It boils down to this: I think the company is lying about its project’s economics.
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Berkshire Hathaway’s 1989 letter to shareholders
In my opinion, Warren Buffett’s 1989 shareholder letter is one of his most significant ones as it has his greatest insights buried in there.
The drybulk shipping and offshore drilling industries
I don’t think that the shipping and drilling industries are great places to look for unusual returns. Over the entire boom and bust cycle, investors generally do not make much money. Historically, the way to make money has been to time the boom and bust cycles in the industry.
Premier Exhibitions 4Q13 update / Closing this position
It looks like the company’s efforts to sell the Titanic artifacts are going poorly. However, given the drop in share price and $96M market cap I think that it is prudent to cover.
Crocs (CROX): A wonderful company at a fair price
Crocs has very high returns on capital (~31%), is growing, and is trading at a P/E of around 11.98 (or 12.45 based on my adjustments). They bought back shares in the past two quarters.
Market makers, exchanges, and brokerages (KCG, IBKR, etc.)
Here’s how the market making business generally works:
Market makers pay exchanges money in return of special trading advantages over everybody else. Then they use these special advantages to fleece the exchange’s other customers (mostly institutional clients).
Retail brokerages can route their clients’ orders to an exchange, to an off-market venue, or to their own market making division. Retail investors still get fleeced… just not on an exchange. Knight Capital Group (KCG) was one of the pioneers in fleecing retail investors. They would buy order flow from companies such as Etrade and use the information to gain an edge.
TSLA, GMCR: Short covering time :(
My original reasoning on both Tesla and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is probably wrong so I will be looking to cover both. Both companies may morph into rapidly growing growth stocks and I don’t want to be short that type of stock.
