Parsad Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 yea, i go way back with overstock. as more of a buy & holder than a trader i've got what can be charitably called a checkered history with ostk as an investment over the yrs. patrick may be a dr of philosopy with a major in the taoist/buddhist disciplines but at heart he's a very emotional, gut-feel, shoot from the hip kind of guy. when he's had a good qtr or 2 of favorable comps & the wind at his back he tends to go off the rails & swing for the fences, eschewing the smaller, more measured incremental gains that take deeper root in more fertile ground & sow the seeds for future solid compounded growth. that said, i seem to have a soft spot in my heart (as well in my head!) for the the good dr & ostk, and am a perennial fan, always richer in hope & poorer in pocket for my foibles. That's about as good as anyone can explain Overstock and Byrne! Brilliant. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcollon Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 The Naked Truth? See attached from BarronsThe_Truth_About_Naked_Short-Selling__-_Barrons.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 Thanks for posting. Gary Weiss has always had a lot to say about Overstock. To me all he writes is FUD. This article is no different. This quote from Arthur Conan Doyle gives you a clue of what I think of Gary's article: I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. Perhaps I'm biased, like Gary. Either way, what Gary writes is FUD sprinkled with empty words: A further price decline would aid Overstock's adversaries Overstock is up 70% from its lows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Short interest is rising fast. Faster than the stock :o 30-50 days to cover: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ostk/short-interest Wonder why. The latest news from OSTK has been positive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Short interest is rising fast. Faster than the stock :o 30-50 days to cover: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ostk/short-interest Wonder why. The latest news from OSTK has been positive. Have no clue where these shares are coming from. That's pretty much 45% of the available float. If they have a profitable 3rd quarter, which looks very likely, the shorts are going to get the crap squeezed out of them, as the 4th quarter is usually profitable. An entire year of profits at Overstock would certainly kill alot of arguments around the business' viability. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lessthaniv Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 no wonder shareholders were asking for certs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 http://redeye.firstround.com/2010/03/some-more-thoughts-on-innovation-in-ecommerce.html: …of the top 15 most trafficked eCommerce websites today, just one of them did not exist back in 1999 (NewEgg - which launched in 2001). Which means that over 90% of the top eCommerce websites are over 12 years old! That is pretty remarkable to me -- and reflects an amazing lack of external innovation (and disruption). …if you compare today's top 15 list of eCommerce websites to this list from 2005, you'll see it's almost identical. So not only have almost all the top eCommerce sites existed for 12 years -- there has been virtually no dislocation among the leaders. Via http://cdixon.org/2012/08/15/e-commerce-startups/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERICOPOLY Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Here is where the shares are coming from (without naked short selling thrown in): a shareholder is "long" and his broker lends the share to short #1 the valid share is sold by short #1 and delivered to a new long shareholder the new long shareholder gets the share delivered and his broker lends it to short #2 short #2 sells it and it is delivered to a new long shareholder the new long shareholder gets the share delivered and his broker lends it to short #3 short #3 sells it and it gets delivered to a new long shareholder. the new long shareholder gets the share delivered and his broker lends it to short #4 etc... etc... etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Here is where the shares are coming from (without naked short selling thrown in): a shareholder is "long" and his broker lends the share to short #1 the valid share is sold by short #1 and delivered to a new long shareholder the new long shareholder gets the share delivered and his broker lends it to short #2 short #2 sells it and it is delivered to a new long shareholder the new long shareholder gets the share delivered and his broker lends it to short #3 short #3 sells it and it gets delivered to a new long shareholder. the new long shareholder gets the share delivered and his broker lends it to short #4 etc... etc... etc... Interesting. It's the first time I think about it this way... So there's no limits to how many times the same share can be recycled? In theory, couldn't you have more shares sold short than the entire number of outstanding shares? Kind of crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 "Desperate Measures At Overstock.com" by BO'hara: http://seekingalpha.com/article/885201-desperate-measures-at-overstock-com Patrick Byrne, Overstock's CEO, is a fisherman lost at sea and dying of thirst. He has tried every survival trick in the book, but he has reached the end of his rope. As one of what appears to be hundreds of vendors buried deep within Sears.com, how is Overstock going to derive significant revenues from this relationship? Well, Sears.com does a lot of business, and some of it will trickle down to Overstock. How much? Your guess is as good as mine, but management is rumored to be talking up "six or seven figures" in revenue from this relationship. If Overstock's dramatic