dealraker

At some point you'll get a drastic x-years xoutperformance for bonds over Coke. Absolute certainty. Don't settle for less.

Not only that but we have literally hours of open discussion coming at the annual meeting.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote Warren Buffett a letter telling him to sell all his stocks, including Berkshire, and sit in cash and shorter term bonds for a while waiting on the inflation and recession to end. I got a letter back, Warren wrote, "Charlie, you've lost your shit dude. Man-up, business is business and I don't sell then stand outside the door and watch during downturns hoping to buy back later." I just wrote back, "This guy...his online name is change...well, he's got me so shook-up I'm shakkin in my boots!" Can't wait for Warren's reply! LOL, being silly. Life is great if you can stand it! A tad too much coffee and Berkshire's annual report this a.m.

The absolute sure thing, certain to make you feel like a market genius, is that if you blow out of your stock portfolio enough then eventually you will nail it. Then you can come right here and post repeatedly your cash position... ...to those who in the long run who will have multiples more money than you.

Yes but again I'm not Warren Buffett. I just sold AN, I'd bought it in the financial crisis. But I didn't sell it for any of the reasons you mention above.

I'm 68 and I learned a long, long, long, long time ago not to sell stocks. If you look in the mirror and don't see Warren Buffet then you aren't Warren Buffett. Check out my Brookfield comments, I've owned that for 4 decades. Most hold a few stocks, those they complement and promote. When the promotion and compliments end they sell those stocks and buy new ones. Me? LOL, not me.

I'm onboard with that comment pupil, but not only is there potential for a change in legal prescedent (either political party could press this issue given a sense for potential votes), it is likely just as you state above that the stock price will have periodic plummets from fear. Or maybe even 2 or 3 years of far lower valuation. And where will the buybacks be? Nowhere because the company isn't going to buy back stock now. They never do when the stock falls or when there is extended business fears. New era railroading. Do the momentum dance until it explodes...then run and hide. And you can be sure, at least I think it is certain, that operating ratios are headed higher as is regulation.

So here in Linwood NC we got a NSC yard some 40 years ago. For a long time you could go sit in the tower and watch the system work. It was a simple and logical model to watch --- the cars slide off this or that rail then using gravity reposition onto another track into another lineup. But what mostly stood out was the inspections and maintenance going on. Each car had its own inspection, there wasn't a single one that didn't get this. Now the yard is still there and the 28 or so tracks still get used as in the past. But there's bacially no one there anywhere to be seen. Many of the engines/cars sit in the same spots for over a year. We know this because we kayak over to the yard under an arched trestle right into the middle of the RR yard several times a year.

Xerxes exactly. It became Chainsaw Al Dunlap. Hunter got up in the morning and began smoking and drinking coffee for the rest of the day. I think his base thinking was sound but then maybe there was too much stimulation, too much intensity and lack of clear thinking. In the end, given if one of these things doesn't blow up the ship completely, my view is that railroad investors got a bunch of return very fast--- all at the expense of getting no returns for years afterwards. Given I'm a buy/hold type there's absolutely no gain in the excess HH behavior. Again his original moves made a lot of sense. The same at CSX in my view, even with Ward as CEO they still were off base with a lot of their excesses, particularly self-promotion. When you are running trains full of explosive stuff, maybe cancer causing crap, through congested areas I don't think you have any option but to obsess over maintenance. It is no different than the way Buffett/Jain run insurance with Berkshire, you've got to plug in the inverse thinking of: What is it that we don't want?

As some of you may have read or enjoyed, old dealraker has done a serious dance as to grievance regarding particularly Norfolk Souther's business model of: Cut employees Cut employees benefits Cut lines End capital expenditures (exaggeration...but close) Cut expenses (particularly maintenance) Cut rail yards (I have a former yard, a fairly recent one, empty across the lake from me) Do creative top management plans Buy back stock Buy back stock increasingly as the stock price rises Slow buying back stock when the price falls STOP buying back stock when the stock plummets Borrow large sums of money to fund said buybacks above Tout (definition: sell in an aggressive manner) the proverbial one variable called "efficiency ratio" to the dumb, stupid, and easily manipulated idiot envy crowd Watch the above crowd obsessively compete with one another referencing said efficiency ratio in online forums until it causes knowledgable people to laugh while peeing in their pants Then? Enjoy the BLOW UP. While the entire world obsesses over "beating the market"; hyper referencing one variable ranking metrics like "efficincy ratio"; choosing idiot hero's like Hunter Harrison..... It has been clear for years and years and years that Berkshire's Burlington had the better railroad operating model. Not slightly better, but hugely superior. It is just that "I want it all...and I want it now...and if you don't give it to me I'll cry like a baby" stockholders flock to one-variable rankings so they can one-up one another with how idiot-like they can dance. My NSC stock, an 82 plus year family holding, is going to get precisely what it deserves and what its chanting shareholders deserve. The grievance dance will go from operating ratio envy to lawsuit/collapse/survival obsession. My morning rant while I laugh out loud. I would have sold NSC years ago if it was in a tax free account and I sell stocks about once every five years. This "puppy" is a joke, run by jokers. Two cups of coffee...and I express myself. Those of you who own Berkshire and get frustrated that it doesn't "keep up" at times? Damn people, be glad you own Berkshire! As usual this is conversation for me and I'm not checking for gramatical or spelling. Have a good day. We are off the rails for a 2nd time with NSC.

