racemize

I think spreadsheet is the best way. There are some other tools out there (e.g., wikinvest) that try to do it for you, but they have bugs and don't always work. I've found it easiest to just track it on my own, that way you are sure that everything is working the way you think it does.

mine have all been mistakes that happened after I sold, so I've been extremely lucky in that respect: ARO, bought it thinking it was cheap (maybe it is now). Sold with an ok gain to switch into BRK, and then it went down by 50%. I'm not entirely sure what lesson I should learn from that. I think that retail is really hard, and that it is quite difficult to have any kind of moat with anything trendy. That was fairly early for my investing. Similar story with TEF, sold with a gain to get into BRK, then dropped a ton, exacerbated by the dividend dropping. Lesson--high leverage business and not to trust management with assertions that seem way too optimistic. Finally, CRUS/AAPL, and tech generally. Again, sold with fantastic gains, but found my thesis dying later. CRUS position with Apple was not nearly as good as I thought, as they removed margins with a stroke of a pen, essentially. I never actually bought Apple, but thought it was cheap, thought I was vindicated on the way to 700 or so, then watched it come all the way back down to <400. Lesson I've learned--if you can't predict 5 years out, then market sentiment can kill you. e.g., if you think you can get a year or so down the line, but not past that, then market sentiment can eliminate whatever "knowledge" you have, until you are outside of your investment window. Thus, you need to be able to outlast market sentiment, and can only do that if you can predict further than the sentiment's period.

please add ZINC! (for the Pabraians) Also: JPM What about warrants? you have two WFC

I've spent some time on it, and have a small position. I think you can call the current price somewhat justifiable with normal operations of the current plant. Then, you have the upside of 1) the plant working correctly in a year or so (maybe not immediately) or 2) zinc prices increasing. Either should give nice upside and both would be quite nice. Of course those are the two downsides, but I read the technology of the new plant is already being used in other metal processes of other companies, and the zinc mines dropping off in the next year or two should keep the zinc prices from dropping significantly (caveat, This is my opinion, and it may not be all that well founded, so I put more credence to the other one). Also, the higher quality zinc the new plant should produce should give access to a much larger and better market for the company.

it depends on whether you have the money to pay for the tax bill I guess--you could just pay the taxes out of the money itself, then the compounding is the same. If the money they would use for taxes would be invested--fair point.

+1

rate of return should not matter--only the number of tax events matter. So, you can either get taxed going in (roth), or going out (IRA), the only difference is the tax rate. Thus, your choice should be made based on the tax rate. However, as Eric has pointed out in another thread, this isn't quite true since you can effectively put more money in a ROTH account (since it is the same number, but one has been taxed already, making it more "effective" money). That shouldn't apply here.

OK, so bad news everyone, the link stop working when I updated it. Good news is I have a new compilation that has a ton of stuff in it. So you'll have to PM me again. Sorry.

a quick google search brought up multiple copies. Tilsonfunds has the OID pages while valueplays.net has Tilson's notes from the meeting. http://www.tilsonfunds.com/Mungerwritings2001.pdf http://www.valueplays.net/wp-content/uploads/The-Best-of-Charlie-Munger-1994-2011.pdf I'm going to update my Munger compilation to include all of these, and add bookmarks. For those of you I already sent them to, it will be updated and the same link will work. I'll post when it is updated.

wow, you guys are making me feel very popular. I don't think I've ever gotten this many PMs. Edit: If I missed your PM, it is because I've gotten so many. I think I have responded to everyone so far, so if you are still missing a response, remind me again.

In the past, Sanjeev has been concerned about compilation pdfs like these, for copyright reasons. I'm happy to post them up if they are ok, otherwise, just PM me. Here's my list of compilations, which I try to keep up to date: Arlington (I need a source who has up-to-date letters on this, only have a few) Brookfield Buffett (across all vehicles) Burry (don't have them all, just what I could get) Chou Fairfax FRMO Goodhaven Lancashire Leucadia Markel Wesco Oaktree Tweedy Brown essays

For those interested, I do have compilation pdfs for all of Buffett/berkshire (1957-current) and all of wesco letters (1983-2009). Just fyi, I generally have a lot of these compilation pdfs (e.g., MKL, FFH, oaktree memos, lancashire, etc.), if you are interested in other ones.

Yes, that's right (I couldn't recall your user name)--thanks again!

It was at the 2012 Annual Meeting. That happens to be my question (someone was kind of enough to get it asked for me). Here's the transcript (although there appears to be a little bit of paraphrasing): Incidentally, the same question was asked to Howard Marks at the pre-value conference the day before. I actually liked his answer a bit better. This is what it was (from memory) and extremely paraphrased:

seems strange that he first returned capital in 2010? I was expecting 2005-2007 rather than that.

Pretty harsh comments: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000197559

don't forget to check your filtering rules (and of course change your password). Sometimes the hacker will make it so you don't see certain emails to you.

well, at least the guy was trying to ask good questions...

I see a lot of posts where the quote tags get messed up, so I thought I would post how they work, in case it is helpful to anyone. the simple quote tags work like this: [*quote] quoted text here [*/quote] "quoted text here" will get the quote box (except you have to remove the * I put in, so that it didn't actually quote). Here's what it looks like in actuality (when I remove the *): nested quotes work the same way: [*quote] [*quote] two layers deep text! [*/quote] one layer deep text! [*/quote] Here's what it looks like in reality: one layer deep text! the quotes can be much fancier with labels too (e.g., if you hit the "quote" button to reply), but that isn't that important: [*quote author=Viking " data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="3603" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic" 32573#msg32573 data-ipsquote-timestamp=1294290443], indicates the author, topic (linked), date, etc. you would end it with the same [*/quote] tag, regardless of the extra information. Hopefully this is helpful; if you already know all of it, please ignore!

ah, thanks again! I thought it just had the 2013 ones, but didn't click to see the 2011.

Thanks, that got me one that I was missing; Right now I have: May 31, 2011 May 31, 2012 Nov 30, 2012 May 31, 2013 I think I'm only missing Nov 30, 2011, if anyone has that. I'll have a full compilation put together once I get that one, and am happy to provide to anyone that would want it.

I was trying to find all of their letters, and I got most of them, but are missing a few. Has anyone saved them or know of a good place to find them?

I also thought it was great. I've shown it to a couple of my friends as well.

ah, sure, that makes a lot of sense. This essay will be written for individual investors, so what I'm writing about should be on point (I hope!).

Yeah, I figured hedge funds would be much more difficult--I was not aware that "most money invested in HFs is tax-exempt", what makes you think that? It seems like it would be hard for "most money" to be tax-exempt, generally, but perhaps I am totally off base.