As you can see above, the Value Investing News Button includes the up/down arrow rating system from Value Investing News. It also displays the current total point rating of the article on Value Investing News. If you click on the "VIN" logo on the button it takes you to the article's entry on Value Investing News where you can read the discussion, review the votes, and browse a list of other related news items. Finally, if the article has not yet been submitted to Value Investing News, a plus sign will appear instead of the arrows, and visitors to your site can then click on the button to submit a link to your story to Value Investing News. After testing the VIN Button out a bit today, it is ready to be released into the wild.

I sent out some invitations this week to active members of Value Investing News (one of the benefits of being a member). I want to thank the following guinea pigs early adopters for already putting the Value Investing News Button on their top notch sites:

• MagicDiligence - See Book Review: The Future For Ivestors by Jeremy Siegel
• Value Plays - See AmeriCredit (ACF) Deal: ABS Market Thawing

If I missed your site, please let me know. Several other bloggers reponded positively to my invitation and are planning on adding the button to their sites shortly. Be sure that you are not the last one to add this useful interactive widget to your site. The VIN button allows your readers to evangelize your articles to other value investors, and will ultimately attract new readers to your site.

The code for this little widget is rather simple. Just cut and paste the code below and place it in your blog post or web site template:

<script src="http://www.valueinvestingnews.com/sites/all/scripts/externalvote.js"  type="text/javascript">
</script>

For those of you using the popular blogging software, WordPress, I made a very simple plugin that you can use to automatically add the Value Investing News Button to all your posts. All you have to do is upload the vinvote folder to your Wordpress plugins folder. Then login to your blog, click Plugins, and activate the Value Investing News Button.

Download: Value Investing News Button Plugin version 0.1

I also know that many value investing bloggers still use Blogger. To add the Value Investing News Button to all of your individual post pages on Blogger, you need to edit you Layout HTML. Be sure to check off the "Expand Widget Templates" button above the editor. Then search your template for the following line:

<p><data:post.body/></p>

Then paste the following code above or below that line:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<script src=' http://www.valueinvestingnews.com/sites/all/scripts/externalvote.js' type='text/javascript'>
</script>
</b:if>

Finally, you can place the Value Investing News Button on your homepage teasers or anywhere else you want to highlight a specific post using the following code:

<script type="text/javascript">
  site-url = "[URL]";
  site-title = "[TITLE]";
</script>
<script src="http://www.valueinvestingnews.com/sites/all/scripts/externalvote.js"
  type="text/javascript">
</script>

In the above code, be sure to replace [URL] and [TITLE] with your article's URL and title. Let me know if you need help using the Value Investing News Button widget on any other platform.

Let us know how you are using the Value Investing News Button in the comments section below.

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Folks are probably recovering from all the Buffett news after the annual meeting. (Just thinking of that, I’ve updated the 2008 Ultimate Guide to the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting with a few new blog posts.) Heck, the most popular story this week was a story on Buffett fatigue. Here’s the full list of top stories this week, including that article:

1. Sick of Buffett Stories?
2. Why I Bought (and Sold) Graham Corporation
3. What do Buffett, Pabrai, and Jim Rogers Have in Common? They Look For the Obvious
4. Leucadia Releases 13-f: Can You Spell Concentrated Portfolio?
5. Garmin: Growth at a Reasonable Price?
6. Lampert Reports Sallie Mae Stake
7. 4 Interesting 13F Buys (Q1-08)
8. Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp: A Royalty on Stability
9. Fooling Some of the People all of the Time: A Review
10. First Eagle Funds Conference Call Transcript

I’m considering moving the top stories of the week post from Friday’s to another day of the week. Any suggestions?

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The only transaction in April was the tendering of 80 shares of Sybase (SY) in this account. This was an odd lot tender offer where holders of less than 100 shares would be completely cashed out in a modified dutch auction with a price range of between $28.00 and $30.00 per share. The final tender price was $28 per share, so I received $2,240.00 in cash on April 17, 2008 for my shares. Since I bought the shares for a total cost of $2045.35 on March 17, 2008 and there was a $25 tender fee by my broker, I made a total profit of $169.65. This comes out to a 8.3% return, which means this deal produced a 97.7% average rate of return for this one month investment.

