Philip Morris IV
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Posts posted by Philip Morris IV
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I wouldn't mean to derail this thread - so if people are interested we can make a new one - but I'm a young guy and have thought meaningfully about never owning real estate (always renting/leasing). Has anyone else?
The idea is that all the homeowner expenses (esp. maintenance and replacement projects) etc. offset the equity accrual if you don't love the property and want to stay there forever.
Obviously it's a hugely personal issue, and depends on like-like costs to rent/own. But personally I like apartments, have few material possessions and like the freshness of living in different places.
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I've used KSM in the past, may look at it again. Yielding 7% and at a slight discount. What I like most about these funds is they pay monthly.
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I've heard good things about TD and Fido. How do people like Schwab?
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I thought the same about War, but you'd be surprised.
48 Laws is a good application of Machiavellian thought. If you like reading about powerful people and how they think/act, you'll like it. He's also very big on the long-term. No law or rule is a quick fix.
Another spin on his work is its usefulness in detecting and thwarting other people's attempts to deceive you.
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This is more of an overall "Robert Greene" post, as his other books are worth looking into. In order of latest to earliest:
[amazonsearch]Mastery[/amazonsearch]
[amazonsearch]The 50th Law[/amazonsearch]
[amazonsearch]33 Strategies of War[/amazonsearch]
[amazonsearch]Art of Seduction[/amazonsearch]
[amazonsearch]48 Laws of Power[/amazonsearch]
Has anyone read Greene? A primer for those unaware:
Robert Greene is like a modern mix of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. He's known for distilling social power concepts into defined laws or rules, and showing how they were clearly used by players in historical events. His chapters typically take on a formula whereby he will briefly define a concept, then tell an anecdote of a historical figure who executed that concept in practice, then interpret the story in detail for the reader. Figures range from Louis XIV to JFK to Victor Lustig (con artist who successfully sold the Eiffel Tower to a scrap metal dealer... twice) to Napoleon to Elvis Presley to Julius Caesar to Alfred Hitchcock to Charles Darwin and several others.
I made this thread because it occurred to me that The 50th Law is useful to contrarian personas and therefore the value investing business. In bits and pieces (so not biographical) it tells the dramatic rise of Curtis Jackson (50 Cent) in the context of several clever displays of entrepreneurship, business acumen and total fearlessness. The book instills certain business social dynamics that could be helpful to understanding businesses, being a fund manager, raising capital, interacting with investors and managements, etc.
All of his books are written to be practical and amoral. I initially judged 33 Strategies of War by its title, but he defines war in relation to all social relationships. It turned out to be my favorite so far.
The last thing I want to mention is Greene's masterful writing style. He is an enormously deft storyteller, and his writing ingrains a vague yet potent sense of power on the reader - almost like a drug. Personally no other author has had this effect to me. He rewrites his selected anecdotes such that you feel emotionally charged, and then his interpretation sections play into that pent up emotion.
Thought the board might find value in his work, even if it's not directly about investing.
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I think much of that has to do with the fact that generally, only the lower-quality funds accept FOF money. Like most of the industry, FOF money is fickle and short term. An excellent value manager will know this, and not wager the integrity of their fund on the high chances the FOF manager decides to redeem after a "bad" quarter.
I run a small registered investment adviser just for separate accounts, and would like to start an LP fund when my Masters is complete in a year or so. My compliance guy doesn't do funds but would update my Form ADV. Since I'm already registered, I imagine the first steps are LP setup (easy), then having a law firm draft the PPM, LPA and other offering docs, and then figuring out admin procedures, CPA audit and prime brokerage. The $20k quotes seem high - what is the breakdown there? Is most of that for the offering docs? I probably spent about $5k all-in to get the RIA up and running.
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New Haven, CT --> Honolulu, HI --> New Haven, CT
Move back was necessary but regrettable. I can't move back to Honolulu soon enough!
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Great videos.
VELT looks like a falling knife, but he is confident they'll do $40M in FCF next year. Anyone looking into it? It's down a great significantly from his price and moreso from an idea thread made earlier this year.
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I use a free Morningstar account to track. I sort them by 3 different mock "portfolios" - cheap, wide moat, and high dividend.
When I decide to track a stock, I just add 100 shares to the portfolio. You can create custom views to sort them by however you want. I don't use alerts, but check it regularly. I like to track 30-50 at a time so at least several are down, implying an opportunity to look into.
Lately everything's been up though, and it's been frustrating. There's not a margin of safety to be found.
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Happy Birthday Parsad!
Hope everyone has a great day.
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Mohegan is my backyard - interesting piece on their debt. I'm somewhat surprised it is rated that low.
I'm not a debt guy, but debt fans might keep an eye on Mohegan. At this point, CT is quite dependent on their generous slot-revenue grabs, plus the tourism/employment. Also next year, Trading Cove Associates' (the original developer) 5% gross revenue dividend finally expires, which will free up cash flow.
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This market is making less and less rational sense to me as prices continue to rise. We're still about 65% invested, but that number will continue to fall and fall if risk premiums continue to shrink. And that opinion has nothing to do with Warren Buffett or Prem Watsa, because I don't really care what either do...you have to decide for yourself if your own analysis is correct, and if you can't find many undervalued stocks, that should tell you something. Cheers!
This part resonates with me. I'm newer to this, but there's something about the availability of good opportunities that gives a vague feeling of pause vis-a-vis confidence. At the end of last summer and going into October ('12), it seemed like there were plenty of options, and my problem was picking the best out of this handful. For the past several months however, my problem has been finding options! Back in the Fall, I put many stocks on my watchlist in the hopes they would get cheaper and make for good opportunities in the future. 8 months later, they're almost all up - some dramatically. Bye-bye MoS.
Like you said, not to be bearish/bullish, but with my bargain bin dry, my gut says to sit around.
Email Account Hacked!
in General Discussion
Posted
+2 for two-step verification. I use google for home and work on my own domain, and activated 2-step after a friend of mine had his email hacked (also gmail). He is a lawyer and some of his clients got emails from "him" about viagra. :-\
Another good password app is LastPass. I've been using it for a year or two. It's free and very handy, especially considering a lot of sites now force you to make crazy passwords.