A little thank you to Warren Buffet

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Not that I do alot of VC work, but good luck. The number of busts for every boom is depressing. Even companies that eventually take off sometimes see the early investors get killed. The dread downrounds and dilution that wipe out all that came before the new money (except for management).

Why in the world did you exercise them, unless the option period was about to lapse? Make the 83(b) election, but otherwise, wait and cross your fingers is the normal rule.

But good luck!

They were about to expire.

About the same time they announced the series C funding, they sent me a notice that they were issuing more stock. I assumed that those shares were to provide equity to the series C investors. If I divide the total series C funding by the shares of stock to determine the "market" price of the stock, I do quite well even with the dllution. I'm not sure if that is the right way to look at it or not.

I'm far from counting any chickens but the investors were fortune 500 companies that are leaders in their field. It was a gamble on my part, but it wasn't much money and I knew I couldn't look myself in the mirror if it turned out big and I had passed on it. So far it has done about as well as could be expected but there is still a long way to go.

[DaKCMan AP]

Interesting article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...k-Picking+Code

It talks about a 'quality' metric for stock valuation. Basically, trying to look at profit margin instead of net earnings. Nothing new, really, but nonetheless.

Picking stocks this way isn't something you could pull off on a weekend morning in your pajamas. For each potential investment, you would need to subtract the company's cost of goods sold from its revenue, then divide by its total assets.

In general, says Mr. Novy-Marx, you want that ratio to be 0.33 or higher. You then would look for a low price-to-book-value ratio, available on most financial websites—ideally 1.7 or below. You would have to stick to big companies and diversify across many industries and dozens of stocks.

I just ran this quickly on a couple of stocks I own to see how they compare and may setup a play portfolio to track results based upon this metric vs. other valuation techniques.

[wutamess]

I have a question... I'm currently in Sprint stock and have close to 1k shares before they announced the sale to Softbank. Softbank agreed to pay $7 something /share for 70% of the shares. What does that mean?

Does that mean 70% of my shares will automatically be $7+ when the deal goes through or what?

Sometimes google isnt my friend.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by wutamess

I have a question... I'm currently in Sprint stock and have close to 1k shares before they announced the sale to Softbank. Softbank agreed to pay $7 something /share for 70% of the shares. What does that mean?

Does that mean 70% of my shares will automatically be $7+ when the deal goes through or what?

Sometimes google isnt my friend.

So I very briefly reviewed this article.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/...ver-explained/


Looks like they're buying about 55% of the company's shares for $7.30 each. So there is probably a tender offer going on which you can accept to sell at that price.

If you decline to do so, then after the deal closes you will be part of the 30% of non-Softbank stockholders of Sprint, and the share price will fluctuate per normal.

While the $7.30 offer is out there, I'd expect the stock to trade north of $7.00 certainly. After that, all bets are off and the stock will do whatever it will do.

[wutamess]

Also.... does anyone play with put or call options? Any luck?

Been researching and thinking about getting in at some point with companies that give a dividends. What are you guys thoughts or experiences?

[Coogs]

So you invest your money in the Steelers (Heinz) and not the Chiefs (Hunts)?

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

On December 21st I was looking for a stock to buy with some extra cash, and I liked Heinz, the ketchup company. It's pretty stable and pays a nice dividend, and I've really liked dividend stocks the past few years. So I bought $5,000 worth. It's gone up a couple of percent over the last couple of months, and I've been good with that since that's a very good annualized return so far.

Today it was announced the Berkshire Hathaway is buying Heinz. The stock is up 20% today. Blammo. I sold out my initial $5,000 worth, left the profit in, and I now have $1,200 of free Heinz ketchup stock for two months of investment.

God, I love America.

So how does one buy $5000 worth of a stock that costs $152,955.00 per share?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by jAZ

So how does one buy $5000 worth of a stock that costs $152,955.00 per share?

Because he bought stock in Heinz and not Berkshire Hathaway.

[CanadaKC]

I bought Berkshire B stock around the time it was first introduced at about 1500.00 a share. Since then, they split the stock 50-1 so more people would buy it. It's now 101.00 a share. Gotta love the Buffet man.

[ReynardMuldrake]

I'm liking Intel right now. I bought 150 shares on Tuesday and it's already up close to $.70.

It's way undervalued, and a $.90 dividend on a < $22 stock is hard to beat.

[Stanley Nickels]

Here's a picture of me on e*trade:

[ReynardMuldrake]

I bought some FRAN on Monday thinking it was due for a short squeeze. 45% shorts of total float is crazy undervalued. It's already up 9% today and looking like it might explode.

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:FRAN

[DaKCMan AP]

Damn - everything is up right now but some of my gains are Awesome.

I realize there will be some pullback at some point but the stocks I've invested in at the beginning of the year I like and want to hold long-term. Plus I can't sell yet because I would be taxed over the capital gains rate.

The one "stupid" investment I made about 1.5 years ago just set a new high today (I'm up about 40% overall on it) but I'm just going to ride that one out. The gains thing doesn't factor in there because I bought that one in a retirement account so no taxes on the gains anyway. Oh well..

I'm actually anxious for a pullback because there are a few stocks I really want to buy (and should have 3 months ago) but I don't want to pay the price they're at right now.

[TEX]

Obama and the Feds are watching this thread. Be careful...

[DaKCMan AP]

Originally Posted by TEX

Obama and the Feds are watching this thread. Be careful...