KCLarkin

It's perhaps true that a "hole-in-the-wall" can have better food than a run-of-the-mill high-end restaurant. But these elite restaurants get there because they meet exceptionally high standards of service, artistry, flavour, and experience. Obviously, some people have different tastes. You need to have a palate for French-style small-plate cooking to really appreciate most of these restaurants. If you are someone who just wants a big steak or bowl of pasta, you are wasting everyone's time by going to one of these restaurants. Disclosure: I haven't been to any of these top 5. The highest I've been to is Alinea in Chicago. But objectively, it is the "best" restaurant I have ever been to. And my experience there was certainly worth more than 100 trips to Five Guys. BTW, I find Five Guys burgers essentially flavorless (the fries are good).

Somehow, WEB never gets these things wrong. - He chose May 11, 1942 as the start date. This was a significant bear market low (due to WW2). The dow was at the same level first seen in 1905. If you use calendar years, you will get lower result. - Dividend yields were extremely high during these years. ~8.5% in May 1942 (http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-dividend-yield/table?f=m)

10 year treasuries were almost 10% when he wrote this book, so the ratio might have "worked" in many cases back then. I suspect you are undervaluing growth. But then again, there are exceedingly few companies that can grow 15% or 20% per year for 10 years.

Thanks for this. I think your use of only the next 10 years undervalues the high growth stocks. Your terminal value would be very high for a company growing 20%. I suspect the fair multiple for a 15% grower is well over 30x. Mathematically, PEG is clearly wrong. It does have the advantage of implicitly assuming some reversion to the mean. A company that you know will grow 20% per year for the next 10 years, is maybe worth >40x. But a company that is currently growing at 20% is worth significantly less (since you don't know how long growth will last).

Zweig is a very good writer. But his annotations do spoil this classic.

I've been using Yahoo Finance and it is actually quite good. Not sure why it has such a bad reputation. It's going to be a long time before it replaces Google Finance in my workflow but a few things I like: - Portfolio view has a neat indicator showing where stock is trading relative to 52 week high/low - Customizable portfolio views (can add things like 200 dma, %change from 52 week high - "Statistics" shows much more than Google Finance ever did - Great iphone and ipad apps and good website It will take a while to customize and get used to Yahoo Finance but I think it is vastly superior to old Google Finance. Caveat: My memories of Google Finance are fading so I am probably forgetting all the great things about it. Edit: Just took a look at Morningstar. It has Total Return YTD which is pretty cool. One problem with most free finance sites is that they only provide price returns (ignoring dividends).

Actually, I believe this is incorrect. See final page of this document: https://ca.rbcwealthmanagement.com/documents/258147/258168/Currency+Tax+Reporting+-+Foreign+Exhange+Gains+and+Losses+%282016%29.pdf/f6445bb7-fdcf-4c4c-9a0d-d617f6fcfa4a

Are you sure? How do they handle return of capital, superficial losses, spinoffs, mergers?

You are both right. IB can use the FIFO method for reporting the T5008. Many brokers just leave the cost basis blank because it is impossible for them to know your cost base. You may have the same security in multiple accounts, you may have transferred in low cost basis securities, you might have certificates in a drawer, you might have superficial losses. So, it is irrelevant what IB reports to the CRA, you must use average cost for your cost basis. Again, I think you are both right. IB is probably aware that it impossible to provide an accurate cost basis, so they asked CRA whether they could just use FIFO to fill the form. CRA probably said yes. BUT, you still need to report ACB. NEVER rely on T5008 or any capital gains reported by IB or any other broker. Personally, I've never even looked at a T5008. In this case, FIFO will usually benefit CRA, so you probably wouldn't have too much hassle if you got audited. -- Also, if you have foreign currency transactions, not that you need to adjust for currency. Which is another headache. Note that T5s for USD accounts are reported in USD, so you need to manually adjust for currency before entering into tax forms.

Interactive Brokers offers FX futures and options. But I have no experience with either.

Yes, this is the classic example of a two-sided network. The demand will go to the network(s) with the most supply. And the supply will go to the network(s) with the most demand. And the moat increases as the network grows since the dynamic is self-reinforcing. These are very, very powerful moats.

