Parsad

I'm 51 and won't be eligible till some time late next month or early May in British Columbia. Canada has been slow to vaccinate, with only about 11% done so far. Cheers!

Why get inoculated for polio or hepatitis? Because the cost/benefit ratio is extraordinary. Cause Polio is actually dangerous and the available vaccines are well tested and in use for a long time (making the chance of unknown long term side effects negligable). I'm innocolated for a number of other dangerous deseases (the ones that I'm likely enough to run into) with tried and true vaccines available. I don't take vaccines for non-dangerous deseases, it' much wiser to let your own imune system handle it. It's not like I get the yearly flu shot (do you?) and influenza viruses are generally much more dangerous than Corona viruses. Furthermore the available deseases are not even out of stage 2 testing.And we didn't even start talking about possible unknown long term side effects. In fact, I would call taking this vaccine reckless if you fall outside the primary risk groups (and unwise otherwise). I consider injecting your children with this failing at your parental duty of care. The politicians are also highly reckless in my opinion. Vaccination 101 is that you don't start vaccinating during an active outbreak as that risks strengthening the virus. Aren't we in one right now? Dangerous game they are playing with all of our futures ... I don't take issue with you being concerned about taking a new and unproven vaccine. I do take issue with underselling the dangers of Covid though. With 550k dead in the US in just a year, and near 3 million worldwide, I would think this has proven far deadlier than polio ever was. And while polio paralyzed just 0.5% of people who caught it (see attached), Covid is estimated to cause long term cardiovascular and/or respiratory issues for up to 1/3 of people who have had it regardless if the severity of symptoms (source is CDC). And we still really don't know how severe that impact will be or HOW long it lasts. So we can stop pretending like Polio was this big bad thing and Covid isn't. Covid, by the numbers, is way worse The problem is that there is an inherent skepticism for science and statistics. Masks, vaccines, etc seem no different among the skeptics than when they first heard about smoking being dangerous to your health. It took decades to convince the skeptics. We're expecting Fauci and others to convince these similarly-minded people that Covid is bad in less than two years. It just won't take with them. Even though today, smokers are about as rare as a poodle with a mohawk, some continue smoking decades after the statistics were more than proven and they are treated as pariahs in society. There will always be the diehards...but if you can get the bulk of the population to change behavior, get inocculated, etc...it still ends up benefitting society overall. Cheers! Dude now I am taking offense. I am a scientist by education and trade. The scientific method is the best method of truthfinding. Trying to paint me (and all others with a similar opinion) as science sketics (I am sceptic of people not science) is intelectual laziness at best and blatant manipulation at worst. It's literally using ad hominems to "win" your argument (meanwhile use ad auctoritatems to make your own point). Please don't believe scientists blindly. Not everything they say is an outcome of the scientific method. They will also state things that are simply their opinion or make mistakes in study or analysis (papers on global warming tend to have large statistical mistakes mainly to do with statistical significance). Besides that, scientists are people with motivations: e.g. of selfish or political nature or coming out of fear. Stop worshipping people, that's an obvious mistake (look at history). Academia (not science!) is starting to take the position of organized religion in society based on how its used to contral people (not content wise of course). Trust the scientific method, not a group of people society declared defacto experts that can only speak truth. That is an extremely naive notion. (for a historic example look at the communistic revolution in Russia). Otherwise wouldnt all I say be true as well? ;) Finally @TwocitiesCapital I am most definitely NOT underselling Corona (Covid-19). First it is less lethal than many flu outbreaks that occured over recent decades (and before you say: of course individual flu outbreaks tend to be more local, but there's a lot more of them). Second: really, for people outside the risk groups you consider Corona dangerous based on the statistics? Now you are just being dishonest in an attempt to convince others (or you actually haven't analyzed the data in the proper context). You lethality argument only has one little flaw: since nobody had any kind of immunity there was, and still is, the possibility of a system overwhelm. Over here (even with masks, movement restrictions, healthcare professionals in vaccination process and commerce restrictions) we had it last january. It is ugly, lethality rose and in the absence of measures things would only have been worse. Get a truly overwhelmed system and the 0,6 or lower mortality will easily rise over 3% or even more (people waiting for death outside emergency rooms due to lack of space, people inside being chosen to live or let die, hospital oxygen systems collapsing (!!!)). Yes this is not the US, but the healthcare system is probably the best thing in this country, and still collapsed. And then you have people dying from other diseases because of coronavirus overwhelm (these don't show up n the statistics). And people who decide the will rather die at home than waiting outside an emergency room... in a system overwhelm even low risk groups are at risk Nobody has (any) immunity? Against a Corona virus? Really? Are you serious right now or taking the piss? :/ Edit: For people reading actually wondering: With no immunity there'd be extinction rate death rates just like when the conquistadors introduced the flue and common cold (Corona) to the new world. Why do people THIS unknowledgable are unaware they are unkowledgable AND like to spread their distorted views for absolute truths. It'd be hilarious if it wasnt so sad and scary. Hi Wachtword, Assume you are 100% correct. Negate the argument on levels of immunity...just ignore it for now. Are you going to say that the health system in most countries right now aren't overwhelmed by Covid cases, and indirectly taking an effect on non-Covid cases? I have an uncle on life support right now, because two days ago, he fell off the commode next to his bed in intensive care after a heart attack, hit his head, and no one found him for over an hour. He actually died and they brought him back a couple of times. The hospital where he is at is completely overwhelmed with Covid cases, as is most of Canada's healthcare system, and that is affecting the care of other patients. On top of that, my aunt...the only family member allowed to see him...is only allowed to visit her husband for two hours, twice a week! We've also had millions and millions of people inoculated now with three different well-known vaccines. There are some side effects from one, with a 1 in 1000 occurrence of blood clots. The other two have had fewer side effects and complications. Are you suggesting that the vaccine poses a greater risk at that level of occurrence (1/1000), compared to immunizing the bulk of the population where death from Covid is around the 0.5/100 incidents? Cheers!

