gjangal

A newbie question, I use Charles Schwab (I am forced to use it by my employer) and they don't have portfolio performance like YTD , across years etc. I just see realized gains and unrealized gains against positions. Does anyone use Schwab here and can help me figure this out.

In one of his interviews with The Manual Of Ideas, he viewed gold as a hedge for when things go wrong. If I remember correctly he mentioned not holding more than 5% of the portfolio. This website seems more like a advertisement for gold.

If you don't mind sharing your thesis on FBRC. From their most recent 10-K their Agency commissions which used to be a significant portion of revenues is declining because of electronic trading ( 117mn in 2008 to 33mn in 2012) The most recent 10Q's also seem to be pointing to this. Offsetting this decline is the capital markets revenue which is strong given current market conditions. The buybacks seem to support CrestView LP reducing the stake in the company.

I started out in 2010. My biggest overall mistake in investing was aimlessly buying and selling stocks, ETFs, ETNs mostly by reading analysis on Seeking alpha, motley fool , blogs and the like. I was moving in and out of stocks in a matter of weeks, months. I wasn't buying businesses, I was buying pieces of electronic paper, the exact opposite of what Graham and Buffett ask investors to treat stocks as. Finally in 2011, frustrated with no performance I read some books like Intelligent Investor, Pat Dorsey's book on moats. Warren Buffet's letters to shareholders and I am beginning to appreciate the concepts of earning power, moats and ROIC. In terms of mistakes I came close to losing permanent capital. I once put 15K in a chinese packaging company called BEST(Shiner international) without understanding anything about the business.

MA 18.54% AXP 17.88% INFY 7.19% INTU 6.86% NOV 6.68% LXFT 6.16% GS 5.56% ACN 5.49% AIG 4.22% MMYT 3.92% WAGE 2.99% Cash 14.51% I am a recent joiner and new to investing. I think this is the best 20$ I spent so far. Thank you everyone