netnet
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Steven Pinker, a renowned Harvard professor of psychology and public intellectual, is teaching a course on rationality at Harvard this year.
The lectures are online, as is the syllabus. https://stevenpinker.com/classes/rationality-gened-1066
He is about 2 weeks into the course. I do not know whether or not the lectures will be available after the course is over. (But his past courses do not have links to the lectures.)
It is great. honestly, even for topics where I have a background, I still learned something new, e.g. Bayes vs the replicability crisis in social science research.
- lectures:https://harvard.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=%2255a37adc-eaae-4aa6-8a06-ab25015a4ee8%22
- syllabus: https://stevenpinker.com/classes/rationality-gened-1066/materials/rationality-gened-1066-syllabus
- lectures:https://harvard.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=%2255a37adc-eaae-4aa6-8a06-ab25015a4ee8%22
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A friend approached me about investing in mobile homes.
I had never looked at that asset class and my initial ick reaction, made me think that it may be less picked over than other RE. In a quick search on the internet it looks as if there is some inefficiency possibly due to the ick factor and less lending activity.
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Also, this video, which is also available on a podcast, with Rhonda Patrick. It does geek out, BTW.
https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/david-sinclair
She, Patrick, does have a written summary on this page, farther down on the page.
Also, if you want clips on some of the subjects discussed in the 1 hour plus video, go here:
https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes and click on the clips button, halfway down the page on the right.
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So we have a renowned professor, writing on his area of expertise vs random internet dude. hmm. I only spot checked one thing, Guzey got it wrong and that was all I needed.
Now I was admittedly predisposed not to agree with Guzey, but I also should not have been able to find an error/inconsistency however minor in 5 minute review. so....
(Note: this is a continent away from my circle of competence, so you can judge that as well.)
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The answer, I believe, turns on three issues:
- everyone is not Buffett or Munger, so diversification will get you average returns.
- The deeper issue is that asking an analyst for his or her best idea is a forcing function on something that should not be forced, your need to wait for an outstanding idea to surface. Buffett's best idea at the top of the market ('68) was to get out of the market!
- in all probability, the investment firm graded the trade on a yearly basis and ideas often take more than a year to work out
- everyone is not Buffett or Munger, so diversification will get you average returns.
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We sometimes invest in this space.
there is a whole community of so-called ETA folks-Entrepreneurship through Acquisition. There a a number of lenders in the US, and I suspect there are a number in Canada as well.
There was a conference at Harvard Business School last month that would have been interesting. I think there is one at U of Chicago.
There is a small but very supportive community active in the space.
DM me
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Here is Mauboussin's syllabus for his current course at Columbia.
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This is a study of Canadian family run companies, the article is from the Globe and Mail.
Canada’s family firms continue to outperform widely held corporation, this is not new news, see Horizon Kinetics reports for example.
If you have a Globe and Mail subsciption here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadas-family-controlled-companies-continue-to-outperform-widely/?mc_cid=a4a34f3376&mc_eid=6416013c09
If not, use outline.com here: https://outline.com/tUzquf
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
CoBF? ;D 8)
Barely under 50 if you don't count shipping, Charlie's Almanack
or
Yoga mat
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At the end of the day, the intrinsic value of a business is all the cash flows it will ever produce discounted back to the present. So sure, this has happened. But you have to figure out the metrics that matter and that will be dependant on the company, industry, and potentially given set of circumstances. For instance - to be extreme, you're not going to value Amazon or Google using a Price/Book ratio.
And to continue along this analytical line, look at Amazon in the early days, (with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that all the available cash was going into growth) and for years many(including some on this board) claimed it was living on borrowed time, something approaching a fraud even!! It was like Tesla, without the ardent fan base.
So remember the rule of tools: if you can not think of three misuses of the tool, in this case valuation tools, you don't understand it. So really, your circle of competence, should enable you to know what is the right tool, i.e. valuation metric for the company/industry involved.
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Richard Nisbett, who wrote the book, has a MOOC on Coursera based on some of the topics in this book.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindware/home/welcome
(Amusing factoid, despite the nonsense of our current politics, the reality is that measured IQ has increased by >20 points over the decades!)
Enjoy.
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Wrote BRKB 187.5-strike July 6 expiration puts for $1.05 per share to replace those expiring today.
Wrote a bunch of USB 50-strike July 13 expiration puts for $0.55 per share to replace those expiring today.
Wrote some WFC 55-strike July 13 expiration puts for $0.65 per share. Again to replace some expiring today.
Looking at an old thread, writing short term puts with BRK below 1.4 BV seems to be a continuing strategy for you, no? Looks as if that gets you either BRK on the cheap or a ~18% return on marginable portfolio. (Nice)
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There is no estate tax in Canada. But yes, property taxes are a form of capital taxes. Also not until long ago we had corporate capital taxes. So I don't think there's really a rubicon there to be crossed.
More properly, estate tax the capital gains due on death.
