LC

To truly answer the question, we can likely deduce the average value investor is not an Uber driver but rather a white collar worker who earns a reasonable amount more than the Uber/lyft driver. Therefor, the answer is Lexus and Acura’s. Toyota still hasn’t fixed the automatic acceleration problem, and even in 2019 there were cases when the driver pressed the brake and the car accelerated out of control. Toyota==Russian Rullette. Damn I was not aware. Good advice would be make sure to check the recalls for your VINs and even not the full recalls but also the service bulletins. Also check some car owner forums. My 2013 CRV hasn’t given any problems (knock on wood), bought it 3 years used with 20k miles. So there some anecdotal data if at all helpful.

Toyota or Honda. Look at what the Uber/lyft drivers use.

Not at all. If you find attractive 'lottery ticket' stocks or options and make some very basic assumptions about them the Kelly criterion will show you that you should keep your position sizes small, completely the opposite of what you are saying. The Kelly criterion also shows you that, in terms of position sizing, it is very important to look at downside protection if you are wrong, rather than solely looking at the upside if you are right. Something that a lot of investors tend to overlook. In general, I think the Kelly criterion can be a useful tool to challenge your own position sizing in certain scenarios. I think that that is a useful exercise every now and then, to avoid getting too attached to your own preconceived notions about sizing. The alternative is solely relying on gut feeling and experience. I should have been more clear: "Best" being defined as a scenario with (1) a higher probability of winning and (2) a higher payoff ratio. A lottery ticket has (2) but not (1). An investment with both of those characteristics (i.e. maximum expected value) should be the higher priority. It is very useful to break out investment opportunities into these 2 factors and do your best to think about them objectively. "What is the chance I am right or wrong here?" "If I am right, how much am I going to make?" In which case it’s really no more insightful than anecdotes like “buy low and sell high”. Giving greater weight to your highest conviction ideas is really just common sense. But it’s also again, subjective. Buffett, Icahn, and Tepper all have different top ideas. Some will do better than others. When all else fails, look at your results. Yes it is common sense and all Kelly did (really Bernoulli before him) was quantify it where you can explicitly define the odds. As you correctly mention it is subjective in other areas outside of a casino because in these areas we cannot discretely identify the odds. You can make assumptions to help (i.e. measure various historical volatilities to define both p and odds) but now you are transferring the subjectivity not to the odds themselves but how you are measuring the historical odds. This is what cherzeca alludes to above or more accurately is essentially a barrier option. Pricing barrier options is how the financial industry has attempted to re-define and price these scenarios using different probability distributions/density functions. Slightly more accurate but still subjective: E.g. if we are both taking a side on a 1-month vanilla and I am using historical monthly local vol and you are bootstrapping using weekly or daily or even hourly, well then we will be on different sides of the trade all else equal.

In the world of investing, all the Kelly criterion tells you is that to maximize your expected wealth, you should concentrate in your best ideas. That is the only lesson. In scenarios with finite solutions it can tell you how much you should concentrate, but these scenarios are rare outside of casinos and can be largely ignored for our case.

Not sure I would agree but perhaps a step down memory lane could be useful: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2013/02/27/what-is-the-difference-between-investing-and-speculation-2/ I think I'd agree with the above. Occasionally the horse races may present a great opportunity but by-and-large the house is the winner.

Great decision buying AMD. It continues to surprise me how some (only a few) companies can re-invent themselves. My son (who is in grade 12) alerted me about 2 years ago to what was going on at AMD; he and his buddies are into technology and he explained to me that AMD was a company on the rise. Alas, i was too busy thumb sucking to do anything about it. I use it as an example with him to how small investors can do well if they do what Peter Lynch advises: take advantage of what you see in your circle of competence. I would argue you are not totally in the wrong here. AMD has over multiple times threatened to seriously compete with Intel in the chip space. 75% of the time they fall flat on their face. I think unless you are a chipset or cpu engineer and you have specific knowledge, or they are trading at silly valuations... then it's a bit of a crapshoot.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Just got thru the series finale of Mr Robot. God damn, that is a highly recommended show.

