writser

Your point being? Posters are not allowed to create a new account because then you lose the context to say “get the fuck out of my area code you pervert” when they post a podcast? I’d say that is actually a great reason to argue for the opposite. This is an anonymous board. If somebody with 5 posts pitches a stock: be skeptical. If somebody with 500 posts pitches a stock: be skeptical. If somebody with 5000 posts pitches a stock: be super skeptical.

Imho the board is fine the way it is. I couldn't care less whether John or Eric or Cigarbutt is your real name or not and if you opened another account or not. Report posts/posters you think are inappropriate and let Parsad do his job. No need for John or others to police the forum by their own moral standards. Frankly I'd have preferred it if this thread didn't exist - I'd rather have everybody disclosing as much about their personal lives as they are comfortable with themselves. I am here mainly to make money rather than friends. But I guess that's not true for all.

Also possible to find his major holdings through the HK exchange website.

I own at least one of his picks, Ming Fai (3828). They shut down an unprofitable business line the past few years, are paying out a big dividend. Market cap ~750m, ~300m in excess cash and 100m in net income last year. Decent company & very cheap. Allan international is similar company. Webb sometimes uses his stake to push a bit for sensible capital allocation so I guess he generates his own catalysts? My guess is that he's not very busy with looking for 'catalysts' and just buys reasonable companies at unreasonable valuations. Though I have to admit I don't understand all of his picks.

Interesting short Bloomberg article about an investor that I like and about investing in Hong Kong in general. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-02/the-20-a-year-stock-picker-who-wishes-his-edge-would-disappear . Very impressive track record with a diversified portfolio.

Up ~15.3% for the year according to my brokerage statements (in EUR. ~10% in USD terms). That number is probably a bit too conservative because I like to collect tax credits, tax deductibles, CVR's, liquidation trusts, escrow payments and other non-traded assets that my brokers assign no value to. That stuff should add additional ~1.2% or something (based on last traded price) but I'll include those results when realized. Past few years: 2017: 22.7% 2016: 36.6% 2015: 11.9% 2014: 17.5% 2013: 24.1% 2012: 22.0% I'm reasonably happy with how things worked out this year. My portfolio tends to be diversified (I guess I have ~50 positions now) with relatively high turnover so evidence is mounting up that I'm adding a bit of alpha. I think my portfolio is on the conservative side: diversified, an average ~15% cash balance and my core holdings tend to be boring asset plays. I like that composition: the market pays me to hold boring stuff and I play around with special situations to add (hopefully) a bit of alpha and to avoid getting bored myself. Compounding at 30% p.a. would be nice but I'm doing this full-time with my own money and would be perfectly happy with 10% p.a. and low volatility rather than aiming for the stars. My hope is that my portfolio is relatively market neutral and the past few months seem to indicate that that is the case: my portfolio only dropped ~3% or something and I managed to deploy a bit more cash. Pleased with that. No stress. Would be happy to see the market drop another 20%. In terms of special situations LIME Energy was the coolest thing that happened this year. Obscure OTC merger where you had to figure out the exact merger consideration by going through a bunch of filings and making some educated guesses. I looked at it with a few other forum members (was an illiquid idea) and managed to buy a big position at $4.80 average. The deal closed a few weeks later at $6.36, very close to our estimates. Easiest money of the year. That was awesome. SIGM, CKTM, RENN, RSYS and RMGN were another few situation that worked out great. Although a few situation didn't work out I managed to avoid big losses. Overall I'm content with my position selection and -sizing this year. No big blowups like last year. For 2019 I expect the UWN and BDMS mergers to close soon and it will be interesting to see what will happen with Mitek and Northstar Realty Europe and how the Vulcan and Western One liquidations will work out, amongst others. In terms of core positions not much happened. PD-RX is finally paying out all the excess cash and has been a great stock to own during the year. My largest single holding, Conduril, finally managed to clean up its balance sheet but the situation in Angola has been deteriorating. Remains to be seen how that works out. Deswell ran up nicely during the year and I sold my position (might be getting interesting again). Retail holdings still busy with its liquidation. Remains to be seen how they dispose their Bangladesh assets. Boring companies in Hong Kong are still cheap and stocks in Japan are still cheap too. Italian real estate funds are still liquidating. Asta funding is still dirt cheap but management is still questionable. I was a bit disappointed by Conrad Industries and Pardee Resources this year. There's not a single position I'm super excited about but all of the above are boring, cheap and well-capitalized. The one thing I'm least happy with for 2018 is that I think I'm sometimes too focused on the balance sheet and that I have a hard time valuing GARP stocks or names that are cheap on a EV/EBITDA basis. Hemacare, Xpel, Cambium learning, Aimia preferreds, Viemed and Rumbleon were among names that I thought looked very interesting at some point this year but at no point could I get comfortable enough with my own valuations. So either I didn't buy them at all or I bought them and sold a few months later for a small gain, missing the big picture. I feel like my returns can be improved if I have a better grasp of how to value names such as the above and if I have the patience to hold them for a few years. These GARP-y things also tend to be more volatile so I think there's potential in this space even if your valuation work isn't top notch. Something to work on in 2019. And the best part of the year (at least with regards to investing): I hope that this year I'll outperform my investing hero AlphaVulture for the first time ever! Also the crypto collapse and the year-end stock market meltdown were very entertaining to follow during the year. Crashes make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Free outperformance :P .

