Ham Hockers

Are you sure it isn't still $250k per owner per institution per ownership type?

Boy, this thread could get dicey. I'm gonna sit back and have some popcorn and see what happens.

Quirky take http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/12/does-the-shake-shack-ipo-mean-you-should-stop-eating-there.html Umami Burger, which I missed in my list, was mentioned in the comments. Was not impressed at all.

Actually, Fuddruckers should be like number 1,000 because I can't imagine any burger place being more disgusting than Fuddruckers.

I believe it started here in NYC. Yeah, I could go either way as well, though the fries at Five Guys are clearly superior.

To all the people who are super-concentrated: good luck. Over the long run, half of you will probably do gangbusters and half will go bust.

My rankings (strictly burgers): 1. Shake Shack 2. Five Guys 3. In n Out 4. Swensons 5. Burger King 6. McD 7. Fuddruckers Having In n Out at #3 may be blasphemous to some people. I'm sure there are other large chains I haven't tried.

Sorry if this has been answered here or on another thread, but IB looks incredibly expensive if you are making big trades in liquid stocks? For example, trading $250k worth of stock with a p.s. price of $10 is either $87.50 or $125 under the tiered or fixed pricing plan. Are there rebates or something that make this lower, or is IB just more focused on other types of trading?

It's odd that this thread has actually turned into the thing it was spoofing. Like, whoa.

Role number 2 is not an investing role, is it? Do not go sell side if your ultimate goal is buy side.

If you're of the opinion that marriage is terrible, stupid, risky, and that all women are money-hungry depreciating assets that aren't worth the trouble, then frankly, the problem is YOU. Marry Christmas ya'll

Ah, the airing of grievances. The highlight of the celebration. Here's several. 1. If you're part of the seemingly every growing contingent of younger posters still living at home, please don't offer life advice. 2. For newer posters, please don't feel the need to weigh in with your views on every single thread. 3. If you post about how much angst you have with your investments and you don't know if you're investing properly, etc, please don't then 5 minutes later offer advice to someone else who asked an investing question. 4. If you're under, say, 30, please feel free to get rid of the world weary tone like you've seen and done it all. Dang, good list. I'll get the festivus pole out.

I'm really excited for the airing of grievances. I've got a lot of complaints about you all this year

If you're really ultra high net worth, I'm available. I'll have to ask my wife if it's ok first, though.

One of the problems with PFIC investments (and why I brought it up on the PSH thread) is they are often paired with ownership restrictions for ERISA accounts in the U.S. In PSH for example, the company may force a sale of certain ERISA holders, which if memory serves is at the lower of market or cost. Unclear what happens with dividends but I've seen others where all distributions are also clawed back. So if you think you can be sneaky and hold the stock in a retirement account, you better be sure it is not an ERISA account (I'm still unsure if IRAs fall into this). It gets even more confusing if you're talking about a U.S. equivalent ticker that's created by someone other than the company to allow trading in the stock. Now if you're a small holder, the IRS and the company may never find out, so in reality maybe you can do whatever you want.

Wish I'd bought FMD I guess.

Some good advice from others already. Here's one more thought, though perhaps painful: maybe you aren't a good investor and will never be one. Not saying you are or aren't. But I think there's a tendency to believe that you can become a good investor simply by working at it and following the "rules."

Are you sure? I thought there would be no tax until you sell. Just like an ordinary stock holding. Or even worse a PFIC. That's a separate level of hell altogether... If this is a PFIC and you're in the US avoid investing in this in a taxable account unless you have a killer accountant, or want to mess with the taxes on this on your own. If this is a PFIC (from some Googling I believe it is) you have to pay taxes on the increase in NCAV over the year regardless of your holding period. For example, if the fund trades at $10 on Jan 1st and $12 Dec 31st you have to pay taxes on the 20% gain even if you purchased at $11. If you purchase at $11 and sell at $10 you still pay taxes even though you lost money. Brokerage fees aren't the issue here, it's the tax classification. For many investors this is stuffed in a trust, or in a fund where the manager/custodian doesn't worry about these issues. For individuals it's a different story. This is why many fund companies list the management company to get around these restrictions. Yes that would be bad, but any type of pass through would be annoying if PSH didn't distribute everything. And I would hesitate to buy this in a retirement account without fully understanding the ERISA restrictions (as I don't). I suggest people read the prospectus ... I read through the prospectus but didn't see any mention of PFIC. If this is indeed incorporated as a PFIC, I would at least expect some mention of that in the prospectus. Weird.... http://pershingsquareholdings.com/media/2014/09/Prospectus-Dated-2-October-2014.pdf So what you are saying is that if this is a PFIC, and someone bought in January and sold in Feburary to another guy. The NAV increased from $10 on Jan 1st to $12 on Dec 31st. Then at year end, both persons are subject to paying that 20% increase in NAV? I was suggesting reading the prospectus for the ERISA stuff. There's nothing in there about U.S. tax treatment because I believe they specifically avoided selling IPO shares to U.S. individuals. Oh... I see. PSH NAV increased a lot this year. Does this mean if I hold it through year end, I have to pay the tax on the NAV increase from Jan 1st to Dec 31st? What if I sell now? I don't know the tax treatment of this investment for U.S. people. That's why I asked!

