racemize

Bezos created something that affects virtually every person in the U.S. in a positive way. No one else on the list has really done anything on that level. E.g., I respect Watsa, but he's just doing his investment thing, and that mostly only impacts shareholders. I would also have put Gates ahead of Bezos if I had the choice, echoing some others.

After going to Omaha once, and the fact that it was live streamed this year, I don't see much point in going there again. All the people I want to talk to are usually at FFH and there's a better shot at actually talking to people. Although perhaps that is because I don't go talk to people I don't know...

Hi All, I have a hard copy of this thing, but no digital copy, and I don't see it on the website either. Can someone PM me it if you have it? Just doing some digital housecleaning. TIA!

anyone have the letters from 2000-2014? I'm interested in adding them to my personal compilation (not for public use).

This is the perfect example of a binary outcome. If the courts go against, it is certainly not worth anything. I think the facts are unequivocally against the government, but I don't trust the courts enough to bet long. I hope Bruce wins.

This thread might as well have been applied to almost every big value investor for quite a while. I know my performance since 2013 hasn't been doing too well relative to indexes, and it's beating most of the big value guys (not much of a consolation though). Even the relentless Packer is struggling a bit this year.

Given the rest of your answer, I'm not sure if this next question applies, but perhaps it does and/or you've given it some thought: If you use your buffer, how/when do you decide to replenish it? To some extent, I think this replenishing choice is what caused one study to show that the buffer is bad and the other good. I think it is perhaps easier answering it as a value investor than the indexers, since we already have some intuition about "timing the market" based on whether deals are present or not. I think my problem is that I would never want to sell anything (I tend to be fully invested all the time).

Yeah, that's my intuition as well. There's a few papers out there that are somewhat conflicting: Against: Attached For: https://www.onefpa.org/journal/Pages/The%20Benefits%20of%20a%20Cash%20Reserve%20Strategy%20in%20Retirement%20Distribution%20Planning.aspx and: https://sothatshowyoudoit.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/the-effect-of-a-cash-buffer-on-returns/ Sustainable_Withdrawal_Rates.pdf

For those that have or are about to, do you use a cash buffer? E.g., 200-300k in cash to cover living expenses in down markets that you replenish in up-markets? Intuitively, I think this is a good idea, but now I'm wondering if it isn't better to have it all in (assuming good ideas) so that all the money is working for you on good years, but I really worry about having to pull money out right at the bottom. Also curious if anyone has done the math/monte carlo simulation type deal.

I tend to think that temperament is part of the skill of value investing. For example, if you are putting money in at the bottom of 2009 (extreme example), then that is part of being a value investor. If you were not a value investor, you wouldn't do that, so I don't think you should compete against that sort of timing. E.g., if I were not a value investor, I would be dollar cost averaging and never thinking about timing at all. So maybe a dollar cost average benchmark? Anyway, if you can beat the regular benchmark by 3% annually, I think that's good enough.

I think most here are aware of underperformance of value for 2-3+ years, so I won't bother with that. I just recently made a spreadsheet of all the ideas that I considered investing in for the last 3 years (many came from here). 83% of them are down, and many of them down significantly. Obviously, that doesn't mean there is permanent loss, but it sure seems to indicate what kind of market we have been in.

Fidelity had it. Should have finished looking before asking.

I'm working on an essay on cost of leverage that is mostly done. I'd like to show how the cost of leverage develops over time, which means I need historical warrant pricing (probably just use AIG/BAC/JPM/WFC). Anyone know where I could get it (e.g., daily or monthly closing prices)? Yahoo finance doesn't keep it for some reason. About to go check out fidelity, which makes a graph, but not sure if I can get the data itself. TIA.

As Benjamin just said, I think there is a focus on what can be done with incremental capital, which I think is in the high single digit to low double digit range. Also, wasn't there a giant thread on the ROEs of BHE and BNSF 6 months or a year ago?

We use Patke (taxes/audit) and LICCAR (administration). We were copying several other people that had good experiences with them. They were among the cheapest of anyone we looked at and are good to small funds (we are $3.5 million at this point).

I'm not sure I understand your question. The GP is an RIA in that structure. It is managing the LP's account. The difference is managing one account (the LP) vs managing all of the partner's accounts separately. So the RIA manages one account instead of many. (Note that often times there is a 3 structured system when incentive fees are used, FYI).

This discussion of banks without any concern for what price they sell at leaves me a little confused. If BAC was $1, I don't think you would say that. C and BAC are selling for meaningfully less than TBVPS, have good ratios under stress, and are about to return more capital. Additionally, look at what JPM did even through the financial crisis--it maintained strong compounding and didn't even lose money annually. Pessimism on an entire sector without any discussion of price doesn't make sense to me, particularly on a value board. Perhaps I will burn for all of my bank investments though.

Well, Cameron's resigned. I guess it could still be called off, but that wasn't it.

Looking at the map, it is pretty clear that Scotland/Northern Ireland want in the EU and all of GB (except london) wanted out. Maybe they should make a non-GB UK and let GB stay by itself.

turns out, no one knew anything and the 50/50 was right...

What data are these bookies using that makes it so clear?

I'm really confused why the polls and the better's market are so far apart. What is going on with that?

This just got posted on reddit, free replacedment for ycharts. (Warning in Beta right now) Fun to play with: https://stockrow.com/BRKB

It was made in response to MKL posts, but was for all of these compounders. I also put a large section on valuing Beekshire using a couple of different models, which may be relevant to this thread.

If you are in Texas, my understanding is that you have to register if you take any money whatsoever for anything managing money. I am set up in Texas.