gary17

Thanks Dazel I think market is very rich now But pcln and Msft, appl , csu all survived the last cycle. And have done better in the last 10 years than Ffh. I only have a few decades in my life. I like to think myself less as a stockinvestor and more as a part owner in a business... Oh well Different view points I hope the best minds in the world will make the world a stronger place. Gary

I know about IRE - I bought I also did buy Eurobank but got out early I also did buy BB - one of my largest holdings at one time. I admire FairFax and have bought some shares; but I just don't like to frame an investment thesis on macroeconomics. I like to focus on the underlying business: have a more positive view of the world - what can we all do to make the economy better, get people working, and have a better quality of life. I don't like negativities and very concentrated contrarian bets that read interesting as headlines but not sure what to make of them... my 2 cents.

Dazel why not look at good businesses like Apple, constellation software, priceline, etc the whole macro thing is just got too many unknowns and i'm not understanding why it make sense to make money the most 'challenging way'.... I am still not sure why FFH got out of WFC and went to Eurobank... what a mess it has been LOL Gary

I'm interested to hear what others think about some of my watchlist. Some of these I barely "passed" on: OTCM MSON PFHO PLOW PSSR MKRS DHIL OPRX ANFC (low-cost O&G producer) ELMD I don't hold any of these (only interested in top 2 at this point, though they are considerably more expensive than I'd be willing to pay). All have "moats" or potential moats, though I doubt any of them have real pricing power (PSSR and MKRS should, but never have). I own DHIL. It's a fantastic company. I would also add WHG to that list. Also these: MLAB KONA (next Cheesecake Factory in the making?) Hey Berkshire101 - Can you please let me know why you like DHIL ? And what do you see is the intrinsic value for this business and risks... I came across this a few years ago but did not pull the trigger!

What a lovely trip ! I have been to these cities except Dublin... As an ex BoI investor I'd love to go there one day to 'give back to the economy' LOL If you are in Copenhagen I'd suggest go to a small town called Louisiana just outside of Copenhagen by 1h by train... There is an awesome design museum there. Copenhagen itself is also very , very wonderful, if it wasn't so .... expensive Florence and Rome will be a lot of fun anywhere you go ! Enjoy ! Gary

Another nice feature some may not be aware is sedar is searchable from Google. If you want to find let's say constellation software on sedar. You just type "constellation sedar" in Google search and usually the first result takes you directly to the sedar page for the company. I know Edgar can't handle this kind of easy search and the company name had to be exact whereas Google tends to know what you are looking for.

$10m house sold last week. Hope this will motivate us all to work hard lol

When I say 'search' - i mean it's the simple ctrl+f function in the browser... it's not a webpage search. SEDAR by default lists ALL publications of a company from the initial IPO. And everything is text based, so loads super fast. All I need is to search the keywords in the browser to find the documents I want to read.... It doesn't even get simpler than that. I've been to websites like EDGAR where they have fancy boolean , the 'AND' , and quotation marks, etc to make it more searchable - I tell you, i have a hard time finding stuff I am looking for in there... the simpler the better - make it like a bulletin board and lets flip through them like how Buffett used to in manuals :))

I heard an interesting idea - The government of Canada has recently scrapped the 'investment immigration' program where a typical Chinese family invests $800K in Canada in exchange for a landed immigrant status - so instead of scrapping that, we should increase the investment from $800K to say $5M CAD, and instead of it being an investment, make it a permanent contribution to the local economy - goes towards improvement of transit, healthcare etc. Now that the $5M for the luxury house west van is gone, perhaps we see a slower growth in real estate, and for whomever we attract, they are now even more certain to be the top 0.1%. LOL

i think SEDAR and SEDI are very easy to use ! there's no fancy CSS coding; just the basic html , which makes it very easily searchable and you can quickly scroll through it every morning to see if your company made an announcement - the companies you clicked before will show up in a different link colour. you can also very quickly search key words like MD&A , circular, statement to quickly find the quarterly , annual, and the voting materials - i say i am faster in SEDAR than EDGAR ! i also like how new files after around year 2000 are in PDF format - which is formatted nicely for my screen - stuff from EDGAR are in html and i can never get the font size right to read comfortably. SEDI is also very easy to use - I hope to see the system stays the way it is :)) Gary

rate cut will help stimulate export and also the already hot real estate industry - aside from the foreign buyers... those in their 30's , if own a home, will be spending most of their income in housing.. which does not contribute to the economy.... we need consumer spending to get the economy going. the other sad part is most of the price tag of a house is in the land... we were looking at a $1m house in north van... they had 25 offers and end up 250K over asking.... the house is almost a taredown... so the money most goes into the land.... unless the seller spends the proceeds back into the economy... i see very little overall contribution (no construction worker, no materials, etc).... bad..... the US recession came suddenly and the government reaction was swift. feels like Canada may be looking at low oil, low commodity, and slow growth for a while... I hope I am wrong !

Is the risk that great ? If you look at comparable cities in the US - Seattle , Portland , San Fran and New York -- have we gone back or go beyond the 2007 prices? Keep in mind the 2008/09 crash of US was the wrost in history; they have subprime ... we have a different lending practice, downpayment policy , etc here in Canada. I think if you were planning to rent for 5 years or more you are probably better off owning a place

keep in mind those leveraged gains are all tax free if one can make $500K flipping a house in 2 years that's about 1M pre-tax income or about 10 years worth of salary for a 'high income' job. I can see why people take this risk.