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two more words:
estate taxes
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Interesting article on bubbles.
https://www.researchaffiliates.com/en_us/publications/articles/668-yes-its-a-bubble-so-what.html
It has a little history of the Zimbabwe currency hyper inflation and the gyrations of its stock market. This is a very interesting article. But I suspect that wiser heads, such as Munger would say that the trying to predict macro events is a fools game. Buffett in '68 said something to the effect, I don't make predictions, but when people are crazy, I do notices. Munger suggests looking at specific stocks/companies. That said this article does provide a framework for this.
Note there is a a skewering of Tesla thrown in:
Over the first quarter of 2018, Tesla has been an excellent example of a micro-bubble. Tesla’s current price is arguably fair if most cars are powered by electricity in 10 years, if most of these cars are made by Tesla, if Tesla can make those cars with sufficient margin and quality control and can service the cars properly, and if Tesla can raise additional capital sufficient to cover a $3 billion annual cash drain and another billion to service its debt. To us, that seems an unduly optimistic array of assumptions, especially given the magnitude of Tesla’s debt burden. Such an argument ignores the deep pockets of competitors and the common phenomenon of disruptors being themselves disrupted by newcomers. Absent the unfolding of this rosy scenario, Tesla’s current price would require remarkably aggressive assumptions to deliver a positive risk premium. For investors who agree with this assessment, Tesla constitutes a single-stock micro-bubble.I'm putting this in although I know it will derail the larger arguments of the article.
Edit, hyperlink added
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A (very) small private company in which I am an investor, needs to figure out their Facebook ad strategy.
Can anyone point me to a marketing plan/whitepaper that incorporates Facebook, e.g. how to do run targeted ads in Facebook. As opposed to all the Social Media Marketing 101, build good content, how to write a blog, etc. I'm looking for Social Media Marketing 201, using Facebook effectively!)
Thanks,
Here's the best guide I have found so far:
https://www.shopify.com/guides/facebook-advertising
That was excellent, thanks!
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My first reaction was shock.
My second reaction was, well in some of these late stage investors were guaranteed that the IPO price would be above their price, so if you put into a convert debt deal, it could become interesting.
Must be nice have 100 billion burning a hole in your pocket.
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A (very) small private company in which I am an investor, needs to figure out their Facebook ad strategy.
Can anyone point me to a marketing plan/whitepaper that incorporates Facebook, e.g. how to do run targeted ads in Facebook. As opposed to all the Social Media Marketing 101, build good content, how to write a blog, etc. I'm looking for Social Media Marketing 201, using Facebook effectively!)
Thanks,
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Anyone wish to opine on Tilson's analysis?
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Excellent, Thanks all. I have most of my summer reading lined up! 8)
(Note: Feynman's two volumes of lectures, as well as the Intelligent Investor were sitting in the bookcase in my dad's study; sadly at 16, I 'read' Playboy and invested in penny stocks instead. :-[ )
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What are the best books by and about Richard Feynman? I plan to read up on him this summer.
Thanks!
By the way I recently saw his 2 minute video on how rubberbands work, such genius at explanation as well as child-like enthusiasm! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRxAn2DRzg
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Hmmm.... To read this article you would think Berkshire didn't pay much to the tax man?!
I'm not a low tax libertarian type, and even I think that article was a bunch of whooey and if you go back and look at the references, it's even worse.
Basically, the articles it is based on say that by buying companies, those (now) subsidiaries' dividend is not taxable ??? it also confuses the deferred taxes on long held investments as taxes 'owed'.
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Harvard Business Review has an article comparing Musk and Buffett on moats and competitive advantage. https://hbr.org/2018/05/a-40-year-debate-over-corporate-strategy-gets-revived-by-elon-musk-and-warren-buffett McGrath's work is cited.
Personally, I think that Musk, though brilliant, is wrong and that the HBR article also is wrong
- in positing that Buffett does not realize the transitory nature of moats. He's admonition to his CEO has been keep widening the moat. And per McGrath's view, of course culture is important BRK is evidence of that.
- Musk and Buffett are apples and fruit, i.e. Musk's view on moats is a subset of Buffett's
- in positing that Buffett does not realize the transitory nature of moats. He's admonition to his CEO has been keep widening the moat. And per McGrath's view, of course culture is important BRK is evidence of that.
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In no particular order:
Poor Charlie's Almanack every year
Buffett's letters--Partnership and BRK
Cialdini, Persuasion
5 Elements of Effective Thinking
Bevelin, Seeking Wisdom
Peter Drucker's big three--Innovation, Managing for Results, and the Effective Executive
I try to see a live Shakespeare play at least once per year, but read it beforehand.
Not to be that kind of person, who quotes himself ;) ....but I generally reread Poor Charlie's Almanack before the annual BRK meeting but, gulp didn't this year. Ok it's time to throw everything off the night stand and get cracking.
Mobile Homes
in General Discussion
Posted
My friend wants to buy a park. I am thinking I would rather buy some (one?) mobile home, rehab and rent or rent to sell just to see how it works. I also wanted to try it before I suggested it to some enterprising younger relatives.