bennycx

I still think Wells is one of the cheaper stocks available today...

The press release says all holders receive the spunoff stock and the presentation afterwards also says so.. So I think people assume all holders including GDRs listed in London? It is only later that they announced the London ones are a later date it seems. I haven't really digged into it as the opportunity has passed

Haha ok very interesting.. I think he refers to Farmstandart OAO. Ordinary shareholders in Russia will get the spun off stock on Dec 23 and you can see a drop of ~20% in Russia and in London. However London shareholders only get the spun off stock after Mar 27 and there you see another 20% drop in the London market and not the Russian market. It looks like the 'arbitrage' period is only from Mar 14 - Mar 24 or so.. if I've not mistaken

This makes sense because if over the long term equities yield a positive return and assuming you have little knowledge about market timing then it only makes sense to be fully invested

Are there issues with work visa for international candidates?

Okay, following the advice of the board, I have decided to stay for a maximum of 3 more months unless I found a new job in between otherwise I would leave. The reason for this is: - I'm working overseas now and my rent expires in 4 months & tax free benefit is maximised at 3 months. I gain full income tax benefit and don't have to pay that much rent which is significant - I want to go home anyway so I wouldn't need to renew rent when it expires in 4 months. I do not want to be locked up in rent for another year working overseas - I would have 1 y 10 months of experience which I think may be sufficient to find a job in my home country Is this reasonable then?

I meant people at other teams in the same firm. My colleagues all had very low bonuses so part of the reason is definitely because the business is not making money. It is just that I am penalised so much worse. Also the "star" performer of the team also got very low compared to other similar ranked person in other teams. I know it sounds like I am a little arrogant.. but isn't it much better to get into an easier business now that I am young than slog it out to become like the star indispensible member of the team but still get paid very very low. Also I don't envision myself doing this for the long term. I ended up here due to certain unforeseen circumstances. The team that I was meant to join didn't have headcount from senior management so I was pushed here to do some work. I would say if I exceed all expectations then my total bonus can probably only go up to $10,000 (still lower than the average) Basically there is a rating / feedback system. I got a 3 out of 5 (60% of the firm gets 3, ¬20% gets 2, 10% gets 1 and 4, and 5's get fired) .. people who get 3 range from my bonus to $35,000. I know it is easy to attribute this to that I'm at the "lower end of the 3", but this amount is still very unjustified and if I don't change now I will be stuck in a lousy business. Are you in Microsoft? The review systems sounds like Microsoft. I worked there for nearly five years, got an insulting bonus last year, and I felt so pissed that I left in 2 months. Nope not Microsoft, but that's what I am kinda feeling right now.

I meant people at other teams in the same firm. My colleagues all had very low bonuses so part of the reason is definitely because the business is not making money. It is just that I am penalised so much worse. Also the "star" performer of the team also got very low compared to other similar ranked person in other teams. I know it sounds like I am a little arrogant.. but isn't it much better to get into an easier business now that I am young than slog it out to become like the star indispensible member of the team but still get paid very very low. Also I don't envision myself doing this for the long term. I ended up here due to certain unforeseen circumstances. The team that I was meant to join didn't have headcount from senior management so I was pushed here to do some work. I would say if I exceed all expectations then my total bonus can probably only go up to $10,000 (still lower than the average) Basically there is a rating / feedback system. I got a 3 out of 5 (60% of the firm gets 3, ¬20% gets 2, 10% gets 1 and 4, and 5's get fired) .. people who get 3 range from my bonus to $35,000. I know it is easy to attribute this to that I'm at the "lower end of the 3", but this amount is still very unjustified and if I don't change now I will be stuck in a lousy business.