First, I didn't say you should take the vaccine...that's your choice. And I certainly wasn't specifically talking about you...so not sure why you flipped out on me. Second, your discounting the opinion of all health officials in virtually every country around the entire world. Again your choice. Lastly, I said that getting the bulk of citizens inoculated will benefit society, even if others don't get it. Again, no mention of you or anyone specifically. Cheers!

Why get inoculated for polio or hepatitis? Because the cost/benefit ratio is extraordinary. Cause Polio is actually dangerous and the available vaccines are well tested and in use for a long time (making the chance of unknown long term side effects negligable). I'm innocolated for a number of other dangerous deseases (the ones that I'm likely enough to run into) with tried and true vaccines available. I don't take vaccines for non-dangerous deseases, it' much wiser to let your own imune system handle it. It's not like I get the yearly flu shot (do you?) and influenza viruses are generally much more dangerous than Corona viruses. Furthermore the available deseases are not even out of stage 2 testing.And we didn't even start talking about possible unknown long term side effects. In fact, I would call taking this vaccine reckless if you fall outside the primary risk groups (and unwise otherwise). I consider injecting your children with this failing at your parental duty of care. The politicians are also highly reckless in my opinion. Vaccination 101 is that you don't start vaccinating during an active outbreak as that risks strengthening the virus. Aren't we in one right now? Dangerous game they are playing with all of our futures ... I don't take issue with you being concerned about taking a new and unproven vaccine. I do take issue with underselling the dangers of Covid though. With 550k dead in the US in just a year, and near 3 million worldwide, I would think this has proven far deadlier than polio ever was. And while polio paralyzed just 0.5% of people who caught it (see attached), Covid is estimated to cause long term cardiovascular and/or respiratory issues for up to 1/3 of people who have had it regardless if the severity of symptoms (source is CDC). And we still really don't know how severe that impact will be or HOW long it lasts. So we can stop pretending like Polio was this big bad thing and Covid isn't. Covid, by the numbers, is way worse The problem is that there is an inherent skepticism for science and statistics. Masks, vaccines, etc seem no different among the skeptics than when they first heard about smoking being dangerous to your health. It took decades to convince the skeptics. We're expecting Fauci and others to convince these similarly-minded people that Covid is bad in less than two years. It just won't take with them. Even though today, smokers are about as rare as a poodle with a mohawk, some continue smoking decades after the statistics were more than proven and they are treated as pariahs in society. There will always be the diehards...but if you can get the bulk of the population to change behavior, get inocculated, etc...it still ends up benefitting society overall. Cheers!

