Most Recent Stingy News
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| Vito Maida Interview |
| 02/08/10 12:06 AM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Value Investing |
| "Jonathan Chevreau interviews Vito Maida of Patient Capital Management." |
| More Value Investing: Chanticleer's Q4 |
| 7 of 10 robot picks beat market |
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| Seven states of energy debt |
| 02/08/10 12:05 AM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Government |
| "I've identified seven large US states by four criteria that are sure to cause trouble for Washington's political class at least for the next 3 years, through the 2012 elections. These are states with big populations, very high rates of unemployment, and which have already had to borrow big to pay unemployment claims. In addition, as a kind of Gregor.us kicker, I've thrown in a fourth criteria to identify those states that are large net importers of energy. Because the step change to higher energy prices played, and continues to play, such a large role in the developed world's financial crisis it's instructive to identify those US states that will struggle for years against the rising tide of higher energy costs." |
| More Government: Emergency in Nevada |
| Leviathan stirs again |
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| What is liquidity? |
| 02/08/10 12:04 AM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Markets |
| "The great Peter Lynch would buy small cap stocks for Magellan, with strict orders on price. Then he would let them sit, while they gained in value on average. Marty Whitman buys in 'safe and cheap' small cap stocks that are illiquid and holds them until their value is recognized. If you have a strong balance sheet or patient investors, take advantage of it, and buy investments that are less liquid, where value may take a while to obtain." |
| More Markets: Quants' risk-free ideas sink market |
| Reported earnings versus "owner earnings" |
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| Europe risks another depression |
| 02/08/10 12:03 AM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | World |
| "The entirely pointless G7 meeting this weekend only served to underline the fact that Europe is again entering a serious economic crisis." |
| More World: What Toronto can teach New York and London |
| A Greek bailout, and soon? |
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| Emergency in Nevada |
| 02/08/10 12:02 AM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Government |
| "Nevada's budget is so far out of balance that by one account the state could lay off every worker paid from the general fund and still be $300 million in the red. The economic downturn has hit so hard that prisons may be closed, entire colleges shuttered and thousands left without jobs." |
| More Government: Leviathan stirs again |
| Paul Volcker |
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| A new bubble |
| 02/08/10 12:01 AM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Real Estate |
| "As the U.S. struggles to get out of its housing slump, its neighbor to the north faces a different challenge: Canada's housing recovery has been so rapid that some here are worrying about a bubble." |
| More Real Estate: All those little Stuyvesant Towns |
| A bust with precedent |
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| Earl Jones: In Trust |
| 02/06/10 8:38 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Crime |
| "Disgraced Montreal financial advisor Earl Jones awaits sentencing for orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of $50 million for more than two decades. The fifth estate investigates Jones' life, how he created his scheme and how he was able to get away with fraud for so long." |
| More Crime: Paying zero for public services |
| Institute for Financial Learning Ponzi Scheme |
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| Buffett on farming superhighway |
| 02/06/10 12:10 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Buffett |
| "Buffett became the second-richest American by investing in businesses he expects to grow for decades. He's said his $26 billion takeover of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., announced in November, will benefit Berkshire 'over the next century.' CTB, which Berkshire bought in 2002, may produce profits beyond the year 2200, Buffett, 79, said in the video." |
| More Buffett: Buffett gets Krafty |
| Kodak, Bill Gates and efficient markets |
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| Japanese liquidation value |
| 02/05/10 7:42 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Graham |
| "The fundamental problem in 1932 America, according to Graham, was that investors weren't paying attention to the assets owned by the company, instead focussing exclusively on 'earning power'" |
| More Graham: Stocks Ben Graham might buy |
| How the small investor can beat the market |
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| Six RRSP pitfalls |
| 02/05/10 7:11 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Taxes |
| "It's RRSP season, and you're going to get a lot of advice about how to maximize your contributions, borrowing to contribute, the benefits of contributing, and how to invest inside your registered retirement savings plan. It's all good stuff when the advice comes from the right sources. But I want to talk about the six most common mistakes that people make with their RRSPs. If you avoid these blunders, you'll save tax, create greater retirement savings for yourself, and protect those assets." |
| More Taxes: Comparing taxes on RRSPs and TFSAs |
| $10 an hour with 2 kids? IRS pounces |
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| The 'lost decade' |
| 02/05/10 7:08 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Accounting |
| "In sum, there has been no justice, and thus, no lessons learned or changes made. And so naturally, the theme continues to roll on with products like leveraged ETFs - long on advertised promises, and short on explanations of their inherent shortcomings. After these products lose steam, the theme will be recycled with the same conclusion, that the promise of higher returns was just too good to be true." |
| More Accounting: The worst footnote of 2009 |
| Chanos condemns 'monstrous idea' |
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| Quants' risk-free ideas sink market |
| 02/05/10 7:06 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Markets |
| "To become a potentially market- destroying 'it' group on Wall Street, you need some arrogance, enough brains to justify making huge financial bets, utter cluelessness about lessons learned from finance's booms and busts, and a sincere belief that your unique contributions to Wall Street will mean, ahem, that this time it really is different, so old truths can be ignored." |
| More Markets: Reported earnings versus "owner earnings" |
