John Hjorth

To me, true. Thanks Spekulatius.

Old news, but worth posting in my opinion, to shed some light on the sentiment on this side of the Atlantic Ocean about particulary European banks: Financial Times [June 13th 2018]: Big banks slip into bear market territory as rates rise.

Thank you very much for the meticulous elaboration of your considerations and your explanation of the inner mechanics of the UK ISA account, Dynamic. After understanding correctly how the ISA account works [i have misunderstood that untill reading your explanation [- ISA contributions are after income tax]], your considerations make perfect sense to me.

I added a bit to BRK.B today - not much though. - - - o 0 o - - - Dynamic, congratulations on your very nice gain on AAPL. I have tried to understand your recent moves of capital between your taxable sphere and your tax deferred sphere. I simply don't understand it yet, despite I have tried to read up on the available UK schemes for you and your wife. I would really appreciate, if you would take the time - when possible, and when it fits for you - to elaborate a bit on your line of thinking on this move of capital you have done. It could be in a separate topic in the Personal Finance forum. I'm just curious here, and eager to learn some more from you about it. Personally, during the years, I have spent enormous amounts of time on thinking about taxes related to investing, and I think reading such a post from you could be inspirational, at least for me, and perhaps also for other board members.

I think you guys are overconfident. BRK has fallen 50% top to bottom 2 or 3 times in its history. It can happen again. And if Warren was dead, there's no guarantee it would recover from 50% drop. ::) I'd be more concerned if Ajit died. We could try to tinker, calculate & speculate away in the Berkshire forum about what would happen to Berkshire book value if the market in general tanked 50 percent from here.

Thanks for the update, longinvestor. Yes, somehow as boring as sitting at a put & take, where all the prior visitors have caught all the fish - perhaps leaving one huge potential catch to get, which species we have yet to find out!

You read them all? Almost. CoBF is my most valuable "paper" every day.

Pretty amazing to now read 10,000+ posts in this topic.

Federal Reserve issues FOMC Statement [June 13th 2018]. .

He's not only capricious, Richard. He has - at least to me - demonstrated as a fact by now, within the last day and night, or so, that he is also impulsive, and to some extent bordering to being choleric. A highroller & gambler, who's capricious, impulsive and bordering choleric, using a lot of leverage. The leverage of the office [the office, which he does not in any way own], combined with the skin in the game of all others. It feels unpleasant.

Posted by Cigarbutt in the topic about Joel's Essay on the Big Four US Banks, posting it here, not to derail Joel's topic about the Essay: I'm just trying here to answer your question short, hopefully without derailing the topic from its scope [Joel's essay on the Big Four U.S. banks] too much: Financial illiteracy and stupidity is still doing very well in general here, as it has always done, through every cycle. This time, the long term memory from "last time" somehow seems more intact than before, generating a new kind of stupidity: About DKK 800 B in the Danish banks pulling absolutely nothing, getting eaten up by Danish inflation at about 2 percent. The Danish banks got fixed during the GFC basically US style - I don't have count on the neck shots - they were many. Add to that a good deal of home bias for those, that invest, I think. To me, we have a huge problem here with equal treatment of genders in our banks. [May 2018 has been the warmest May month ever recorded here in Denmark - it does not seem to come to an end.] I have noticed that the majority of Danish male bankers use shoes from Lloyd, still in the heat, basically making them thread waters in the heat, inside their shoes. Shoes from Lloyd are fairly good, but bricks compared to some high quality stuff from an Italian shoemaker [i.e. Moreschi], who know how get get it right and comfortable for warm climate. So I end up thinking this guy I'm talking with is an economic idiot too [without knowing the exact reason why, be it mortgage on a too large house, perhaps a too large car [or two], too many kids, or a wife with a shopping gene, or whatever.] Female bankers, however are here in Denmark allowed a dress code, that includes so called "open shoes" and even sandals.To me, it's an unfair internal competitive advantage during heat & drought. They [the women] get the opportunity to steal with their toes too during bank opening hours. It's simply not fair. Banking is basically theft at full daylight. It has always been. It's set into a system - now for several centuries - with oversight, regulation and such - now, to the extent, that seems absurd. I just happen to hate banks. I suppose that's also why I have invested in some of them.

Just posting some anecdotal stuff here related to these four banks, from a Scandinavian angle and perspective. I'm using Nordnet Bank AB, Danish branch - a beehive for Scandinavian DYI investors [sweden, Denmark Finland & Norway]. The bank runs an investment board for its customers, called Shareville. Total NN active customers E2018Q1 : 698,500. Total accounts NN E2018Q1 : 923,300. Total accounts at NN connected to Shareville today: 193,474. Total accounts today holding BAC : 187. Total accounts today holding C : 110. Total accounts today holding JPM : 130. Total accounts today holding WFC : 469. - - - o 0 o - - - These four banks are overlooked in Scandinavia.