Sorry, I thought I could change the title color...but unfortunately, SMF only allows changing the post body text color. You can use icons that show up next to the title, so I used the lightbulb icon. With the new site, I believe we can change the title color. Cheers!

Yeah, I would prefer the same thread, but the problem is that people won't know which books have notes and which ones don't unless people check out each book thread. Cheers! Perhaps there is a way to flag threads in the title? A star, or different color text, or some other means, to indicate that someone has (generously) posted their notes. That's a brilliant idea! How about when someone posts notes to a book under the Book section, they can post it and make the book title a "red" color. That will let me know that notes for a book have been posted. I will then merge the notes into the original book thread and change the title "red". Readers will then know that a book title has notes if the title is "red". Does that work? Cheers!

Yeah, I would prefer the same thread, but the problem is that people won't know which books have notes and which ones don't unless people check out each book thread. Cheers!

Hi LongHaul, Not a bad idea, but the problem is then the Books section, which works kind of like the Investment Ideas section gets cluttered. What we could do is add a separate section called "Book Notes"...and then follow through with the title of each submission just like you suggested. The Politics Board will be deleted from the new Investment website, so we could replace it with the Book Notes Board. Does that work? Cheers!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man You can't fix stupid. Plenty of people lost cash money to Nigerian princes over email. Doesn't mean cash is bad. +1! Hilarious! Cheers!

I don't think anyone is mocking crypto itself...especially not me...I've followed the stuff before most of you even heard of it...PDH nearly bought a crypto related company 6 years ago (buy the infrastructure, not the currency). But I'm almost certain that this current batch of crypto (not supported by anything except an artificial scarcity of digital tokens), is not going to end well. Crypto will be the back bone of all financial transactions some time in the future, not dissimilar to how new the internet was 20 years ago and how completely enveloping it is today. But we aren't there yet, and this current batch of crap is is exactly that...crap...think of it as the the Apple Macintosh in its time compared to the iPhone today! One was famous and novel, one was ubiquitous and our life revolves around it. Cheers!

No, I think that time for Fairfax was back in 2003. The decision that we are no longer going to buy crappy insurers and turn them around led to the group of quality insurers they have today. The second part of that was making Andy Barnard in charge of all of the insurers. Even with Fairfax's more eclectic style of investing, the real culprit behind their underperformance has been due to betting against and shorting the market after 2009. They took advantage of the 50% correction, but started hedging and that really hurt their performance. Even with minimal exposure to the stock market, they would have done very well just in their bond investments, conglomerate investments and the equities they did invest in...excluding their shorts and market bets which cost them significantly. Maybe the decision to stop shorting is a step in the right direction...simplifying their portfolio decisions. Cheers! Sanj, please stop describing what FFH did as "hedging." More than 100% of FFH's equity portfolio was "hedged." When your hedge-ratio exceeds your exposure to the underlying (ie, more than 100%) that's called speculation. It was one of the investment decisions where the excessive position sizing reflected poor risk management. SJ They were bets on values regressing to the mean. Historically he was able to wait out Mr. Market and take advantage of volatility (see dot com and housing bubbles). Unfortunately, Mr. Market hasn’t cooperated for over a decade and Prem learned his lessons the hard way. Prem is smart. He learned. He’s not just another run of the mill, self-made, Canadian, multi-billionaire from India. And, he has formally, in writing, taken shorting off the table. I don’t think he is addicted to shorting or to shareholder lawsuits. This issue is easy to understand and was even easier to solve. He also knows he doesn’t have to juice earnings with shorts anymore, now that he has more good investment opportunities than he has capital (for the foreseeable future). Now, all he has to do is reward a bunch of all-star insurance and non-insurance managers/investors like David Sokol, Byron Trott, Wade Burton, etc if they can grow capital by more than 15%. If they can do it, they get more capital. If they can’t then they don’t. The real story of the last ten years was not the shorts. It was the global network of non-insurance capital allocators he has been assembling. The next ten years won’t look like the last ten years. And, the stock will trade above BV again soon enough. Yes, he's essentially got most of Peter Cundill's (Wade & Lawrence) proteges and Warren Buffett's (Sokol and Trott) proteges running money for Fairfax...plus all of the guys that learned at Prem, Brian and Roger's feet. That's not a bad group by any standards! The biggest concern on the investment front is who can do what Brian did all these years? Cheers!

