Street Yells Sell! As Lampert Buys Back 4% of Sears
The results for Sears’ (SHLD) second fiscal quarter are now out and, for most people, they are not very pretty. Year over year sales declines, net income down, lowered guidance. These things are, in essence, death to any retailer, or any publicly traded corporation for that matter.
Here are some headlines I read this morning:
Sears Falls [...]
On Bad Academics & A Good Academic Argument for Concentration
I can’t vouch for much of academic finance. When it comes to this field, academics tell us all about beta, risk adjusted this and Sharpe weighted that. Though the reality of the situation is that finance and economics are not easily definable subjects with physics-like rules, academics try to prove otherwise, [...]
Concentrated Risk: Pabrai and Pinnacle Airlines
As a frequent reader, and now small-time contributor, to the Berkshire Hathaway group over at MSN, created and wonderfully maintained by Sanjeev Parsad, I was intrigued by a recent post regarding the dumping of Pinnacle Airlines (PNCL) by Mohnish Pabrai. Before I begin, I want readers to understand that Mohnish is one of my idols in [...]
A couple of bargains
Note, 08/06/08: I made some horrendous editing mistakes in this piece. I’ve gone through it again and fixed up most of the mistakes. Sorry for the sloppiness, readers. In the future, if you notice them, leave a scathing note so I get sufficiently motivated to do better editing work.
Sorry for the dearth of writing lately. [...]
I agree, Mohamed
Via Abnormal Returns, I came across a great article written by former Harvard Endowment portfolio manager, and now PIMCO manager, Mohamed El-Erian. He actually put out a book recently, which I may or may not get around to reading this century called >When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change
Anyway, he [...]
A Flurry of Appearances for Bruce Berkowitz
Here are the numbers:
Since the inception of the Fairholme Fund (FAIRX), right at the end of 1999, the fund has returned a cumulative 240%, through June 30, 2008. On an annualized basis, those are returns of 15.5% per year. That would turn a $10,000 investment into $34,000 in the span of 7 and a half [...]
The Failure (and Success) of Heuristics
We use heuristics in our everyday lives. “It’s about an hour away.” “That beer is $30/case so I’m guessing it’s better than the Busch Light for $13/case.” A heuristic is a shortcut, basically. Heuristics give us some easy measurements to quickly size up a situation. Guesses, estimates, guesstimates, approximations, whatever you’d like to call them, [...]
