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hillfronter83

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Posts posted by hillfronter83

  1. FWIW I think Masayoshi Son is like a Japanese Donald Trump and I haven't followed this name at all so I'm not buying but spread seems relatively wide, yeah.

     

    Curious what gave you that impression? Son is a self made billionaire. From what I read, he seems to be a great entrepreneur/businessman, very well respected in east Asia. Can't be more different from DT (but who am I to judge).

  2. Small stake in BRCD. Down significantly over the past few days as the market seems to be worried about Trump / CFIUS blocking the LSCC deal. However, in this case the buyer is a US / Singapore company. All other regulators have vetted the deal. I see no problems but what do I know. FIG also down quite a bit, might be interesting.

     

    Sold again.

     

    Nice call!

     

    FIG is down after lunch. I didn't see anything except the law suit with BNP, which is linked to arrested Saudi prince. The law suit has been going on for a while and due for the judgment. So I guess that won't have affect on the deal closing (scheduled for first week of December). Do I miss anything? Market offering more than 3% for a month.

  3. Does anybody else use the excel add-in "RCHGetYahooQuotes" to pull quotes?  Has worked flawlessly for a long time and just suddenly stopped this week - a quick google/twitter search doesn't highlight anything.

     

    I switched to use Bloomberg site. It's not too hard if you know a little VBA programming.

     

    I know Excel VBA... not sure if that is what you referred to? Do I need to be a Bloomberg paid subscriber? All I need is a function that allows me to input a stock symbol and get the last price as output.

     

    No subscription needed. Instead of grab data from yahoo, you get them from Bloomberg website with XMLHTTP in VBA.

  4. Does anybody else use the excel add-in "RCHGetYahooQuotes" to pull quotes?  Has worked flawlessly for a long time and just suddenly stopped this week - a quick google/twitter search doesn't highlight anything.

     

    I switched to use Bloomberg site. It's not too hard if you know a little VBA programming.

  5. Small stake in BRCD. Down significantly over the past few days as the market seems to be worried about Trump / CFIUS blocking the LSCC deal. However, in this case the buyer is a US / Singapore company. All other regulators have vetted the deal. I see no problems but what do I know. FIG also down quite a bit, might be interesting.

     

    Sold again.

     

    Nice call!

  6. Like many on this thread, I played when porker was popular. I stopped as the online game got tougher and I lost my edge. Nowadays, I only play when I'm on a cruise ship since most of players on ship are recreational and odds of winning is much better than in a local casino.

     

    I also like other strategic games, such as bridge, go, etc.

  7. A big part of Redfin's business model is offering a partial rebate on that transaction fee. I think other brokers will do that as well.

     

    +1, buyer's agent gets 2.5% fee from seller's agent. Some agent are happy to rebate part of the fee because they do little work. If you are comfortable about negotiation yourself and knowledgeable about your target real estate market, I strongly suggest you use a discount buyer agent.

  8. I use Interactive Brokers and sometime my limit order at ask price doesn't get executed, especially for OTC market or other illiquid stocks. I also have an account with OptionsHouse and my experience is that OptionsHouse price is more "real time". Since Interactive Brokers recently increased their market data subscription fee, I'm not sure if it's still worth subscription.

     

    Does anyone have similar experience? What brokerage do you think have the best real time quote?

     

    Thanks!

  9. I can't help telling following joke:

    In early/mid 90s, many ambitious people wanted to go to US. A middle age guy sold his apartment for $10k, bough an air ticket and set for New York city. Once there, he worked his ass off, 70-hour week was not unusual in Chinese restaurants. He worked his way up to become a manager and finally owned his own restaurant. After more than 20 years, he's ready to retire. So he sold his business and everything else for $2 million to go back. Once back he found out that he just had enough money to buy his old apartment back.

    So yes, I think luck plays a big role.

  10. Thanks for the effort. Can you please also share the original Chinese version?

     

    Isn't the link in the pdf already?

     

    I didn't know that Li Lu was teaching in China. Apparently he has a weibo account for those of you that are interested (李录_美国加州), which includes the article mentioned here.

  11. That's really fucked up. I've traded illiquid stocks before and never once in my life have had a surprise fee in any amount. This past week I was 100% of the volume for a stock and Interactive Brokers went so far as to call the exchange I was buying on to allow me to buy more. All with no extra fees.