| Tell me I'm wrong |
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| Top 200 Canadian Stocks for 2010 |
| 02/02/10 11:07 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Stingy Investing |
| "Our five-year results are similarly stellar. If you had bought equal amounts of the All-Star stocks and rolled your capital gains into the new team each subsequent year, you'd be sitting on a 19% average annual return. By way of comparison, that's more than 14 percentage points higher than the annual return of the S&P/TSX Composite, which sported 4.7% annual gains over the same period. It's been quite the ride, and it got me to reminiscing. Several years ago a former professor of mine came to visit with my performance record in hand. 'Did you know that you've outperformed most mutual funds?' he asked. I didn't. But it was a gratifying observation. That memory prompted me to look up Canada's mutual fund performance over the past five years. It turns out that the Top 200 All-Stars beat every single Canadian equity mutual fund over that period. We topped the best by about 3 percentage points a year and the second best by about 7 percentage points a year. The median Canadian equity fund trailed by 14 percentage points a year." |
| More Stingy Investing: 5 Stingy Stocks for 2010 |
| Asset Mixer Update |
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| Comparing taxes on RRSPs and TFSAs |
| 02/02/10 11:05 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Taxes |
| "Comparing marginal effective tax rates across income levels suggests that many Canadians with savings in tax-deferred vehicles, like Registered Retirement Savings Plans, should put more future saving in tax-prepaid savings plans, particularly Tax-Free Savings Accounts." |
| More Taxes: $10 an hour with 2 kids? IRS pounces |
| An immodest proposal |
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| Reported earnings versus "owner earnings" |
| 02/01/10 2:31 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Markets |
| "Importantly, the ability of companies to increase book value over time has been a critical determinant of long-term earnings growth, and is likely to be even more important in an economy where debt financing is increasingly constrained. The long-term relationship between earnings and book value is very clear, with actual reported earnings fluctuating reliably around a cyclical norm of about 13.6% of book value. Economic booms can certainly boost return on equity (earnings / book value), and recessions can depress return on equity, but over the full economic cycle, it is dangerous to assume that these temporary departures from the norm will be sustained for long." |
| More Markets: Tell me I'm wrong |
| Hoisington Q4 letter |
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| Garry Kasparov, cyborg |
| 02/01/10 2:09 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Behaviour |
| "What I love about Kasparov's algorithm - 'Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and ... superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process' - is that it suggests serious rewards accrue to those who figure out the best way to use thought-enhancing software. (Or rather, those who figure out a way that's best for them; people always use tools in slightly different, idiosyncratic ways.) The process matters as much as the software itself. How often do you check it? When do you trust the help it's offering, and when do you ignore it?" |
| More Behaviour: In defense of home bias |
| Justice, medieval style |
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| In defense of home bias |
| 02/01/10 2:07 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Behaviour |
| "Ideally, shouldn.t investors seek out the stocks that are likely to perform the best, regardless of where they are located in our world? Ideally, yes. Practically, there are difficulties." |
| More Behaviour: Justice, medieval style |
| The self-fulfilling prophecy |
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| Loosen up, tightwads! |
| 02/01/10 2:05 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Dividends |
| "Many big companies with the financial wherewithal to pay dividends are being stingy about payouts -- for no good reason. By hoarding cash, the likes of Apple, Google, Cisco, Amazon, eBay, IBM and Amgen are doing their shareholders a disservice -- and it's time for that to change." |
| More Dividends: Dividend growth lives |
| Select dividend club |
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| Efficient markets theory disproved |
| 02/01/10 2:04 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Fun |
| "But I'm a connoisseur of economic irrationality. And so I bent down and picked up the paper. On one side, the grim visage of Queen Elizabeth. On the other, Charles Darwin. It was a 10 pound note, worth about $16.25. Just lying on the floor, unmolested by Nobel Prize-winning economists, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and financial journalists." |
| More Fun: What bacon intake says about the economy |
| The economist's guide to happiness |
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| Justice, medieval style |
| 02/01/10 2:02 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Behaviour |
| "Modern observers have roundly condemned ordeals for being cruel and arbitrary. Ordeals seem to reflect everything that was wrong with the Dark Ages. They're an icon of medieval barbarism and backwardness. But a closer look suggests something very different: The ordeal system worked surprisingly well. It accurately determined who was guilty and who was innocent, sorting genuine criminals from those who had been wrongly accused. Stranger still, the ordeal system suggests that pervasive superstition can be good for society. Medieval legal systems leveraged citizens. superstitious beliefs through ordeals, making it possible to secure criminal justice where it would have otherwise been impossible to do so. Some superstitions, at least, may evolve and persist for a good reason: They help us accomplish goals we couldn't otherwise accomplish, or accomplish them more cheaply." |
| More Behaviour: The self-fulfilling prophecy |
| Less intuition, more evidence |
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| All those little Stuyvesant Towns |
| 02/01/10 1:59 PM EST Permlink Report Broken Link | Real Estate |
| "In a letter warning Vantage of impending litigation, Mr. Cuomo's office contended that Vantage, which has bought more than 125 buildings in Queens, Harlem and other areas since 2006, had engaged in a 'systemic pattern of harassment' to generate significant tenant turnover. Increasing turnover was central to Vantage's business strategy, the attorney general's office said, so that it could charge much higher rents after renovating the newly vacant apartments." |
| More Real Estate: A bust with precedent |
| Unlock the housing market |
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