Green Destiny

Destiny Media Year End Results Exceed Guidance. From that release:

Q4 Revenue up 77% Over Prior Year; EBITDA Increases to 266% of Prior Quarter

* Press Release
* Source: Destiny Media Technologies
* On 1:08 am EST, Monday November 30, 2009



* Companies: Destiny Media Technologies Inc

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Destiny Media Technologies (OTC Bulletin Board: DSNY - News) is pleased to announce results for the quarter and year ended August 31, 2009.

Revenues of $2,560,447 were 62% higher than the prior year and quarterly revenues of $872,569 were 31% higher than the prior quarter. Net income was $610,831 for the company's first profitable year. Earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) grew to over $300,000 for the quarter ahead of management's preliminary results. The company has had quarter to quarter revenue improvement in eleven out of the twelve most recent quarters and quarter to quarter growth in Play MPE® access revenue in fifteen of the sixteen most recent quarters.

Destiny is also announcing that its board of directors has authorized a program to repurchase up to 1 million shares of the company's common stock at a maximum share purchase price of $0.80 per share. The repurchases will be at times and in amounts as the company deems appropriate and will be made through open market transactions.

[...]

Based on preliminary Q1 financial information, Destiny believes it will achieve first quarter fiscal 2010 revenue of at least $1,000,000, representing an increase of at least 14% over the previous quarter and 102% over Q1 fiscal 2008.

Recall that we added more DSNY.OB at $0.305 a couple of weeks ago, noting that we suspected it would trade higher after it released its earnings.

The higher education bubble personified

The higher education bubble personified.

From Friday's New York Times, Again, Debt Disqualifies Applicant From the Bar. Excerpt:

[A] panel of five New York judges [denied] one would-be lawyer, Robert Bowman, admission to the bar because his debt approached half a million dollars.

“His application demonstrates a course of action amounting to neglect of financial responsibilities with respect to the student loans he has accumulated since 1983,” the judges wrote in a decision issued late last week. They went on to criticize his “dealing with the lenders.”

The decision, which comes as students borrow ever larger sums to cover the cost of higher education, blocked Mr. Bowman’s effort to have his bar application reconsidered after it was initially denied earlier this year. His long struggle to enter the legal profession was the subject of an article in The New York Times in July.

Without practicing law, Mr. Bowman said it would be difficult to earn enough to repay his debts which, because of fees, penalties and interest, were growing by about $10,000 monthly.

“This has destroyed my life,” Mr. Bowman said. “Everything I’ve worked for, every effort, every fight that I’ve taken to make this progress, has been for nothing.”

The photo above, of Mr. Bowman posing alongside his expensive wall decorations, accompanied the previous article about him in the New York Times and was credited to Suzy Allman.

More on short selling and risk

In the comment thread below John Chow's follow up post on Short Screen, a commenter wrote,

If you go long the maximum you can lose is 100% of what you invested. (As I did with my smart investment in Enron!)

If you go short, but the shares rise in value, you then have to purchase them at this higher amount. How much is that higher amount? It is limitless. Thus you are exposed to a massive risk that is unknown at purchase.

Imagine you had decided to short Volkswagen before the massive swing in its share price saw its market capitalization hit $364 billion, making it the most expensive company in the world. Many experienced hedge fund managers were on the wrong side of this trade.

Shares prices do move sharply, particularly those thinly traded and small caps. If you are going short, then you could well be in for a nasty shock.

I recommend The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (first published in 1949).

In response, I wrote,

Questions about short selling and risk came up in the comment thread following Michael Kwan’s original review of Short Screen. I summarized those questions and addressed them on my blog, if you would like to take a look, “Short selling and risk”.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is an excellent book. I have read it and would recommend it as well. Regarding Graham, you may be interested to know that one his first teaching assistants and proteges, Irving Kahn, is, I believe¹, still an active investor at over 100 years of age. Kahn is no stranger to short selling. In fact, an article in Smart Money several years ago noted that one of Kahn’s first big investing successes was with a short:

Along the way, Kahn got to know many of Graham’s famous disciples, including Warren Buffett. A gutsy Kahn wasn’t swept up in what he calls the “crazy market” of the late 1920s. In fact, his first trade in the summer of 1929 actually was a short sale of Magma Copper that turned out to be a winner in a few months.

¹Kahn is still listed under the investment personnel section on the Kahn Brothers website, so I assume he is still alive and investing.

