Opal Cat’s Eye Triplet

Cat’s eye opals are not chatoyant in the ordinary sense of the word. Instead the eye is simply a single streak of color across the stone due to parallel fault planes within the opal. The material is normally made into triplets as the quartz dome magnifies the effect.

The New Friends Of De Beers

Chaim Even-Zohar writes about the perception of De Beer's Chairman/Managing Director by the local establishment press + the chain of events + the new concept of State Diamond Trader + the new way of doing business + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp?TextSearch=&KeyMatch=0&id=27042

US$10m For A Rock In A Bay

I have known David Glickman for nearly two decades, and he is a unique + one-of-a-kind gem dealer in Bangkok, Thailand. He has a good sense of humor; I would call him the Woody Allen of the gem and jewelry business. I wish him all the best of luck finding a buyer for his island.

(via AP) Nation writes:

If you have ever wanted to own a piece of San Francisco Bay, now is your chance. Red Rock, the only privately owned island in the bay, is up for sale. But it is well beyond most pocketbooks.

David Glickman, a Bangkok-based gems dealer and attorney, wants US$10 million (Bt346 million) for the 5.8-acre, uninhabited island in the shadow of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

"It's time to sell. I'm not going to live much longer. I'm almost 78. My wife is Thai, highly educated, and I'd like to leave her in good finances," Glickman said.

Red Rock Island, which gets its name from the reddish-brown color of its soil, was privately purchased in the 1920s. After a few owners, Glickman, then practicing law in San Francisco, bought it sight unseen in 1964 for $49,500.

It is located about 13 kilometers north of San Francisco's famed Fisherman's Wharf at a point where the San Francisco, Marin and Contra Costa counties converge.

"At the time, I thought I'd sell it. The island has a good spot for a marina, and it's in the bay, so the marina would be useful," he said. "But each time I thought I was going to sell it, something happened to make it worth more money."

Settled for good in Thailand, Glickman has so far refused to drop the asking price or consider donating it for conservation purposes.

More info @ http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/06/20/headlines/headlines_30037353.php

The Dhandho Investor

I liked the book.

(via Emergic) Rajesh Jain writes:

I attended a talk by Mohnish Pabrai a few years ago in Mumbai. He spoke about his philosophy of investing, which has been heavily influenced by Warren Buffet. But there were also some unique perspectives that he had. Now, Mohnish has written a book that every investor and entrepreneur must read: “The Dhandho Investor.” The subtitle “The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns” could as easily have been “Heads I win, Tails I don't lose much.”

From the book's inside flap:
All investors are told that if you want to earn high rates of returns, you must take on greater risk. Of course, the groundbreaking value investing strategies of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger have shown that it is indeed possible to keep risk to a minimum while still making a reasonable profit. The Dhandho method takes their successful approach to investing one step further and shows how you can actually maximize rewards while minimizing risk.

Dhandho (pronounced dhun-doe), literally translated, means "endeavors that create wealth." In The Dhandho Investor, Mohnish Pabrai demonstrates how the powerful Dhandho capital allocation framework of India's business-savvy Patels can be successfully applied and replicated by individual value investors in the stock market. The Patels, a small ethnic group from India, first began arriving in the United States in the 1970s as refugees with little education or capital.

Today, they own over $40 billion in motel assets in the United States, pay over $725 million a year in taxes, and employ nearly a million people. How did this small, impoverished group come out of nowhere and end up accumulating such vast resources? The answer lies in their low-risk, high-return approach to business: Dhandho. This book will show you how to use that same technique to generate high returns in the stock market.

Pabrai's hedge funds, Pabrai Investment Funds, have outperformed all of the major indices and over 99% of other managed funds. $100,000 invested with Pabrai in 1999 was worth over $659,000 by 2006—an annualized return of over 28% after all fees and expenses. In this book, Pabrai distills the methods of Buffett, Graham, and Munger into a user-friendly approach applicable to individual investors. Combining their legendary investing wisdom with the business acumen of the Patels, Pabrai lays out the Dhandho framework in an easy-to-use format that will help any investor significantly improve on their results and soundly beat the markets—as well as most professionals.

