yadayada

i think the series can easily compete with the movie. It is kind of a sequel on the movie. But I guess if you didn't like the movie (are you even human?) then you will not like the series.

what didnt you like about it?

It is not a movie, but everyone should watch the tv show fargo. Based on the movie Fargo. It is at least as good, and about 10 hours long.

He also has a blog: http://www.influenceatwork.com/inside-influence-report/

I didnt see this book in the book section. If you read the Munger speech on bias, he basicly based it on this book. He liked it that much that he actually gave Cialdini a share of berkshire after reading it. It breaks down all the ways we can be biased and how powerfull they can be. Sometimes he rambles on too much or repeats things, or gives examples that don't really add much, but overall a good read. http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Revised-Edition/dp/006124189X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404758647&sr=8-1&keywords=influence You probably are familiar with a few of those already if you have been investing for a while. But there is also some new stuff that I didnt know about. I find the incongruency bias the most dangerous myself.

what are some interesting ones that you still need to read merkhet? I have the opposite problem really. Probably read like 40 books last year and thiis half year. And I am starting to run out of interesting books to read. If I was really rich I would have a book summarizer. Someone who reads the books and tells me within one hour what the key points where. Some books like Nassim Taleb's books really ramble on for way too long. Some of them you can read for 50% and not really need to read the rest as it is mostly filler.

Im curious tho, why is no one doing this mechanical strategy? It looks really obvious, buy after very well informed insiders buy significant amounts. And backtesting revealed large outperformance over long periods. Also the outperformance was over a short period of time. Why isn't this easy and obvious thing being exploited?

thanks, it was late and I didnt consider velocity. Doh. But still, if over time it picks up, and there are more younger people, shouldn't that increase inflation with the now larger amount of money in rotation that grew faster then the population (excluding debt). Or does it simply mean that people will borrow less when that happens? Also I disagree that scale advantage just increases average size. Industry's get consolidated because of the large scale and better handle downturns in a lot of cases. So in my example, a population of a million people borrow with a credit card 1200$ to buy a phone. After a few years because of scale and innovation, a better version now costs only 350$. And instead of 10 players with high fixed costs, there are now only 4 players or so. If the price had stayed 1200$, it means they couldn't buy a new phone because they had to pay off their debt, and you would see a big depression. But because lot's of things get cheaper and cheaper they can now afford to keep buying while paying off debt, and the through of the following downcycle should be a lot higher then the previous through. Also a big debt fueled economy where everybody can spend means more widespread education and money for R&D (if prices rise). For example with farming you have new innovations that improve yields significantly every few years. Same goes for fuel efficiency (oil consumption actually decreasing in the US over last decade). If prices go high enough, there will be huge incentives to make things more efficient. And theoretically if a government tries to actively prevent this, this would decrease innovation because the incentives arent really there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJrofZGpRKc Posting this because I don't get a few things in this video. He says that debt causes spending to go up, and that in turn causes inflation. But doesn't increased spending also increase efficiency and economies of scale? And increased spending in turn also probably causes capacity to go up for a lot of items right? So why the hell does the central bank rise interest rates? Is that really necesairy? Since at some point the amount of borrowers will run out. He also doesn't go into the long term benefits of consumer (credit card) and other debt much. It seems that debt itself greatly increases efficiency, innovation and economies of scale over the long run. You can basicly leverage up, things become cheaper and better quicker, and people have more money to pay it back and also keep spending. If you simplify it: Let's ssay there is almost no borrowing and you want to set up a phone factory. But there is little demand, and your fixed costs are high, and there is little money to spend on R&D. A phone costs like a 1200$ to make it worth your while. But now debt is injected in the economy, and suddenly a lot of people want phones because there is more disposable income. Economies of scale are created, phones become cheaper and better. There is more competition, which fuels even more the need to find efficiencies and create better phones that add value and in turn create a lot of new ways to increase efficiency's in other area's of life. And now a phone is like 350$. So if people want a phone a few years later, they have more money to pay off their debt. So it doesn't seem that the down cycle will last as long as the up cycle due to the debt created efficiencies like in his graph? Same can be said for food, farming etc and innovations in other industry's and more people getting education (causing faster inovation) make food cheaper as well. Also because of disposable income, there is more money left over for studying. So a lot more smart people now can afford to specialize in some tiny niche and create innovation that makes life even more cheaper for the rest of us. A third thing, if confidence picks up in 2-5 or maybe 10 years, it means that after printing a lot of money, the total supply of money is larger, because it is now also fueled by a lot more debt. Which should create high inflation with his logic due to even more demand that is now added by the debt and the increased supply of money into the economy that is not debt. So let's take the US. 300 million people, and in 2008 5 trillion in money that was not debt, and 25 trillion in debt. Let's say in theory that 25 trillion in debt shrinks because it now has to be paid back by people who did lend to each other. So it shrinks to 15 trillion, and that fixed 5 trillion is still there in circulation. So now they print money to prevent deflation because there is only 20 trillion in circulation buying things, and there is 8 trillion$ in money (not debt) out there. But prices won't rise because the debt is shrinking. But when confidence increases again after deleveraging, and debt begins to rise you should see the delayed effect of that money printing? Since technically people feel richer now, so more debt piles on top of that 8 trillion since the US$ didn't really buy less over that time. If you keep doing this, and inflate the actual non credit money supply faster then 2% on top of population growth over a long time, then you will get hyperinflation after a few of those cycles right? BUT if you don't print, you get deflation in the short term , and higher interest rates because of that, so less borrowing, so fewer disposable income and resulting effeciency's in the economy. Which also causes some of these now debt realized effeciencies in the economy to be undone. Became a bit of a long ramble, but would love to hear some thoguhts on this.

