Monthly Archives: July 2011

Brian Eno, Rational Optimist

Growing up, I had a bit of an eclectic taste in music. My taste included everything from the Brits–Beatles, Stones, and especially the Who (I would listen to Quadrophenia at least once per day)–to early David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2, … Continue reading

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Left in the Dark–How Regulations Encroach on the Private Sector

As readers of this blog know, I believe the regulatory burden imposed by federal and state governments is largely to blame for the stagnation in the US and elsewhere. That burden includes the large amount of things government spends taxpayer money on–such … Continue reading

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NFLX Getting “Hammered” After Hours; Is this the Walk of Shame?

We doubt that missing revenue forecasts by less than 1% is legitimate reason for hammering a stock, especially when its earnings beat by a fair amount. No, it looks more like the morning after an NFLX investor party. At the … Continue reading

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Prem Watsa’s Thoughts on Current Macro Conditions

Prem Watsa is Chairman of Fairfax Financial, a Canadian P&C firm in the mold of Berkshire Hathaway. Prem is sometimes called Canada’s Warren Buffett. We held a profitable position in Fairfax for a while, but no longer hold any interest … Continue reading

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Baupost Group’s (Seth Klarman) 2011 Returns

I guess for some journalists a 30% cash position is encouraging news: The Boston-based manager’s partnerships were down between 0.25 percent and 0.60 percent in June. As a result, they are up 2.25 percent to 2. 75 percent for the year … Continue reading

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Crush the Entrepreneurial Spirit and the US Will Become Greece

There was an interesting piece written by Anne Jolis and published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. The article was on John Coustas, a Greek and head of Danaos Corporation, the third-largest container ship company in the world. I will … Continue reading

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Similar Investors Perform Alike…

…as Buffett noted in his Superinvestors speech–see tab above–despite having little overlap in their portfolios. I liberally copied from the business models used by Ben Graham, Warren Buffett, David Einhorn, Seth Klarman, and Mohnish Pabrai. Those investors started small with … Continue reading

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A Major Economics Lesson in a 5-Minute and 10-Second Video

View, in 5:10, practically everything you need to know about the efficiency of free markets and how freedom leads to rapid improvements in your standard of living (H/T: CafeHayek.com): The most convincing argument in favor of free markets is to … Continue reading

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The Great Minds Think Alike Department

If I am correctly reading the notes taken by the Inoculated Investor (http://inoculatedinvestor.blogspot.com/) at Charlie Munger’s annual meeting recently, then Munger is a big fan of Matt Ridley’s Rational Optimist too. The Google document: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7X_KYnqpniZNTY4YjdkY2UtNjU5Ny00ZmYxLTg0YWItODJkMWY0ZjBhNzA1&hl=en_US I disagree with the conclusion … Continue reading

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CAPE Update (Or, was Last Week’s 5.6% Market Pop Justified?)

As of July 1, 2011, the Cyclically Adjusted PE (CAPE) ratio for the S&P 500 is 23.13, which essentially means the average share of common stock in the S&P 500 companies trades for 23.13 times its annual earnings averaged over … Continue reading

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