writser

That would be my recommendation. I don't know why people feel compelled to discuss politics here - this is and investment board. Granted, politics and investment mix to some extend, but much less than generally presumed. Even Munger said, that politics don't matter much for BRK's business, I don't know why it should matter for us here. +1 all the politics discussions here add zero value for me Agreed. As a temporary solution I have added the 'General Discussion' subforum to my ignore board list (I think this is a nice new feature). That way all the nonsense doesn't flood the 'Recent Posts' section. However, there are some interesting posts in there so a split between 'General Investing' (that could include the 'Strategies' subforum, not much happening there anyway) and 'Off-topic, Politics and Religion' would be my preferred option. But whatever suits you Parsad. Your forum. Just a minor issue.

Yeah, somebody should probably notify social services. Or at least inform the police if he starts buying assault rifles.

Just ignore historical performance, focus on quality of analysis instead.

The discount is ~9% and there is only a preliminary proposal so far. If you look at other Chinese deals it looks unlikely to me this deal will be completed in 2017. Often there are multiple preliminary proposals, preliminary proposals are pulled back and/or it takes ages before an actual bid has been agreed upon. After that you need a couple of months to file a few preliminary proxies, then a few months to set up an meeting, then a few more weeks to actually complete the deal. I think a very optimistic scenario is a deal completion around year-end for a ~15% IRR. And a best case 15% IRR is just not enough for me to invest in a Chinese reverse merger (or in fact to invest in most things). I think this situation is potentially interesting but I'm not investing at the current price given the uncertainty about the timeline to completion. In my (limited) experience it is better to wait for a definitive merger agreement.

7235:JP, 6791:JP

Off-topic, but can you recommend that book? Has been on my to-read list for a while.

Sarcasm. Totally fine with the decision. Nevertheless, thanks for the mental support!

Obviously a horrible decision.

Agreed. People buying stocks is apparently no problem, but if they buy the same stocks lumped together in an ETF it is the start of a giant crisis .. Right. Sure, there are some fringe issues but consider me skeptical about Vanguard causing the next global meltdown. Would be ironic though if John Bogle causes massive losses for retail investors.

Sold STRP premarket at ~$118. I bought shares at ~$91 two weeks ago. The merger spread was decent (Verizon offered $95.63) and I was hoping to earn some extra juice by lending out my shares as both the borrow rate and short interest were very high. In the end my broker hardly managed to lend out my shares but who cares, a bidding war ensued. 30% in two weeks, can't complain! Now a new bid is on the table ($104.64 from AT&T). However, the market is optimistically pricing in a few more bids and the borrow rate has declined so I decided to sell.

No blog writeups afaik. I was typing a reply but it got longer than expected so I opened a new topic instead.

A bit more DEST.

Yeah, just as impossible as a flying machine. So what? If Musk wants to try it, or wants to fly to Mars or bore tunnels: super awesome. If he fails: no big deal. I don't get the hate.

I wouldn't call it a research outfit but Dane Capital on SeekingAlpha is a fund that specializes in SPAC's. Occasionally posts an interesting article.

Home country bias?

FB targetting is good, yeah. A couple of years ago they offered me to drive around in a forest somewhere in Eastern Europe in a nazi WWII tank. Best ad I had ever seen. I was proud to be selected. Now I have an adblocker though.

I had a fleeting look at this topic on my phone. Will reply later.

Looks like the government is not giving up that easily: http://www.cihltd.co/assets/pdf/press-releases/2009/Press%20Release%20re%20US%20Supreme%20Court%20Feb%2022%202017%20Final.pdf .

I'd say anything you try at home with TWS that fails because your Python implementation is too slow is either a) horribly implemented or b) a pointless idea because your data feeds and order routing are way, way too slow anyway to compete in the speed game. Ideas you can automate with TWS are those for which the speed requirements are such that you could do the trades manually if you could sit super focused behind the computer all day. Anything faster you'd get utterly crushed.

I'd be extra careful with mergers where politicians are involved. LSCC is a typical example of such a deal. What are the chances of the US government vetoing this deal? 1%? 50%? 99%? I have no idea. Hard to handicap for me. Most large caps with spreads that look 'too good to be true' have some regulatory issues. Stock-for-stock deals usually have a slightly larger spread due to volatility in the payout. But if you can stomach that (or hedge it) in the long run returns should be ok. I personally like Chinese reverse mergers as well and occasionally open a topic about them. I currently hold the following deals, amongst others: SNBN, DEST, ALIOY, CCM, KZ, QUSA, SYUT. Deals that look interesting but I don't own at the moment: SWC, HW, FBRC, CXCD.

I'd say cynicism is an excellent trait for a value investor. 8) Just saying 1) his track record is abysmal and 2) he charges quite a bit of money for his terrible performance. He might be very smart but he doesn't look like a good fund manager to me. But if you like this guy then by all means invest with him and/or read his weekly commentary.

1. Lose money for investors every year. 2. Earn fees for yourself in the meantime. 3. Write a semi-intellectual blog post 'challenging' Warren Buffett for free attention. Make sure to include a lot of fancy graphs. Hopefully you can get on tv or your post is discussed on the internet. 4. Get more AUM from gullible investors. Go back to step 1. Call 1-800-HUSSMAN! Get in there! Expense ratio is only 1.20% and if you had invested $100 in his bear fund ten years ago, just before the greatest crisis of the century, you'd still have over $58 for your retirement in 2017! And yeah, it's really his phone number ..

I'm going to jerk off to that story. Please keep us posted about the next date.

TD Ameritrade follows suit. Nice. http://www.amtd.com/newsroom/press-releases/press-release-details/2017/TD-Ameritrade-Reduces-Client-Pricing-to-695-for-Online-Equity-Trades/default.aspx

The media attention was probably worth multiples of the bet itself. They were actually ahead for the first 5 years. Perfect sales pitch.