"My premise has always been that there are good stocks everywhere. Some people say you can’t buy companies with unions, or you can’t buy companies in dying industries; for instance, who would ever buy a textile company? I mean, I didn’t buy it but a company called Unifi went up, I think, a hundred fold in the textile industry. I missed it. But look at all the money I made with Chrysler and with Boeing. I also lost money with a few airlines and I made money with airlines. But you hear this concept that you can’t make money if you ever buy a company that has a union, because the union will kill it. These are prejudices and biases that prevent people from looking at a lot of different industries. I never had that. I think there are good and bad stocks everywhere." -Peter Lynch (via the 1997 book Investment Gurus)
The power of focus in turnarounds - by Sean Iddings (LINK)
Related previous post: The Characteristics of Easy and Difficult TurnaroundsEinhorn's Greenlight Warns of Bubble With Tax Reform Prospects Fading (LINK)
Contra Einhorn - by Josh Brown (LINK)
Constellation Software Inc. – 2016 President’s Letter (LINK)
The U.S. Makes It Easy for Parents to Get College Loans—Repaying Them Is Another Story (LINK)
Student loans made through parents come from an Education Department program called Parent Plus, which has loans outstanding to more than three million Americans. The problem is the government asks almost nothing about its borrowers’ incomes, existing debts, savings, credit scores or ability to repay. Then it extends loans that are nearly impossible to extinguish in bankruptcy if borrowers fall on hard times.
As of September 2015, more than 330,000 people, or 11% of borrowers, had gone at least a year without making a payment on a Parent Plus loan, according to the Government Accountability Office. That exceeds the default rate on U.S. mortgages at the peak of the housing crisis. More recent Education Department data show another 180,000 of the loans were at least a month delinquent as of May 2016.
Lucky, Good or Tipped Off? The Curious Case of Government Data and the Pound [H/T @jasonzweigwsj] (LINK)
Some investors could be trading with knowledge of U.K. official statistics before they are published, according to a comparison of currency trading data for the Swedish krona and British pound.Not OK, Google - by Ben Thompson (LINK)
Ten Year Futures - by Benedict Evans (LINK)
a16z Podcast: QR. AR. VR. (LINK)
Prof. Adam Alter discusses his new book, "Irresistible", with Malcolm Gladwell (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
Related book: Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us HookedRobert Pirsig Reveals the Personal Journey That Led Him to Write His Counterculture Classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) (LINK)
How to Fight Cancer (When Cancer Fights Back) - by Ed Yong (LINK)
What Makes a Genius? (LINK)