compounding

Yes, let's get all the people who have been successful with leverage to share their stories. Can't see any possible harm at all in that. Buy an index fund on margin? Suuure, that is probably what good old Warren had in mind when he said "sensible". You're sure you're not just looking for reassurance for a strategy you have already chosen?

Just finished reading this one, rushed to see the thread on here with lots of interesting discussion and praise. Only to find...nothing. Kind of surprised there isn't a thread but I imagine there are few of you out there who have read it. Instead of polluting your minds with my book reviewing skills/opinions I will present to you a review from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/books/review/Nocera-t.html?_r=1& What I will say though, is that I found a huge appreciation for John Maynard Keynes through this book, he actually impressed me immensely. I am interested to hear your thoughts on this book and possibly further book recommendations in the same vein. Thanks.

Easy, if you are using a investor mindset, the only rational choice is to buy a Ferrari. You will also get, for free, the added side benefit of procuring some nice friends on this forum.

He has talked quite a bit about why he bought GM. Furthermore, why would it not be ok?

Another thing that people usually don't mention is the variance in studies of the 10k hours sort. The idea of a 10k hours threshold ain't as important if enough people do it in 5/15k hours. The guy in the TED talk, David Epstein, wrote a book called The Sports Gene which I thought was very good and probably the most balanced I've read on the subject. That being said, I think the concept of deliberate practice is a powerful and important idea. This might very well be true, but can't the same be said for people that buy into the "talent narrative" and underweight the importance of hard work in order to feel better about not giving it their best?

Does anyone know a way to keep track of insider purchases in Korean stocks without access to a Bloomberg terminal?

Are you an investment banker from the 90s?

I don`t say its gone but i know that we are not at the bottom of the cycle. The oil price will sure give sales a kick for a short time, but how do you determine when to get out? There are already signs of a global slowdown, so even when the US has pent up demand whats happening in the rest of the world? Is GM/FIAT a double from here? (I doubt it, but i don`t know it either.) So just ignore me, i have no clue. :) Well, bottom of cycle was 09 so that's right. If you are saying you will only invest at the bottom of the cycle or near it, I guess that's fair enough. The auto investments are not dependent on low oil prices, but the American manufacturers have some upside from low oil prices because they own the market for pickup trucks and are strong in SUVs (which both have high margins). I think it's hard to predict macro so I'm not going to give the impression that I can. But Europe has been under LT trend in auto sales since the crisis as well. In Asia you have a situation where cars/people is at about a 0.1x ratio to modern western countries, so I'm not too worried about demand there (though oversupply could of course become an issue in the future, like in Europe).

Car producers are looking cheap, indead. But is this not exactly how they look at the top of the cycle? Since i don`t know how to spot where we are in the car cycle i have decided not to invest in car producers. (I was close to make a an investment in FIAT, but that opportunity is gone and i won`t chase it) Actual car sales vs long-term trend, ie pent-up demand? Why is the opportunity gone in your view?

I quite liked this one (despite just reading The Halo Effect :) ) and I will recommend it to people, especially if they haven't read very much about business and uncertainty etc. My favourite parts of the book were the discussions on failure, process and in general dealing with an uncertain future with a probabilistic mindset, something which probably resonates with a few over here.

Just read this one. A remarkable book, highly recommended.

I quite strongly believe that people that think that this kind of material is productive in a self-improvement fashion are deluding themselves. Everything is done in order to gain the approval of others. Typical outer scorecard instead of inner scorecard. I'll take Buffett/Mungers advice on how to be an attractive person over this anyday, but I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir on this board :) I haven't read the book but I consider material like this to be hazardous to self-improvement, especially considering the crowd that naturally seeks this sort of information.

Every variation of "running through a dynamite factory with a burning match".

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1605484/000119312514260113/d704286df4.htm

Yes, a very good book. There is one or two videos on TED also if you want an introduction/revisit and he is fairly active on facebook/twitter. I didn't like Blink very much though.