https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio

Pick the US or Total World fund from your preferred brokerage from there

The short write up on VIC thinks ODP is worth 5.4$ , currently at 3.3$.

Why on earth did they try to do the Staples merger if it was going to make the enterprise segment into a monopoly? Sort of a high risk high reward type thing? The reward must have been enormous to justify wasting a 250 million break up fee on that.

Berkshire hathaway would be a better idea imo. It's diversified in like 100's of high quality businesses. Low cost structure.

Office depot got paid the break up fee

ah misread that. I guess then, why on earth would staples do it.

So basically if none of the synergies come through, then it is not really cheap, but if most of those synergies come through, and revenue does not decline too much too fast, it could double? And the market does not seem to think much of those synergies.

Anyone into Canadian real estate? Looking at Dream office REIT and Melcor development myself. Could be an indirect more low risk way to bet on a recovery in oil prices.

Its easy to see why Staples would do it. Take out the number two player, have the B&M space to yourself while still competing with Amazon semi effectively online. Try to increase margins where possible. It was a decent shot at surviving the Amazon onslaught that it going to come.

I'm not sure what synergies you're referring to, however in order to think this is cheap here you have to believe they will execute their turn around plan, I just see a lot of execution risk/faster sales declines then what's currently priced.

enterprise segment is declining much more slowly than the retail segment. Hence why it got blocked by a judge. Businesses like retail that are declining rarely get blocked for anti trust.

This mgmt team was been very good at extracting synergies in the past. round 1 that was started after officemax merger is almost done. So they are real. THe CEO is retiring in December but he has a good team in place.

At this point they are rightly treating retail as a declining cash cow and returning cash to shareholders. second part is key in a declining business. And to have little or no debt. they have net cash

in terms of mergers, you could see if things deteriorate quicker than expected they could probably merge again, or at the least merge the retail space. maybe ODP would even buys Stpls retail stores.

ELXS looks good but whats your read on this CEO. I read he did some fishy looking transactions in the past at shareholder's expense. For being the 2nd biggest position in a small company is this not a big concern?

AIRT. I like Swenson a lot. What's your take on Delphax?


Still need to go through most of the list but thanks for posting this.

Fwiw, only "dirty tankers" and highly specialized "clean tankers" are decent investments at the moment.

The oversupply in bulk will not be overcome for at least 10 years as those vessels scrap out due to emissions and discharge regulations.

Liners are trying to digest the mega 12,000 TEU boats and also the new Panama canal has changed the field. As with bulk, wait for regulatory driven scrapping to take over supply.

For those with lots of spare time, look at ASC and try to understand their business.

LNG will become huge, but it is probably a touch early. GLNG and GMLP are favorites of mine.

NAT, EURN, FRO, TK, DHT are worth understanding.

SFL probably will survive.

The CEO and governance at ELXS is the reason the stock is so cheap in my opinion, I'll expand on this at some point but at the end of the day I think it is overblown and the CEO has this company absolutely dominating their industry. His compensation agreement is insane but he is also executing at a very high level and from people I've talked to who know him, he is a major driving force in this companies success. Serious governance concerns but my God at least you are getting outstanding execution for the price you are paying to the CEO, same cannot be said for so many other companies. I really like the company, the industry, and the valuation that I think it's worth taking on the governance issues. CEO owns 35%ish and there are a couple of other large outside shareholders who will not let the CEO pull any major shenanigans going forward. If you just take the free cash flow the company will generate in the next 12 months and add it to the market cap you get something like a 18% return. In a go private transaction a company like this will sell for 10-12x ebitda and it currently trades around 4.25x and has been growing.

Yeah I'm not really sure what to think on Delphax, clearly looks like a disaster and the loss of the largest customer so soon after making the investment was clearly not expected but Airt is a convertible debt holder so it's hard to say whether permanent capital loss is imminent. I do think the Delphax investment has people spooked and is a reason AIRT has been weak as of late and but I think even if the Delphax investment is a 100% loss this is still a good price under $20 here (AIRT isn't liable for Delphax losses). Obviously I think Nick is a special talent and is running this company to make shareholders rich, long term I think AIRT will do well.

Anyone considering YUMC?

Navigator and Singapore shipping both look interesting. I think more money is to be made in niches than in those over leveraged commodity shippers.

I think the 10 year estimate is spot on. Major problem being that barriers to entry are so low, there is no advantage in scale with dry bulkers and oil tankers (there actually is with some gas carriers) and overcapacity just does not leave the market any time soon. As it is always cheaper to just dock your ships vs scrapping. Plus all that cheap money makes it easier to quickly ramp up new builds again if overcapacity goes away.

If you read Porter's competitive advantage, the dry bulk industry ticks all his boxes for the absolute worst industry to invest in.

Maybe if I can buy a shipper with net cash and new ships at a 80%+ discount to book value i'll try. Probably better to search asian markets for stocks like this, as they tend to be less efficient in their capital structure.

don't buy it. too much supply out there and coming on the market and they dont own the top quality towers so they are being left in the cold. if you want to bet on an oil recovery, bet on e&p's who actually make money with low costs.

if you want REITs look at the data center companies like DLR CONE DFT QTS or self storage NSA EXR PSA.

thoughts on WDR ?

Any of you taking HOS into earnings? I don't own any, but starting to get a bit of FOMO at these prices.

Waiting for it to get around $1

PRSC hitting a 52wk low.

Stanley Furniture Company, Inc. (STLY) is now below net current asset value. Net current assets are 19.2 mil. Market cap is 19 mil. Of course quick liquidation value is less because of the inventory. This is a well known brand in the states they are in. I read the last quarterly and its just not being managed well. They have supply chain issues and when things are going bad enough to have to cash out life insurance policies they declared a special dividend to stockholders. It's still a decent net-net especially if they can turn it around any.

ODP:

http://seekingalpha.com/pr/16654157-...r-2016-results

10am call for HOS today if anyone else is interested: http://ir.hornbeckoffshore.com/phoen...&p=irol-irhome

Earnings: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hornb...7yhBzNa9qH6A--

Curious what they can get their burn rate down to after stacking so many ships.

more interested in hearing what they are looking to do with bringing in pwc.
privatization or some other deal might be a slap in the face for anybody looking for a big turnaround in a few years.

I need an stacker. My nick on ps is remusdaniel and my Skype is original.fak3 . Ty

Hos is getting obliterated, what was said in the conf call to cause this?