I'm thinking about taking screen caps of posts on this board and selling them as NFTs with very reasonable prices starting in the low thousands. I'll even give Sanjeev 50% of the profits since it's his board. Anyone want to buy a NFT of one of their own posts from me? I'm in! God knows I would never profit from this sh*t otherwise. ;D Cheers!

+1! That's effing funny! Cheers!

No, I think that time for Fairfax was back in 2003. The decision that we are no longer going to buy crappy insurers and turn them around led to the group of quality insurers they have today. The second part of that was making Andy Barnard in charge of all of the insurers. Even with Fairfax's more eclectic style of investing, the real culprit behind their underperformance has been due to betting against and shorting the market after 2009. They took advantage of the 50% correction, but started hedging and that really hurt their performance. Even with minimal exposure to the stock market, they would have done very well just in their bond investments, conglomerate investments and the equities they did invest in...excluding their shorts and market bets which cost them significantly. Maybe the decision to stop shorting is a step in the right direction...simplifying their portfolio decisions. Cheers!

Congratulations! It's a good way to put your ideas together and to track your thought process over time. Cheers!

What expected return over the next 5 or 10 years would make you consider FFH? What are some of these better opportunities and what are their expected returns? At a $455 CDN average cost, I expect Fairfax to return 15-22% annualized over the next 3 years...so it will hit $700-850 CDN conservatively over the next three years. Holding beyond that isn't a concern...but if markets go sideways, I'm comfortable enough to hang on longer and continue to add if it remains at a significant discount. Personally, in this market, I see fewer and fewer opportunities as good. If you think you know of some, please share. Cheers! Parsad, you are too conservative! (all numbers in US$). Fairfax stated objective is to compound bv at 15%. BV at 12/31/20 was $478, if compounded for the next three years it increases as follows: Yr 1 $550, Yr 2 $632, yr 3 $727. After three years the multiple should revert towards the historical mean ~1.2x bv (if they execute at 15% growth the multiple could well be significantly greater than 1.2). At a multiple of 1.0 and BV of $727 = share price of $727, at a multiple of 1.2 = a share price of $872. If they fail to execute at this level then the long-term investment thesis is gone. I sense that they are better positioned now than in recent history and hopefully have learnt from their mistakes. The bottom line for me is (and always has been) that they have an uncanny knack of staying defensive enough to weather the storm(s). I think this is sometimes overlooked! I think you guys misunderstood my assumptions. I'm not saying Fairfax will compound book value at 15-22% annually. The move to book value has nothing to do with any compounded return by Fairfax. So $478 USD, probably closer to $510 USD after the 1st Quarter, means a CDN price of roughly $653 if the company's stock price reverts to book value. Add a 8% growth rate in 2021...$653 CDN * 1.08 = $705 CDN...add a 8% growth rate in 2022...$705 CDN * 1.08 = $761CDN...finally add a 8% return for 2024...$761 CDN * 1.08 = about $822 CDN. Based on insurance pricing where it is, the investments turning around, and the fact that Fairfax is writing at a 93 CR already...means that they can achieve 8% return on book value without reaching for yield. Average investment results combined with continued underwriting and existing leverage...8% compounded on book is quite conservative based on their abilities and history. And my assumptions are that it is only priced at book value...not a premium, nor do they do better than average with investments. Cheers!

