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Studesy

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  1. Sorry...I should have been clearer. I was referring to markets outside of Canada/US...ie. London, Australia, Germany,France.......
  2. It seems that Interactive Brokers does well with this, however, it is my understanding they don't allow foreign equities in registered accounts (TFSA,RRSP)?? Is there another option? Are the fees reasonable? Thanks in advance.
  3. Sunrider, Several years ago I purchased a minority interest in a fast food restaurant that a friend decided to purchased via a leveraged buyout. The business had been around for over 50yrs and had a history of fantastic profitability and continues to (net profit margins of 25%), Sales > $5mm. It was purchased from the original owner for roughly 1x Sales and 7x Ebitda. The business you mention....2x Sales seems a bit high given the profitability.
  4. I've held BAM.A (Brookfield Asset Management) since Q1 of 2009. Purchase price was $11.28. Its current price is $48.32. This is roughly 20% annualized. BAM also pays roughly a 1% dividend. Initially, this was a 10% position....I have sold roughly half of the position since then. I have also held BAC since 2009-10. I think most here are familiar with the returns here over this period. I have trimmed the position over the last year by roughly 10%. Patiently waiting for the next opportunity. On another note, but in light of the topic at hand.....An interesting exercise is to go back through your investment transactions of 5, 10, 15 years ago and investigate how these investments would have performed had they been held (and never sold). The annualized returns of such an approach may just surprise you (especially for holdings outside registered accounts). Fewer decisions= less chance of mistakes?? I suspect the results may be less favorable for cigar butt type stocks (ie. holding for 10 yrs.).
  5. Ask Steve Eisman. I think a lot of people are looking at Canada as a repeat of The Big Short. But what made The Big Short work was the asymmetry of the bet. You didn't need to worry about the timing of the bubble or even the size of the bubble. You just needed to know that you were buying CDS on subprime debt but paying AAA prices. I don't see that opportunity in Canada. But maybe it exists and I just don't know where to look. Timing is one difficult element of this, but the nature of the correction is another. I mean, we could see a quick and large decline (like the US did) or we could see a flat market for a prolonged period of time. If I was making a bet on this, it would be a relative bet. Ie. Short the most expensive, levered Toronto/Vancouver REIT or group of REIT'S and go long a real estate market somewhere in the world with more of a value profile.
  6. 1. I'm not sure we can classify this so called "bubble" as a Canada wide issue. Correct we if I'm wrong, but I believe it is mostly a Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver issue. 2. Justifying why prices will go up or down in these markets over the next couple years is a waste of time. The obvious thing is that real estate in these markets is not a value proposition. From a "safety of principle" standpoint, I believe a real estate investor would be better protected looking in a more value oriented market (Windsor??...or out side the country). 3. Assigning values to real estate in general is extremely difficult. Since the "rents" (cash flows) that derive these values are essentially a commodity, how can one predict these with any certainty going forward? Somewhat similar to why Buffett avoids commodity companies (with the exception of those with some sort of comp. advantage..ie low cost producer). One could attempt to use such a "Buffet approach" identifying properties with some type of competitive advantage over the rest of the market, determine the future cash flows, and compute a value based on these factors (the max price one would be willing to pay in order to compound at a given rate over a period of time). On the other hand, a Graham type approach to RE would be much simpler, principle protecting, and would provide a market beating return over a period of time. Imagine if you could buy a basket of residential properties at 0.75x tangible book value. In other words, tangible book = replacement cost or physical value of the home ("the bricks and mortar") + $0 for the land + say $20,000 for the services to the property. I suspect this would be an extremely safe long term investment (even if no cash flow was produced early on). Also, I'm sure such deals exist....especially in 08/09 in certain US cities. Thoughts?
  7. I wonder if any of the Toronto Real Estate bulls out there would put there money where their mouth is and sell/write cheap insurance contracts to those with equity in Toronto real estate. I bet if they looked at things this way....ie. from a risk standpoint as an insurer would, things would start to look different. The "Greater Fool Theory" seems to be a stronger force than risk aversion and rationality though. What else is new...to each their own...lol.
  8. Talking about something for a long time doesn't mean you don't have a point, and being wrong about one aspect of something doesn't mean you're wrong about all of it, just like people who started warning about the dot com bubble in 1997 or 1998 weren't necessarily completely wrong. Timing's always hard, but we all have to do what we feel makes sense. I just don't believe that Canada is some Shangri-la that isn't bound by the RE logic of the rest of the world, where families making $50k/year can carry mortgages of over half a million and live in ugly old bungalows from the 1970s selling for $800k+, etc. +1 Toronto Real Estate = A pitch I won't be swinging at.
  9. By no means am I smart enough nor interested in attempting to predict the path of Canadian real estate over the next several years. As value investors though, it is quite obvious that Greater Toronto Area real estate is far from what would be considered a "value" proposition. Sd...your example of the Mississauga development with 2300sq. ft. houses in the $700 - 850k range provide a great comparison to the properties in my neighborhood (roughly 110km west of Mississauga). My property is about 10km west of Woodstock and about 10km South of the 401 in a small village consisting of roughly 100 homes. In 2009 I purchased a new 2100sq. ft brick house, 2 car garage, w/deck, and concrete driveway for $270k. Many of the standard features in this home are what would be considered "upgrades" in big city subdivisions. The house sits on about a 1/4 acre lot. The lot component of the purchase was roughly $50k. This implies a retail price on the house itself of $220K. Compared against your Mississauga example (and assuming a similar retail house price....say $250K....this implies a $600K pricetag for the tiny lot. This is crazy!! To top that off...I have talked to several people who are still investing in TO real estate trying to cash in on quick gains. They really believe this is a safe proposition! I am by no means predicting a GTA real estate crash...but under a scenario where they did I assume the decline would mostly be in the price of the physical land. I mean the same house would still cost roughly $250k to purchase. In other words, if land prices Ontario wide declined by 50% (not likely...but just as an illustration)....the Toronto property owner would take a $300K haircut. My property....1 hour to the west would take a $25k haircut ($50k - 50%). Enough said! How things actually play out in the short run and long run are beyond me but the warning signs are pretty obvious as far as I'm concerned.
  10. “Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful” -Warren Buffett Such a simple quote that says so much!
  11. Is that a typo? I'm not seeing it at 10 recently... I assume that's 10 USD for the shares listed OTC in the US. Quite a large drop today....no news that I can see.
  12. I think anyone here that grew up knowing who Warren G is will get some kicks out of this one. Had me almost rolling on the floor when I saw it a few years ago. Here it is:
  13. Are you kidding me?! I put the entire Fiat thread in a word document to read it over the weekend a few months ago. Thanks! I feel a little stupid for never looking for a print all button earlier... Additionally. Try a program such as "PDF Complete". Once you have a thread in a single page format you can "print to pdf". You just print as you normally would but you select pdf complete as your printer...click print...and you have the entire document in pdf format. I'm sure there are alternatives to "PDF complete"....but thats what I use. Hope that helps.
  14. Another option is to click the "print" button. You will see it in a thread...just below the last post of the page. This puts the entire thread into one page.
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