Archive for September, 2009
How not to respond to a consumer letter
Consumer advocacy letters are always fun. And, in case those of you felt that McDonald’s was not unique in its cordial response to my letter, here’s a follow up with a letter I wrote to Burger King (BKC). Forgive me, I wrote this letter last summer, but haven’t had a reason to share it on [...]
read more »The Next Billion Dollar Retailer
By now we’ve all heard of Amazon’s near-billion dollar acquisition of Zappos which provided a tremendous return to Zappos’ original investors – Sequoia Capital and Venture Frogs. In fact, they only invested $60 million in the company over seven rounds. And, now, they’re sitting on a billion dollar return. How’s that for IRR? Obviously, this [...]
read more »You don’t need a 13D to write a letter
Almost all of us investors have felt the way Bob Chapman or Dan Loeb at one point in our lives. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve wanted to grab a member of management and give him what for. Well, there are times when just sitting back and searching for 13D letters just [...]
read more »MCD – Almost as much value as a dollar menu
Above is a 5-year weekly chart for McDonald’s (MCD). As described by David Gordon of The Deipnosophist, MCD seems to have entered a hesitation after a strong, multi-year bull run. Over the last year, however, a symmetrical triangle seems to have formed which is a type of intermediate term base which is expected to end [...]
read more »Weekend Recap – September 13, 2009
Though it’s been happening for the last six months, the dollar’s weakening seems to have hit a head over last six months. Moreover, it seems that gold has directly offset the weakening dollar. Could this mean that, contrary to popular belief, investors are actually fleeing to the quality of gold as opposed to increasing their [...]
read more »Book Review: Bad Money
The title, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, pretty much sums up the book’s thesis. This is actually Kevin Phillips’ third book on the subject matter, the first two being - American Theocracy and Wealth and Democracy. I haven’t read the first two of his books, but he freely admits [...]
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