If you are interested in other opportunities like the Sybase tender offer, subscribe to Fat Pitch Financials Contributor’s Corner. Contributor’s Corner in a premium online community and database packed with special situation opportunities. You’ll also be able to review the complete current holdings of the Special Situations Real Money Portfolio and its full transaction history.

Finally, I’m happy to report that the Special Situations Real Money Portfolio has improved dramatically so far in May. As you may have noticed from the live portfolio performance reported in the sidebar, the portfolio is now only down 5.59% year-to-date and will likely move into positive territory again for the year when I receive cash for a going private transaction that recently completed. I’ll let you know at the end of the month how things turned out.

Disclosure: None of the stocks mentioned in this post are currently held.

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Regardless, I am very excited about this purchase. It is very rare to be able to pick up shares in monopolies or duopolies for such a low multiple. Even though there may be a bubble in the modern art market according to some reports that I’ve read, other art sectors haven’t seen as much appreciation. Even if the modern art bubble deflates, art collectors will continue to use art auctions in the future regardless of current art prices. The choice typically comes down to either Sotheby’s or Christie’s when selling major works of art. I like those type of odds. Basically, Sotheby’s is a toll both on the road to obtaining fine art.

I expect that Sotheby’s may get a bit cheaper if this housing led recession starts to impact the super wealthy. However, unless things get much much worse, it is unlikely that the wealthiest, with their multiple income streams, will be sufficiently impacted by the economy to curtail their purchases of fine art and collectibles. If I’m a bit too early, I still have sufficient cash reserves to buy additional shares at an even lower price.

Disclosure: I own shares of Sotheby’s.

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I hope next week’s edition brings in just as many articles analyzing stocks. Be sure to visit the Festival of Stocks homepage to learn how to submit entries for next week’s Festival.

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1. 2008 Wesco Shareholder Meeting: Detailed Notes
2. NBR Extended Interview with Warren Buffett
3. Exclusive Interview With Warren Buffett and Bill Gates
4. Live Blog: Warren Buffett’s Q&A With Shareholders (Part 2)
5. Live Blog Archive: Buffettstock ‘08 Annual Shareholders Meeting (Part One)
6. VIC West Day 2: Part 2- Mohnish Pabrai; Steven Romick
7. VIC West Day 2: Part 1- Whitney Tilson and Glenn Tongue ; Aaron Edelheit
8. VIC West Day 1: Part 4- Ken Shubin Stein; Robert Hagstrom; Carlo Cannell
9. Wesco meeting notes
10. Berkshire’s Munger says investors should lower expectations

I’m also happy to announce that Value Investing News will be giving away three copies of Bud Labitan’s new book, The Four Filters: Invention of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, for the May Contest at Value Investing News.

Finance ViewPoint highlighted three editor’s picks: Allocate 50% to Non-U.S. Stocks, According to Wharton Professor, Let Volatility Be Your Friend, and Dividend Stock Wednesday: Hasbro (HAS-N). My Ultimate 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Guide was also included in the Festival of Stocks. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already.

As always, you can catch up on past editions by visiting the Festival of Stocks homepage. There you can also learn how to submit entries for consideration for next week’s Festival of Stocks and you can also find information on how to host a Festival of Stocks on your own blog.

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We can kick off this year’s meeting with the press release and the Q1 quarterly report for Berkshire Hathaway.

I also got word of a Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting after party at Nomad Lounge.