I still like Conduril, Asta Funding, Retail Holdings, a few Japan stocks, some Italian real estate funds. No class A ideas either. Maybe BDMS is my favorite idea right now but that should work out in a few weeks. Not sure if that counts.

Happy holidays. And indeed, many thanks to everybody but especially Sanjeev.

Kind words, thanks. By no means do I think the list is complete. Just some stuff that came to the top of my head. I think there was a decent checklist in the latest book from Mario Gabelli (link - the rest of the book wasn't that interesting imho). Also the old-school book from Maurece Schiller was very decent if you are interested in this sort of stuff (link). I thought it also featured some checklist-y thing. Not sure. Special situations are a bit of an escalated hobby for me. I think the space is interesting, diverse and I like that it is a bit more quantitative, market-neutral and short-term oriented than investing in, for example, Berkshire. Also, I have a lot of spare time and I think this is a space where you can make money by spending a lot of time monitoring every new deal and every deal spread. I.e. I can convert spare time into money (one might call this: work). If you like special situations just follow a lot of them, read all the filings, discuss them with others, (lose some money), you'll get a feel for what can go wrong and what potential pitfalls are. Well said. On top of that, if one of the legs of the trade is (or both are) illiquid then hedging is super annoying because you'll get a fill in one leg and you end up chasing the market in the other leg Every Single Time. Setting up and unrolling a hedge is often expensive and time consuming. You can't leave limit orders in the market in one leg without monitoring them, you have to watch out not to get a fill just before the close, etc. With a cash deal you can be much more opportunistic and/or flexible.

Well said. Also, finally some interesting things are happening in the market. Cheap stocks! Don't get distracted by X blaming Y for doing 0.25% Z, blah blah blah. It's the narrative of the week on CNBC (and here), who gives a shit. Eyes on the ball.

I don't think there's a clear-cut solution. Judge every special situation on its own merits. Some things I try to keep in mind: - IRR is not as useful when working with short time frames - what is the absolute spread? - cash deals usually less risky than stock deals - cross-border deals more risky and prone to delays - liquidations tend to take longer than expected - liquidations: how accurate are the values on the balance sheet? What effect would a small increase in liquidation costs have? Are there any relevant filings on Pacer? - I find regulatory hurdles very hard to handicap - what are possible reasons the spread seems juicy (i.e. uncertainty? something fishy? is the stock very illiquid?) - in case of acquisitions: is it a big deal for the buyer or a very small deal? Is there a termination fee? Reverse termination fee? - in case of acquisitions: is there a go-shop period? Were there other bidders? - in case of offers: is there a minimum acceptance threshold? Is the offer conditional on anything else? - what is downside protection in case something goes wrong? - what are the incentives of involved players and what are they doing? (i.e. do they own shares? Are they voting / tendering / selling) - does the corporate action make sense for everybody involved? - position sizing: how comfortable am I adding if this goes down another 10%? - how do you estimate the chances you are missing something (usually they are higher .. ) ? - is it a liquid idea or not? has it received lots of attention (aka NYRT) or is it off the beaten track? - what sector? I.e. I tend to avoid cannabis blockchain lithium companies. etc. etc. Sometimes a situation basically guarantees no loss of principal with some upside optionality: in that case 5% annualized can be great. On the other hand, if a highly leveraged Chinese company is trying to buy a nuclear power company in the US at a huge premium I'd be hesitant even if the market seems to offer 50% annualized. There's no formula for that. Read the documents, keep an open mind and think for yourself.