share price appreciation has anything to do with its Sears partnership (or speculation about other partners) it is a fairly large misread by the market. The market is overestimating the returns this business can bring while failing to recognize the risks inherent in the new strategy. The market also seems to be ignoring the declining popularity of Overstock's web site. Overstock is throwing in the towel on its brand which will ultimately have investors throwing in the towel on its stock. Another theory regarding OSTK's rapid ascent has to do with the fact that the company isn't collecting sales taxes from customers in many of the states where Amazon and others are being forced to do so. I don't think this is a big factor. This is his second article, both have been about OSTK. He's followed by Sam Antar on Seeking Alpha… Maybe the real reason behind the 100% rise in OSTK's share price is a short squeeze? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted September 26, 2012 Share Posted September 26, 2012 I don't pay any attention to what others say. The guy is short Overstock, yet the stock has risen nearly 100% since he began shorting. There are always detractors to good ideas...because they have a hard time distinguishing between a good/bad business and price/value. The logical argument is always Overstock is not as good a business as Amazon or Ebay, so why would you invest? Because at some point it gets cheap enough, even if it isn't as good a business, where there is significant value that can be realized. This is what happened when the shorts were squeezing Fairfax. That Fairfax was not as good an insurer as Berkshire...so what! Or that BAC has huge litigation issues and loan losses...well at some price who gives a rat's ass, as long as the business can settle litigation and provision for losses from existing cash flows...and is sellling well under tangible book. You are watching it unfold at Dell now too. Dell's business is inferior to IBM's and tablets are dominating laptops or desktops as the argument goes...our Apple fiends are well versed in this line of thought. Well that's completely true, but at some point the existing discounted cash flows (even if their formerly dominant lines of business are declining) become cheaper than the market price of the company. It's not rocket science, but the logical (if you can call it that) reasoning that average investor's tend to apply is that the business is of lesser quality or that the model is outdated. It just doesn't matter if the company is cheap enough and their cash flows survive longer than the assumptions you've implemented. One of my close friends and a very good investment manager told me I'm going to take it up the butt with Dell...and that was the PG/clean version. ;D But I don't care what he thinks, just like I won't be persuaded by arguments from anyone else...the cash flows are robust enough and solid enough, where frankly, investors are wrong at these prices. I think Dell has 50% upside in the short-term and over 100% upside over two years. We'll see what happens in a year or two...I may very well be eating my words...but I've done the analysis, and I cannot veer away from the logical investment framework that is telling me that the company is dirt cheap. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txlaw Posted September 26, 2012 Share Posted September 26, 2012 I don't pay any attention to what others say. The guy is short Overstock, yet the stock has risen nearly 100% since he began shorting. There are always detractors to good ideas...because they have a hard time distinguishing between a good/bad business and price/value. The logical argument is always Overstock is not as good a business as Amazon or Ebay, so why would you invest? Because at some point it gets cheap enough, even if it isn't as good a business, where there is significant value that can be realized. This is what happened when the shorts were squeezing Fairfax. That Fairfax was not as good an insurer as Berkshire...so what! Or that BAC has huge litigation issues and loan losses...well at some price who gives a rat's ass, as long as the business can settle litigation and provision for losses from existing cash flows...and is sellling well under tangible book. You are watching it unfold at Dell now too. Dell's business is inferior to IBM's and tablets are dominating laptops or desktops as the argument goes...our Apple fiends are well versed in this line of thought. Well that's completely true, but at some point the existing discounted cash flows (even if their formerly dominant lines of business are declining) become cheaper than the market price of the company. It's not rocket science, but the logical (if you can call it that) reasoning that average investor's tend to apply is that the business is of lesser quality or that the model is outdated. It just doesn't matter if the company is cheap enough and their cash flows survive longer than the assumptions you've implemented. One of my close friends and a very good investment manager told me I'm going to take it up the butt with Dell...and that was the PG/clean version. ;D But I don't care what he thinks, just like I won't be persuaded by arguments from anyone else...the cash flows are robust enough and solid enough, where frankly, investors are wrong at these prices. I think Dell has 50% upside in the short-term and over 100% upside over two years. We'll see what happens in a year or two...I may very well be eating my words...but I've done the analysis, and I cannot veer away from the logical investment framework that is telling me that the company is dirt cheap. Cheers! I'm with you on DELL, man. We'll just see whether or not we're right a couple years from now. In the mean time, we should ignore the crowd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted September 26, 2012 Share Posted