writser

Agreed. Amongst other things the Kelly formula doesn't take into account the time horizon of your investments (i.e. the opportunity cost), it assumes your bets are uncorrelated (which probably doesn't hold for your portfolio) and it makes an assumption about the utility of money that probably doesn't apply to individuals who want to retire safely. It's interesting to play around with but I don't use it in practise.

SharperDingaan, you are telling us that outside London and Scotland ~90% of the people voted to leave? That's just not true. In fact, it is complete bullshit. Take a look at, for example, this NYT voting map: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/24/world/europe/how-britain-voted-brexit-referendum.html Also, London only voted 60% Remain, Scotland voted 62% remain. If 7 of 8 of every other citizens would vote for Leave the end result wouldn't even be close to what happened.

End of thread.

Something I've been thinking about today: did the results of England and especially Wales soccer matches the past few days influences voters? It wouldn't actually surprise me. Also, I agree that the Jo Cox murder was probably a net negative for the Brexit camp. The killer was too ****ing stupid to realize he did exactly the wrong thing to achieve his goal. I wonder if that's a small relief for her family or if it makes them extra angry. Such a tragedy ..

My ramblings (the macro gurus here will undoubtedly point out how stupid I am). 1. Despite all the experts and polls predicting "a close race" a Brexit currently pays out 4 times at Betfair on significant volume. I trust the market rather than the pundits and am not that worried about a Brexit as others. 2. Even if the UK is to leave the EU things will probably not change that much. Yes, there will be panic in the short run but the actual leaving will probably take years (decades) and lobbyists, diplomats and bureaucrats probably make sure that the transition is as small and as smooth as possible. I am skeptical about the long-term influence of the outcome of the vote on the S&P 500. My personal belief is that it would be negligible in the long run. 3. The market is way too focused on the 'Brexit' vote - it is the event of the year. Buying insurance in whatever form is not a genius idea: it is the consensus trade so you probably pay too much. So I do nothing special. I made sure I have a little margin / cash in case the market goes crazy on friday (as I always have). I should probably make a small watchlist with UK stocks I'd like to buy in case of a crash but so far I have been to lazy to do so. If I had to do anything I'd go long a Brexit on Betfair but I already put all my money there on Trump becoming president. I basically agree with WEB on Brexit: "It wouldn’t change anything I did. I wouldn’t sell the farm I own. I wouldn’t sell the real estate I own. I wouldn’t sell my house. I wouldn’t buy a different kind of car. And I certainly wouldn’t change my investment in businesses. But -- I hope they don’t do it.".

In Holland we like to make fun of Belgians instead of blondes (even though they play soccer currently and we don't). Here are a couple of terrible jokes. I hope they aren't lost in translation. A Belgian, German and Dutchie are caught smuggling drugs into North Korea. Sentence: death by firing squad. On the first day the German smuggler is placed before the firing squad. He yells: "Watch out, tornado!". The firing squad runs for cover and he manages to escape. A few days later the Dutch smuggler is placed before the firing squad. He yells: "Tsunami!". The firing squad flees into their bunker and the Dutchie manages to escape. The next day the Belgian has to appear before the firing squad. "Wait a second, I think I can do that too", he thinks, and then yells "Fire!". A Belgian guy calls the Guinness book of records office and says: "Listen, I think I should be in your book. I just solved a very difficult puzzle. Thousand pieces and it took me only three weeks.". The guy on the line asks him incredulously: "Why on earth do you think that is so special?". "Well", the Belgian replies, "The box said 6 to 9 years". Three Belgians ride a car through the red light district. The driver sees a nice girl and asks her: "how much?". She replies: "50 euro, or 100 in the rear". The Belgian guy in the back seat opens his window and says: "hey, why do I have to pay double!". A Belgian, German and Dutch guy are at a magical swimming pool. As you jump in you can say something and the swimming pool will be filled accordingly. First, the German guy jump of the spring board and says "Girls!". He jumps into a pool filled with girls, marries one of them and lives happily ever after. Then the Dutch guy jumps and says "Money!". The pool is filled with banknotes and the Dutchie goes home a rich man. Finally the Belgian guy climbs on the spring board, takes a few steps, trips over his own legs, stumbles and says: "Oh shit".

Haha, have you ever been in a night club? Testosterone + drinks + drugs + hot girls + group dynamics + carrying loaded guns would mean ten times the causalties _every weekend_. You can have your pet theories but club owners prefer bouncers & metal detectors. Even in your libertarian Utopia.

Roark: do you mean in terms of content or looks? I always enjoy the Krohne "research trips": http://www.krohnecapital.com/index.php/research-trips/all-trips-wall

Low risk merger, earn ~20% in 2 or 3 months? I like it. Each to his own I guess.

Fortunately I'm a poor bastard. I traded a significant part of last weeks volume and that was enough for me. I don't manage OPM.

If my numbers are right, it's trading for cash component and none of the MTY consideration? Whether you get cash or cash + stock is irrelevant, package value will be the same. Check out the proxy. The price is to be adjusted for working capital but MTY is up quite a bit since they announced the merger. Deal should be worth around $159 now. Stock is up quite a bit now but IRR is still great. Prices last week were insane. This is my largest position now. Unfortunately I missed the opportunity of a lifetime: buying at $10 a few months ago.