An Elliott portfolio company is trying to buy MITK (hostile takeover). Singer increased his bid from $10 to $11.50 today. I bought a few shares on the open today. I guess I like Singers style a bit more than most of you. But regardless what you think of him, he's offering a price higher than what shareholders have seen the past few years, the deal has synergies and consider me skeptical about the chances of a random ~$300m company resisting the Singer antics (and financial power). Yet shares were trading at a ~15% discount to the improved offer. Very tiny position, just for the heck of it.

Funny, I really liked the Kingkiller Chronicles. Different tastes I guess. Now reading the Dresden files. Bit over the top but very enjoyable, especially the later books. Old Man's War is on my to-read list. I read American Gods as well a long time ago. It was good but Gaiman is a bit too pretentious for me. If you enjoy stuff that's a bit harder to read you might like 'Seveneves'. Really enjoyed that one. My all time favorite is probably the Hyperion saga by Dan Simmons (except for the pretentious poetry parts). I hope they turn that into a great movie at some point.

Those are my preferred investments :) . Sure, there are some use cases for Monte Carlo simulation in investing, I'll give you that. Especially if you work with derivatives. However, unless you know specifically what process you want to model, why that process should be modelled specifically using Monte Carlo simulation and what parameters to use I'd say the vast majority of times you are better off doing something else. If you want to get a feel for the variance of a model why not tinker with a few key variables manually to see what happens? That way you can get a much better feel for what is happening under the hood.

Agreed. Also, if you need Monte Carlo simulation to determine whether an investment is worthwhile I'd say you should look another opportunities anyway. Keep it simple.

If we’re talking about wealth storage I don’t really care about theoretical security. I want to know how likely it is that my wealth gets stolen or lost. In that sense a bar of gold in a bank is, in my opinion, far more secure than a bitcoin on a pc or a USB stick. I agree with you on diversification. However, having 10 private keys instead of 1 is basically the same thing as having 10 pouches of diamonds instead of 1: you can store them in different places but the inherent (dis)advantages of the method stay the same. Funny to see our points of view aren’t that different. Main difference is in our estimate of the size of this niche market I guess.

Define 'enormous security'. Yes, it is computationally infeasible to steal your bitcoins. But no matter how you slice or dice it, you have to store your private key somewhere. On your computer: can be hacked / compromised or I can simply smash your pc with a hammer. On a USB stick: it drops out of your pocket and suddenly you are broke. In a safe in your house? People can steal that too .. I guess the safe thing is to engrave your private key on a bar of gold and put that in a bank safe. But at that point you are back at the beginning: trusting the bank to keep your assets safe. You might as well open a bank account at that point. I think that's something a lot of fanatics overlook. In theory the system is fantastic and super secure but in practice bitcoins get lost / stolen a lot because the weakest link is not the theoretical security of the blockchain itself .. How many bitcoins have been lost / stolen the past few years? Would you call the whole ecosystem enormously secure? On top of that there is the horrible fact that I mentioned before: IF something goes wrong, i.e. I smash your computer or you lose your USB stick, you lose your wealth permanently, with no recourse. You can't go to the judge, can't call the bank to send you a new PIN number, can't claim your money back from your insurer. Given that 99.99% of all people are absolutely clueless about computer security, are stupid and will at some point run into one of the issues described above and will then lose ALL their money I think it is, from a practical perspective, extremely unlikely that a private key on a USB stick will replace existing stores of wealth any time soon. Yes, Bitcoin has advantages so it might have some niche uses (contract killers and IT nerds love it) but for the vast majority of people it is a terrible store of wealth. Keeping a private key private is basically the same problem as keeping a pouch of diamonds private and on top of that you have the inherent problems of Bitcoin itself (i.e. power usage, lack of recourse, majority attacks, internet required, possible emergence of alternative coins, extreme historical price volatility, etc.). So, the worst of two worlds.

