Thoughts on the New Movies "Futures Exchange"

There is this new "futures exchange" coming which will enable seemingly anyone to bet on the box office receipts of new movie releases. The article was in today's NYT's Media section. The exchange will be based on the existing successful "Hollywood Stock Exchange" (HSX) but with real money.

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More On Inflation

As I mentioned in an article not a long time ago, inflation has been a favorite topic for barbarians ever since Rome started debasing its precious metal coins. I just wrapped up my annual inflation tracking survey and I would like to share the results with you, along with some commentary.

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Analyzing Non-core Risks

My view on risks when analyzing a business is that there are two types of broad risks that investors take: core and non-core. "Core" risks are ones that are inherent to being in a business: input costs, competitive actions, regulations, pricing dynamics, lawsuits, even employee embezzlement, and so on. Then, in many businesses, there are "non-core" risks: these are risks that are above and beyond the regular business operations.

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Analyzing Industry Pricing Dynamics

One of the most important aspects in fundamental analysis for me is understanding the underlying industry dynamics. Questions one should be asking include where is the value captured in the chain, what really drives demand, what really drives the costs, and so on. One thing that is very helpful to know is industry pricing dynamics.

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Should We Get the Taxpayer Out of the Real Estate Business?

The taxpayer is more deeply involved in the real estate business than most people realize. I think it is time we pull the plug on the on-going blatant give-aways that go from our tax money to various constituents in the real estate business. So let's look at some of the known and lesser-known ways the real estate complex has been leeching for years. You can answer for yourself whether this is fair or not.

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Is Whitney Tilson Running an Alpha-clone Fund?

Let me preface this by saying that I like Mr. Tilson's work. He has done a lot in the worlds of  value investing and value investing education. Further, he has been very forthcoming with a number of high quality materials on the housing crisis. I also follow all of his slides from events like the Value Investing Congress, as well as situation-specific presentations, like the General Growth dispute with Hovde. In addition, I doubt I will ever reach his level of prominence or AUM, or write a book, or have 5-star mutual funds like his.

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Public Service Announcement: Tools to Read Faster and More Online

This post is only tangentially related to finance. It discusses my approach to reading more in less time via free, publicly available tools and downloads. Can reading more help your investing skills? Quite possibly, though more information does not necessarily lead to better comprehension or decision-making. The latter two are different skills.

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A Look at Kraft-Cadbury

Barbarian Capital was asked to express an opinion on the Kraft/Cadbury deal. This is a long post (definitely not for ADD readers) and there is nothing “actionable” in it. In short, Barbarian Capital is neutral to mildly negative on the transaction. There are better-run, less risky staple stocks with better track records than Kraft’s out there. This also grew to be a mini-lecture on staples stocks so beware.

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So What Was Your Stealth Inflation Last Year?

So what was your stealth inflation last year? No, this is not a pick-up line from Argentina circa 2001. One has to be much more eloquent with the beauty queens from the land of Bife de Lomo and deep-hued malbec, as SC Governor Sanford can attest.

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Why Are Academics Dangerous?

Now that Dexter, Dasan and the Davian Letter have exposed smidiots, asset-gatherers, master extrapolators and link aggregators, let's talk about another dangerous element of the human ecosystem: the academics, and in particular, economists.

You see them everywhere: Bernanke, Krugman, Shiller, Stiglitz are well-known, but there are plenty of others in positions of real power like Christina Romer PhD, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

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