To me, it's a wonderful write-up on the four large US banks, Joel, Thank you very much for sharing that, too! Somehow this essay is materially different to you former essays, so far. It is not as theoretical as your former essays, more practical oriented, and in a very compressed form [to me, not too compressed though] stating your stance on these banks. Like you, I also like the proposition the market is giving us right now on these investments, considering the risks involved. To me, we get paid pretty dearly right now for assuming the risks involved. To me personally, the most important thing, that you are mentioning in the essay is actually to try to understand the strengths right now of these four banks, where they are right now individually. Their true earnings power has been burried & disguised for so many years in all kinds of legacy issues, regulation and I don't even know what. I had to reread Mr. Dimons 2017 Shareholder Letter today to refresh it. It's well described there. Looked at as a whole, they now posses an earnings power and thereto related abibilty to generate cash to the shareholders hovering almost in the USD 100 B area. That's actually a lot, compared to their market capitalization. Reported pre tax earnings [also before preferred dividends and minority interests] for 2017 are USD 115.147 B for them as a whole. To phrase it another way: They now almost generate as much cash in one year that Berkshire holds on its balance sheet right now. And then I start thinking about all the institutional capital there is allocated to these banks, after which I start to think about what those people managing this capital may actually be thinking right now about these banks, and then I get really confused!

I'm copying and quoting Spekulatius from the BAC topic here, because it's absolutely worth it, to me. I coulden't in any way phrase it better myself, with regard to the nuances in investing in European banks:

The Investor, [Me whispering here]: If this does not satisfy your hunger, please look up Austin Value Capital on Twitter. I guarantee, that you'll leave the buffet with a full stomach! [ ; - D ]

+1 I liked the part about the irony of 40,000 contrarians at Berkshire AGM :D karthikpm, Being contrarian + independently thinking + having a God [creating urge to go to OMekka each year to hear the God] = Berkaholism. [ ; - ) ] Mr. Housel's tweets are in general very good, too, containing lots of one liners and good humor.

Link. To me, a fairly quick [25 pages] read & piece. I like Mr. Housel's writing style and thinking. I have never read anything by him before. [pdf-file available for download on the page.]

At least partly related to this topic: Financial Times : UniCredit seeks merger with SocGen. Personally, I have never looked at any of those two banks. Just posting it to share. It's actually the first time I have read that material bank consolidation cross border in Europe has been under consideration recently. Barclays - ref. the content of this topic so far - is also mentioned in the article.

Somehow, the discussion in the BAC topic recently made me google "Bank Investing 101" today. I came up with this: The Motley Fool: John A. Howard [February 23rd 2007: Bank Investing 101 - Tips for the novice bank investor. I admit, that the section headline in the article a bit down : "Earnings growth: your "get out of jail free" card" caught my attention. - - - o 0 o - - - Then, a bit later today, I found a much more efficient explanation, that will explain it all - only by the use of a fraction of your time: The gif in this tweet. In short: 1. You buy, 2. You find out, that you've got it [perhaps totally] wrong [i sure hope not], 3. Then you start sliding, like on black ice, desperately fighting to keep your legs beneath you, 4. Finally, and eventually, your legs disappear beneath you, and you end up sitting on your genitales. The sliding just continues downhill, and the only thing you end up thinking about is how rough is the terrain your're entering on your downhill slide. - - - o 0 o - - - gifs don't contain sound, but just think of it like "Ouch - ouch - ouch!". - - - o 0 o - - - The face expression of this poor dog in the end of the gif is like mine just after the surprise directed capital raise in SAN in the autumn 2014, diluting a lot of investors, who did not get the opportunity to participate.

Thanks gents!, At some - by now - unspecified time in future, I hope to understand your posts!

I ordered this book today. As always, I'm looking forward to the read, based on comments here on CoBF. [scott mentioned it recently to me in a book discussion topic.] Pure FOGDOUB. [<- Fear Of Going Down On Unread Books!]

I ordered this book today. [On saxo.com.] As always, based on comments about books here on CoBF, I'm looking forward to the read.

Based on these comments from Vinod and Jurgis in the topic about the book "Value Averaging" [topic: here]: Partially OT: I just looked at Kindle excerpt of "The Four Pillars of Investing". The author in chapter 1 makes the same point about survival bias and hindsight bias that I made about Buffett's claim this year that it was "obvious" to everyone that US will win the WWII and therefore investing in US markets in 1942 was a gimme. Author has some good examples. 8) Even if one thinks that this lesson does not apply to US now, it might be a good one to keep in mind when proclaiming bright future for countries X, Y, Z and terrible future for countries W, T, U. These are not as knowable as they seem in hindsight. I [also] received this book from saxo.com today. I'll elaborate later in this topic about the book, when it's a in progress read for me.

I received the book from saxo.com today this morning. - - - o 0 o - - - It's just not time for concentrated reading now during day hours. I'm using time on my roses and dividing hostas. May 2018 has set record ever here in Denmark [since measurements started] with regard to hours with sunshine!

WSJ [May 31st 2018]: Google Emerges as Early Winner From Europe's New Data Privacy Law. You can read the full article by accessing it via this tweet.