BloggingStocks writes in a review:
The key concept to glean from this book is the difference between uncertainty and risk. According to Pabrai, most investors don't understand the difference. Risk means the chance of a loss of capital. Uncertainty is the range of different outcomes. So a stock may have high uncertainty but may not be risky, if no one knows what will happen but the worst case scenario would not results in a huge loss. According to Pabrai, these investments provide the greatest opportunities for investors.

The Dhandho Investor is pretty lean for an investment book --183 pages with fairly large type. Consequently, it's short on specifics. You won't really learn about how to analyze stocks. But that's fine. There are hundreds of books for that. But Monish Pabrai has presented a compelling way of looking at investing and decision-making in general, and reading this book will likely benefit any investor.

Here is an outline of Mohnish Pabrai's Dhandho Framework which he discusses in detail in the book:

- Invest in Existing Businesses

- Invest in Simple Businesses

- Invest in Distressed Businesses in Distressed Industries

- Invest in Businesses with Durable Models

- Few Bets, Big Bets, Infrequent Bets

- Fixate on Arbitrage

- Margin of Safety - Always

- Invest in Low-Risk, High-Uncertainty Businesses

- Invest in the Copycats rather than the Innovators

Tips For Online Privacy

(via Livemint) Reuters writes:

Here are 10 ways to keep personal information secure when online:

Favour common sense over technological solutions. Keep personal documents safe, preferably in a locked drawer. Shred bank statements, credit card slips and bills before throwing them away.

If it’s too good to be true, it is. Never open spam messages. Delete emails offering cash, free gifts or stock tips. Millions of spam messages are sent every day in an attempt to defraud computer users.

Basic prevention helps. Protect your computer against identity theft. Install security software to combat viruses, spyware and spam and keep it updated.

Know enough about your firewall, the barrier between the public Internet and a personal computer, to know when it is working and when it isn’t. Don’t worry about the geeky complexity of it all, just know it’s operating.

Beware of phishing, where criminals trick people into revealing personal or financial details, often by sending emails purporting to be from a bank. Never casually reply to requests for your personal financial details.

Keep your private email addresses secure. Consider using different email accounts for shopping, banking, friends and work. There are many free account providers.

Do not use the same password for different sites. Choose passwords with a mix of letters, numbers and symbols. Don’t use obvious passwords, such as your first name or “123456” and don’t write them down. To make it easier to remember, choose a basic root word and then rotate numbers.

Make online payments safely. Never enter a card number unless there is a padlock in the Web browser’s frame, rather than the Web page. The Web address should begin with https—the extra “s” stands for “secure”. Consider reserving one credit card for Web use or signing up for a separate online payment service such as PayPal.

Secure your wireless network at home and be wary when using public access points. Encrypt the connection to scramble communications over the network. Turn off the wireless network when you’re not using it.

Treat your laptop like cash—never leave it in a locked car or turn your back while using it in a public place. The same holds true for your cellphone: Lock your phone (and any passwords you keep on it) when not using it.

More info @ http://www.livemint.com/2007/06/20002638/Tips-for-online-privacy.html

Patch Adams

Memorable quote (s) from the movie:

Hunter Patch Adams (Robin Williams): All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home. It's hard to describe what I felt like then. Picture yourself walking for days in the driving snow; you don't even know you're walking in circles. The heaviness of your legs in the drifts, your shouts disappearing into the wind. How small you can feel, and how far away home can be. Home. The dictionary defines it as both a place of origin and a goal or destination. And the storm? The storm was all in my mind. Or as the poet Dante put it: In the middle of the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood, for I had lost the right path. Eventually I would find the right path, but in the most unlikely place.

Andean Opals

Blue and greenish blue opals from Peru have been on the market for more than three decades, but today there are also pink opals available that look like angel-skin corals.

Sunset Quartz

Here is an interesting story from Brazil. A vein of milky white quartz with yellow orange areas is marketed as sunset quartz.