Hi, I'm 1.5 years into my first job and would like some advice from older members of the board about quitting a job. What triggered this was the extremely insulting "bonus" that my boss gave ie. a measly $2000. I thought this might be an "indication" to say that I have poor performance, but even when I pressed on he still said "you've done a reasonably good job, but that's all we can afford to give you". Even if that were true, I still do not want to be stuck long term in a team that is not profitable and I feel my growth will be capped if I stayed. Btw other peers similar to me are getting an average of $15000. I suppose at the age of 25 with no obligations and debt, I'm willing to take on the risk of leaving to change job, but maybe older members of the board can give some advice. I also think that if I stick in it for too long, my skills will be too "specialised" and I won't be able to change field. So I was thinking I would give it a maximum of 2 months, after which if I do not have a back up in hand I would just leave. Would it be a good idea?

I've worked in this area before but what I mean is not that it will happen again soon It is more of when it happens it might just go to 0, and there is almost no way a ton of resources can prevent that happening. It is not really like risk management inside a bank that can cut trading losses by reducing leverage

Risk of KCG is very high, no..? One wrong code and another Knight Capital event might happen...

Anyone who has read Fortune's Formula will realise that Claude Shannon is a buy and hold investor. His Princeton-Newport partnership earned 28% compounded returns from late 1950s to 1986, mainly holding Teledyne, Motorola and HP. As a comparison, Buffett's early partnership returned 29.5% from 1957 to 1969. This begs the question whether using a net-net Grahamite approach is better even with small sums of money.. Perhaps "great companies at a fair/cheap price" is also ok.. Shannon was able to achieve such returns as a long term investor and he isn't really limited to size of the fund..

what's your thesis on CHRW? Seems like a good company but at an expensive price

Singapore !

One of the biggest problems I have is confirmation bias, as in working on an idea to confirm that I want to buy it and not to find out more about the company. To try and prevent that, whenever I have an interesting idea I would try to force myself to think that it is only an interesting idea and to think of all the potential negatives about the idea. Previously I always have the thought at the back of my head that this stock is going to be a 10 bagger etc etc, and because of that I missed out on all the potential downfalls believing that the upside more than compensates it ...

+1

Yes, this is exactly what it is like. I work at one of these large investment banks and that is being pushed onto you every single day. The other thing at least in my firm is we are being pushed to grow market share, even at the expense of margins. Just lock in the customer first.

Yeah, I am thinking since these guys all have a large portfolio of many stocks, you're essentially buying a large part of the market and it will probably beat s&p only by a slight margin.. Well, if they were bought below BV then you might get a higher return ~10%, but what if the market becomes overvalued and none of them trades at BV anymore? What would you buy then? This is much pessimistic! I have really an hard time imagining a year in which FFH might be more out of sync with the market than 2012. Well, in such a difficult environment and terrible year FFH still returned 6.5%. :) giofranchi “As time goes on I get more and more convinced that the right method in investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes. It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence. One’s knowledge and experience is definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time which I personally feel myself entitled to put full confidence.” - John Maynard Keynes

Yeah, I think it would be closer to ~8% over the long term...

This men sells his life through an IPO... http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/ipo-man/

Oh.. DSWL.. I think it has been covered briefly on the board here.. :)

Hey! Thanks guys! I'm glad to say after sitting the order for more than a week, it has finally executed when I got back on Friday.. it must be the power of the board that answered the call.. Anyway my broker charges per day as well but the reason why I did an all or nothing is most of the time I see 100 or 200 shares trading everyday and the occasional 10k shares - I don't want to pay daily transactions to pick up only couple hundred shares! I guess I had no choice but to sit my order there and wait for the occasional big lot to sell into my order...

Thanks mate! Unfortunately I'm not investing a fund and do not have the luxury of using an investment bank! For individual investors like myself going through a normal broker, would I just have succumb to the fate of the luck? :S

Hey guys! Just need some help here. I have a fairly large order (~50% daily volume) sitting for an illiquid stock for a few days now but it is not executing because I've set it to all or nothing (don't want to keep paying transaction fees getting small pieces of shares). What would be the best way to even get a bunch of shares from these companies? Do I just have to sit there and wait until someone is willing to sell me that block of shares? Cheers!

Quite weird that he says that it is better than free money. Wouldn't it be the same as free money given consistently then? It's like saying a profitable business (like coke) is better than free money......