Official Releases

• Berkshire Hathaway First Quarter Earnings 2008
• Berkshire Hathaway First Quarter Press Release
• Wesco Financial Corp. First Quarter Earnings 2008 Press Release   

Premeeting Coverage

• Prepping for Warren Buffett: The Art of the Elevator Pitch (Videos)
• Live from Omaha: Berkshire Borsheims Party
• Cousin packages memories
• Few Rooms Left As Berkshire Weekend Begins - KETV Omaha
• Borsheim’s Braces For Berkshire - KETV Omaha
• Welcome to Omaha! A Berkshire Hathaway weekend preview - The Curious Capitalist
• Borsheims Shareholders Meeting website

Blog Posts

• Berkshire Shareholder for Klamath dam removal
• In Omaha at the Warren and Charlie Show - MoneyMasters with Vahan Janjigian
• 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting - Updates from Omaha, Nebraska - Part I - Undervalued Securities.com
• 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting - Updates from Omaha, Nebraska - Part II - Undervalued Securities.com
• Inside the meeting - Bill Mann at The Motely Fool
• Great quotes so far - Bill Mann at The Motely Fool
• More quotes - Bill Mann at The Motely Fool
• Last set - Bill Mann at The Motely Fool
• New! 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting: Detailed Notes - Reflections on Value Investing
• New! Scenes from an Annual Meeting - Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up
• New! 2008 Berkshire Hathaway weekend - ShoeMoney

Media Coverage

• See’s offers a sweet treat for Berkshire meet - Omaha World-Herald
• 1995 bio still the Wikipedia on Warren - Omaha World-Herald
• Warren Buffett eager to spread his life’s lessons to growing audience - Omaha World-Herald
• Buffett joins select company - Omaha World-Herald
• Warren Buffett to draw biggest crowd ever - Reuters
• Massive Crowds in Omaha for Big Berkshire Hathaway Weekend - Action 3 News
• Tribes, commercial fishermen plan to attend Berkshire Hathaway meeting to demand removal of PacifiCorp dams on Klamath - AP
• Portrait of Buffett will be painted early Saturday - AP
• Live Blog Archive: Warren Buffett’s Q&A With Shareholders - CNBC
• Live Blog: Warren Buffett’s Q&A With Shareholders (Part 2) - CNBC
• Berkshire Live: Updates from the annual meeting - Omaha World-Herald
• Woodstock for Capitalists 2008 Blog - Morningstar
• Capitalist Carnival-We’re LIVE IN OMAHA - FOX Business
• The Buffett Madness Has Begun! - FOX Business
• Stampede in Omaha!!! - FOX Business
• BRK Meeting Notes: What Buffett Is Saying - FOX Business
• More Buffett and Munger Nuggets - FOX Business
• FOX Biz Continues Live Blogging from the BRK Shareholder Meeting! - FOX Business
• Berkshire’s Moody’s Stake No Conflict, Buffett Says - Bloomberg
• Current crisis worse than Enron: Berkshire’s Munger - MarketWatch
• Berkshire’s muni insurer starts strongly: Buffett - MarketWatch
• Some banks are too big - MarketWatch
• Buffett cautions on long-term returns - MarketWatch
• Buffett sees euro, sterling strong against dollar - Reuters
• Buffett, gifts make it worth the trip from California - Omaha World-Herald
• Buffett faced a few challenges over past year - Omaha World-Herald
• Berkshire Hathaway: 31,000 show up at Qwest Center for annual meeting - Omaha World-Herald
• Notes and highlights from meeting - Omaha World-Herald
• Warren Buffett Speaks to Shareholders at Qwest - Action 3 News
• Buffett says Fed avoided chaos in Bear bailout - The Economic Times
• Buffett Says Credit Crisis Ebbs for Wall Street Firms - Bloomberg
• Buffett and Munger think holding the Olympics in China will be good - KPTM FOX 42
• Berkshire’s leaders offer tips on unhealthy living - KPTM FOX 42
• Buffett’s Bond Success - WSJ MarketBeat
• Buffett to investors: Think small - CNNMoney
• Berkshire Hathaway Holds $4 Billion of Auction-Rate Securities - Bloomberg
• Berkshire eyes German family-owned businesses - MarketWatch
• Crowds flock to Omaha sage - Times Online
• Buffett again rebuffs protesters who want Klamath dams out - NTV
• Live from Omaha: The Warren Buffett Show - Portfolio.com
• Buffett Says U.S. Dollar to Remain Weak Versus Other Currencies - Bloomberg
• Liveblogging the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting - The Curious Capitalist
• Berkshire to own 100% of Cologne Re - MarketWatch
• Buffett explains his purchase of Berkshire - Omaha World-Herald
• Buffett faced a few challenges over past year - Omaha World-Herald
• The 5 a.m. Buffett Breakfast Club - WSJ MarketBeat
• The Warren Buffett Show - WSJ MarketBeat
• Munger for President - WSJ MarketBeat
• Lucci for Chairman? - WSJ MarketBeat
• The Berkshire Method: Just Buy It - WSJ MarketBeat
• Buffett’s Straight-Talk Express - WSJ MarketBeat
• Buffett’s Dollar Talk - WSJ MarketBeat
• Buffett on Beijing Olympics - WSJ MarketBeat
• Buffett doesn’t see CDS market collapsing - Reuters
• Buffett eyes family-owned German businesses - Reuters
• Buffett says bought $4 bln of auction-rate debt - Reuters
• Buffett sees euro, sterling strong against dollar - Reuters
• Seven Hours With Warren - Forbes
• Earnings? What Earnings? - Portfolio.com

