NewbieD

To me it seems likely that China will attack Taiwan in the next couple of years. What would be some ways to implement a trade on this? Unfortunately my broker has nothing on e.g. TSMC or any of their bigger stocks. Are there any US companies that would be badly hurt if this happens?

2012-2020: 44%/yr 2021: 31% Made a ton of mistakes. Primarily owning too much profitless-businesses. But happy that I continued to fight and stay engaged. My portfolio has much more cash-flow heavy companies now than 6 months ago.

https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/innovatie/artikelen/quantum-computers-and-the-bitcoin-blockchain.html It seems there already keys believed to be resilient to early quantum computers. All these old lost keys probably not though. Tick tack..

20 years from now BTC security will be long since broken by quantum computing.

I was up 138% in SEK. A little more in USD. End march I was down -25% or so. Best year I had since I started tracking in 2012. Now up ca 2500% since 2012-01. Traded quite actively since Covid. Had some big winners related to online gambling in the US in Kindred, Net Ent, Evolution Gaming, Kambi. Also made a big purchase in a Real Estate stock that tanked when the CEO was investigated for insider trading which I judged to be immaterial to values that worked out (SBB B in Stockholm). Condolences to John and anyone else who've had tough years in the health & family departments. My old man with cancer tackled covid well and found a good treatment which is a relief since we fairly recently lost my mom to another cancer way too young.

I thought insurance companies tried hard to match fund, avoid duration gaps. Yeah I believe this is often the case. Especially in life insurers where interest rate risk is a major risk component from the time horizon of 12 months due to the discounting of long liabilities. 12M is the risk horizon for all models at least within EU/Solvency II. I guess it's the same in the US? I work in a P&C insurance co and our risk is more closely tied to mark-to-market value changes of assets and variability in insurance losses themselves. Most risk models are pretty short sighted...and from what I've seen they don't incorporate how the business prospects changes in different market environments. It's all focused on the balance sheet. E.g. that people might not buy new cars to the same extent when the stocks have crashed is an effect not captured.

See now that the question was what would happen with decreasing rates. Well. It depends on split of underwriting profit to investment profit. The investment profit might decrease a bit if reinvestment rates decrease, but it can be a slowish process depending on duration of investment book. A large equity position should be beneficial. The value of the underwriting profit should react positively due to lower market discount rates. So I would go for a low combined ratio with little volatility, would guess in a lower rate scenario they're gonna get more expensive relative to less quality books.

The single most important factor to evaluate is probably the duration gap. Let's say you have long duration liabilities that are not indexed to inflation, or where the inflation index might not keep pace with increase in rates. And you have short duration assets of high quality. If rates unexpectedly increase your liabilities will shrink a lot. Your assets will be relatively unchanged in value. See here for a better explanation: https://www.investment-and-finance.net/financial-analysis/d/duration-gap.html There are companies that have vastly negative duration gaps and which will react quite positively to moderately increasing rates. Mostly life insurance but also some P&C insurers. In the nordics the P&C insurers have largely been able to compensate decreasing investment returns with improved underwriting profits. My guess is many would do well initially if rates increase. Some claims will have inflation but also parts of the insurance book has capped sums and/or the premium is indexed to a sum which will be increased yearly in line with inflation e.g. the turnover of the business or replacement cost of a house.

Didn't Zerohedge just get banned from Twitter for spreading false info about this? Twitter is a censor hell, just like Facebook. They've become too big and governments use them like they use their other news outlets: propaganda and controlling their narrative of the truth. Luckily you can still visit websites directly: www.zerohedge.com If that ever gets stopped (there are precedents in the western world), there's always the old trusty VPN solution. True, but their income is probably down a lot from these bans. Majority of people can't be bothered to VPN. And when the majority are bothered enough to do it, that too could be targeted.

Vitrolife could be worth a look for those looking at IVF. Any other suugestions?

+28%. First year since 2011 that I didn’t beat my index (OMS All-Share cap GI) with >10% and actually lagged. A bit too defensive, estimate 75% net long and had one conviction bet go down 30%.

My understanding is the US has given itself the right to fine anybody doing illicit transactions in USD. No matter where. There have been big fines for Telcos bribing with USD in Azerbadjian and neighbours.

Browder is going hard at the banks. Now Swedbank has lost 20% of market cap, ~6 B$, in two days after investigative reporting shows that transactions related to the Magnitsky case flowed through the bank.