September 26, 2012 I don't pay any attention to what others say. The guy is short Overstock, yet the stock has risen nearly 100% since he began shorting. There are always detractors to good ideas...because they have a hard time distinguishing between a good/bad business and price/value. The logical argument is always Overstock is not as good a business as Amazon or Ebay, so why would you invest? Because at some point it gets cheap enough, even if it isn't as good a business, where there is significant value that can be realized. This is what happened when the shorts were squeezing Fairfax. That Fairfax was not as good an insurer as Berkshire...so what! Or that BAC has huge litigation issues and loan losses...well at some price who gives a rat's ass, as long as the business can settle litigation and provision for losses from existing cash flows...and is sellling well under tangible book. I'm sure most investors that look at OSTK read the same material I read. What they see is a crazy CEO and a bad business model. I see a smart and persistent CEO, and a quite good business model. The price when I bought OSTK was very attractive and it still is if you think Overstock can grow. Anyway, in 5-10 years we'll know who was right. Hope I have the mental strength to own OSTK that long as it's probably going to be a bumpy ride ;D Short interest is still high, see attached graph: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ostk/short-interest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Short interest is rising fast. Faster than the stock :o 30-50 days to cover: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ostk/short-interest Wonder why. The latest news from OSTK has been positive. Have no clue where these shares are coming from. That's pretty much 45% of the available float. If they have a profitable 3rd quarter, which looks very likely, the shorts are going to get the crap squeezed out of them, as the 4th quarter is usually profitable. An entire year of profits at Overstock would certainly kill alot of arguments around the business' viability. Cheers! Way to go Overstock! We'll see a full year of profits, and probably about $1.05-1.10 in earnings for the entire year. Thanks to everyone at Overstock.com and the board of directors for their efforts. Head down, focus and keep up the great work! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alertmeipp Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 damn it, and I sold ostk to buy more atpg. this year so far be concluded as WTF is wrong with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuecfa Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Loving it! I bet Patrick is walking around with a big smile today... a little vindication against the shorts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Loving it! I bet Patrick is walking around with a big smile today... a little vindication against the shorts. The ironic thing is that he got his vindication when he stopped worrying about the shorts and focused on the business. It's kind of what Glenn Suroweic and I tried to hammer into them in the conference call early this year, and when I spoke to Sam Mitchell in Toronto in April. Do the same thing Fairfax did...head down and focus on the company first...worry about the shorts second. There was no reason why this business was not profitable on an annual basis, but they were just spending too much on litigation and not streamlining the business. I'm glad to see them screw the shorts while restoring the operating business! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuecfa Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Loving it! I bet Patrick is walking around with a big smile today... a little vindication against the shorts. The ironic thing is that he got his vindication when he stopped worrying about the shorts and focused on the business. I completely agree. You could tell he is very passionate about enlightening the public at large of the alleged illegal activities going on in major financial firms and this seemed to be a distraction from operating his own business. I like his passion. I just wish more of were directed at Overstock. I give him enormous credit for taking a stand though, especially given the flow back he received. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 I noticed Francis Chou sold a few shares of OSTK a few days ago. This article explains why: http://www.gurufocus.com/news/194103/the-latest-on-overstockcom-and-francis-chous-stake-with-the-online-retailer The transaction purpose was outlined in Chou’s SEC filing stating: The transaction was “due to appreciation” and that “the value of investments in securities of the issuer represented over 30%” of the fund’s total investments, as of the date of the transaction. Additionally, the transaction “was effected solely for diversification purposes and more specifically, to reduce the concentration of the fund’s investments in securities…As of the date hereof, [Chou Associates] continues to believe that the subject of class of securities is undervalued and represents an attractive investment opportunity.” Sanjeev is also mentioned in the article: During a Fairfax shareholder dinner in April hosted by Sanjeev Parsad of business-investment firm Corner Market Capital Corp., Chou, who was in attendance with fellow value investor Prem Watsa and several others, was noted giving his insight on his shareholding of Overstock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 I noticed Francis Chou sold a few shares of OSTK a few days ago. This article explains why: http://www.gurufocus.com/news/194103/the-latest-on-overstockcom-and-francis-chous-stake-with-the-online-retailer The transaction purpose was outlined in Chou’s SEC filing stating: The transaction was “due to appreciation” and that “the value of investments in securities