So I bought the lake lot next door at retail asking price (my family developed this area) of $5,000 then the lot next to it that I live on for $7,500. Pretty sure there have been times when I'd have trouble selling either lot for what I paid - inflation adjusted - we've had some bang up downturns being where 15,000 furniture jobs vanished (in a community then of 130,000). Although I have no biological children I come from a big family, we simply said long ago, "If we have things for sale, either in the stores or company property, everybody pays the same thing...the market determines it." So I didn't get discounts on building materials either. Today? I could get $250,000 to $300,000 per lot if the house wasn't on one of them. Kinda the same way I invest, try to get things that over time will go up at some rate. But I never think in terms of beating the market or selling one day. So we are probably born engrained to do this or that and it may really be impossible to chage it.

Wined up and such when I read this so the response goes "of course" and such. I may be in the HIW yield view rather than bonds as much although I did to 100k into PFF a few months back, but its the same thing. Remember I'm the guy who inherited $3500 of Berkshire; watched it all the other stocks in the trust get feed to death by the banks trust dept giving me less money (excluding Berkshire) almost 15 years after inheritance so I do know the stall word. Yet then... Maybe we got to a point of several hundred times the inheritance? Yea. So again, my view is simple: "Pick your starting point...and live with it." Is now a great starting point? No. No! Maybe NO! But in the end we are slammed endlessly with those promoting Bitcoin; those saying Brookfield is selling at 50% of intrinsic; Elon/Tesla is God...any price anytime is good; "I can buy, then sell, and do far better"; people investing in mutual funds, which don't do well...yet these investors do 30% as well as the fund buying and selling it; somebody screaming at me here that I'd have done better in a zero cupon for the last almost 50 years; and whatnot other scrambled eggs. I'm just the oddball old dude who says: If you buy and hold you won't go old and poor...and it actually is an option in real life, not just in those old books on the shelf you read that nobody pays any attention to. But if you do this at some point at some time somewhere somehow you do have to choose a starting point. To be honest no starting point to me has "felt good" for the last near 50 years.

Agreed, but not my decision. The older guys run the show. However, they have done an incredible job over the last 50 years so... I wasn't even aware of either until this was brought up 3 months ago. While it is a small position I'll relay the VWO .08 to them. They'll likely swap.

As to predictions of trouble while I was certain most banks were going to collapse by 2005 I was as wrong as the next guy in the end. Completely missed the overall senerio. I was astonished at what happened to Cathay and East West.

change I added to BAC at $32-and-something --- and Wells when it was lower than now- but can't remember the price. I also added to two banks I've owned since their IPO's: Cathay (CATY since about 1990 or so) and East West (EWBC since 1999). EWBC has gone up a lot since a few weeks ago, Cathay a tad. I had intended to buy HOPE, but just literally forgot about it. My family business wanted to buy something Asian, not much of this "something", and had bought HOPE. But almost immediately they decided to change to an index - chosing EEM. The feeling was the anti-Asian thing was maxing out giving things related to Asia low prices. It was a small endeavor, almost a speculation.

I'm not sure if he had rigid in/out thinking such as book value but surely that was part of the model. I think it was more of the times...and we all from time to time know and discuss this in our online Berkshire forums...when Berkshire just got left behind in a meaningful way. Then, again and as we all know this happens, there are very brief times when Berkshire goes up in parabolic (modest parabolic) fashion. In any event lerner, he'd mention it to me (he's in my investing club) and I ALWAYS agreed with his decisions. I thought his thinking was absolutely logical. I personally wasn't interested in doing it, but under a different umbrella of life I'd have been right there with him. And on top of this while I'm not a trader I thought of this as one of the most logical "trading" things I'd ever been aware of. The deal is now....the post Buffett years will come...and then it may or may not be a pattern any longer.

Spek, just for your perspective...I was screaming at my family to sell their bank stocks by 2005. And I mean asshole like in their face about it. As you know I was buying banks (that I already owned) a few weeks ago.

learner he said it was an S & P index.

Yawl jest let me know's when's ta sell my Berkshire and AJ Gallagher...heer? Otherwise I's 'a jest readin' stuff in dis heer one-upin'-one-another doomsday bragging contest on COBF. Actually I'm reading all you guys, trying to come up with some sort of a vote contest to post up so we can look back and see which one, and of course who (that person that gets 10 years of COBF boasting/expert time) gets it right. Remember though, the certainty of it all: This inflation/recession time? It is simply one ahead of next time. Hell, if you are going to worry about this recession - then go ahead and worry about the next few too. They are, after all, absolutely part of the intrinsic value of our favorite stocks here like Alphabet... right? If, of course, that business even still exists "then"... yet something else we m-u-s-t worry about!!! Meanwhile, on the Berkshire/Fairfax "crypto" (really???) forum it seems Bitcoin is a unanimous buy. Ahh, the safety zone! Being silly, nothing but silly.

