bizaro86

If that was the end, I don't think you'd get many complaints. But the fact of the matter is that the rest of Canada pays higher taxes to pay for excess spending in Quebec. Both Federal spending well in excess of receipts from QC, as well as direct transfers through equalization. If your choices only impacted your taxes, I wouldn't care. But as an Albertan paying higher than otherwise taxes for QC social programs while QC environmentalists block my livelihood.... And when we have to pay for the environmental disaster that you Albertans refuse even to acknowledge... And if we talk about historical equalization, you have received money before oil, and if we talk about the stupid choice you make when you have surplus, you send little 100$ check to all your citizen so they will buy rationally more F150, and when oil price plunge, you don't have anything because you are too stupid to plan that it is a cyclical commodity...come on with the Quebec bashing, I can bash Alberta a lot if you ask me too. The amount of money Alberta received in the distant past is so nominal as to be insignificant. Alberta's govt sent cheques to everyone a couple of times with surplus oil revenue from our resources. Quebec sends 100s of dollars to its citizens every year in the form of overly generous programs and subsidized hydro prices. They also use Alberta revenue. Which seems more fair to you? Not sure what you're talking about regarding the crash. Oil is pretty low right now. Alberta isn't receiving any equilization, so we seem to still be OK. On the other hand, QC is receiving over $11 billion this year, roughly $1300 for every man woman and child in the province. You're welcome. Amusing for a defender of QC equilization to be bashing Albertan spending. Those who live in glass houses...

If that was the end, I don't think you'd get many complaints. But the fact of the matter is that the rest of Canada pays higher taxes to pay for excess spending in Quebec. Both Federal spending well in excess of receipts from QC, as well as direct transfers through equalization. If your choices only impacted your taxes, I wouldn't care. But as an Albertan paying higher than otherwise taxes for QC social programs while QC environmentalists block my livelihood....

I suspect that it is true that no other country has density like Canada, except maybe Greenland (is that a full country?)

I quite like SD's post, but maybe I'm congenitally suited to real estate. My 2008-2009 bounce back profits all got ploughed into foreclosures shortly after, and some of them will be "keep forever" property. I'll probably estate freeze them over time so there isn't tax payable on my death (hopefully decades from now). I think a few rentals with a competent property manager still counts as retirement. I own 5 that I self manage, and I spend way more time on my stock investments. Maybe that is a flaw, and I need more businesses where I can check the price once per quarter. That's roughly what I do with my RE, and it takes no time at all.

That certainly wasn't my intention when I posted it...

I wonder about the advisability of lending money to people secured by depreciating assets where there is no domestic income or asset base. Maybe it will work out fine, but I wonder how many of those loans will be to people who don't have enough money to pay them because it's stuck in China, or who ate trying to keep up with the Chan's without having the same level of wealth. Probably it depends on what interest rate and LTV they use. It does seem to me like Chinese cracking down on capital controls will be a big risk for this business. I do agree the bolded sentence above is a euphemism for "rich asians" Of course, there will soon be a public way to play the thesis, and you could buy shares in the shell company to get a head start...

So the discounted cheese should start flowing any day now!

I was looking through some regulatory documents, and came across this reverse takeover. I'm not sure what this says about the market in Canada in general, but the bolded jumped out at me. If you can take a company public that specializes in leasing high end cars to new immigrants and international students, is there a bubble? Solution Auto specializes in sourcing and leasing luxury and exotic vehicles, yachts and other high value assets. Solution works with a select group of automotive and marine dealerships providing lending solutions to clients who cannot obtain leasing terms with traditional Canadian financial institutions or other sub-prime lenders. Typical customers include new immigrants, business owners and international students. Solution Auto provides a unique leasing experience whereby it partners with its clients to help them navigate the challenges of acquiring, insuring, maintaining and upgrading vehicles and luxury assets in Canada.

Having your purchasing power eroded by high transaction costs is not obviously better than having it eroded by inflation. I suppose it depends whether you are using it as a store of value or a currency.

My prediction is that one Canadian city makes the final round as a political leverage play to get Amazon more H1B visas and other things it wants. There would be appetite in Calgary (lots of unemployed engineers and empty office space here) to drop a dump truck of money on them, but we're probably too small, and in Canada.

Has anyone done one with IB? I tried with a special situation where you needed to have your shares registered in your name, and opened a ticket with them a year ago or so. They said they couldn't do it, and the opportunity passed, so I haven't asked again...