Are you sure? I thought there would be no tax until you sell. Just like an ordinary stock holding. Or even worse a PFIC. That's a separate level of hell altogether... If this is a PFIC and you're in the US avoid investing in this in a taxable account unless you have a killer accountant, or want to mess with the taxes on this on your own. If this is a PFIC (from some Googling I believe it is) you have to pay taxes on the increase in NCAV over the year regardless of your holding period. For example, if the fund trades at $10 on Jan 1st and $12 Dec 31st you have to pay taxes on the 20% gain even if you purchased at $11. If you purchase at $11 and sell at $10 you still pay taxes even though you lost money. Brokerage fees aren't the issue here, it's the tax classification. For many investors this is stuffed in a trust, or in a fund where the manager/custodian doesn't worry about these issues. For individuals it's a different story. This is why many fund companies list the management company to get around these restrictions. Yes that would be bad, but any type of pass through would be annoying if PSH didn't distribute everything. And I would hesitate to buy this in a retirement account without fully understanding the ERISA restrictions (as I don't). I suggest people read the prospectus ... I read through the prospectus but didn't see any mention of PFIC. If this is indeed incorporated as a PFIC, I would at least expect some mention of that in the prospectus. Weird.... http://pershingsquareholdings.com/media/2014/09/Prospectus-Dated-2-October-2014.pdf So what you are saying is that if this is a PFIC, and someone bought in January and sold in Feburary to another guy. The NAV increased from $10 on Jan 1st to $12 on Dec 31st. Then at year end, both persons are subject to paying that 20% increase in NAV? I was suggesting reading the prospectus for the ERISA stuff. There's nothing in there about U.S. tax treatment because I believe they specifically avoided selling IPO shares to U.S. individuals.

What helped me was the "brute force" method. I read and reread every single chapter about 3x. First read through was a general read, second time in excruciating detail, then a third time to go over anything I missed, then did EOC and moved on to the next chapter. But I am dense, and a slow learner, so more intelligent people can find easier ways of studying. Did the same.

Are you sure? I thought there would be no tax until you sell. Just like an ordinary stock holding. Or even worse a PFIC. That's a separate level of hell altogether... If this is a PFIC and you're in the US avoid investing in this in a taxable account unless you have a killer accountant, or want to mess with the taxes on this on your own. If this is a PFIC (from some Googling I believe it is) you have to pay taxes on the increase in NCAV over the year regardless of your holding period. For example, if the fund trades at $10 on Jan 1st and $12 Dec 31st you have to pay taxes on the 20% gain even if you purchased at $11. If you purchase at $11 and sell at $10 you still pay taxes even though you lost money. Brokerage fees aren't the issue here, it's the tax classification. For many investors this is stuffed in a trust, or in a fund where the manager/custodian doesn't worry about these issues. For individuals it's a different story. This is why many fund companies list the management company to get around these restrictions. Yes that would be bad, but any type of pass through would be annoying if PSH didn't distribute everything. And I would hesitate to buy this in a retirement account without fully understanding the ERISA restrictions (as I don't). I suggest people read the prospectus ...

I watched the first episode of that. It seemed pretty good.

No not me, but I agree with the author. Government is violence. Saying: "Government should prohibit X" is the equivalent to saying "people should be kidnapped and caged like animals or killed if they do X". "Government should require X" is the equivalent to saying "people should be kidnapped and caged like animals or killed if they don't do X" "There aught to be a law ..." = "People aught to be kidnapped and caged like animals or killed ..." Libertarians simply think that not all of the worlds problems can and/or should be solved with violence. Lol, well the author of the article would probably frame it differently than that

Rkbabang, is this you :) http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-04/law-puts-us-all-in-same-danger-as-eric-garner

What about level 1 made it the most annoying? For me it was the rote memorization of material I didn't care about, stuff unrelated to actual investing. Level 2 and 3 had much more focus on accounting and analysis.