Lower quotes are old age; you become invisible. Avoid at all costs! LOL, but you can't no matter what the effort.

Without much thought Munger_Disciple for a start there were a few bank stocks in the portfolio that got bought out all the way up to Bank of NC exit in 2017. Had a chunk of that. Explains at least some of the change both lag and subsequent excel.

And one more post, mentioning the thing that matters over time regardless of good...or maybe awful cycles of whatever comes our way to slaughter our cherished quotes either for a few months or maybe years. Here goes: On my multi-lined multi-faceted 100 plus year Securities Research Chart framed downstairs, the damn thing is almost 5 feet wide by the way, is a typed note that I taped in the corner that quotes Buffett saying in the year 2000 that (too lazy to go down and verbatim it) "stocks are overvalued such that it likely exceeds 1928". So I think anyone reading my posts for the last 25 years knows that Berkshire and AJ Gallagher dominate my portfolio/outcome. And since Buffett's quote in 2000 I think Berkshire is up 7 fold and AJ Gallagher is up (counting div's or not either is grand) about 10 times that's 10 times it's 22-and-something years ago value. Yea, stocks were over-valued yet about 9/10th's of my net worth came in those 22 years. AJ Gallagher had spiked in 2000, surely it was over-valued.......right? But at a PE of 20 what did I do? I yawned; I didn't sell. So just like those posting up "We tell all our clients that crypto/Bitcoin has beat stocks..." I have an extreme bias just as strong. The difference is I don't come here telling Greg that he has to buy Berkshire and AJ Gallagher, suggesting that not doing so means "he just does NOT understand" how great this must-own entitiy(s) is that he has missed - thus he's out of it and ignorant of the NEW ERA. I come to get introduced to stuff I am unaware of, and I have gotten precisely that! And my choices, whether luck or skill (I'll sure as hell never know) seem to be working. Time will tell.

Stevie I am posting too much today but read Greg's post again. I am an all 'rounder type, not special at anything. Stuck my nose into seemingly everything, made it unorthodox like. I did obsess over older men and their models (of success), my deceased dad's crowd. I became "them", precisely them. My great nieces and nephews do not want to become their parents, uncles, etc.....as of yet. My guess? That will change.

Individual stocks. It is likely slightly below 13%, maybe closer to 12.5 or so. I have now way of knowing now short of going back to plugging in the contributions that began with $50 a month and then went up towards the 1994 end. I show this to my great neices and nephews. They buy crypto and tell me how "out of it" I am. Think I'm kidding? LOL, they'll learn. They too quote past returns as proof stocks are inferior.

As to buy/hold investing. I worked full time for a salary from 1978 until 1994, I've not worked for $ since. But only towards the end of my work life did I make enough money to fund an 401K. So I contributed a total of $30,000 over the 1988 to 1994 time frame while still in business. I never made over $45,000 working in my entire life. This isn't the money I inherited, nor does it have anything to do with our foray into the insurance business that created what is my largest personal holding the result of merging with AJ Gallagher. This is piddley stock investing from the small contributions to the 401K. But in any event there were no sales of stock in this account ever and it began with a total of $30k to a 401K. I think the return over the entire lifetime is over 13%. I transferred it to Wells obviously in 2011. Buy and hold doesn't have to mean boring or loser as nearly all project it to be. 13% adds up over time. I am simply presenting an example. We have those stating, actually screaming, here to their investors to buy Bitcoin and sell stocks. My reply is, "OK...but I'm not getting poorer holding stocks either." Since Performance Inception +15.27% $126,513.16 +$118,684.57 +$1,033,594.13 $1,278,791.86 YTD +6.59% $1,199,701.17 $0.00 +$79,090.69 $1,278,791.86 2022 +0.81% $1,190,031.46 $0.00 +$9,669.71 $1,199,701.17 2021 +20.59% $986,824.87 $0.00 +$203,206.59 $1,190,031.46 2020 +12.82% $874,655.60 $0.00 +$112,169.27 $986,824.87 2019 +24.56% $702,183.47 $0.00 +$172,472.13 $874,655.60 2018 -1.26% $711,136.40 $0.00 -$8,952.93 $702,183.47 2017 +12.33% $633,078.14 $0.00 +$78,058.26 $711,136.40 2016 +15.75% $546,940.28 $0.00 +$86,137.86 $633,078.14 2015 +0.15% $546,101.43 $0.00 +$838.85 $546,940.28 2014 +19.64% $456,465.26 $0.00 +$89,636.17 $546,101.43 2013 +41.70% $322,142.95 $0.00 +$134,322.31 $456,465.26 2012 +19.51% $269,559.28 $0.00 +$52,583.67 $322,142.95 2011 +16.33% $126,513.16 +$118,684.57 +$24,361.55 $269,559.28 Performance Disclosures and Definitions