Jurgis

Has anyone bought GBTC in IRA? How sure are you that GBTC is legal in IRA and does not have unexpected tax consequences? (E.g. things like MLPs can screw you in IRA). I know that Fido asks for additional agreement before they allow you to buy GBTC. I believe that GBTC sucks in taxable account although I don't remember exact details. Anyway, does anyone has a strong handle of tax implications of GBTC in IRA?

So Prem should short BB since it's a momo meme stock. Will he have ballz? Popcorn at eleven. ;D

Where are you located and are flights included? Any interest in coming to St Louis if I lose? ;D Boston. Last time I visited St. Louis was in 2005. The food was good from what I remember, so I might be able to drop by. Assuming - if I lose - that I have enough money to drop by. 8)

Since I'm all for accountable predictions, I am going to offer a (value investor priced) dinner bet that SP500 will be higher in 5 years (on 2026 Jan 25) than where it is now. Don't all jump at the opportunity. Offer good for first person to bet only. I may accept or reject any additional bettors at my discretion. Which I have to say is the better part of valor. 8)

Grantham writes: Maybe he means that he made up his losses in the book of business. Since performance-wise, his sale was not great. If you look at SP500 (I'm eyeballing SPY prices), if he sold at the top of 1997, he sold at ~$97. If he rebought at the very bottom of 2002, he rebought at best at $82. I'd guess that he did not sell at $97 and he did not buy back at $82. So in essence, let's say he really called the dot com bubble. He still avoided at best ~15% drawdown to the bottom... (There's some divvies missing and perhaps he reinvested in bonds that did better than 0% cash). Not a great result if you ask me. Sure, maybe selling now is not like selling in 1997. Maybe it is like selling in late 1999. Maybe. But there's a lot of folks here who have been telling to sell since 2011 or 2014 or 2016 or 2018. Will the real top of the bubble please stand up? Yeah, maybe FAANMGs (which are a large chunk of the market) are ~20-30% overvalued (I'd argue that some of them are close to fairly valued). Yeah, if there's a crash they could overshoot down more than 20-30%. Yeah, good luck timing all that. I think you ingore the alternatives here though. He didn't sell and go to cash right? He sold and went to t-bills. So it's not that he avoided -15%, it's that he made a few % each year over the 5-year time frame his benchmark was -15%. That's a pretty big deal and the type of outperformance people pay hedge funds 2 and 20 to achieve. And you just ignored the SP500 yield that I mentioned. And you ignored that he quite certainly did not switch back at the bottom, so -15% is theoretical worst he avoided.

Grantham writes: Maybe he means that he made up his losses in the book of business. Since performance-wise, his sale was not great. If you look at SP500 (I'm eyeballing SPY prices), if he sold at the top of 1997, he sold at ~$97. If he rebought at the very bottom of 2002, he rebought at best at $82. I'd guess that he did not sell at $97 and he did not buy back at $82. So in essence, let's say he really called the dot com bubble. He still avoided at best ~15% drawdown to the bottom... (There's some divvies missing and perhaps he reinvested in bonds that did better than 0% cash). Not a great result if you ask me. Sure, maybe selling now is not like selling in 1997. Maybe it is like selling in late 1999. Maybe. But there's a lot of folks here who have been telling to sell since 2011 or 2014 or 2016 or 2018. Will the real top of the bubble please stand up? Yeah, maybe FAANMGs (which are a large chunk of the market) are ~20-30% overvalued (I'd argue that some of them are close to fairly valued). Yeah, if there's a crash they could overshoot down more than 20-30%. Yeah, good luck timing all that. Is it me or is this quite cherry picking the time interval? "Look, market exploded... well it exploded from the bottom of the COVID panic drop, but it really exploded!" Hmm, yes. BTW, both SPY and QQQ are up ~3% in 2021. That's definitely an accelerated final leg. ::)

WSB loves Anacott Steel. I know I repeat myself, but repetition is sincerest form of flattery.

It wasn't four days. And the guy's name was Jack Ma. ::) Cats taste like rabbits, I have heard. At least that’s what my grandpa told me, based on his culinarily experiences in WW2. OT. My step-grandpa was in Gulag and told that cats taste like crap. Dogs taste better. I think that's mostly true. Carnivore meat is supposedly not tasty and that's one of the reasons it's not eaten. Humans on the other hand...

It wasn't four days. And the guy's name was Jack Ma. ::)

Not necessarily much. Joint ventures frequently don't work out. There's usually not a lot of support from parent companies. And the structure is not necessarily beneficial for getting the take up. Edit: Also IMO Haven had a wide and not very clear mandate. One way to make JVs work is to have a narrow mandate and forcibly transfer the business to JV. E.g. if BRK/JPM/AMZN would have forcefully transferred the medical insurance/benefits of all their employees to Haven, then Haven would have had heft and a real mandate to minimize costs and to maximize benefits to work with.