Photos

• Klamath River Protest 
• Klamath River Protest 2
• Klamath River Protest 3
• Yurok tribal council member Richard Myers speaks
• Klamath Riverkeeper Regina Chichizola
• Borsheims Jewelry’s photostream
• Borsheims (Friday night party) - Buffett dollar
• Borsheims (Friday night party) -  girl plays
• Borsheims (Friday night party) -  shareholders smile
• Borsheims (Friday night party) - book
• Borsheims (Friday night party) - woman leaving
• Borsheims (Friday night party) - reading jewelry catalogue
• Kick-off celebration
• Outside the Borsheims jewellery store
• Inside Borsheims
• Shopping at Borsheims
• Shareholders playing cards

Videos

• Video of Borsheims jewelry - Omaha World-Herald
• Warren Buffett Talks to CNBC’s Becky Quick at Shareholders Meeting - CNBC
• Buffett on the Fed - Bloomberg
• The business of boxed chocolate - Time, The Curious Capitalist
• Buffett Business - ABC News

Please share links to your coverage of today’s events in the comments section below.

PS: Can someone pick me up a deck of the Berkshire ballsball like cards for charity that I heard about? I’ll pay for the cost and shipping.

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Please send me links to any contest being report from the annual meeting by either emailing me, posting them to Value Investing News, or Twittering me. If you use Twitter, I suggest that you subscribe to my account, FatPitch. I’ll be posting links about the Berkshire Hathaway meeting live as I find them this weekend. I wonder if anyone will be sending out tweets live during the meeting.

To get everyone in the mood for the upcoming Woodstock for capitalists, here are the top value investing news stories of the week:

1. Underestimating Warren Buffett
2. Francis Chou speech notes
3. David Einhorn on WealthTrack
4. Long View: Even the great investors get the right bets wrong
5. Now Available: The Four Filters Invention of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger
6. Peter Bernstein - One Guy Who Has Seen It All Doesn’t Like What He Sees Now
7. Magic Formula Business Sector #8: Software
8. Warren Buffett Finances Mars-Wrigley Deal: The Complete CNBC Interview
9. Mars, Buffett Team Up in Wrigley Bid
10. Sampling Western Sizzlin’s Fare

Also be sure to read the 2008 First Quarterly Report for Berkshire Hathaway. It just came out a little while ago.

Before you leave, I just wanted to mention that we’ve done a bit of spring cleaning at Value Investing News. I hope you like the new look. Let us know if you have any suggestion or feedback on the new design.

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I recently received a question about the beta of the Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio. I don’t normally track the beta of my portfolio, so this was a rather interesting question. Thankfully, Marketocracy tracks the beta, alpha, and R-Squared for my portfolio. The beta was 0.50, which basically tells me that I have a very boring low volatility portfolio. Alpha is 4.66%, which I believe means that this portfolio beat the S&P 500 by 4.66% on a risk adjusted basis. Finally, the r-squared for the portfolio is 0.29, which means the portfolio does not closely track the index. From what I’ve just read, this low r-squared also indicates that I should put much weight on the beta number. I don’t normally look at these portfolio statistics. Do other value investors track these numbers?