Loving this book that's filling a fuzzy patch of american history for me. Stories of speculators in scrips (i.e. subscription rights for govt bonds) and stock jobbers as well as tales of tariff strategy between the US, France and UK show that human nature hasn't changed much since those times. Hamiltons scandals and personal feuds also liven things up.

If you can't psychologically handle the risk and the losses that are inherent to stocks it doesn't matter what your strategy is, your problem isn't going away. Sympathize with not having enough time for proper fundamental analysis with kids around. Sure is harder to get enough time to have a well researched opinion on a well-diversified portfolio. Agree that finding a new strategy per se is not going to solve the problem. However, learning and experimentation is always good. Don't know the specifics here, but maybe OP will have an easier time to exit trades - part of the fear may come from feeling so committed to well-researched positions and knowing that they might cause psychological pain over the long run since his strategy dictates not to sell them? To me this would be a logical follow-on from when someone prone to analysis-paralysis has eventually commited. Technical trading will train the sell button to be more frequently used if nothing else. Sure OP will get to use his fundamental skills in some respects while practicing his new strategy - it's not black and white after all. Also, if fear of different kinds is the problem it might be worth practicing stoicism and specifically 'going without' and negative visualization. I.e. sit for 5 five mintues every day visualizing that you or loved ones get cancer. Or that your kid gets run over by a car, or whatever would really make you hurt. Then (potential) stock movements won't feel so bad afterwards. Going without can be things like denying yourself a meal or warm enough clothes every now and then, taking a 5 min cold shower etc.

As an engineer who wants to be better at reading financial statements I've found the CFA curriculums financial reporting sections to be at a pretty good level. Don't know if it classifies as advanced.

+7% in SEK. High point was ~20%. CAGR now 39% since 2011. Felt like hard work all year. Had some big losses in my high conviction bets for the first time in a long while (Storytel comes to mind). Some winners were KV77 Pref, Aimia, MIPS, Xintela, Smart Eye. Decreased exposure pretty much throughout the year, now ~50%.

Having no experience at all in this...but just thinking. Isn't the PE firm strategy a little bit like issuing insurance for the aquirer? If the obligations paying out (ie firm needing money back in) is uncorrelated to each other you basically use the power of diversification. You need less capital running the same amount of business. Often things look uncorrelated until they are not, but I bet it can work for long periods of time. And things hardly ever turn perfectly correlated. Looking forward to better informed answers..

Well, to be fair to him he declared it dead for 400 S&P points - kinda like what you're saying. S&P was at 2500 when he said that. So like 11-12% down from 2350 where we are now I guess he estimates it might be resurrected.

What does Buffett think about a commodity/asset hybrid such as forest?

That is not a wonderful business... This year the extra-curricular activities, so to speak, might not be able to hide sharply higher prices for fodder to the swine and there will be an outright loss. Any talk of the state supporting them? On the other hand, I guess this is the same story for all of Europa with EU subisidies keeping farming alive. Certainly in France and Spain they get a lot of support. Apparently Arla announced they will give all their profit (~300 million £) back to the farmers who are having a really tough time b/c of the drought. At least in Sweden many cows were slaughtered in the summer due to pastures not being able to support them. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/30/arla-foods-dairy-cooperative-pay-2018-profit-europe-drought-hit-farmers

If you haven't already considered it you might want to add insurance to your potential employers.

Thanks for your sharing John, interesting views. I get I'm at a knowledge disadvantage here. Given time constraints I might have to give up on Danish banks, previous venture into DAB might be a hint 8) I found this article, mentioning 8 BDKK in potential farmers losses. Not big compared to Danskes market cap? But I guess it depends on if you view more outcomes like this as likely the coming years. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-agriculture-drought-denmark/danish-farmers-drought-losses-deepen-more-bankruptcies-seen-idUSKCN1L70TR

Danske is now at 167 DKK, down from 212 at the start of this thread on uncertainty on money laundering. Starting to look cheap even on sizable fines? Just under P/B 1 and earnings have been 20 DKK / year recently. I bought a small position today. Might be early, mostly to follow it and go in with size if uncertainty lifts and price remains here and/or there is a share issue much lower after hefty fines. I'm not necessarily long term invested. I read one analyst estimating the fines to be 3-5 BDKK, another up to 40 billion DKK (~5-6 billion USD).

MIPS Protection - overly negative sentiment due to litigation /w Bauer hockey, happy even if they lose. Storytel - seems this is picking up in Poland and Russia