     

    This is a stock not traded on IB, which is the reason I used Options House. The thing is the trade will not make sense had I known about the fee.

  12. Has anybody ever been charged some illiquidity fee for trading OTC stocks by a broker? I was administered a $300 fee for a trade worth about $6500 by Options House. They claim it's a fee charged by clearing house. Although it's "disclosed" on their website, most people would probably not notice it. I was not notified before the trade since the trade preview only shows commission. You can imagine that I'm really pissed!

     

    I checked SEC website and found this https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-bulletins/ib_brokersmiscfees.html:

    While many brokers do not charge customers miscellaneous fees associated with a transaction, those that do may charge widely differing amounts.  Some firms have charged different fees based on the branch office where the account is held and some firms have charged different fees to different customers.

     

    The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined five brokers in 2011 for routinely charging excessive handling fees of between $65 and $99 a trade.  Because these fees were far in excess of the brokers’ actual costs, FINRA found that the fees were actually disguised commissions that were not adequately disclosed.

     

    I'll definitely fight this. Just want to check if any board member had similar experience.

  13. Sounds like you had a PITA IRA issue.  IB isn't perfect but I really like them. 

     

    Super low fees, transparent fees and for me generally good execution.  Customer service has generally been fine.

    The fee savings can be a lot both on commissions and hidden fees. 

     

    As a general rule - if you are on the phone with a customer service idiot call back and get someone good.  This applies for any organization.

     

    I like them having tough margin requirements because that make for a more conservative financial institution.  IB could be more conservative in margin IMO.

     

    The problem is when you're on hold and can't get to anyone at all for 15-30 mins

     

    I have the same issue. Their customer services  were very responsive about two years ago (almost no waiting). Now the waiting is almost unbearable. Ameritrade is way better in customer service.

  14. Tetragon Financial

    HRG 7 3/4% of 2022 Bonds, "fully hedged" with SPB puts and HRG puts

    LUK Bonds (6 5/8% of 2043)

    Berkshire Hathaway

    Various equities roughly equal weighted (RESI, FOR, SIR, LUK, FCE, EQC)

    Gold

    Silver

    Various Options and Hedges

    Non transferable SWY CVR on Casa Ley

    Short Indexes

     

    I-Bonds

    TIAA Stable Value Fund at 1.8%

     

    Hi, Pupil,

    I'm curious where you hold your Stable Value fund.

  15. Don,

     

    Why do executives executives get paid 5x-10x (relative to the average employee) more than the folks who had the same roles in prior decades? I really think luck is a bigger factor than what people give it credit.

     

    I think one of the reasons they are paid more is the technology. With private jets, smart phone, big data, etc, etc. A CEO can run a much bigger and more complex company than decades ago. It's like these mega sports stars, I don't think Lebron James is better thank MJ. However, with today's technology, he can sell to a much bigger audience and realize more value for himself. In today's world, it's more than ever winner-takes-all.

     

    It's not that those CEOs create more value. They are just in the right position to take more value created by other factors, such as technology.

  16. Is it possible there are some price manipulation? Say people are "trading" with multiple accounts or their friends' accounts to pump up price/volume. Although it's illegal but do authority monitor such behavior? I couldn't figure out any rational reason for owning some of the penny stocks I was looking at. Yet the price could go up 50-100% on a given day. Some of them are clearly fraudulent if people take 10 minutes to read their filings.

  17. I shorted a mining stock into bankruptcy and left the position open only to find out IB charged me short interest at rate times $1 (they round price of all penny stocks UP to $1). So i was paying an exorbitant rate every month (more than the position mark). This makes it prohibitively expensive to short penny stocks and maybe contributes to manipulation.

     

    So check the fine print with your broker beforehand!

     

    Thanks for the information!

    I checked my IB account. Apparently all prices are round up to the dollar for calculating borrowing cost. Not sure if this is industry norm.

  18. I was looking into penny stocks as short target.

     

    One thing I saw repeatedly is that some short stock would pop on huge volume. For example, DDAY is a company that losing tons of money and for last a couple of days, price popped up over 30% on volume 10 times normal day. I suspect insiders are manipulating the stock price since who would want to buy such stock at such amount? But I'm not an expert of trading mechanics. Can someone shed some lights on this?

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