CorpRaider

Any thoughts on Canadian real estate and likelihood of impact in US. I just wonder if there's not some potential for contagion if and when their RE bubble pops.

Re: Dealerships I noticed a large (regional?) auto dealer chain advertising a mobility solution last week. Apparently, you pay ~$1000 to $1,500 and get to select various automobiles that are delivered to you. I didn't inquire further when I saw the price, but you know on second thought it might not be that steep if you are a person with a constant auto payment, if it includes insurance licensing, service and taxes. I thought it was interesting.

What part are you guys talking about? Where his wife moved to California and allegedly kept a tennis pro lover or the stuff about her wanting to marry the guy from high school and rekindling with him out there as well; or the stuff about Mr. B and kay graham? One thing I would note that sort of detracts from her authority in my mind is that I saw a youtube video of a speech she gave some years ago, likely in connection with promoting the book. Anyhow, she was asked about the Munger - Buffett relationship and she said they are merely social friends and had been that way a long time, there was no business partnership. It is clear to me that this is totally incorrect (at least how I would define it and intellectually) based on the the Q&A sessions at the annual meeting.

Mnuchin asked for it and then Gary Cohn knee capped him like five minutes later.

Enjoyed the episode. Thanks to both of you for taking the time. Have looked at TWNK a few times and have it on my wish list for a sell off.

We should replace most of the autos in city center with electrified multi passenger vehicles. I will file a patent and call it the "trolley" system. ;D

I mean, the man has skin in the game for sure. It is like 1/3 of his reported portfolio now (BTW he's a stud just for doing that). Why can't they just like self-tender for uh...a big slug. Isn't cash king, if you decide use it?

Wow that's a lot of GM.

Yeah, saw something about that on barron's. I think he said SHLD was going downhill faster than he thought so he dumped it.

Answer this and you probably are closer to modeling the long-term impact of brexit on the UK than most. I think Elon Musk has basically answered this in the past in connection with questions about why he wanted to come to America and start his businesses.

Some guy says "the jig is up for mutual funds": http://wealthtrack.com/totally-mutual-funds-says-inside-etfs-ceo-matt-hougan-says-exodus-exchange-traded-funds-accelerating/

I think Canadian real estate is a bubble. What should I do?

Yeah, starting like 100 basis points in the hole, when you're talking about an asset class that does maybe 10% nominal is a huge disadvantage. Even if you add in 200 or 400 basis point a factor exposure, paying an additional .25% is kind of huge relative to that expected additional return and its not like there's a high water mark or anything if the factor no longer works or goes through a 20 year cycle...

Yeah, noticed a chart in (I think) a related WSJ blog post that the actives got near 50% around the crisis. Costs are the key.

BTW the royalties on these ETFs would blow your minds. I can see why Pabrai wants a piece. Yeah, no doubt. I've got a little position in WETF because of that. Also, looking at IVZ and SPGI, but IVZ doesn't own the IP for most of their indexes, but I think powershares will do really well over time.

Yeah, I thought the below video contained an interesting chart(s) showing the growth v value divergence using S&P Barra data. You have to wait until about 1:20 after he gets through bloviating about TSLA. http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000609048&play=1

IUSV also doesn't even track that index anymore (it literally changed early this year), as I have said above. But both of the relevant indexes have been around a lot longer than 2000. Mohnish Pabrai has an ETF now too (JUNE). It combines buybacks, spin-off and cloning. I think buybacks is the largest portion (PKW can get that done for you). I don't like that it selects the largest positions among several great investors (as I understand it based on his talks), the largest positions have been shown statistically to underperform. Theory is they are the most appreciated, but we will see how it performs. OP the davis funds are just the mutual funds in a better tax wrapper and with a lower .6 ER. If you don't want to do one of the vanilla funds like the vanguards or iusv, take a look a close look at the guggenheim ones. They use S&P slices and weight according to cheapness based on three metrics, have pretty cheap expense ratios and relatively long track records. They also have high exposure to the value factor if you do regressions (with either Fama French or AQR data) and you can just look at the industry weightings to see they are really weighted to cheap stuff.

Didn't I mention all of these? Just FYI IUSV has changed indexes a couple of times since inception. Recently changed to S&P 900 Value which I prefer to the old MSCI index it was tracking which basically used book value. QVAL isn't a classic value index, but yeah odds are none of these beat IUSV or VOE or VBR, etc. I do think odd are that all of those beat SPY, based on historical performance and the reasons for that performance. PRF has beat S&P and VTI inception to date, last I checked. DTD is a little under but value has underperformed. I think it has lower volatility. I pretty much buy the arguments that those are basically weak value tilts with less "tracking error," but there is something compelling in the argument that they will dynamic balance into value when the price and fundamentals diverge a lot (value factor stocks are even more relatively cheap).

Yeah, I can't read him. I've started them all and finished none. Seems like a bunch of hypothesis with obscure classical references thrown in for totally unrelated bona fides. He's like Dennis Miller without any attempt at humor.

Yeah, but there are at least two books about Keynes the investor. I have a copy, haven't cracked it yet.

Not a lot of new material for most of you guys on here. Easy read though. He basically quotes and then discusses a point in a brief narrative and then pulls together relevant quotes. I find it nice to have a bound copy of the partnership letters. Its kind of like Cunningham's compilation of the BRK letters but moderately inferior to that work as I think Cunningham bring a little more substance to the party.

I own some QVAL too. Admittedly performance has been quite shitty inception to date; getting beat by pretty much every value strategy listed above, the market, etc. Portfolio visualizer regressions also seem to indicate it has more exposure to the AQR quality factor than value as defined by either AQR or French/Fama, but its still early I suppose. I really don't like that they took down their benchmark comparison to the russell 1000 value or whatever they used to have up there before it started smoking them. Also didn't like that the pumped out an article touting performance when they had a good quarter or whatever to start.

Qualitative? I don't know, but if you search around for ETFs and you will probably find many times we've discussed tons of related ETFs. Maybe MOAT or DHVW. I think they use qualitative/analyst estimates, which are generally inferior, according to the quants. The S&P ones below have an implicit qualitative factor because the S&P committee selects them and they have a quality screen of financial viability built in. Davis funds has launched some ETF versions of their old school mutual funds (DUSA and DWLD). I'm still not 100% sold alternative weighting adds to after tax and after fee returns versus a cheap value ETF like VOE, IUSV or VBR (but those etfs would be expected to have lower "tracking error"/better performance in a momentum/growth market due to the cap weighting). RPV, RFV, PRF, PRFZ, FNDB, DVP, QVAL, RSP, DTD, SYLD are pretty much all alternatively weighted; some of them have pretty long track records at this point. Also, remember growth has SMOKED value (as defined in the S&P Barra system) since the market bottom. So maybe the worst 10 year track record and lowest expense ratio is your dream date. Those are all US centric. Foreign ones are a little harder, but not impossible, to find.

Yeah it was Heebner's fund. Hey, is there anything new in this talk? Updated performance or is he just running through the pitch for his mutual funds? I'ma watch it for sure but just trying to prioritize.

Looking at the Reckitt foods group. HAH, I wish! ;D