What expected return over the next 5 or 10 years would make you consider FFH? What are some of these better opportunities and what are their expected returns? At a $455 CDN average cost, I expect Fairfax to return 15-22% annualized over the next 3 years...so it will hit $700-850 CDN conservatively over the next three years. Holding beyond that isn't a concern...but if markets go sideways, I'm comfortable enough to hang on longer and continue to add if it remains at a significant discount. Personally, in this market, I see fewer and fewer opportunities as good. If you think you know of some, please share. Cheers!

In fairness to Prem, the insurance companies did have an outstanding year and the investments are almost all performing well. Security prices might not be, but the underlying companies (which is what Prem is referring to) largely are. All those answers about the rear view. I’m talking about the present, about what is written in the 2020 annual report. We had a bad year and Prem is not candid about it. That is why he didn’t convince me that the futur will be different. On what basis did we have a bad year? The stock market valued certain assets at certain levels as it always does. On that basis, maybe. But did the insurance subs have a bad year? Did any of the big investments have a bad year operationally (ie, in the way that matters?). You’re absolutely right about the short. But as one example, if you’d told me that Atlas would have sailed through the most aggressive recession in history the way it did, I’d have laughed at you. And I own it. Yet it did. Who cares whether the stock (and therefore Fairfax’s BV) reflects that yet? I really don’t mean to get at you. But I think Fairfax had a spectacular year, all told. It went into the first global financial pandemic in 100 years overlevered and with a raft of cyclical holdings. It came out with cash, rising book value, and an underlying CR of 93%. Works for me. I think reporting combined ratio ex-one time events is really disingenuous. Literally the reason why people buy insurance is to protect from one time events. If you exclude them, of course your CR is going to look great. Their investment performance is great if you exclude the mistakes too, but that's just not how it works. I think reporting the CR with and without one time events helps with understanding. You’ll notice I quoted the CR excluding covid losses but including other cat losses. That seems fair to me, given that I have no evidence that another pandemic is likely to happen on any sensible timeframe (unlike, say, hurricanes). Actually, I think Prem's reporting of insurance losses is a more accurate way to explain what the insurance businesses are doing. If he reported only the actual number, including one-time catastrophe losses, you would have a hard time knowing if the insurance business underwriting is actually getting better. Remember when we would get hit with the huge one-time hurricanes etc, back in 2003, and we'd see a combined ratio of like 114. How do you compare the underwriting of the insurers between now and then, if you don't have the pro-forma numbers showing what the CR is without the one-time loss? Back then, if you removed the one-time losses, we were still writing at like 103...with higher interest rates and dividend income! Today we're writing at 93 with very low interest rates and dividend income! Cheers! By the way, my explanation actually brings up a fantastic point...something that is going to be very important over the next few years. For insurers, there are really three things they can do to improve performance...write better policies and price them correctly; reduce expenses; generate more investment income. We saw this in Japan, and Prem and Brian had a front-row seat for it. But insurers have little choice but to write better policies, which will be hard for many who have annual business relations to maintain, so they will have to cut expenses or reach for yield now. This is a dangerous game for insurers. If we thought insurance was a tough business over the last 20 years, it suddenly became extraordinarily difficult when essentially one of the legs of the stool gets kicked out from underneath. Stability for insurers will become more precarious as they write bad business or reach for yield. This is where discipline will benefit the likes of Berkshire, Fairfax, Markel, etc. Cheers!