As far as transaction, April was a quiet month. No trading occurred. However, there was quite of bit of news to read about my stock holdings. Microsoft (MSFT) drama with Yahoo (YHOO) has been interesting to follow. I not in favor of the bid for Yahoo, so the passing of the offer deadline is good news for me. However, my guess is that this story is not over yet.

Western Sizzlin also caught my attention a few times this month, but so far all the news has been bad. None of the deals (SNS and ITEX) have been completed. These transactions had a significant negative on earnings. However, I’d rather see Western maintaining disciple than seeing Sardar Biglari upping his bids.

Hopefully, May will bring some good news for my companies. In the meantime, I’ve got my eye on a few stocks and I continue to hunt for other value opportunities.

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As significant as the refinement of the microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Labitan believes that Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger invented an investing formula that is underappreciated by the business and academic communities. In his view, the Four Filters developed by Warren E. Buffett and Charles T. Munger is an amazing intellectual achievement in both practical and behavioral finance. He thinks it will have a major future impact in the way business, management, and behavioral finance thinkers shape new methods of combining qualitative and quantitative valuation. After all, the Four Filters are an important set of steps used by the world’s greatest investors. While Mr. Buffett does not endorse this book, he did give Dr. Labitan permission to use his quotes from the annual letters to shareholders. Labitan weaves the material into the story of successful “framing” and the “filtering out” suboptimal investment choices.

Bud’s book is available for order via the secure Google Checkout system at Bud’s website, www.frips.com. The Four Filters is being released in two formats, a spiral bound book for $39.95 and $29.95 for an audio cd generated from text to speech technology read at a rate of 150 words per minute. Bud was planning to publish with a major publisher and he had a contract offer. However, they had wanted to change the book and drop Charlie Munger and Four Filters from the title. This along with plans to expand and dilute the prose was too much for this first time author to bear. Therefore, Bud Labitan decided to self publish his book so that his work could be shared the way he intended, lean and valuable, the new standard in “intelligent investing.”

If you want to catch up on past editions of this blog carnival, visit the Festival of Stocks index page. There you can find links to the previous 85 editions of the Festival of Stocks. You can also learn how to host a future edition of the Festival and how to properly submit your stock related blog posts for next week’s Festival of Stocks.

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We arrived at the restaurant around 1:30 PM and the first thing I noticed was how packed the restaurant’s parking lot was. I had a bit of trouble finding a spot to park and eventually I had to squeeze into a narrow spot. I was really surprised at how busy the restuarant was, especially given how hard it was to get to from the North bound lane of Route 1. The restaurant is right on the edge of some major construction on Route 1 making it a less than convenient spot to get too given the extra traffic congestion and confusing road conditions. The outside of the restaurant was not that attractive as you can see from my picture, but that didn’t seem to impact its business.

Once we got in the restaurant, there was a small line at the reception area. I was a bit worried that it might be a while before my son and I would get a seat. My son was starving, so I was getting a bit nervous that he was going to have a meltdown. Thankfully, as the sign on the wall indicated, we were seated promptly. As I was about to be seated, I also noticed a sign indicating that an additional per pound charge would be applied to any food that was taken out of the restaurant. I guess folks like the food enough at Great American to want to bring some home for later. The sign indicated that the policy was put in place to keep costs down for everyone. It looks like the value investing philosophy of Western Sizzlin even permeates the menu and pricing at its restaurants.

I decided to get the lunch buffet for my son and I. I’m not sure there were really any other options. The waitress asked me for my son’s age. Apparently, young children are charged $0.50 per year of their age. Therefore, my son’s meal cost a very affordable $2.50. Given how hungry my son was from a morning of hiking and fishing, we got our money’s worth from his meal. My buffet order cost just under $10 and my drink cost about $1.60. My son’s chocolate milk cost just over a dollar. In total, our bill came to just over $16.

