CorpRaider

Did you listen to the EQC call yet?

Chart crime!

Interesting stuff. Interesting timeframe. That's probably why the academics to multiple cuts and rolling timeframes and out of sample...etc... About a half a point of wind suckage, but a ton of that is of late looking at the $10K chart. Could look even bleaker if us market runs back to CAPE 44 (from ~33 now) or if it runs back to japan 80's 100 CAPE or whatever it was (assuming Glamour stocks lead the way). Personally, I'm long value (even weak-ass academic p/b; avoiding the glamour) versus growth for the next 20. Also, should probably update after market close tomorrow when FB is (30%).

Interesting. I think my guy was notable for "pyramiding companies" (i.e., get control of A which then gets control of B and so on) which is what Tom Evans and ultimately Buffett did back in the day (eventually triggering the SEC to kick the tires on his operation).

"indexing effects (in my thinely informed opinion) can be best understood if you imagine only two active investors exist and all others just index: every time those two agree in an above market purchase, all others will follow and bid the stock up while dumping all other stocks to normalize the weighting. This two pronged move will feed on itself until the two investors act again. Applied to the real market: companies in favour to active investors (be it because of momentum or real increase in value) will be bid up by indexing and the remaining will be sold down. Only active investors can stop this trends and will do so only after the first have risen further and the second have fallen further down." I may be misunderstanding you, but I think the index investors in your example would do nothing and the stock that was increased in price/market cap by the transaction between the active investors would have a higher relative weight simply because of the price as established by the active participants.

Good question. Interested in responses. I will say that Wattles involvement in one proxy fight with Thomas Mellon Evans (I think) was discussed in The White Sharks of Wall Street (I posted a little about it/how I found the book somewhere on my site). I Wattles role was when Evans was trying to take over the Crane Co. I will try and go look at the footnotes for that section at some point and see if there are any articles cited. I think there was some brief background discussion of Wattles. He was acting as the "white knight" for Crane management, initially, if memory serves.

That really hurt shop your way, to me. It was sketchy as fk.

The bigger point is: Amazon is getting so shady. It is really undermining my confidence in the legitimacy of things I buy on their site. I think the marketplace aspect is long term deleterious to the retailer brand and I would advise TGT and WMT not to go down that road and only sell legit shit they vetted on their sites.

Kind of highlights that he should run an electronic/kindle republication. Could donate the proceeds to charity or something if he doesn't want to be bothered.

Great!

My Kindle version of this book has updated to include the latest letter at least a couple of times too...good value, just saying. If you want the partnership letters with some good analysis, you could get that Jeremy Miller book, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules (I discussed it in the last "media curation post" on my site).

Is USB the best big(ish) bank?

Did a little update since it was ~ 90 days since I first looked at the retail REITs. Damn Brohams... I hope you all loaded UP on BRX and KIM (and KRG and CBL!!!)!

He was a first year at Cravath...but he said hourly. ;D

For any who haven't read his books, especially the Checklist Manifesto, get on it. What an incredible polymath!

BRK + AMZN + JPM hire Atul Gawande as CEO of their new combined healthcare effort! Wow, what a get! He is an amazing thinker in my estimation.

VXUS, SPDW, IVAL, FNDF

How did you get at 60% leverage? My numbers got to 23%... which explains the 2017 adjusted ROE of 10.7% (parent adds leverage but for sure assumes some general costs). Just took it from slide 19 of the deck you linked ("Credit Ratios Support our Credit Ratings") Debt/Total Capitalization column for Berkshire Hathaway Energy for 2015 - 2017. It is right at 60% for each year.

Thanks. That presentation is literally the only thing I've looked at. Weird. I think it says they earn 10-12% regulatory ROEs across the operating units and they are running @ like 60% leverage on a BH Energy basis. I am mostly interested as a potential clue to how WEB views his opportunity set.

Being lazy so ignoring me is probably doing me a favor, but what kind of un-levered returns has been the recent historical experience in BRK Energy? ~5-7%?

Hell yes. As you probably know. See, The Money Game (or any of the books about the conglomeration game of the Go-Go years).

I'm up to like 99 afternoon, I think. Munger gives beast mode explanation of opportunity cost and says "that's the name of the game around here" or something like that in one of those early years. Lots of good stuff. I can feel the BRK force flowing through me.

Afternoon session of 95 is your favorite?

Agree. If they opened an account or charged me for something I didn't authorize though, I would be so gone forever it is not even funny.

Very little, almost zero. But it is a PITA to move accounts with direct deposit and having entered all the data in online bill pay, figure out closest branches/atms around town, etc... Although, I do like my FIDO cash management account a lot for some reason.