Yes, I've never had an issue with Gambit in BMO margin account. And I never bother to call - just let things settle on their own. I have had interest charges in my RRSP.

My experience is that you are more likely to get hit with interest in RRSP/TFSA accounts. And the interest rates for non-margin accounts are very high. I'm not sure what triggers the interest charge but I suspect it might be using the proceeds to buy a different stock before the Gambit settles.

I think this is the one you were referring to: https://www.pwlcapital.com/en/Advisor/Toronto/Toronto-Team/White-Papers The blog used DLR as an example. For BMO in particular, I would have to call in to execute the second half of the trade. I wonder if I could avoid calling if I use a dual-listed security, e.g. Enbridge (ENB)? Buy on TSX and sell on NYSE.. not sure how I can specify the exchange for this trade though - perhaps by specifying the settlement currency? Yes, you can avoid the call if you use a dual-listed security at BMO. You can do both trades online. Going from CAD to USD, pick two options when you sell: Market: US Settlement currency: US dollars Thanks. Sorry for being slow, but just want to ascertain - let's say i am holding BEP.UN (traded on the TSX) and I want to sell it and cash out in USD. I would put a trade to sell BEP on the US market and settle in USD, correct? Supposedly BMO would know that BEP.UN/TSX and BEP/NYSE are equivalent? See also: https://www.milliondollarjourney.com/save-money-with-usd-to-cad-foreign-exchange-using-norberts-gambit.htm

I've used it too and saved $1000s. I suggest that you google it -- there is a blog that has details for each of the brokers.

Where did you learn about this company?

Surprised I haven't heard of this one before. Thanks for adding a new company to the conversation.

I stopped listening to the podcast. He has very strong viewpoints on macro b.s. and was just polluting my brain. I really can't recommend this podcast to anyone.

Okay, but what is 5 year CAPE?

There was some reports of outages at a couple U.S. brokerages. Edit to add this thread:

One obvious answer is that IBKR is a global operation with significantly larger scale than any of the Canadian banks. So a few retail traders day trading pot stocks won’t bring the system down. But it also has significantly more experience scaling its system. With a properly designed system, it isn’t hard to quickly scale capacity. But all of the big Canadian banks are relatively small brokers. Anyway, the experience is that IBKR has been stable when other platforms went down (eg during flash crash). Reasonable expectation is that it is your best bet. But no guarantees that any platform be stable in a real panic. Remember brokers just stopped answering the phone in the 87 crash.

The obvious answer is that they are using 18 year old systems. With 18 years of patches, hacks, and modifications... IBKR is the solution. Disclosure: Long IBKR. I haven't noticed any major issues with BMO IL but client response times are crazy right now. One of the benefits of the five star program is supposed to be enhanced customer responsiveness. I am slowly shifting assets over to IBKR.

I said this was the BULL CASE. I'm not saying cryptocurrencies will increase crime (though there are some crimes like ransomware that would be pretty tricky). But if you look at legitimate reasons why someone would want to use Bitcoin rather than USD as a currency, they are almost all illegal (for example evading capital controls). Getting back to my original post, this is the libertarian fever dream. If you have a decentralized currency, the government loses its power. Anyways, this will be the last time I post about "crypto" and hopefully the last time I ever think about it.

Anyone I'd consider 'smart' economically would surely be aware of hyperinflation in Germany, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela. Let's use The Economist as the dividing line for "smart". If you've ever subscribed to The Economist (or read it cover-to-cover regularly), you are likely aware of the dangers of fiat currency. BTW, any 'smart' investor should read this article: http://fortune.com/2011/06/12/buffett-how-inflation-swindles-the-equity-investor-fortune-classics-1977/

This is really the bull case. If the economy for criminals, terrorists, tax evaders, and money launderers is large enough (and it is), some of these tokens might actually have value as currencies. But which token will become the fiat currency of the underworld? There is a pretty good chance it hasn't even been invented yet. Are we still at the Napster stage of digital currencies?