It has been quite some time since I’ve been to a buffet. My wife doesn’t really like buffets, so that usually rules out this type of restaurant. The Great American Buffet reminded me of my college cafeteria, which isn’t a bad thing since food at Cornell was pretty good. Some of the buffet entries I noticed included roast beef, BBQ pulled pork, ham, mac & cheese, and a large assortment of hot side dishes. My son and I both really enjoyed the BBQ pulled pork. There was also a modest salad bar. Fired chicken, fish, and shrimp were also piled high. Much of the food at the buffet were southern influenced. Finally, there was a large dessert area with pies, cakes, cobblers, and ice cream. I ended my meal with a cobbler with a bit of ice cream on top, and my son enjoyed a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

I took a look around the restaurant to see who Great American’s cutomers were. The crowd was very casual, friendly, and diverse. There were several larger families seated around the restaurant. I spotted another father with a preschool daughter. His daughter actually took a liking to my son. Eventually, she even joined my son at our table a couple of times as we ate. It was rather funny and cute.

Sadly, there were quite a few obese customers that were availing themselves of the very affordable all you can eat buffet. In general, it looks like the folks at this restaurant shared a desire for affordable value priced dining.

I was pleased with my meal and my son had a great time. The staff was efficient and friendly. If the other Western Sizzlin restaurant locations are anything like this one, I can see how they are able to generate substantial free cash flows. Great American Buffet has positioned itself as a low cost producer of value priced meals, which is actually a rare thing in Northern Virginia. I hope to get the opportunity to check out a Western Sizzlin branded restaurant in the near future to see how it compares to the Great American Buffet concept.

Full Disclosure: I own shares of Western Sizzlin (WEST).

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1. Susan Buffett interview 8/26/2004 A remembrance of philanthropist Susan Thompson Buffet. She talks a lot about Warren Buffett.
2. Visit with Warren Buffett On March 31, 2008 students from Dr. Athanassakos’ Value Investing class travelled to Omaha, Nebraska to meet with Mr. Warren Buffet, the world’s best known investor and the richest person in the world.
3. Buffett Leans on Italian Guide for Europe Investment Billionaire Warren Buffett, who will embark on a four-city European trip next month to meet with owners of family businesses, has for years been laying the groundwork for an acquisition in Europe.
4. Doubling Down in Financials - Interview with Richard Pzena When it comes to value investing or buying out-of-favor stocks, patience is a virtue. These days few are more virtuous than Richard Pzena, Chairman of Pzena Investment Management, a $20 billion assets money management company whose New York Stock Exchange listed shares are down more than 38% in the last 12 months.
5. The Money Kept Vanishing David Einhorn’s New Book “Fooling Some of the People All of the Time”
6. Roger Lowenstein : Triple-A Failure In 1996, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, remarked on “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” that there were two superpowers in the world - the United States and Moody’s bond-rating service - and it was sometimes unclear which was more powerful.
7. Buffett, Seeking Acquisitions, to Travel to Europe April 22 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett will visit Europe next month to scout potential acquisitions, said an executive at an Italian refiner who is organizing the tour.
8. Business Sector Breakdown of the Magic Formula Does the Magic Formula screen favor certain types of businesses? And if so, why? These are the questions we’ll examine in this new series examining which business sectors most frequently appear in the Magic Formula screen.
9. Looking Up to Warren Buffett It often seems like every hedge-fund manager is reading from the same playbook about how to look, work and behave. Neatly pressed khakis; thumbs glued to a BlackBerry; slick digs in Greenwich or Manhattan staffed by number-crunching research drones.
10. MFI Stock List Additions for Week Ending April 18, 2008 Five new stocks were added to the Magic Formula List last week.

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1. Best Buy Management
2. Whitney Tilson: Let the herd stampede first before making your move
3. Right Price Checklist: Management
4. 5 Tips For Choosing Small Cap Value Stocks
5. Templeton’s Mobius Says Credit Crisis Is Near End
6. David Dreman : Looking Beyond the Bailout
7. James Altucher : Why insiders are betting on homebuilders
8. Mark Sellers : Take financial talking-heads with a grain of salt
9. 5th Annual Whitman Day: Breakfast Panel with Martin J. Whitman and Richard Haydon
10. What Warren thinks…

The conference call was organized by Mark Story of the SEC Office of Investor Education. Opening comments were given by David Blaszkowsky, Director of the Office of Interactive Disclosure and Kristin Kaepplein, Director of the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy. The opening statements were very brief and left much room for questions. Thankfully, both David and Kristin responded to one question and follow-up question from each of the invited bloggers.

