KCLarkin

I get that this can work when Mr. Market goes crazy. But intellectually, it makes no sense.

With this approach, you are systematically undervaluing the best businesses. Here is an example from my own "mistake" in using this normalized approach: MSC (industrial distributor) YE 2015: Trailing earnings: $3.79 Foward earnings (actual): $3.77 Normalized Earnings: ~$4.00 Cheapest Price 2015: $55 Normalized PE: 13.75 FASTENAL YE 2015: Trailing earnings: $0.89 Foward earnings (actual): $0.87 Normalized Earnings: ~$0.75 Cheapest Price 2015: $19 Normalized PE: 25 On normalized PE, MSM was almost half the price of Fastenal! But which was cheaper? Over the next 9 years, performance was: MSC EPS CAGR: 5.3% Annualized Return: 7.6% FAST EPS CAGR: 10.6% Annualized Return: 17.2% MSC was pretty close to fairly priced in 2015. Fastenal was the real bargain. But that is easy to say in hindsight. How could you have known at the time? There were a couple pretty strong clues: MSC ROE 17% 10yr EPS Growth: 9% FAST ROE 29% 10yr EPS Growth: 12% Fastenal was clearly the better business. If you asked 100 investors in 2015 which was the better business, 100 (including me) would have said Fastenal. But then fools, like me, bought MSC because it was "cheaper".

Trying to be "conservative" is a mistake. You should try to be accurate. How many great and very reasonably priced companies have value investors missed because they were too "conservative". I agree with Gregmal, you should be looking out at least 3-5 years. Trailing earnings are already priced into the stock. Forward earnings are usually too (though Meta is an example of "conservative" investors missing forward earnings by a mile). If you look at only forward earnings, every great company will look expensive. If you use trailing earnings, every value trap will look cheap. Nvidia is a great cautionary tale. In January 2022, TTM (2022) was $4.44. actual fwd (2023) was $3.34. You could have been conservative and estimated 2024 earnings at $3 or $4 or $5. But actual 2024 earnings were $12.96. Sure, you might have missed the drawdown from $300 to $100. But you would also miss the run from $100 to $900. Conservatism comes at a price. --- This also depends on your strategy. If you are buying a cyclical, you should be looking at the past 10-20 years. And then maybe overlay some thoughts on forward earnings. For a real growth stock, you should be looking out 5-10 years.

Agree that it is unlikely a no-brainer and very likely a bad deal. But... This is an insurance product not an investment, so you should be expecting to only get principal back..at best. You are insuring against the "risk" of her living longer than four years (or whatever the insurer's actuarial tables say). Given her age and current principal drawdown, I'm not sure the insurance is necessary. She can probably afford to self-insure. I'd be worried about her burn rate rising if she needs more intensive LTC.

Is there a Vanguard of annuities? It does seem like the ideal product for this life stage but the commissions and fees mean most annuities are a rip-off. Caveat emptor. If you can’t find a good annuity, a fixed income ladder is probably the best option for that life stage. But honestly, her current portfolio seems fine unless you are convinced rates are coming down quickly.

These stocks did perform well 2000-2012. I looked at a few boring "compounders". The few stocks I looked at all did good to very good during this period (though this is hindsight because these are famous compounders in part because they performed well during this period): Copart Fastenal Autonation O'Reilly Tractor Supply Alimentation Couche-Tard Boyd Group Heico Most of those have also done well in the 2012-2024 period, I think. And some newer flavours (e.g. Constellation Software and Transdigm) have done exceptional as well. So it is tempting to assume great compounders are "evergreen". But Mr. Market has bid many of these up, so who knows. But if you can buy these types of companies at reasonable prices, you can generally ignore what the indexes do.

But China will win a race to the bottom. If the only difference between phones is cost, China will win.

Why is there so much desire to destroy American companies with strong market positions? Competition is now global and you need strong national champions. If you handicap American tech, who wins? China, Korea. In the best case, you give some modest market share to another American big tech co. Can you imagine Taiwan trying to voluntarily cede TSMCs dominant position? This reflexive hatred of "big tech" is such self-inflected nonsense.

There is a book about him. Sadly, it is in French and I haven't seen any news of an English translation. And I can't read French so I don't know if it is worthwhile: https://www.amazon.ca/François-parcours-singulier-investisseur-dexception-ebook/dp/B0BQ592XNC?ref_=ast_author_dp

My favourite thing about doctors: the diagnosis will often just be a description of your symptoms... in Latin. Patient: Doc, my ass is itchy. Doc: You have pruritis ani. Patient: OMG, is it fatal? I feel the same about crypto enthusiasts. They throw around a bunch of jargon to make it sound sophisticated. It is perhaps the simplest financial asset in history. Everything important about bitcoin could fit on a postcard. If you are really verbose, you could stretch it out to a one-pager. Anyone who thinks that Buffett and Munger and Dimon aren't able to immediately grasp the essence of bitcoin is delusional. It reminds me of the Valeant bagholder's who thought Munger just didn't understand... --- As always, Matt Levine captures this well: A crypto token is also an electronic token that you can buy or sell for money, but in a purified form. There’s no company, no product, no earnings, no cash flow. Sometimes a lot of people want to buy the token, and its price goes up; other times, they want to sell, and its price goes down. You have the most salient feature of finance — a volatile electronic token that you can trade — without any of the other features. There is less to learn! Oh this is unfair and oversimplified, your crypto project is different...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703977004575393180048272028 I think it is pretty obvious that he'd be a good fit for the board. But why would he want the role?

I've never understood why Buffett thinks (thought -- has he mentioned it in the last 20 years?) this is a good metric. There are so many obvious flaws, I don't know why anyone takes it seriously. Similar to Lynch's PEG ratio.

To answer the original question, ETF approval increases the likelihood I will start a position in BTC to 0.1%. The fact that Coinbase is the likely custodian knocks that back down to 0.001%. The main use case for BTC (other than speculation and illicit activities) is theft and fraud. Having Blackrock as a sponsor does allay most of those concerns. --- But, I want to own great businesses. I don't have any interest in bonds, gold, commodities, art, or collectibles. For me, the best thing about Crypto is that it diverts many of the speculators away from high quality businesses. The fact that y'all are getting rich quick off of Beenz 2.0 doesn't bother me. I'm okay getting rich slowly... --- Disclosure: I'm from the dotcom, Beanie Babies, Pogs generation. I'll let you get rich off your very wise investments in BTC. I just prefer great businesses at reasonable prices.

Bogle didn't think ETFs were compatible with a buy-and-hold philosophy (and he is correct though the other advantages make up for this). It Boggles my mind that people on this forum don't understand Vanguard. One of the most important financial institutions of all time.

On Invest Like the Best, he said that he would stop active investing if he wasn't getting results. That implies that he is getting results.