In fairness to Prem, the insurance companies did have an outstanding year and the investments are almost all performing well. Security prices might not be, but the underlying companies (which is what Prem is referring to) largely are. All those answers about the rear view. I’m talking about the present, about what is written in the 2020 annual report. We had a bad year and Prem is not candid about it. That is why he didn’t convince me that the futur will be different. On what basis did we have a bad year? The stock market valued certain assets at certain levels as it always does. On that basis, maybe. But did the insurance subs have a bad year? Did any of the big investments have a bad year operationally (ie, in the way that matters?). You’re absolutely right about the short. But as one example, if you’d told me that Atlas would have sailed through the most aggressive recession in history the way it did, I’d have laughed at you. And I own it. Yet it did. Who cares whether the stock (and therefore Fairfax’s BV) reflects that yet? I really don’t mean to get at you. But I think Fairfax had a spectacular year, all told. It went into the first global financial pandemic in 100 years overlevered and with a raft of cyclical holdings. It came out with cash, rising book value, and an underlying CR of 93%. Works for me. I think reporting combined ratio ex-one time events is really disingenuous. Literally the reason why people buy insurance is to protect from one time events. If you exclude them, of course your CR is going to look great. Their investment performance is great if you exclude the mistakes too, but that's just not how it works. I think reporting the CR with and without one time events helps with understanding. You’ll notice I quoted the CR excluding covid losses but including other cat losses. That seems fair to me, given that I have no evidence that another pandemic is likely to happen on any sensible timeframe (unlike, say, hurricanes). Actually, I think Prem's reporting of insurance losses is a more accurate way to explain what the insurance businesses are doing. If he reported only the actual number, including one-time catastrophe losses, you would have a hard time knowing if the insurance business underwriting is actually getting better. Remember when we would get hit with the huge one-time hurricanes etc, back in 2003, and we'd see a combined ratio of like 114. How do you compare the underwriting of the insurers between now and then, if you don't have the pro-forma numbers showing what the CR is without the one-time loss? Back then, if you removed the one-time losses, we were still writing at like 103...with higher interest rates and dividend income! Today we're writing at 93 with very low interest rates and dividend income! Cheers!

There's definitely truth to that logic....but what if you dont want to have to be that active? In that case you should just buy a 30%+ position in Berkshire Hathaway, short some ARK stuff and then go on vacation for 6 weeks and not worry about anything! Trust me, I did it! Yeah, that works too. Cheers!

Sorry, I should rephrase that...I mean it means nothing relative to the potential return of the investment. The criticisms are valid, but relative to it being a good investment or not are irrelevant. Cheers!

I know most people hate Overstock.com and former CEO Patrick Byrne. But I have made more money in my investing life from Overstock.com than any other investment. Not holding it for the long-term, but simply buying it when it looked dirt cheap, and selling it when it got to fair value...and often combining it with LEAPs, so my results were crazy! This year, another hated stock that I've made a killing on was Wells Fargo. Everyone hates Wells, and they often point to Warren selling his stake as a good reason not to buy. But not only did I buy a ton of Wells at $19, I bought a ton of Jan 22 $27.50 LEAPs for dirt cheap. It's up threefold already and I expect it to go up another 100% before I sell later this year...can't exercise them all! Another stock hated, that I bought this year was Biglari Holdings...bought at $48 and sold at $120. I don't like Sardar and I don't like the company...but it was dirt cheap! For you folks who hate Fairfax or think it's a the usual value trap...I bought a ton between $390 and $520 CDN. I will hold it in my taxable accounts unlike BH, but I will sell most of it in my non-taxable accounts when it goes over 1.1 times book. So you don't have to like Prem or Fairfax, you don't have to disparage the business, you don't have to tell us how you got out of the stock 10 years ago...I'm here to make money, so your opinion means nothing! Cheers!

Yes, but your BTC holdings can fluctuate anywhere from 2%-25% on any given day as well! No stability...how do you reconcile its utility as a fiat currency? Cheers!

