Spekulatius

Most of the contributors have their own micro website/ communities, which cost extra. SA gets a cut from them. I am not saying that it doesn’t make sense to pay $20/ month, but I don’t think it’s a great value given that the quality of the freeware commentators is far below what you can find on other message board, including here.

FNMAS is hard to handicap, as it is basically a political bet. It could be anything from a zero to a 3 bagger. It appeals to a certain type of investors but not others.

Can't say I understand the RH purchase. CEO touting a new business model with magical 50+% ROIC for a furniture retailer, while borrowing heavily to repurchase shares and battling short sellers. I guess that RH is a Weschler or Combs purchase, based on the size. One thing to consider is that the Berkshire folks should know a thing or two about furniture retail, since BRK owns a few furniture retailer (Nebraska furniture Mart, Jordan etc). So I am guessing Weschler/Combs and Buffet know the lay of the land in furniture retailing fairly well.

WFCF (food / meat certification business), which finally showed some decent earnings and better operating metrics. I was following the stock for quite some time and liked the business, but wasn’t comfortable with valuation and execution until after the recent earnings report, which showed some promise. DD (bought back some shares again).

Added some MEGACPO.MX as it mysteriously went down ~4% intraday. Another recent buy is HDG.AS ( leading manufacturer of blinds/ window coverings) , a Geoff Gannon / Focusedcompounding Puck.

FWIW, as far as telecom/broadband/video is concerned I think the US/CA and to some extend Mexico is the exception from the rule, while Europe is the norm. In Europe for example telecom and TV was run by state owned monopolies, which even when privatized did not allow for escalating prices like in the US. TV for example was free in Europe, even satellite TV, it was solely ad supported. Once you start there, it becomes pretty hard to charge the equivalent of $100/month for it.

CCU is the one from the list that I am familiar with. They have been struggling due to issues in Argentine, before the hell broke lose in Chile. Chile has been trading at a premium compared to the rest of the continent for a long time and that premium may not be justified any more. I think the assumption that this unrest may just blow over is unjustified.

It’s interesting that this ETF is near the 2009 low, yet nothing looks really cheap. I looked at BCH and it trades at around 11x earnings and a 2x P/B. I think I‘d rather buy WFC. If I were a millennial, I would say “meh”.

If it could be Russian Roulette - where is the bullet? A few degrees warmer is going to kill us all? It’s not going to kill us all, but it can kill a lot of people directly and indirectly. Not to worry, most of us will be long dead before the consequences set in.

It’s interesting to think about who you are up against, if you try short term or daytrading.

Here is an excerpt from an interesting article from Taleb: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1193545813785530370?s=21 I like the way he thinks about risk generally.

I like Quickfs.net. I heard about it on focusedcompoundings podcast (Jeff Gannon, Andrew Kuhn) It works extremely well for getting Snapshot at the 10 year financials. I peruse the free version. https://quickfs.net/company/BRK.B:US

I am surprised that WEB isn’t more interested in pipelines, since the FERC regulation is often more favorable than utility regulation. He did indeed buy some pipeline assets in 2001 or so post the IPP crash from Williams and I believe one from Dynegy (which bought it from Enron shortly before and then they got into trouble themselves). I believe he laid around 8x EBITDA for utility like assets, which was cheap. Now we have pretty decent pipeline companies valued at 10x EBITDA (maybe a bit less even) when interest rates are much much lower. Might be a time for them to at least start looking.

I guess the music stopped at some point.

My son plays piano. He actually plays on a Roland F-120 digital piano. It worked well for us since we moved 2 times (first time from the west coast to the East coast). I chose it, because it was had the most piano like action I could find on a digital piano for the low cost. He also plays Sax (Alto sax) for a coupe of years and plays at the schools Jazz band. He got the hang of it quite good (played at an open Mike night at school) and recently hit us up for a better Sax. He has a Yamaha Yas23 , which we bought used when hr started and now seems ready for a better instrument

Russia is 30% for non residents and 13% for residents, so it depends on how long your stay. https://www.expatica.com/ru/finance/taxes/a-complete-guide-to-taxes-in-russia-104125/ If you are US citizen it doesn’t matter since you need to pay US taxes on foreign income anyways, which is unique in the world. The German tax authorities don’t give a hoot about income earned in foreign countries if you live there regardless of your citizenship status.

These guys are slimy. Every fight with the regulator tends to be a lost one. Good riddance.

I am pretty sure that fraud is pretty low on the totem pole of priories for startups in the land grabbing phase like Airbnb. I am sure they can solve it, but this is probably reserved for later. For credit cards, I found Chase and Amex to be very good at fraud detection. In two cases, my wife’s Chase card was apparently skimmed and used for a small test charge (~$1), which they immediately detected as a fraud, despite the fact that it was done in relative proximity to our home location. Same with Amex in one incidence.

This move of yours makes great sense to me personally, Cardboard, It seems like Mr. Market has moved into a state of mania, since the beginning of October. We'll likely just get less returns on our long positions going forward. I have right now a feeling of Deja Vu comparable to what happened mid April 2015. It was basically all downhill from there until the early part of February 2016, October 2015 being quite brutal at some point. - - - o 0 o - - - Unfortunately, I personally can't do something like that, for legal and tax reasons. It’s a slow melt up and could go on for a while. I bought a few puts a while ago, which will expire worthless. I think early next year may be a good time to hedge the portfolio again. FWIW, I bought a bit of CTVA finally, as I finally got my price.

Any UK Lawyer that wants to relocate to Russia to save taxes probably deserves to be in jail. Seriously Russia? You would think they go to Luxembourg first. Why is that? Its not just the big law firms, its the consulting and larger accounting(especially Big 4) as well. First, Luxembourg isn't a huge hub for most of these firms; they may have an office there, but typically(unless its a Mossac Fonseca type firm) they only have a few employees and one moderate sized office there. Whereas any firm of size who has a London office also probably have at least one, usually more though, locations in Russia, Hong Kong, Dubai, etc. So whereas the entire firm may have a presence of one office and 6 employees in Luxembourg, they've got 4 offices with two dozen people in each in places like Russia. So if you're a junior partner or senior associate, going from $200 GBP a year plus bonus, to equity partner making $200K a month with a $1M+ quarterly partnership distribution... you're really going to stick around in London paying 55-60%, or request to go to an underserved location(where the firm is trying to build out their book of business), get paid to relocate, and pay 11% taxes? St. Pete for instance, if you like London, is pretty awesome. Russia is a little like the Wild West, but its crazy how badly people misrepresent it. I missunderstood your post. I thought it was about a wealthy lawyer considering to relocate to Russia, which makes no sense. In case you got a job assignment, it’s like everything else with a $1M + in income, you can live pretty well in Russia, but you won’t do too shabby in London either. FWIW, the top marginal tax rate in the UK is 45% not 55-60% as you stated, vs Russia 30%.

Any UK Lawyer that wants to relocate to Russia to save taxes probably deserves to be in jail. Seriously Russia? You would think they go to Luxembourg first.

It’s similar in Germany, corporate taxes aren’t much higher there than in the US. Also, health care isn’t free either, it’s paid for in taxes, which is a capped tax of 15.5%, 8.2% paid by the insured and 7.3% is paid by the employer. It’s not free by any means.

I agree with respect to Europe. It would certainly be helpful to actually have lived and worked or at least travelled there before coming to a conclusion. The mean (statistically) Joe in Germany is better of than the mean Joe in the US, that’s for sure. The averages are heavily tilted by the top 5% and those are better of in the US, than Germany or France, I give you that.