I'm mostly with IB but keep RBCDI accounts for penny stocks and convertible debentures, which are more expensive and not available on IB respectively. I've executed Norberts Gambit a number of times with simultaneous trades in my registered account. I agree that the compliance could be bad, but is that actually a short position? If I have a settled long position by the time my sale needs to settle, isn't that just a sale of something I own? Genuine question, this is way cheaper than what they charge for Fx, and I want to keep the account...

Brk won't raise, because that hurts them on every future deal. Right now, when they say that is their top price people believe them.

Regarding margin, I think it is more a signal as to what people are doing as opposed to a systemic risk in and of itself. As an example, I saw this on Seeking Alpha recently. https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/8508161-edward-frost/4899379-make-money-shorting-options-every-month Basically, he is shorting very short term, out of the money index options using contracts for difference to increase the leverage. That's like picking up nickels in front of a steamroller, where you've attached a booster rocket to the steamroller. Maybe people are always like that, but that level of greed/reach for yield and lack of risk aversion seems like a bad sign to me...

I think predicting BRK won't do 25% per year for the next 30 years is a pretty safe bet. At their current size, I'm quite confident that isn't possible.

Maybe you should look for shorts. That analysis is a very good idea, definitely something I will put on my to-do list.

I have a Heloc on my house, that is 80% LTV and prime+0.5% rate. As I paid down principal, the Heloc availability increased, so I wasn't losing cash availability. I would absolutely draw it down in a crisis to invest, so I'm keeping the option value.

Parsed, thanks for sharing! This sounds like a great service, and an interesting business as well. I will create an account and anticipate it being especially useful if one of my kids gets sick on vacation. A more business related question, is how do you feel this scales? It seems like a potentially high variable cost business, which reduces the scalability. On the other hand, maybe their revenue is just the spread between health board RATE and what they pay, and I could see the Web infrastructure being mostly fixed costs. I'd also be curious if they are capitalizing on the convenience factor for their employees by paying less. I would definitely take less pay if I could work part time hours and/or from home, and I suspect that is true for medical professionals as well.

I would take the mortgage every time. Its not callable, and depending on your jurisdiction may include an effective put option. (All my mortgages are non-recourse to me, so if the market falls enough that I have zero equity my banks will be getting the properties). Plus there's optionality. You might not be able to get a mortgage later, but cash is always cash and IB will almost certainly always offer margin. Thus, taking the mortgage loan keeps your options open the most.

That law is obviously asinine, but this popped out at me from the article. "The Legislature adjourned May 31 without taking further action. It’s not scheduled to reconvene until January 2019" emphasis added by me. Sounds like being a Texas legislator is nice work if you can get it...

Do you mind sharing the strike/expiry combinations you've been buying. I've bought a few shares on the drop here, and am curious to hear about other strategies

So this thread has been fun, and while I wish for selfish reasons the same pricing insanity would trickle down to Calgary where I own real estate, I have a question. Is there any reasonable way to make money off of knowing this is a bubble? The banks are tbtf, and I can't short the government or cmhc. Are people buying genworth puts? PS. I have a number of Chinese immigrant friends who have received money from. Both parent's house/apartment sales in china, and used the cash to buy real estate here. I have a coworker who owns 12 houses he bought from this source of funds. I'm mentioning this for two reasons. If it's true in Calgary it's probably true in Vancouver and Toronto. Secondly, my message to irrational real estate speculators is that Calgary is way undervalued!

It's worth adding that cardboard is right too. For a niche purchase, they're not a specialist retailer so you can likely get a better deal elsewhere. BUT if you want diapers, khakis, a CD repair kit and a specific children's book, it is likely to be by far the fastest and cheapest option. Knowing they'll have something, it'll be pretty cheap and will come to my house fast has real value.

But on the other hand, the diapers come right to my house with free 2 day shipping. It's like a magical box that means I never have to go to Walmart late at night ever again.

From reading it, it seems to me the child has the money on deposit earning 4% per month. Sounds like they're getting the better end of the deal... Similar to the Lego story above, I intend to do kijiji/Craigslist buy-low-sell-high of whatever my kids are interested in with them when they are old enough. My wife and I have always done that casually with our interests at the time throughout life (including rare books, musical instruments, jewelry, electronics, vending machines, and baby strollers). While we might not start the kids with shipping a 4 valve euphonium to Spain or buy 30,000 used books (both of which we've done) I think the buy a dollar for fifty cents is a useful skill whether you end up an investor or not, and the scale is appropriate for kids.