PatientCheetah

Too many conflicts of interest operating here. Impeachment is a real possiblity. If/When his scandals and mouth become a national embarassment R. Reps will be trying to save their own skins and will start an impeachment process. At the very least within short order they will firewall him. Its all just sowing the seeds for a needed democratic renewal. I hope he isn't impeached (or one of the crazy liberals we see crying or defecating on the sidewalk doesn't flip out and kill him). Trump is unlikely to be that bad a president, but Pence would be awful. Trump is basically a New York liberal pretending to be a conservative. Pence however is the real deal. Pence is a big time religious nut conservative. When he says anti-gay things, or anti-abortion things, unlike Trump, he really means it. There is that. Pence is off the charts in religious nuttiness, and social backwardness. I will pray every night that no one from the left is nutty enough to assassinate DT. Pence succeeding DT would be horrible/birth of anti-christ - be careful what you wish for!

in a selloff, active long only doesn't do any better than passive. with passive, you are guaranteed to receive the average with almost no fees.

I think there are a few accountants on this board. I would love to hear your views. The new accounting treatment seems to do the same adjustments that experienced investors perform anyway.

FIZZ SAM can't fight the Fed ;D

blame politics, much easier for corruption to occur when you are giving out government contracts to build physical things. We don't have an impartial technocratic bureau to allocate government funds, in fact, the budgeting process is highly politicized and devolves into simply buying votes, not necessarily for the greatest public gains.

Yes they can print money at will. But getting these money into the economy is the tricky part - unless they give everyone free money directly, there are hard limits with bond buying.

What happens when central banks run out of bonds to buy? I also read many articles saying that yield hungry investors have been selling equity index puts. Could be a lethal combination - central banks losing control and large amount of derivatives outstanding

Remember this, stock prices rarely go up if earnings is not getting better, so it is very possible to lose your shirt even when you think a company is very unvalued. Go read business history books - study the up and down of important companies from the past e.g. Xerox, IBM, RCA Walmart etc See if you can figure out repeating patterns between their stock prices and their changing fundamentals. If you want all the answers right away, I have an amazing deal - for $10k, I will tutor you for 2 days ;)

I am not sure reading 10k or 10q is the best use of your time. I think it's more important to understand a variety of business models and what drives their earnings. Small details are generally distractions

VXX the board is very quiet considering what have transpired today :o

It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change. -Charles Darwin IMO, investing nowadays takes more imagination/insight. The influx of new talents well versed in value investing tenets have largely eliminated obvious opportunities - ones that are obvious from financials/screens. The ability to imagine how a business and its financials may evolve over time is a much harder skill to hone/teach.

I would love to have more worthless fiat currency. In order for society to prosper, controlled inflation/debasement is a desirable feature - it gradually reduces the debt burden coming from investment already made and frees up cashflow to invest for future growth.

+1 excellent post KC, I do the same thing ;)

GNW OCN

QHC -recent spinoff

Are we going to make better investment decisions/make more money by discussing coke/sugar?

PRGO

http://www.barrons.com/articles/bill-gross-why-interest-rates-must-rise-1460174700 Very interesting article - Bill Gross gets about 2% from owning short duration investment grade corporate bonds, his remaining returns are derived from 1) selling interest rate calls/puts with the thesis that central bank will contain interest rate volatility within a narrow band 2) merger arb 3) closed-end fund arb - at least he is only selling short dated volatilities ;)

There shouldn't be a difference between owning a call + cash vs. owning equities + put. It's the same trade (unlimited upside + downside limited at the strike price). in theory they are the same, in practice, people have the tendency to become complacent and sell out of the put at the exact wrong time, then holding onto equities due to sunken cost, so call + cash is probably better if you are not a disciplined/somewhat good trader

Don't hedge, go to cash and sit there if you hate everything

We have this played out many times on this forum. When opinions become overly unilateral, especially about the overall market, start thinking the other way. If Joe Dirt has bought it, who hasn't bought it yet?

I got 80% of the recent move. Sold too many names a week too early :'(

In the name of political correctness, we fail to do cost and benefit analysis... Thinking outside of box is a good idea from time to time.

I looked into this too. I couldn't find anything for free.

why not just follow the flow and stop trying to predict the future? buy quality business at reasonable valuation that has both price and business momentum and get out if momentum sags later on ;)