bizaro86

The Cockwells paid fair-ish value for the stake - it was publicly traded at the time and they didn't get a discount or anything like that. I'm not qualified to judge how the negotiations between the Cockwells and Brookfield went down, and to be honest I don't really care.

I mean, that's why I said "Brookfield adjacent". He's owned the stake for 5 years and capital allocation has been fine. I probably would have cut the dividend and started repurchasing shares instead but that's not a big issue. Wouldn't be my first choice for major owner but I think it's probably fine.

I mean, I'm mortgage/debt free now and earn quite a bit more than that, enough that my combined marginal tax rate is 48%. I certainly don't spend/need that money now, which is why I spend time focusing on investing it. But like I said earlier if you gave me $25MM I wouldn't stop running my business, so why not keep doing things that you enjoy even if you don't need the money?

Yes. Personally, I think the Canadian obsession with avoiding OAS clawback in retirement planning is a bit silly, especially on a site like this one. I'm planning on having income in my 70s well above the threshold... Edited to add: although dividends in a fully taxable account are very bad for OAS clawback purposes because of how they are taxed. In Canada dividends are "grossed up" and then credited. Basically the idea is you include the corporations pre-tax income on your return and get a credit for the tax they already paid. It works out to a lower effective tax rate than regular income, but it does inflate your headline income for things like OAS clawback.

Nope. That would be a deal breaker for me, I don't buy their subs because I don't trust them. They sold out in 2019. Although the major shareholder is named Cockwell, which is maybe Brookfield adjacent.

One that's sort of interesting that I haven't seen much on is Acadian Timber. Canadian corporation, 6.7% yield. Formerly a Brookfield yield-pig vehicle, owns east coast timberland. Historically didn't cover their dividend, but they've started selling carbon credits, that based on what I can tell require no changes to their operations. Adds a very high margin new income stream and appears that the divi will be very well covered going forward. Symbol is ADN in Toronto.

That was actually advice based on my experience of earning a multiple of my previous professional income with a passion based (travel) business in my 30s. But you do you. By the standard you're suggesting I retired at age 31. And there's some truth to that - if you gave me $25MM I wouldn't stop running my business, because I like it. That wouldn't have been true of my previous corporate employment.

I think you have to consider what you actually like and whether that's saleable. Eg: if you love surfing you might not love TEACHING surfing. It's not the same thing.

Nice. Thanks! I always like it when my intuition matches the quantitative analysis. I like the second scenario better, more because it doesn't require hindsight than because it worked out slightly better. For my own use I think I'd probably add cash replenishment on some algorithmic basis (ie, any time the market is up more than XX% from the lows add 0.5%-1% cash per quarter). Having more cash in 2008-2009 instead of running out in 2007 would almost certainly improve things further, because you wouldn't be selling during the GFC. Now, obviously this is a bit of a worst-case scenario. But it's pretty hard to predict in advance what scenario you're going to get, and it's a lot easier for me to work 2 extra years once I'm in my 40s than it would be to try and go back to work in my 70s because I'm out of money... It's probably all academic anyway for me, because I always find something I enjoy doing that earns money, so I doubt I'll ever truly/fully "retire".

I think on of the primary mitigants I'd use for sequence of returns risk are to not retire at the top of a huge bubble and assume that high water mark was a sustainable value. More seriously, if I was considering retiring after a number of good years I'd definitely de-rate the value I was using (eg, assume I was 21% too high at the end of 1999 and that the previous year's gains were unsustainable.) That effectively would mean only using the 3.3% rule instead of the 4% rule, and would make a big difference. The other thing I think would help quite a lot is tactically holding a year or two of cash. If you went 90% equities/ 10% cash and then spent down only the cash part when the market was down more than 10-15% you'd avoid a lot of the selling-at-the-bottom problem that eliminates the ability to re-grow the portfolio base. I do something similar in my current financial life. My business is very volatile. It looks like I'll make about 100% of my annual personal expenses in September, but be at zero income or small losses in October and November. To keep that from stressing me out I tend to keep about a year worth of personal expenses in cash in a savings account. Whenever I have a good month I take cash out and replenish. While the portfolio analogue is a bit "market timing heresy" I think it's really not that hard to know in the moment when the market is "down". There's always a reason, but don't convert stocks to cash then, spend the cash. If the market isn't down then build the cash buffer back up.