I'll tell ya Scott (or Liz) is an interesting character, wish she stuck around here...and I disagree with her on about half of those points (particularly on the reflexivity and related topics) but one thing I will take a recommendation from her on is aspects of copy-writing, advertising, etc. And in general I'd say most of us are only really able to speak on one or two topics to the point we should be advising others, and it's usually what we do for our day jobs. ;D

https://thespoon.tech/uber-eats-is-doing-ghost-kitchens-heres-how-that-could-change-food-delivery/

WACC includes debt financing costs.

https://www.restaurantowner.com/public/Restaurant-Rules-of-Thumb-Industry-Averages-Standards.cfm Grain of salt...my guess is NYC SF will most likely have a different rent structure than Kansas, but I am no expert.

Saying the same thing in another way: If you have a billion dollars, better to invest only $100MM and earn 10 percent, then take the other $900MM and go buy some islands. Rather than invest the entire for 1% and have zero islands :( I vote islands.

https://www.zillow.com/research/silver-tsunami-inventory-boomers-24933/ Some research on housing supply release over the coming years.

Thanks Greg. I am starting to do something similar but for vacation properties, not even looking for capital appreciation. Would be nice to have 3 places to live for 4 months of the year, then rent/airBNB for the remainder. Difficult is managing from afar if something goes wrong. I am willing to give up a % to a property manager so that will have to be the way to go, but I'm not sure how effective they really are for single family residences.

Greg, are these properties in the same area that you live? If not, how do you manage landlord-related duties (fixing or replacing something etc.)?

aside from an intrinsic "moat", characteristics would be: low capital requirements, addictive or necessary product, ability to scale. historically what has been good: the vices, gambling and drugs in particular although it's easy money so people will always want a cut. "expertise" services: particularly protected ones like doctor/nursing centers, dentists, specialists. look at places where a number of people get moderately rich. the uber-filthy rich are monopolists, in essence. difficult to disrupt, many factors outside of your control. the moderate rich provide services/businesses that are more achievable.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/29/investing/nyse-direct-listings-spotify-slack/index.html Perhaps another factor influencing high equity prices: less publicly traded companies

I didn't notice a Happy Thanksgiving thread, so here's my happy "post-Thanksgiving" wishes (no reason we can't be grateful on other days :) ). From below the Canada-US border, thanks to Sanjeev for managing this forum and everyone who contributes, both silently and loudly!

https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-ratio This used S&P reported earnings Currently at 23x earnings which is relatively high but with low interest rates and low tax rates may be justified.

Why not just use P/E which does conform to GAAP?

Check out the Gates Foundation 13Fs. Thoughts on RSG vs WM? RSG seems like slight better operators but WM has more scale.

https://macro-ops.com/the-greatest-value-investor-youve-never-heard/ “We can have no finer role model. First and foremost, he was a value investor — a member of that eccentric tribe that believes it’s better to underpay than to overpay.” Those words by James Grant were in reference to one of the greatest value investors the world has ever seen. It’s not who you think it is. And no, you couldn’t guess him given fifty chances. This investor remains off the beaten path, absent from many investors’ Mt. Rushmore of allocators.

Aren't most of the S&P 500 going to be around? I bet that 50% of them will still be in the index. On average, there is a 4.4% change to the index each year according to this article https://www.businessinsider.com/sp-500-index-constituent-turnover-2015-6 Yes but that cuts your universe down 50%. And over 20 years it cuts it down almost 100%. You can simplify the question and ask, "what companies will be around in 20 years" and not even worry about growth - the rest simply won't exist.

You're asking a difficult question. Start by narrowing it down: What companies will be around in 10 years? Then figure out which markets have room to grow for 10 years. Forget the 15% number, if you can get those 2 points correct, the rest will take care of itself.