Can Turtles Fly?

Haven't had time to spend too much time on investing but I do keep up with news and research things here and there. With the American market selloff in Q4 2018, I have been investigating several stocks. As usual in these corrections, the lower quality stocks have sold off more. I notice that leveraged businesses are somewhat cheap right now. As an example, a lot of John Malone's companies have sold off quite a bit (some of it due to company/industry  specific issues but market selloff amplified it). For example, Liberty Global (LBTYA, LBTYK) and Liberty Latin America (LILA, LILAK) have fallen a bit. They have lots of debt and the is concern over the future of the cable industry but they are getting cheap. In the meantime, in early January, the Nevsun (NSU) takover was completed (on Jan 4). Took a bit longer than forecast bute overall, satisfied with how things turned out. Price Sold: $6.00 Total Return: 4.88% (annualized (estimate): 23%--not meaningful) With a small po...

I took a position in Nevsun (TSX: NSU) which is being bought out by Zijin Mining, which is one of the largest gold mining companies in the world. zijin is a chinese company that trades in Hong kong and there should be no risk with financing and the like. I owned Nevsun about 10 years ago and this buyout would bring closure to one of my earliest stocks. Since the spread is so small, this deal is not worth it for you if your holdings are in a different currency and you don't hedge; or have a US$-denominated account. C$ currency fluctuations can wipe out any gains. NSU also trades in USA but company is Canadian and all my dealings are in C$ and on TSX. Purchase price (TSX: NSU): $5.72 Return Expectation Takeover price: $6 Purchase price: $5.72 Probability of success (my estimate): 99% Return on success: 5% Probability of failure (my estimate): 1% Return on failure (my estimate): -56% (assume it drops to $2.50, the multi-year low from early 2018 (it has traded...