Canada could delay, but it won't have a choice but to follow the US sooner rather than later (as always). Otherwise that'll kill the loonie, and even if the BoC doesn't raise rates immediately, the bond market could anticipate it, affecting mortgages. Personally, I'd love it if the BoC went the opposite direction from the Fed and the CAD went down to 0.50 or something, because most of my assets are in USD and my costs in CAD, but I doubt that'll happen. i can't wait for that to happen... US - CAD 0.5 !!

downtown vancouver, for a newer 550K condo , 2 bdrm + 2 bathroom + 1 parking - rent should be $2000/month. you then need to account for about $400/month of strata fee + insurance + property tax.... ($2000)

my favorite analogy of value investing from buffett is in one of the videos i've seen he said it's like your college education .... there's a 'price' for the education, but the 'value' of the education is tremendous - so if there's a degree in geography at 50% discount from Harvard vs a law or medical degree from Harvard at no discount or even at a premium... I hope most value investors would agree with me which has more value over the long term LOL (no offense to geography degrees) price is what you pay; value is what you get :)) Gary

thank you Wisdom for your reply. I too agree there's a lot of risk and frankly I don't really like RE going up , all tax free, leveraged, making it much , much harder now for individuals like myself making a modest salary taxed at high % and also trying to do a bit of investing on the side... At this rate of RE price appreciation, I will likely live in a condo forever... lol I'd be interested to know if any board members here work at one of the major banks in Canada and can share what kind of interest rates the new immigrants are getting with no income in Canada. Gary

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/average-house-price-rose-8-in-may-to-over-450k-1.3113533 I recently had a chance to talk to a few agents with a lot of clients from China... yes, they are mostly buying in the high end Vancouver market... interesting the 5 major banks would lend these new immigrants money with no income in Canada, as long as they can show them proof there is income overseas. min. downpayment is 35%. So with the ultra low interest rate here in Canada for the mortgage, and relatively higher savings interest rate in China; to many Chinese buyers, taking out a mortgage in Canada is like 'free money' to them... the interest from the savings account in China basically pays for the mortgage interest + principal. I can see why money is flooding into Canada now... I suppose once the interest rate spread decreases - either due to increase in Canadian rates or lowering of Chinese rates - then the market could go back to normal levels. Gary

I think one of the reasons CSU was not discussed because it doesn't fall into the traditional graham like business.

Well I think like illiquid stocks. A few buys move the price. We visited a friend yesterday who bought a new lot in west van wanting to rebuild . He figures he gets $8m because the last two sales on the block were in that neighbourhood. I'm not sure what to do. I think if I buy in the east van level but in say north Vancouver I could be okay over the long term. Or just get used to condo living. Nothing wrong. Small environmental footprint lol.

Then average down by the condos and east can maybe. I know condo prices have not moved.

A few may have a million dollar condo in Beijing. For what it is worth Beijin cost of living was higher than Vancouver when I was there in March. The people playing in the 3m plus market in Vancouver are easily very high net worth individuals ... They can afford the mortgage If we count their global assets. The avg home price in Vancouver is around one million because we have entry level places in the not so speculative markets of Burnaby , Richmond , Coquitlam , etc where "ordinary" folks live lol.

hi tripleoptician very interesting analysis... I share the same view, except you put it down in words better than I could have described it. i am a taiwanese immigrant and traveled to japan, taiwan, china recently and know of a few wealthy folks who are in the $3M+ markets in West Vancouver. in Asia, the primary residence is taxed for capital gain - so in addition to the new wave of immigrants driving up the prices, there are also folks who have moved to Vancouver for 5 ~ 10 years now participating in the market, building spec houses . So a typical lot in west vancouver is around $2M ~ $3M ; they spend another $2M to build a 6000sf luxury house and flip to a new Chinese immigrant for $7 or $8M , all tax free. Imagine making $2 - $3M over 2 years tax free -- I am a youngish professional too and could 'afford' an entry-level house, but been watching on the sideline , not knowing when this will end. what i can afford in the $1M neighbourhood are all crappy tare-down houses... meanwhile I live in a 800sf condo lol in my recent visit to Beijing, i can really appreciate the state of the pollution... and i was told over there people do not own their houses; they lease from the government. the communist party owns everything in China. re wiring cash overseas - there are ways for people to get money out. and people are doing this. even more rapidly these days because the Canadian market is 20% off thanks to the oil plunge. i'd add a few more points: vancouver is truly unique (in comparison to other major NA / European cities): a) it has an establish asian community - 3rd largest in north america ? b) you can get very decent Chinese food in Vancouver c) you are 10 hours direct flight from home (vs 15+ going to Toronto / New York) d) you are in the warmest city in Canada (avg 10 snow days a year with a dry , summer) e) you are protected by the US but not part of US (this means stability) f) on a relative basis, real estate is still much cheaper than Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul unlike equities where we like to find ideas before others flock to ; real estate is built on existing infrastructure , community and environment. the major cities of the world will continue to attract buyers Gary

Hey Gio, I did not know your were from Waterloo! I did my graduate studies there :) Nice town, love the Uptown and Kitchner area - nothing like Europe , of course, but it has its own Canadian character which I really like! Gary

Speaking of housing and kids... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/5-kids2-adults1000-sq-ft/article23875496/