Maybe you should ask yourself what it is that Square, Visa, PayPal, and other payment processors who are expanding the use of digital currencies must see since they're the experts. It's not just a couple of guys on a forum telling you this stuff. The industry is rapidly moving that direction. We can talk til we're blue in the face to get you to understand what it is and that it has value - or you can just look what the experts are doing. Acquiring crypto and developing crypto solutions... The reason the transactions aren’t instant is because of regulation. The government is trying to prevent criminal activity. That alone should sound serious alarm bells. They must have skipped the criminal activity part https://perspectives.dtcc.com/articles/leading-the-industry-to-accelerated-settlement Q: Why stop at T+1 or T+½? Why not go to real-time settlement? A: Real-time settlement is a simple technical solution but a very complicated market structure change. While the industry should continue to aspire to real-time, it is more pragmatic to reduce the settlement cycle in stages to capture the benefits faster. With real-time settlement in today’s market structure, the entire industry – clients, brokers, investors – loses the liquidity and risk-mitigating benefit of netting, and that is particularly critical during times of heightened volatility and volume. For example, on a typical trading day, NSCC processes an average of about $1.7 trillion in equities transactions. The multilateral netting process reduces that number by about 98%, and the total value settled is around $38 billion. Netting allows brokerages to transfer that $38 billion between parties only once at the end of the day. In a real-time settlement scenario, netting is not possible and trillions of dollars in cash and securities must move through the financial system on a continual basis throughout the trading day. This creates massive market and capital inefficiencies, increases credit and operational risks, and increases costs between trading parties, possibly undermining the stability of the markets. Accelerating settlement requires careful consideration, industry coordination, and a balanced approach so settlement can be achieved as close to the trade as possible (for example, T+1 or T+½), without creating capital inefficiencies and introducing new, unintended market risks, such as eliminating the enormous benefits and cost savings of multilateral netting. I'm very confused. Why are you guys referencing settlement times for equity securities? I can quite easily transfer small dollar amounts of my money to another individual today, instantly. Anything large has limitations and takes more time, due to regulations. What am I missing? You're missing that no settlement happens INSTANTLY in today's financial system. Not for securities. Not for cash. ACH takes 3-5 business days. Stocks take 2 business days to settle. Wires can still take a few hours and cost $. Even solutions like Venmo that seem instantaneous take a few days for cash to reach your account. The only solutions where cash moves "instantly" are solutions where a liquidity provider is giving you their cash while they wait for the cash you transferred to arrive (like trading Schwab allowing me to trade my cash deposit immediately or paying a fee to use an ATM). Cash does NOT move instantly in today's system - this is a result of the plumbing and structure and not of government regulation. Also, securities will exist as tokens and be traded on a blockchain in the future as well. Maybe on a chain such as Ethereum. Companies will issue shares directly to the blockchain and be able to buy-back and remove them. You will be able to see in real time how many shares exist. You will also be able to trade them almost instantly without 3rd party involvement. This I can understand, and I see the value. Why does this mean Bitcoin is worth $50,000 though? Even if real-time settlements don’t happen, it sure seems like they do to me as the consumer. Why does better plumbing, that I don’t even see, make Bitcoin worth $50,000? That was just an aside. But you won't be buying 25 shares of Amazon with $USD, value will be stored in BTC not cash. I don't see that happening unless the world loses faith in the U.S. economy. I just see USD being executed electronically though blockchain technology, so that you have secure, instant transactions. BTC will go the way of trading stamps. Cheers!

Contrary to what my writings may be perceived as, I'm a firm believer in cryptocurrencies. But not this first batch that are essentially unsupported by anything but demand. The next generation created by nation states, corporations as large as nation states, financial exchanges, credit card companies will set up the next wave of crypto, and there will be clear winners and losers from that. And the general population will start to adopt some of those currencies. Cash will no longer exist in 20-40 years other than as a collectible. Cheers!