a analogy I like is that the signals shooting through your brain when you think are like cars in a road network. And emotions are one of the biggest things affecting the travel of these signals. If they go too fast, they crash into eachother and it becomes a big mess, too slow and you have huge congestion etc. Meditation helps them travel at just the right speed, not speed up and down too quick etc.

ok thanks for sharing, that saved me some time :)

thanks for posting. An interesting one that was written up last year is calamos. high level executive bought truck loads of shares in 2013 and 2014 so far. Market cap when written up was 200, and is now 250 million.

oh nevermind was already posted.

haha that guy must be a bit of a wimp then.

did anyone here try sensory deprivation tank? You float in salt water that is the same as your body temperature. In complete darkness without any sound. So it basicly feels like your floating in deep space. And I heard of a few people who said it was actually life changing. http://i.imgur.com/BHHK7S9.jpg It is sorta like forced meditation. When your brain does not get new sensory information after a while your head becomes completely empty.

So basicly large 10% investors buying says very little. 0.7% outperformance. directors is like 3.6%. Officers 4% or something And top level executives 4.5% I think. This is all market caps, and all over one year. It kinda levels off in the second year. But Market caps make a huge difference and the amount bought. If larger amounts are bought for example by high level executives in companies with market caps of 25 million $ and less (adjusted for inflation that is now over 30-35 million $ already) then the outperformance was a whopping 12%. So you could make close to 18% if you buy and sell after one year after top level executives buy stock in their microcap companies. For huge market caps outperformance was very small. This was all over pretty big samples. Seems to me that setting up a screener to warn you everytime a microcap CEO or CFO buys a decent amount of stock would be great. Even with directors you probably do more then 10% I think. Is probably a great way to generate idea's. This is all from that book btw. Summarized it for you guys ;) There is also underperformance after insiders sell, follows the same patterns as above. But less dramatic. Also usually the selling was followed by a outperformance of the stock the previous 1-2 years.

i dont think anyone knows exactly why it works, but they did measure significant positive effects on mental ability and health because of meditation. I don't think there is one right technique. The whole idea is that you are completely in the moment for like 15-20 minutes a day. To get away from the thought train in your head, and kinda center yourself by distancing yourself from everything for a moment. It is something you have to practice. At first you probably get lost in your thoughts a lot. I think if you live a very busy life and exposed to a lot of opinions around you, this is especially usefull. For example if you sit still you breath in and out with your belly (not chest) and try not to focus on anything. Just take anything in and then let it go. You did not fail if you thought about anything, but the idea is when thoughts come in your head you just take a few more deep breaths, observe them and let them go. Only the best can think of nothing for like 15-20 minutes straight. It is kinda difficult to explain really, especially to an engineer :) . You can also do it with exercise. Or listen to music, stand or sit. Whatever suits you best. What I personally want to try is a sensory deprivation tank. You float in salt water in complete darkness without any sound. This is basicly a forced form of meditation and I heard great things about it. It is said that you actually start to hallucinate after 20 minutes. And because you don't get sensory information it is easier to completely empty your head after 15-20 minutes.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/harvard-yoga-scientists-find-proof-of-meditation-benefit.html I need to start doing this again. Is also very relaxing, and you just feel more balanced through out the day.

yeah i read some paper that buying after insiders bought in the past would have yield you liek 12-14% or something over the last decade. Ill try to find it. I think noteworthy was that the outperformance was within one year almot always, after that there was no outperformance. There was also no underperformance after insider selling I think.

CEO, CFO and CAO at the same time??? http://cdn.wegotthiscovered.com/wp-content/uploads/wolf-of-wall-street-02_0.jpg

:o I meant for example software in a powerplant. Something is heating up, it shows a warning to the technician and he can do several things within that software to handle it. This is highly customized to customers, and often the annual service costs are very low compared to their other costs. But once it works, it works. And customers will not be very motivated to get competing software as it might not be tweaked to their needs in the first year(s) and their personal has to learn the new software. And it is a small cost anyway, so not v price sensitive. It seems these type of business models can be scalable sometimes without a lot of extra costs and revenue is very recurring. And danger of competition is low. At least that is what I am thinking, but maybe people here think otherwhise.

what about software that does relatively simple things? If employees are familiar with it, and it doesn't need to do complex things, then innovation is not much of a threat and switching would just upset the system right?

The more I learn about this industry, the more it seems that this is where you want to look for really solid moats, huge operating leverage and often badly mispriced stocks. A few examples seem to be OPRX and Lombard risk. What are some good primers? And what do you need to look out for? How well do patents protect you in this industry? It seems with a lot of these programs there is a large first mover advantage and high switching costs. And sometimes also the network effect. With LRM you have 5 year contracts etc. And it both examples the competition is very limited. And often the cost of these programs are tiny compared the other costs of a client. So they pay up if it is good. And it also seems that once you give support on your program, or license it out, it is difficult to maintain and copy by someone who is not familiar with that code. You need the guy who programmed it to fix it if it is broke. One more thing, it is easy to scale up with v little added costs, and this seems to be something that the market often doesnt take into account. Thoughts?

from the VIC thread on good short ideas.