Bill Cara started off the questions with a passionate plea for data interoperability. He noted how expensive financial data can be for individual investors. Some have tried to use “bots” to gather data from financial sites only to find themselves “blacklisted”. Bill Cara’s question was whether the SEC would blacklist heavy users of XBRL data hosted on the SEC’s site. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t get a direct response, but it also doesn’t appear the SEC will restrict “bot” activity. I thought this was an excellent question, since I hope to build some sort of XBRL data viewer into Value Investing News without having to store a massive amount of financial data on my server.

My questions were along the same lines of thought as Bill Cara’s. I wanted to know if the recent addition of XML feeds on EDGAR would also include information about XBRL data. Apparently, the EDGAR feeds were done independently of the XBRL feeds. You can see this lack of coordination by noting that the EDGAR feeds are Atom feeds while the XBRL feeds are RSS feeds. The least they could have done was pick one standard for web feeds at the SEC website. I really shouldn’t complain, since I love the new EDGAR feeds regardless of what format they are in. I was hoping the new EDGAR feeds would include the XBRL data because the EDGAR feeds are relatively easy to retrieve by ticker.

For my second question, I wanted to know if the SEC would provide an API or some standardized url format so that one could bring up an annual income statement of say Microsoft for 2007 without having to do a search at the SEC website. This is critical for making it easy to add XBRL data to mashups and widgets. I didn’t get a response to my question but I believe Ms. Kaepplein thought this was a good idea. Let’s hope this gets worked into the final XBRL storage and retrievel system at the SEC if it isn’t already part of it.

Doug McIntyre of 24/7 Wall St. asked how many companies are reporting in XBRL now. I didn’t quite catch the exact number but I believe it was about fifty participating in the SEC pilot program. In addition, many other companies are already using XBRL interally.

Christian Gross of InvestorGeeks asked a trader oriented question regarding the impact of XBRL on news scalping, which is a technique for being the first to trade on news. The concern would be that for popular stock releases that not everyone would be able to access the XBRL data when it is first released. The SEC representatives thought the data would be available in XBRL within a few minutes of filing. My thought is that XBRL will give individual investors a better chance of getting financial news as it breaks as long as the SEC servers are capable of handling the traffic.

Ray Pellechia of the NYSE/Euronext blog asked about the level of interest so far with XBRL. Apparently, there are various levels of interest in XBRL. Some companies are waiting, getting ready for it, and seeing what will happen. The SEC sadly reports that there is hardly any level of interest from the retail investor side. As a retail investor myself, I sure am interested in seeing XBRL expanded to cover all company financial filings. It would substantially lower my investment research costs.

Thinking about what other filings might be covered by XBRL, Dominic Jones of IRWebReport.com asked the SEC whether we might see footnotes, insider trades, etc. reported using XBRL. He didn’t really get a direct answer to his question, but we might learn more at the next SEC Open Meeting on May 14th. Dominic just wrote up his own observations from the conference call that you might also want to read.

A few other bloggers asked questions about how the data will be stored, the potential for increased corporate liability associated with potentially miss tagged financial data, and even the potential that XBRL could lead to real time reporting.

The end of the conference call concluded with some statements by SEC Chairman Chris Cox. He mentioned that he was at a luncheon where folks were talking about accessing XBRL data from thousands of companies at a time. I sure hope that will be a real possibility in the future.

I am very excited by the fusion of information technology and financial data that XBRL will allow in the future. I encourage the SEC to promote free accessibility, ease of use, open standards, and the creation of third party apps (widgets, mashups, etc.). If you have any questions or comments about the SEC XBRL initiative, please feel free to share them with me and I’ll pass them along to my contact at the SEC.

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