Bitcoin uses a shitload of energy and depends on internet access. Bitcoin doesn't have the thousands of years of history gold has had as a store of value and the underlying idea is completely generic so there will always be alternative coins / spinoffs pushed by other market participants trying to make a new 'store of value' out of thin air. And the worst thing: if you ever get robbed, suddenly die, forget your password or if your computer is compromised you can lose all your wealth without any recourse. I'm not so sure that that's an improvement.

I don't think Foreign Tuffett is a real deep value dumpster diver. He probably just rummages around a bit in the top layers of garbage, i.e. no moldy grapes, no stains in t-shirt. Can you hypothetically still be friends with him in that case? What if I accidentally throw a kitchen knife in the garbage can? Would you unfriend me if I try to get it back a day later?

:D This thread can be closed now.

Research suggests that we perceive wines to taste better if we know that they are expensive. So if you really want to enjoy wine: pay up! On a slightly more serious note: basically this. Try some wines instead of looking for 'deep value plays' right from the bat. I don't think the latter is the right mindset. Also, do some superficial research on what food pairs well with what type of wine (i.e. don't drink a Moscato with your steak). Matching wine complements good food and vice versa.

No, not at all. When I worked on the trading floor (and when I invest) I try to squeeze every trade to the last penny and I'd be super pissed off if, for example, the exchange calls me to cancel a trade because somebody entered an idiotic order. That's the game. However, I'm a bit of a lefty and from a societal perspective I think it would be better if people were somehow persuaded to not do anything stupid with their money and to have recourse if they did something stupid. I used to play a lot of poker. If you see in a live game somebody is a terrible gambling addict and is throwing away money he/she cannot miss, what is the right thing to do? Tell them to stop playing? Should the dealer or floor manager warn this person? Should the government monitor casino's and ban these people? I.e. does anybody have an obligation to do anything? Or should you basically say: "free will, free market" and ruthlessly try to take all his/her money and encourage him/her with a few kind words to go back to the ATM? Same thing in the financial market. In the case of Nate's grandmother I strongly feel that she was probably talked into a product she should never have had. I personally think the broker is a deceiving asshole charging enormous amounts of commission and I'd be happy if Nate's grandmother could claw back at least the commission. However, are there a moral / judicial grounds for that? Should there be? She probably willingly signed the prospectus and was dutifully informed there 'were risks and past results do not guarantee future results'. To me it's a very grey area and an interesting subject on which I don't have a definitive opinion. Thanks for the read, will take a look.

I never know what to think about the clients in situations like this. 1. Greedy idiots willingly invested their money with another idiot, never asked questions when they were earning 28% p.a., they deserve to lose their money. Sue them to make them pay the margin calls. 2. My grandparents were suckered into something they didn't understand by an evil person, they probably didn't even know they could be on the hook for more than they deposited .. These poor souls deserve clemency. Probably something in the middle. Can you rip off stupid people in a fair society? Should the government / somebody else protect them in some way?

