writser

All the legends read 500 pages / day. Just continue opening quality topics and at some point they will take notice.

I once destroyed my keyboard by smashing it repeatedly with an umbrella. It's not really a visualization exercise but it helps. Make sure there is no order entry window open when doing this.

Yeah I loved all the Bryson books as well. No 'high literature' but very funny, well written and sometimes insightful. Geert Mak is another writer of history books that I really like, though probably not as well-known across the ocean. "In Europe" is his magnum opus about 20th century Europe. Thick book, a combination of travel memoirs and history lessons. I don't know how the English translation is but the original was great. I recently read 'meetings with remarkable manuscripts' by Christopher de Hamel, a similarly sized book. The erudite writer goes to libraries all around the world to look at (and write about) the oldest manuscripts on this planet. Totally not my usual area of interest but the book was highly recommended by the Economist - and rightly so.

And if it trades there chances of getting a second mortgage are probably zero.

Thanks for the tip. Impressive read. 'Defying Hitler' was another good WWII memoir, written by a 'nobody' in Germany who describes the rise of Hitler during the interbellum. 'Night' by Eli Wiesel was also a crazy read. FWIW like many others I really enjoyed 'Titan' and 'Snowball'. I found the Isaacson books to be a bit boring, I didn't even finish 'Einstein' and I'm in doubt as to whether I should buy the da Vinci book. 'Faraday, Maxwell and the electromagnetic field' was great. 'The Wright Brothers' was enjoyable. The Shannon book and Thorp book were also ok. At some point I'll probably try a few other Chernow books.

Get a digital copy. Google is your friend. Good read but definitely not worth the crazy price.

This might be better use of time than some of the investment (??) threads you know. 8) Yeah, probably true. FWIW I've never been there, but this restaurant in Spain (Asador Etxebarri) where they cook everything on the grill has been on my wish list ever since I read about it.

I _TRY_ not to focus on it :) . Not saying I'm always successful.

As the above poster pointed out, that's not how percentiles work. Apart from that, I have a) my doubts about the methodology and the results of this CNBC news clickbait and b) it's probably counterproductive to focus on what random people supposedly own or earn at what age.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aecon-group-m-a-canada/canada-blocks-chinas-takeover-of-aecon-idUSKCN1IO3F2

IB just has different markups for different currencies. PLN is probably perceived as riskier / more difficult to handle so the spread on top of the benchmark is ~6% as opposed to ~1.5% for USD (exact numbers depend on size of position).

Only sensible advice in thread.

A German gets pulled over by the police in France. Police officer: “Name?” German: “Gunther Heinrichs.” Police officer: “Age?” German: “35.” Police officer: “Occupation?” German: “No, no, just visiting.”

I also own 40-50 different stocks. Largest 5 positions make up ~25% of my portfolio, smallest 10/20 positions are a few tracker/starter positions or part of a basket. So in practical terms I have around ~30 positions. I'm usually around that number but I don't mind concentrating a bit more at opportune moments. I kind of agree with Nate: each to his own. A basket of net/nets can probably outperform but so does a concentrated portfolio. What is best for you probably depends on your character, age, net worth, confidence, lifestyle, job, etc. FWIW I think 'outperforming the market' is a bit of an overrated concept - I prefer to think in terms of my own hurdle rate and stomach for volatility. Nevertheless I think it is a good idea to have a grasp of what would cause your portfolio to 'outperform'. I think that, especially as a small retail fish, you can have several good angles to try beating the market with: - Time horizon arbitrage: something like BAC in 2012 was a nice example: the thesis basically being: buy it, forget it, don't watch NBC, the storm will blow over in five years. - Tax arbitrage: PFIC's are a bitch for US investors, maybe you can reclaim dividend taxes in some situations, get tax credits, etc. Research your tax situation and make the best of it. For me personally, Sapec was a great example. KMG was a nice example this year. - Boredom arbitrage: somewhat related: basically buying cheap stuff without a catalyst: PD-RX was a nice example. - Liquidity arbitrage: as a small fish it's relatively easy to boost returns if you can do a few good trades, i.e. put some lowball bids in several cheap stocks or try buying a microcap merger on the bid for a 20% IRR. CKTM was a great example this year. - Gross stuff arbitrage: buying stuff that's so disgusting that no fund manager wants to own it. Chinese companies going private, Halal real estate in Dubai listed on the AIM exchange, microcap Canadian mining mergers, etc. - Work harder and be smarter arbitrage: my least favorite option. Work harder and be smarter than other market participants. I'm probably forgetting some options. Most of my investments fall in one (or even better: more) of these categories. I'm always surprised how many people (also on this forum) prefer the last option. Like, if you are a part-time investors and you buy TSLA or VRX or whatever, take a step back and think: what is my edge here? I guess it's an ego thing?

