Bristlemouth: A Value Investing Blog
January 27, 2012

Earlier in the week I asked Bristlemouth readers a couple of unrelated questions:

1.      What are the last two numbers of your mobile phone number?

2.      What percentage of countries in the United Nations are African?

We received 218 responses to our little poll and we split the responses up into those with a phone number than ends between 50 and 99 and those with a phone number between 00 and 49. The results look like this:

More...
Comments (3) | Category:Investing | Tags: anchoring, dan ariely, Investing Psychology
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Bristlemouth - A Value Investing Blog

January 23, 2012
Hi Bristlemouthers, I'm interviewing Dan Ariely for an Intelligent Investor podcast on Wednesday. We want to do a small experiment before the podcast, though, and need your help. Could you please answer the two questions below? Please don't look at Google and don't worry, you'll understand when you listen to the podcast. EmbedManager.embed({ key: "http://fs9.formsite.com/res/showFormEmbed?EParam=jFMIig1ZP57sa4dtte%2BJztt7h1SghSJ6&777798132", width: "100%" }); More...
Comments (2) | Category:Investing | Tags: dan ariely, Investing, psychology
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January 23, 2012
Amidst the doom, gloom and malaise of Australia’s retail sector, JB Hi-Fi has launched a beta version of its new music streaming service JB Hi-Fi NOW. Subscription-based music services seem the logical way to listen to music. Why bother downloading and owning music if you can pay one subscription fee and access whatever music you want, whenever you want? Like many seemingly obvious technological advances, the idea has been around for years but has been restricted by slow internet speeds. In many countries it is now taking off and, with the roll out of the national broadband network, Australia is likely to follow suit. Will JB Hi-Fi be one of the winners? I set II Funds analyst Matt Ryan the task of checking it out (I’m More...
Comments (6) | Category:Investing | Tags: JB Hi-Fi, JBH, Music, Streaming
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January 16, 2012
I spent Saturday night in the Blue Mountains, about an hour west of Sydney. Unlike the sensible people on this cold, wet, foggy night, I wasn’t perched next to a fire with a good book. I was in a trail running race, the 20km Narrowneck Night Run. Last year, the sunset views from the Narrowneck ridge were spectacular. This year you couldn’t see 10 metres in front of you. About 14km in it was pitch black and my headlamp worked like the high-beam lights on your car; in the fog I couldn’t see a metre in front of me. It’s a strangely conducive environment for thinking. The field of runners spreads out until you can’t see any headlamps in front of you and can’t hear anyone behind. There’s the sound More...
Comments (12) | Category:Investing | Tags: Frank, insurance, O'Halloran, QBE
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January 13, 2012
You know what worries me most about QBE? Floods? Storms? Earthquakes? Global warming? Interest rates? No; none of the above. They are all part and parcel of owning an insurance business. What worries me is that the case for buying the stock is so simple you can work it out on the back of an envelope. Net earned premium                          $16bn Insurance margin                              15% Insurance profit                                 $2.4bn That’s a pre-tax return of 19% on the current More...
Comments (26) | Category:Investing | Tags: O'Halloran, QBE, value investing
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January 10, 2012
So Philipp Hildebrand has quit. Not that he did anything wrong, of course. Hildebrand said "I came to the conclusion that it’s not possible for me to deliver a definite proof that my wife requested the currency transaction without my knowledge. Unfortunately, mistakes were made around this transaction.” The only problem is that he can’t prove he didn’t do anything wrong! The Swiss National Bank released a series of emails between Hidlebrand and his banker. Here’s the Bank Sarasin guy’s email on 16 August: I also remember your saying in our yesterday’s conversation that if Kashya [Hildebrand's wife] wants to increase the USD exposure then it is fine More...
Comments (2) | Category:Politics | Tags: ethics, finance, Hildebrand, Philipp, SNB, swiss national bank
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