of the issuer represented over 30%” of the fund’s total investments, as of the date of the transaction. Additionally, the transaction “was effected solely for diversification purposes and more specifically, to reduce the concentration of the fund’s investments in securities…As of the date hereof, [Chou Associates] continues to believe that the subject of class of securities is undervalued and represents an attractive investment opportunity.” Sanjeev is also mentioned in the article: During a Fairfax shareholder dinner in April hosted by Sanjeev Parsad of business-investment firm Corner Market Capital Corp., Chou, who was in attendance with fellow value investor Prem Watsa and several others, was noted giving his insight on his shareholding of Overstock. Also mention of NormR and his dinner transcript...they've even got a link to a PDF copy! Cheers! In a transcribed summary of the dinner by financial consultant and founder of stock research site, StingyInvestor.com, Norman Rothery first cited Overstock in comments made by Hamblin-Watsa’s Sam Mitchell. According to Rothery, Mitchell said that Fairfax Financial Holdings’ decision to switch to Overstock was wrong because it “did not stick to its value proposition which was ‘great stuff at low prices,’” by establishing its O brands, and referring to Overstock as one of the firm’s “screw ups from last year.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuecfa Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Well i am disappointed by a recent Overstock.com customer experience. I tried to help next quarter's numbers by buying a travel book for a country i am visiting from Overstock, instead of the usual Amazon. Overstock actually beat every competitor's price i could find by 1%(that was a good sign). I placed the order on October 29th. I leave on November 10th for a several week journey. I did the live chat with an overstock rep and they said standard shipping of books can take up to 3 weeks! I must have missed that if they disclosed it during the checkout process. The customer rep was nice enough, but said that he can not cancel the order, b/c it has been "processed", but not shipped yet. Anyway just venting....since the book will be useless to me if it arrives after Nov 9th, which the rep hinted seemed likely, especially since they are having additional shipping delays due to the hurricane. Not the best O.co experience. Nevertheless, i will continue to hold my shares :-\ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCG Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Well i am disappointed by a recent Overstock.com customer experience. I tried to help next quarter's numbers by buying a travel book for a country i am visiting from Overstock, instead of the usual Amazon. Overstock actually beat every competitor's price i could find by 1%(that was a good sign). I placed the order on October 29th. I leave on November 10th for a several week journey. I did the live chat with an overstock rep and they said standard shipping of books can take up to 3 weeks! I must have missed that if they disclosed it during the checkout process. The customer rep was nice enough, but said that he can not cancel the order, b/c it has been "processed", but not shipped yet. Anyway just venting....since the book will be useless to me if it arrives after Nov 9th, which the rep hinted seemed likely, especially since they are having additional shipping delays due to the hurricane. Not the best O.co experience. Nevertheless, i will continue to hold my shares :-\ Any delivery time of 3 weeks means it most likely takes them 2 weeks just to ship your order. Unimpressive, especially considering that when there have been times I've ordered from Amazon around 9pm and the order was still shipped that day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bookie71 Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 You should live in Alaska, sometimes priority mail takes 3 weeks from the lower 48. Other times it might be 2-3 days, depends on whether it comes via highway or air (P.O.'s choice) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hellsten Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Interesting developments at OSTK: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/12/mahout/ We’re saving $2 million a year with Mahout, and that never would have happened if not for the sort of experimental stuff we’re doing in the labs,” says Bagley. “We’re discovering things that can then have benefit across the company. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1070741-has-overstock-com-turned-around Byrne has been divesting his own holdings, selling 263,000 shares at the first of this month. The largest shareholder is now Canadian mutual fund manager Francis M.S. Chou, who holds 2.3 million shares. Chou and the other institutional holders might be ready to cash out, and if they do you'll make a fat profit. Even if they don't, you're less likely to get "Byrned" now than you were. http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/11/29/small-online-retailers-rack-big-holiday-sales Of the 25 large retailers it tracked from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, J.C. Penney connected customers to live agents by phone the fastest, in just 22 seconds on average compared with an average wait time of four minutes and 27 seconds for all the retailers over the four-day period. Overstock.com Inc.’s live chat agents responded fastest, in 22 second on average. Behind the scenes at Overstock.com: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=23267030 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 That guy got it wrong. Byrne still owns a ton of shares through his investment company...White Plains Investments. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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