heavily shorted Overstock is, and since generally high short interest stocks drastically underperform the market over the long term, I don't understand the giddy. But then again short sellers are just sellers, and when a stock becomes too hard to borrow that intrinsically shuts off a certain percentage of the people who are willing to place capital at risk because of their bearish opinion. When these negative opinions can't trade in the stock, it means the stock price gets artificially inflated and hence the underperformance of most high short interest stocks. Explain where the shares are coming from then? - Board of Overstock - 36% - Fairfax - 15% - Chou - 15% - Jack Byrne - 5% - Corner Market Capital & directors - 3.5% That's already nearly 75% of the total outstanding shares of 23M. Where is the 3M shares Nasdaq reported short ending February 29th coming from, if only 6M shares are available? Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEast Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 On a follow-up to the discussion on legal fees, I would agree that it was quite steep given the market cap. However, I noticed in the 10-K that the excessive fees may not end as soon as we might expect. While looking at the accrued expenses they appear to have already accrued nearly $7m for 2012. The report indicates that this $7m is for marketing and legal expenses. I would suspect that you do not accrue very much for marketing so much of the $7m most likely is for legal support. Cheers JEast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Carl, please stick to numbers and facts. Any future posts that digress will be deleted. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Sportgamma, the 10K filing page you have referenced shows no margin percentages. The Fulfillment Partner margin percentage is 22.76 percent according to the factual numbers vs. your 19 percent posted. This Free Cash Flow For The Firm(FCFF) is something I was not familiar with. I am familiar with positive free cash flow or FCFP which is reflective of this calculation minus "interest" on debt. Does FCFF include "interest" on debt as part of "expenses"? In the case of Overstock, total debt outstanding is now limited to the $17M credit line accessed along with its low interest rate being capped, in order to pay off the almost double, higher amount Senior Convert Notes now retired. Skimming is a taboo term that should never be used with references to accounting operations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sportgamma Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 ValueCarl, I calculated the margins myself from the numbers given in the 10-K. I don´t know what is causing the discrepancy. FCFF is used to estimate the value of the enterprise, disgregarding the capital structure. Therefore, it also ignores the tax benefit of interest payments. But you could work it into the appraisal of the debt financing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ValueCarl Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Sportgamma, ignoring "interest expense" and "taxes" of any given enterprise is dismissing their negative effects to owners in the form of multiples that might be applied to unadulterated free cash flows that truly exist. With "interest expense" mostly a non event except for maybe 500K per year tied to the open $17M credit line which was used to pay off the senior converts, you are only overpaying by about 22 cents per share, today, if you believe in paying 10 multiples vs. 7. Please show your math for calculating 19 percent "gross margins" on "Fulfillment Partner" revenues in lieu of the 22.76 percent I have calculated it to be? I believe the error remains in your pen, dissimilar to that MOTLEY FOOL whose errors remain in his SLIPPERY TONGUE. tia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric50 Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Yoy unique visitors down 11.5% in February as per compete.com.... After the SEO google issue in Jan last year, February was the first full month that gave us a "clean" yoy comp. Not a great news for Q1 results... By comparison, amazon is up 18% yoy in Feb. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/overstock.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hester Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Yoy unique visitors down 11.5% in February as per compete.com.... After the SEO google issue in Jan last year, February was the first full month that gave us a "clean" yoy comp. Not a great news for Q1 results... By comparison, amazon is up 18% yoy in Feb. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/overstock.com/ I was wondering about that. That's a really good data point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 In case you haven't seen, there's a new article on Gurufocus about Overstock: http://www.gurufocus.com/news/168976/overstock-is-unbelievable--in-a-good-way This business is growing at a fair clip. Again, it is a broker. Customers pay for the purchase upfront and Overstock pays the supplier later. This is inherently a negative equity business. The business model is not unlike DELL a decade ago. So now you know why Francis Chou is long Overstock and why Costco is Charles Munger’s favorite company. I'm taking those comments with a grain of salt. Anyway, it seems most people either hate or love Overstock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 It's simplified, but it does describe what I like about the model. Frankly, I've never understood why Overstock is even in the direct business. I've sent emails to them before wondering why they just don't stick to the fulfillment business, which has higher margins, no inventory and massive turnover. Yet, they still go with the direct business and they aren't particularly good on their inventory selection, cost or disposal. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lessthaniv Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 Well, prepare for the worst now .... I just stepped back into this stock which usually means you should expect a 10-20% swing down anytime! :P I apologize in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 Well, prepare for the worst now .... I just stepped back into this stock which usually means you should expect a 10-20% swing down anytime! :P I apologize in advance. Way to go Lessthan! Thanks for screwing us over. ;D Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric50 Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 I'd love a 20% swing down! I've built a sizable position but I'm hesitant to go really heavy with the yoy decline in unique visitors. Another 20% down in the stock price and I would not hesitate! FWIW, here is the traffic data on alexa. No hard numbers, just graphs but it seems to confirm the yoy decline seen on compete. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/overstock.com# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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