As predicted: https://havenhealthcare.com/

Yes, that capitalist paradise of USA taxes the gain on principal residence. Although there's a pretty large margin that is not taxed, so it affects (very?) few. I'm surprised that our "socialist" Canadian neighbors think that https://www.irs.gov/faqs/capital-gains-losses-and-sale-of-home

Really classy behavior here Picasso. Personal attacks and insults. Way to go. ::)

I have a feeling at some point there's gonna be a deluge of unwanted second-hand RVs and the companies will crash. The timing might be tough though. (And I don't short).

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/science-covid-19-manhattan-project/617262/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Partially OT: Harlan Ellison is (in)famous in writing long personal and philosophical introductions/prefaces to his books. I've recently read his 3 (yes, 3) prefaces to a single book spanning from the 1960s to 2000s that are quite relevant to today's political situation and events. For anyone interested, this: https://smile.amazon.com/Paingod-Other-Delusions-Harlan-Ellison-ebook/dp/B00J90EMRY/ref=sr_1_9?crid=34ZWO87GZAY1&dchild=1&keywords=harlan+ellison&qid=1608047822&sprefix=harlan+ell%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-9 ( Kindle edition has 3 prefaces, paper editions may vary ). Edit: Harlan actually also prefaces every single story in the collection with shorter or longer intro, so total number of prefaces in the book is 10 or so. :)

I'm pretty sure he was talking about Sequoia Capital and not Sequoia Fund when he said that.

I'd guess that most companies will not give a damn about small shareholders and may do subpar capital allocations for various reasons (though that's somewhat true everywhere, but it's likely more true in Eastern Europe). Some companies may try to actively screw small shareholders. You may be better off with companies that don't have large controlling shareholder. Outright fraud is probably 2x-5x more common than in US, but that's still probably 1-2% of all companies. There's likely going to be more grey area activities where companies bribe politicians, break laws/regulations, use inside connections to get preferential treatment or screw competition. These can be positive or negative for company and shareholders. Things have gotten better in last 30 years AFAIK, just not completely to Western European or US standards. FWIW from a cynical Lithuanian.

Zero commissions in US @Fidelity and I think most others mentioned. Not zero on IB AFAIK (unless you go with their severely limited noob account).

A bit OT, but at the VR/AR mini-euphoria after Facebook bought Oculus Rift ("OMG we will all use Oculus Rift in a year") my prediction was: 2014: "In 2020 VR headsets will have <10% of games/entertainment market." Spot on. I wonder if I should update it to: "In 2025 VR headsets will have <10% of games/entertainment market." ::)

It's fun to see CoBF value investors cry bubble about various other e-car companies but consider it Charlie and Warren's genius when BYD price runs up on the same e-car sentiment. (Yeah, the e-cars where BYD is down 36% YoY https://insideevs.com/news/454741/china-byd-plugin-sales-surges-october-2020/ - but hey Oct 2020 results are positive ) 8) I would say that BYD is not really doing great in their business and the jury is very much out if it is going to be a successful company long term. BWDIK.

Since Buffet's original purchase, no one would have ever lost money on BRK if they were patient. I'm always writing puts on BRK. Everything I have been put to I have either sold for above the put price or still hold with a nice gain. That is true. But it's also true that one could have sold BRK in March at a loss, bought other stocks and have outperformed BRK (and SP500) hugely since then. Also true, but how many can do that? I probably would have lost even more trying that. Yeah, but the context is Ackman's sale of BRK. And it quite possibly was not a big mistake considering his other portfolio moves. Although it's not easy to say for sure, since we don't know day-by-day cash position and buys/sells. Personally, I did not sell BRK, but I sold-and-bought stocks in March/April/May that sometimes worked out great and sometimes resulted in hugely lost opportunity. So I would not blame Ackman for BRK sale at a loss during that time.

rb just got disqualified from CoBF. ;D :o Did I miss a dividend in 1966 or something? 1967: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/041714/how-warren-buffett-made-berkshire-hathaway-worldbeater.asp#:~:text=The%20only%20time%20Berkshire%20Hathaway%20actually%20paid%20a,bathroom%20when%20the%20dividend%20was%20authorized.%2015%20%EF%BB%BF I was close eh? I beg pardon to the CoBF gods. Stil I think that the method would work pretty well instead of trolling through the new york times stock pages of the 60s. Yeah, I'm mostly trolling you. ;D P.S. I may be hallucinating, but I'm 90+% sure there was a list of BRK prices since 1965 posted on this thread. It has disappeared. Not sure if author removed it or if there was another instance of CoBF posts disappearing due to whatever crash/etc. Which has happened once or twice this year.

Since Buffet's original purchase, no one would have ever lost money on BRK if they were patient. I'm always writing puts on BRK. Everything I have been put to I have either sold for above the put price or still hold with a nice gain. That is true. But it's also true that one could have sold BRK in March at a loss, bought other stocks and have outperformed BRK (and SP500) hugely since then.

rb just got disqualified from CoBF. ;D :o Did I miss a dividend in 1966 or something? 1967: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/041714/how-warren-buffett-made-berkshire-hathaway-worldbeater.asp#:~:text=The%20only%20time%20Berkshire%20Hathaway%20actually%20paid%20a,bathroom%20when%20the%20dividend%20was%20authorized.%2015%20%EF%BB%BF