I was absolutely not trying to imply that I'm an expert on the subject. It's much easier to spot faulty reasoning when others are doing it .. Anyway, some random thoughts on this: First I think you have to know a little bit about how people tend to fool themselves. For that, you can read Kahneman, Wikipedia, whatever. Or visit the casino or Yahoo Message Boards :) . Be aware of the traps many investors fall for (confirmation bias, loss aversion, hindsight bias, etc.). Unfortunately it's far more difficult to spot this behavior when you are doing it yourself. Some random things that I think are helpful (obviously not all will apply to everyone) - Most important: avoid hasty decisions. Much easier to make mistakes if you are in a hurry. Don't buy shares 5 minutes before you have to go to a birthday. Don't trade on your phone. Don't trade at work. Don't buy shares 'before they go up'. If you want buy/sell something, let ideas percolate in your head for a while. Don't trade if you are angry, scared or jealous, only trade if you are totally calm. - Write down your thoughts (i.e. an investing diary or something). It's very easy to delude yourself afterwards: "I always thought this was a no-brainer", "this thesis worked out perfectly" but if you write down your thoughts you can't fool yourself afterwards as easily. It's humbling to read all your own crap a few years later and to find out you were spectacularly wrong. Also, writing slows you down. See point above. - The above especially holds if you share your thoughts with others: i.e. discuss what you are doing in person, on this board, on your blog or per e-mail. Again, it's much easier for others to spot your faulty reasoning. - In similar fashion, it's also interesting to write down the confidence you have in your ideas. Do you think an idea is 10/10? Absolutely top notch and risk-free? Write that down and marvel about your own stupidity two years down the line. - Watch out for thesis drift. I think a lot of people fall for this. First you buy a stock because they have a great new product. Then you suddenly own it because, even though the new product was a failure, their other products are great. Then sales drop but surely the company has a great balance sheet and will never go bankrupt. And finally you will own it because it is heading to bankruptcy, but surely the assets will fetch a nice price in a liquidation. Again, write down your thesis. - It's easy to make mistakes when your thesis is vague, say: "this is a great business, I will buy it until it stops growing" or "until it is fully valued". Try to make your thesis measurable in some ways. I.e. write down: I expect sales to grow by 20% the next five years. I expect this to trade at 65% of book value. My price target is 15x earnings. Peg a 'fair value' price label to all your holdings. - People have a tremendous tendency, for example on this message board, to _defend_ their ideas when somebody is critical of them. Of course this is good, up to a point. However, you don't have to refute every criticism. Appreciate the fact that something might be wrong with your ideas. If you valiantly defend a stock for years (for example on this message board) it is very hard to change your mind. Some posters here have silently left this forum after being spectacularly wrong about a few stocks rather than admitting they were wrong. Make it easy for yourself to stay flexible. - In line with the above: try to keep a neutral attitude towards your investments. Don't think: this stock is perfect and will make me rich no matter what, think: I like this stock but there are some risks here, like so and so and so. Share your ideas with the intention that others can poke holes in them, not to convince others that you have found the best opportunity of the decade. Don't participate in giant circle jerks where everybody congratulates everybody for being a super good investors - Don't focus too much on what management is saying. It's hard to stay neutral about Berkshire if you are the biggest fanboy of Warren Buffett on the planet. Hard to form a rational opinion on Victoria's Secret if you let the shows distract you :) . In general it's hard to stay impartial if you focus too much on people. - Don't focus too much on results either, neither your own nor others'. Is your portfolio underperforming the S&P? Underperforming Bill Ackman? Is holding X up or down 5%? Who cares. Focus on your own analysis and decisions. Do your own work and if you do it well results will follow. - Ignore most financial news. Watch CNBC all day and you will eventually become just as crazy as Jim Cramer. As I said before, don't hurry things. Ignore most day-to-day financial news that makes you want to act, act, act on everything. - I think that sometimes it is severely underrated to sit (or even lie down) and think. Slow down, don't research anything, don't make any spreadsheets or forum posts but take a step back, relax and think about all the facts you have gathered, about what the key issues are of your thesis and how likely it is that you are wrong. It's very easy to get lost in the heat of the moment or to focus on the wrong things, i.e. the Valeant thread is like thousands of pages of mostly irrelevant discussion (about how effective their foot creme is or whatever) while the whole company was burning down. Make sure you see the big picture. - Maintain a skeptical attitude. If something sounds to good to be true it probably is. Most things regress to the mean. - I usually keep small positions in a diversified portfolio. Makes it far easier not to get emotionally attached to a single idea. Also means you don't get bored as easily and start doing stupid stuff. In short, slow down and write down. I agree with others that 'doubling down' is difficult and people tend to do it too early and too large (at least I do!). Usually whenever you feel the urge to add to a position it is perfectly fine to wait for a week or so. I.e. Berkshire drops 10%? Don't feel compelled to immediately start buying again.

I'll dump my garbage here as well. No sizings, no particular order and I removed most illiquid holdings. lon:argo lon:bxp epa:cdu 4624:tyo 7235:tyo 7292:tyo 7399:tyo 4295:tyo qfal:mil qfare:mil qfari:mil qfid:mil qfpol:mil qfsoc:mil hkg:3828 hkg:0635 hkg:6822 bda:ses epa:ffp cnrd lon:rma stly asfi pder pdrx rhdgf brk.b smci sigm weq radh:sto cori snmx call uwn