Got this in the mail today! So lucky. I blanked out the last three characters of his e-mail address. He probably gets enough mail from people begging for money. Maybe I can ask him for some stock tips as well.

Another parallel: if a huge asteroid would hit Omaha, Nebraska, this weekend, all large value investors would be wiped off the planet in a matter of seconds. It would be a mass extinction just like 65m years ago. Only a few niche species of value investors, probably antisocial, adapted to managing small amounts of money and living in caves would survive the onslaught. It would mean the dawn of a new era. Growth and momentum investors, currently at the bottom of the food chain, would thrive and dominate the planet within a few years.

Good question. His jaws have probably adapted to millions of years of eating peanut brittle so I’d say they are quite powerful. But not only the jaws are important - T-Rex had almost circular skull bones to evenly distribute the forces that were exerted on it indirectly while chewing. Otherwise it would break its own skull while biting through the bones of a Triceratops. Looking at the head of Charlie I’d say evolution has done something similar. It’s very round. You’d have to make a CT-scan of his head, convert it into a 3D model, add virtual muscle tissue, make virtual peanut brittle and then do some simulations to come up with an estimated range of newton / square cm.

Also, I’m sure there are lots of parallels with value investing. For example: Charlie Munger is basically a dinosaur.

I’ll keep this short. I’m sure the majority of you guys are huge nerds who were obsessed with dinosaurs when you were young. If so, this is an awesome read. Nice mix of excavating history, science and fieldwork anecdotes. Answers to important questions like: how old could a T-Rex get and what pressure could it exert with its jaws? Can we determine what color dinosaurs were? Also, cool to see that science has really progressed over the past few decades (i.e. since the books you read in your childhood). Lots of new finds (most notably in China) and computers, technology and CT scanners really changed the field. Recommended.

If you can buy 5% of Biglari Holdings for $100 that would be a bad investment and you'd pass because you don't trust the CEO? Of course not - it's probably the best investment opportunity of your life. If it's cheap enough you buy it. The correct way to think about it is: at what price would you buy it? Labeling all stocks (or newspapers, countries, religions ..) as either good or bad and then discarding the latter group is just shortsighted. There should always be room for nuance.

I get where you are coming from, I almost failed a job interview because a psychologist determined I had an 'extreme appetite for risk' and I was 'unsuitable for work in a low-pressure environment'. Fortunately I applied for a trading job and the head trader overruled her, more or less saying: "that's exactly what we need". I'm not sure the assessment was entirely correct (basically when I told her I used to play a lot of poker she had made up her mind) but rest assured that I have made, and will make, stupid trades every now and then. I think the key to dealing with this problem is to be super honest with yourself: these trades (including your DAX 'hedges') almost certainly have negative expected value, you make them because you are bored and/or tired and you are prone to justfy them after the fact. Design your investing routine in such a way that that you avoid these situations and make sure you document everything you do (especially your mistakes) to keep yourself accountable. I think Walter Schloss once said something along the lines of 'I like owning 50 different stocks - I always have something to do'. That always resonated with me. Calling playing around with options 'compounding knowledge' doesn't really sound introspective, to say the least. In fact, it sounds more like a way to fool yourself into justifying your gambling habit. So, to answer your question: I'd value it at -2% p.a.

Personally I doubt that after 50 hours of research you encounter a footnote in the 1983 annual report that will radically change your mind. At that point you probably made up your mind anyway, consciously or not. The extra work might cause you to feel an (unwarranted?) confidence in your holdings and the risk of the excessive research is that you start feeling emotionally attached to your positions and/or lose yourself in details - i.e. you'll turn into the guy defending Valeant by referencing to the moisture content of their foot creme as demonstrated by an article in Housewives Illustrated while the whole company is burning down. Or the guy immediately saying 'why don't you short it?' and 'maybe you should do 70 hours of research first' when somebody asks a question. For me the ideal investment is something where the thesis can be explained in like 30 seconds and then I'd need like 5-10 hours doing some research to confirm the thesis is correct. If I can't figure out in 10 hours if something is cheap I'd rather move on. Difference in style I guess. Also I'm lazy.

Small chunk of TSE:KDX.

Did anybody actually manage to short?

If you are logged in: 45 days. If you are logged out: 90 days. I sometimes have the same problem: site logs me out for some reason and I see a different set of recent ideas suddenly. Are you sure that’s not what is happening?