Whatever happened to 'Girl in Your Shirt'?

I read about Girl in Your Shirt a couple of months back on Mark Cuban's blog. An enterprising young woman was recording video clips of elevator pitches like this one below for various businesses:



That video was posted on her site at the end of May, and it appears to be the last one she's done. I e-mailed her via her site a while back to see about doing one of these clips for Short Screen, but never heard back. If she gave this up, another young woman who's comfortable in front of a camera ought to run with the idea, preferably on some sort of CPA basis.

John Chow on Short Screen and Tim Sykes

John Chow on Short Screen and Tim Sykes, as resources for investors looking to short stocks: "Going Long on Going Short".

High-end chef adapts to new economy

Hat tip to Cheryl for this article from NJ.com about how Craig Shelton, the chef/owner¹ of what was once New Jersey's most expensive (and one of its best reviewed²) restaurants, The Ryland Inn, is now working in a diner. About nine years ago occasional commenter Y./TheRivers, who had won a $150-off coupon to the restaurant, treated me to dinner there for my birthday. If memory serves, he ended up paying $350+ out of pocket, even after getting the $150 off -- and we had ordered the less expensive of the two wine pairings offered for the tasting menu. We did get a couple of free cigars from the chef though, when he found out that Y. and him belonged to the same secret society/fraternal organization. From the NJ.com article,

The Skylark Fine Diner and Lounge on Route 1, with its 60s airport lounge-meets-the-Jetsons interior — flying saucer-shaped lights, retro tables and chairs, and clocks showing the time in Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, London and elsewhere — is one of the more striking diners in a state that boasts more than any other.

But still, a top chef in a Jersey diner? What’s he going to do, offer $25 patty melts?

Far from it.

Shelton, the Skylark’s guest chef, has added dozens of eclectic, globe-spanning, reasonably-priced dishes to the diner’s menu since early September. Constantine Katsifis, the Skylark’s owner, says he and Shelton are "inventing a new category of diner."

"The restaurant business across America is a horror show — down 60 percent, down 40 percent," Shelton said.

The thought of working in a diner makes Shelton laugh heartily.

"But it’s a good idea for any chef ... to have a more diversified portfolio."

After a water line break shut down the Ryland Inn in early 2007, Shelton was working on his high-end coffee line and ideas for food-related TV projects when Katsifis invited him to a restaurant trade show in Chicago.

I remember Shelton's high-end coffee line, from articles about it a couple of years ago. He was offering two types of coffee, actually: one allegedly blended and roasted for enjoyment on yachts and the other for stables. $20 per lb. for each, I believe. Back to the article,

Over dinner, Katsifis outlined a plan for the Skylark that was still evolving in his own mind.

"(There are) 20 chefs as accomplished as he is in the country," Katsifis said. "We came back from that meeting and decided to take the Skylark to the next level."

A commenter on at NJ.com wrote,

This is a welcome change. The French have bistros, the Italians trattorie and we have - diners.

NJ diners prove that anyone with a deep fryer, a can opener and a griddle can go into the business.

Well, not exactly. The most successful diners have loyal clientele who will only eat mediocre food from their favorite diner's deep fryer.

Edison is a little bit of a haul from here, but we'll have to head down there and check out the new Skylark diner.


¹A commenter on NJ.com writes that Shelton is no longer the owner of the Ryland Inn, having lost it to bankruptcy. I don't know if that's the case or not.

²From that link to the New York Times review:

Did I say words fail me? I seem to have gone on for five paragraphs about a tomato salad -- a dish you probably won't get to eat, by the way, for 9 or 10 months, the season having passed. But this is what it's like to eat at the Ryland Inn. You lose yourself in this food -- its colors, its textures, the way it works with the wine and the way the flavors seem to change and broaden with each mouthful.

[...]

Amid such riches it's easy to forget your surroundings. The 200-year-old inn, once a stagecoach stop on the road from New Brunswick to Easton, Pa., is a fine white clapboard building with Gothic touches and a green awning. The garden, open for strolling, occupies 2 of the inn's 50 acres; the rest is rolling pasture shaded by ancient trees. On a clear weekend afternoon in the fall, watching hot-air balloons drift over the forested hills of Hunterdon County, you can imagine yourself in France.

Hunterdon County is old money horse country (unlike hardscrabble Sussex County, where this pony lives).

10 things you need to stop tweeting about

Hat tip to the Fourth Checkraise for this: