mike_3772

Likewise

Does anyone have an idea of the top 2 or 3 conservative, well-run, gold standard regional banks?

"that Jamie Dimon must be the only person still around at that level in US banking - hopefully his long memory is intact and matters." They first begged him to buy Bear, Stearns. Then they forced him to take TARP warrants he neither needed or wanted. Then, forced him to settle claims from the Financial Crisis of around $22 billion dollars (during the Obama administration). I wonder if he remembers any of that?

Bought BAC, C, CMA and ZION, but mostly BAC. Currently in oil, tobacco and now financials. Praying for another 15-20% market selloff as I'm around 60% cash after spending all last year 100% cash. One more leg down and I will be all set for the next 3-5 years with some nice dividends as the icing on top.

I've been slowly rereading Buffett's Letters to Shareholders 1965-2012, which I've had for quite awhile. I'm only on 1983 this time, but it's sort of fascinating to read the letters as inflation takes its inevitable toll even on Berkshire and especially the insurance businesses. He talks about both the financial and social inflation - social inflation being litigiousness. Interesting to see the historical context as Buffett, for example, is talking about the ravages of inflation in the 1980 letter. For perspective, Google says inflation hit a high of 14.8% in 1980 and by 1981 Volcker had the interest rate at 20%. Obviously, this is very high inflation, not like today, but I thought it would be interesting to see what Buffett was saying as inflation soared. Buffett says, (1980 report) "As we said last year, Berkshire has no corporate solution to the problem. (Well say it again next year, too). Inflation does not improve our return on equity."

Norm, thanks for that. Truly a great interview. I ordered the book while listening.

I encourage anyone considering following the Magic Formula to carefully read through Marsh Gerda's blog, MFI Diary. It's at http://justadrone.blogspot.com/ He is an actuary and has been meticulously creating monthly tracking portfolios based strictly on the MF along with some portfolios of his own making with various approaches . I will summarize that the results have been dismal. He has all but given up in his own portfolio though he is trying a dividend approach now. You can ignore his various approaches and simply review the standard monthly tracking portfolios. Every so often he has a post that details the performance of all the tracking portfolios since inception (around the time of the book). You will need to search through to find one of those posts. I admire Joel Greenblatt and loved "You Can Be a Stock Market Genius". I was prepared to believe in the Magic Formula because the philosophy fits my view of what works, but I absolutely no longer think it works, but check out Marsh's blog and see what you think. I won't argue either way, but simply encourage that you check out Marsh's work before you commit real money to this strategy. Mike

Thanks for your help. I know the Ellis Island quote, but the one I'm thinking of was more specific. I'm always hesitant to use it with anyone because I can't find it, though I will never forget how it hit me when I read it. Thanks, again.

I wonder if anyone can help me with a Walter Schloss quote. Somewhere in the distant past I read an article about Mr. Schloss. In discussing his partnership, the article said that most of the people who invested with him were Jews who had fled from Europe and for most it was all the money they had and he considered managing their money a "sacred trust". It was such a powerful statement and sentiment that I've never forgotten it, but I cannot for the life of me find where I read it or any other place I've seen it written. Even if we can't find it, does anyone else remember reading anything like that? Thanks for any help, Mike

Thanks, Oracle. How did I miss this guy with Buffett's seal of approval? I'm going to read his letter again carefully this weekend. Mike

ericopoly, I stumbled onto this blog the other day: http://www.behaviorgap.com/outperform-99-of-your-neighbors/ He posed an interesting question. Common wisdom is that the market returns around 10% over the last 80 years. He asks how many years in the 80 did the market return 9 to 11%? The answer is exactly 2 years out of 80. He makes the point that average returns are not "normal" returns. And his main point is that investors do not get anywhere near the average return. Too much chasing what's hot. There is also an update of the Dalbar study in his presentation which is nice. Mike

oracle, I agree this is a great letter. I have not heard of him. Did you really hear that Buffett knows and reads his letters? thanks, Mike

Buffett has talked about this himself many times - he calls it winning the ovarian lottery. From Prof. Hirschey's notes on Buffett's talk to MBA students: "" Ovarian lottery: The students loved Buffett’s “ovarian lottery” allegory. Suppose a genie confronted you with the following opportunity. Take a large barrel filled with 6.5 billion tickets, each representing a single birth outcome. Assume the genie selected 100 tickets at random from the barrel and offered to switch your own birth outcome for the best of those 100 tickets. Only about 50 would be of above average intelligence, fewer still would have supportive parents, or full physical capability. Less than 5% would be born in the United States. Nobody in the room would take that offer. Upshot: We are in the upper 1% by chance alone, and should want to give something back to society."" So, Buffett agrees with you. Mike