Eng12345

I love the Keys just not Key West...looking to plan a trip there this summer. Haven't done other keys but Islamorada was amazing.

Curious how technically deep these books go... at one point I considered a career in power marketing and considered pursuing my NERC RC certificate. I remain continually curious about it and have not completely written that off my career - just for now. The power markets have always been fascinating to me as they are traded 24/7 and based on real physical tangible things. The current wind incentives have screwed the markets up so much that now we are building giant inefficient peaking turbines to chase wind load. I think that's one of the biggest tragedies of all of this climate bs - we are not rewarding thermal performance.

I bought this past summer finally with just my wife and I. Ended up buying a house I think I can stay in forever if the careers allow for it. I have no desire to move or sell and a new job would have to be very lucrative to do so. That said - I bought much bigger than I needed or have ever had. It's 2700 sq ft with another ~1500 sq ft of unfinished basement. The home is only 3 years old and has everything I could ever need or want - sits on a culdesac in a decent but not exquisite subdivision, 400 Amp service, backs up to the woods with a wonderful deck, has a two car garage that fits all my tools and work stuff as well as her car. I bought off a friend who was retiring from work with no realtor - we split the savings. Sure it's a lot more house than we need - 4 bedrooms for two of us. We have 2 guest beds, a bedroom overlooking the trees is our office. We don't even use the front dining room or sitting room. But you know what? We love it. We don't need to "upgrade" ever if kids come. We entertain friends and family more than we ever have before - we love having people over, because we surely hate going out unless it's to a beach or a mountain. I installed speakers in the ceilings in the living room and kitchen and we love playing some music, turning the gas fire place on and reading in the living room looking the trees. The kitchen is phenomenal - I never realized how much of a difference it makes. A great island and some music while hanging out on the deck makes for the centerpiece of the house. Do I hate the $3500 mortgage? Yes. Is it worth it? Hell yes. Is the American dream still alive and well in the midwest? That's a resounding yes. Will I go more exquisite? Probably not.

I should start posting my travels to some of the absolute armpits of America for work - ha. Anyone heard of Pryor, Oklahoma? It reaks of a mix between natural gas and dog food production. Hitting the road again for work - headed to Orlando for a ~month and then sounds like nowhere Iowa....putting off actually getting in the truck and driving after being home for 2 months...

I made comment the other day to a friend that when Harvard has people who've never stepped foot on a community college campus commenting on who should be presiding over the university then somewhere somehow Harvard has majorly screwed up - and I don't think it was just one bad congressional testimony. But what do I know? I went to a state school.

I wish there was a good way to track performance/allocation across the various brokerages I have. I have made a few attempts at spreadsheets, but the manual process is cumbersome and tedious.

I have always hated calendar year to year performance numbers - never thought they really painted a good picture of the cumulation of returns. Kind of pointless the flaunt a 30% year if at the end of it you're out of ideas or totally uninvested or everything you own has peaked. On another note - minus my CPNG position I am sitting at around ~15%. However I am carrying a large CPNG loss that I am not one iota concerned about...hard to measure year to year performance when you have 5 year bets.

I just finished this book and thought it was wonderful book. Like many of you I also found it somewhat lacking in a "bow" around some points of the chapters. I was often left wondering what the actionable items were for a normal person without the capability to get all the various different labs and correctly interpret them. The one thing that surprised me was the importance of excercise though the confirmation of my own thoughts is nice. I have long thought of excercise as the critical path to healthiness - based on my own experiences of going from 5'8" 230 down to 170 and back up to 250. I know that exercise drives so many different things and our bodies are not meant to be as sedentary as they are now. (Which leads me to recommend a book a read a decade ago - "Born to Run".) I have often thought of it as a driver to get out of depressions, drive correct diet and other things. Still though I guess I was hoping for more cliff notes other than workout, eat right, and be mentally healthy.

Charlie your link doesn't seem to work anymore - can you provide a name and author?

Merry Christmas to all and as benchmark said thanks to all for their wonderful contributions to this great community

One of the things I really struggle with is actually adding to the winners. Say JOE for example - initial position at low ~$40 and never really substantially add to it because I'm always looking for the drop versus just biting the bullet. I have no problem selling losers, but often times I find myself with too much cash sitting around undeployed and not adding to the winners.

I think its obvious at this point that barring some major change in conditions the war will be stalemated along the current battle lines essentially. So my general comment is - why not sue for peace on the current battle lines? We have provided so much aid and the Ukrainians have fought bravely and successfully defended their country from a much superior force. I think that's something to be proud of and hang your hat on. From there would it be that unfeasible to create a strong defensive line and park an American armor division in Ukraine permanently? Similar to how we have done with Poland and Korea. I have not seen any talking heads really push that possibility - is it just unpalatable and unacceptable to Russians? Ukrainians? or American people?

BAC BHP AJG SPY VFVA Working to get out of some smaller positions and consolidate holdings across accounts. I want more concentration than I've had previously. Some of these positions (BHP AJG) I'm sure would serve me quite well even going forward however I am not happy enough with the expected returns to make a large position. Also getting out of index funds completely other than my employer plan.

Thanks to everyone on the pfizer thread for talking me out of the position - I sold shortly after for a tiny tiny gain. Increased my SAVE position by 35% this morning after perusing the briefs last night.

CPNG - starting to get cheap again.

I had shared of this company for quite awhile but took a nice haircut on issuance of new shares to fund the factory- maybe it’s time to take a closer look…without doing a deep dive it seems their language surrounding their new plant in Georgia has significantly changed since I got kicked in the nuts…the last two earnings press releases I interpret as “we don’t need the new plant online asap” which is worrying change from their previous language of full steam ahead.

Small amount of JOE…had to swallow hard on the price of $57.30…my cost basis was around $35 previously

Definitely worth reading through the thread and reading some reports and listening to Fraser… Still yet I remain skeptical- they call it Shitibank for a reason. Nonetheless it’s so cheap it’s hard for me to ignore.

Bought some more C today. Becoming a large position for me with a cost basis around $44.5 - which I’d like to lower a bit more

Joby - how I made 60% on that dumb stock is beyond me, but I guess it pays to be lucky occasionally.

NTDOY

Didn't you just sell USB due to the "yield curve". Just want to understand your thought pattern. Proud owner of C and looking forward to 2026ish

On a realpolitik level I 100% agree with you - we should continue to support Ukraine for American interests. However I think it is going to become politically much harder to do so without some major successes shown. Realistically I truly believe the west reacted well to prevent a complete loss of Ukraine, but too slow to provide arms and still is acting too slow to provide weapons Ukraine needs to have a chance of making a breakthrough.

There is zero chance Ukraine ends the war without security guarantees either. Ultimately Ukraine and the Biden administration are now tied at the hip for better or worse. Security guarantees for Ukraine are literally the first step to finding a peace solution, because for Ukraine there is no other alternative. That said I think it would be rather easy for Trump/Desantis to bang the political drumbeat of "billions spent on Ukraine while millions of americans dreams are inflated away". I don't see how the democrats can successfully campaign on the back of a stalled offensive or stalemate. So provided there is no major Ukrainian breakthrough I think what we ultimately see this fall/winter is some sort of peace negotiations.

Agreed - the whole offensive is going to continue to be a bloody slog. Ukraine to start talks with US on security guarantees | Reuters <<this is what gives me the inkling the whole thing is going to wind down.