I've been buying as much KAHL as I can get. Opportunity of the year imho.

Please edit your posts instead of spamming this forum. This thread is getting ridiculous.

Interesting topic. Pretty much everything I read online I collect through feedly. Blog posts, sec filings and I use www.changedetection.com to watch websites without an RSS feed (also incoming in feedly) A couple of times per day / week / month you can skim through all the new posts. Most of them I discard in a few seconds, the interesting ones you can bookmark (or mark unread) to read at a time of your convenience. I follow a select group of people on Twitter and SeekingAlpha and unfollow them quickly if they post too much nonsense. I also follow a select group of microcap stocks on SeekingAlpha and Yahoo finance. That way you can immediately see if there's news for your portfolio. Don't do that with large caps though - you'll be flooded with crap. On CoBF I mostly skim the headlines in the 'investment section'. I also put people on my ignore-list quite liberally. I think my key advice would be to skim over everything you have collected for 5 seconds and then decide: "do I really want to read this?". And if your answer is no repeatedly just block the source. That could mean a specific stock / topic (SHLD, VRX, religion), website (forbes, businessinsider, facebook), or poster (no comment). That's why I love feedly - it fits this approach very well. However, the above is mostly theory :). In practice a working internet connection pretty much turns me (everyone?) into a brain fried instant-gratification monkey with the attention span of a goldfish. It actually scares me sometimes. I can certainly see the appeal of a 'pulling-the-plug' approach if you want to get some work done (maybe just for a few hours a day) but so far I can't bring myself to do it. I think that's what this topic is actually about: not "how do I read less?" but "how do I waste less time on internet?". Reading a book in your garden is utterly incomparable to browsing the web. Is there anyone here who actually thinks he/she reads too much books?

Good article on the "Soros put" story: http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-25/kick-the-click-bait-habit . I would add: please don't encourage this foolishness by reposting said stories on this forum.

Or she's a narcissistic psychopath who endangered peoples lives with faulty blood tests and scammed investors for a billion or some. Probably something in between. We'll see. Props to randomep for asking the right questions back when everybody was salivating.

I tend to agree with LC. I have absolutely no problem with anyone owning Coke shares (or drinking Coke) but it sounds like Buffett is trying to downplay / ignore / sidestep any health issues. Saying: "I drink a lot of coke and I can't imagine anybody feeling better than I do" is basically a very childish argument by example. If the CEO of PM would say a similar thing about cigarettes he would be sued immediately. One of WEB's other arguments: "I'm happier because I drink a lot of Coke, that has to be taken into account". Again, imagine the CEO of PM saying such a thing about cigarettes. Another one: "the junk food market has staying power because it makes people happy". So does smoking (in the short run). In the long run it is addictive and bad for you. Granted, Coke is probably far less dangerous than cigarettes, drinking it moderately is probably fine, other fastfoods are bad as well, people have their own responsibilities etc. etc. That's all true but please leave discussing the health risks / benefits to objective people with no skin in the game. Society is suffering from obesity and soft drinks are one contributing factor. Buffett is probably never going to admit that.

Don't do that...you'll make yourself miserable. +1 How long until you're living in a cardboard box, eating nothing but ramen noodles, and going into the library to log on and check your portfolio every day? Hello ScottHall.

And so begins the greatest bear market in my generation's memory.. That's a good one too!

+1

IMHO the sad truth is that he actually is a credible source for information as compared to most other news outfits.

Let me be the first to predict that this thread will completely self-destruct in a few weeks. FWIW, I think Trump is a lunatic but I respect how he's overtaking his own party. I think what Obama said about him was pretty much spot on: But I'm a crazy European socialist. I think it's a worrying trend that nationalism is on the rise in basically every western country.

Or that GDP growth could be caused by non-listed firms (startups). Or that insiders siphon off most of the extra profits. Multiple reasons why the relationship used as an assumption doesn't hold at all. I'm curious what you think about my dividend thought experiment. You ignore it - am I mistaken?

Regarding point 1: I don't think an "all else equal" comparison is useful because market valuations are reflexive. According to the quoted research that is one of the key reasons why the relation between GDP and market returns doesn't hold. In Russia stocks are cheap, in the US they are expensive. But they are so because the expected future is priced in. If you ignore this you are getting into very hypothetical territory. Too hypothetical for my taste. Regarding point 2: I've been thinking a bit about this, it could very well be that I am wrong. Thought experiment: suppose two identical countries exist. In country R all companies reinvest all earnings (0% yield). In country D all companies pay out all earnings (10% yield). GDP of both countries grows by 3% p.a. You are saying stock market total returns in R-land are 3% p.a. and in D-land are 13% p.a. forever? Well, if you believe in the EMH and in the GDP - stock market link: you don't. If not, you should look for mispricings. I guess you knew that already, so I'm not quite sure what point you are making / what answer you are looking for.

First of all, the link between GDP and the stock market is sketchy at best. This might be interesting reading material: link. Second, even if that link exists I think you cannot just slap a 2% dividend return on top of it (nor net buybacks). If the economy grows by 3%, the stock market total return should grow by 3%. Dividend is not some magic money coming from nowhere. Whether earnings are reinvested or distributed shouldn't matter for total stock market returns. And last but not least, your estimate for US market returns looks quite reasonable but I think the more interesting question is: can you find individual companies (or other markets) that beat the market? :)