E-L Financial. It'll be around as long as the Jackman family decide to keep it public (it's essentially their family office, and owns a life insurance company as well).

Added to JOE, IBKR For IBKR I figure another bunch of folks who couldn't get into Schwab today will finally switch... mostly kidding - I think the market is over-estimating the effect of lower-but-not-zero rates.

Would you be willing to share more on this? I'd really love to do something similar, because if I could buy something that went up 50% and and something offsetting that went down 50% quickly and with certainty it'd be a huge win. In Canada you can donate appreciated securities and take the deduction at fair market value while not paying tax on the gain, while losses are still deductible. I've sold some real estate this year and am donating a portion of the proceeds anyway, so if I could combine that with some bonus tax efficiency I'd love to do so.

I can definitely buy this, and have considered it in the past, probably as a result of a previous thread. I'd also be interested in seeing the work on that current yield/YTM - of course, on something that doesn't mature for 71 years the current yield/YTM are probably very close, but I would expect the YTM to be slightly higher given the discount... Does anyone know how this would work if the underlying bonds get redeemed? I assume the money just gets returned to holders but that seems like that sort of thing that would be good to confirm. The other question I have is whether the underlying bond has redemption features in it. Normally that wouldn't be a benefit to this type of investment, but with the discount/low liquidity AT&T buying back the underlying at par at some point and getting cash out sooner would be a benefit, imo. Given the underlying bond trades at a premium it would obviously be to their advantage to do so, and it seems possible that long rates decline again making it even more advantageous in the future. If they can call the debt at $102 or something on a fixed date that makes it potentially a big win, which would make it more interesting for me.

Yeah. The $5 premium options were bought after the initial runup. Does anyone believe he didn't buy calls BEFORE he started a concerted campaign to run up the price? Seems like that first batch of calls is almost certainly where the money came from to buy this batch.

10+ years would be more of a timeline for first oil from a new ultra deep water field in an existing area. 10 years isn't close to possible for a frontier area without clear title, where no exploration well has been drilled.

He wouldn't bother wasting time with something that had zero chance of approval. No way they could own two Class 1 railroads.

I generally buy the foreign stock on the local exchange on margin, then convert exactly the amount of currency that I need, that way I don't end up with any extra.

Homebuilders did so well out of 2020 because everyone was replaying 2008 in their minds and thought RE would get killed. When it didn't, they soared. I think it's unlikely the market will make the same mistake twice in a row. You need to be prepared to look for the next mistake, not get tee'd up to take advantage of the last mistake.

IMO, in a big crash you don't want quality businesses now trading at reasonable prices, you want junky businesses trading like they're going bankrupt in 5 minutes that will survive. Eg. In March 2020 I bought ROST, IBKR, and GOOG. All are great businesses and were trading cheaply. But I did way better buying TZOO (low quality travel business trading like it was going broke) and CVE 30 year debt trading at $0.50, taking a quick double, and then rolling the profits into COST to get quality. Anyway, next time that happens I'm more likely to try to find super-cheap stuff than buy quality on sale. I think screens like "P/S down more than 50% from 5 year average" would be the way to go.

Tech layoffs seem like a huge reason why people would do this. Having 2 jobs means if you lost one you'd get a package and still have a job.

I think it's quite possible that the economics of an annuity in this situation end up very closely approximating the following: She gets the principal back, while the seller of the annuity gets 100% of the returns. The OP should definitely price it out, but I'd be surprised if it's a no-brainer given the low life expectancy here.

I'd leave it in cash equivalents

Clients reducing headcounts isn't good for you when your product is priced as $-per-seat

Haircuts are getting more expensive because wages are going up. Wages are going up because otherwise employees can't afford their rent, so they're pushing harder for increases.