Jurgis

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/mega-millions-jackpot-rises-to-1-billion.html Back on track? ;D Did anyone do numbers of whether this is now in positive expected value range? (Even with optimistic assumptions of single winner for simplicity.)

OK, then probably you should ask him directly (via PM?) if he did it or not.

You know that on CoBF author can remove their post at any time, right? Which is somewhat a new normal based on how some discussions are going.

This thread comes up periodically: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/investing-in-india/

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a23508636/defense-of-elon-musk/

NO WAY!!!!!!! Crypto currency AND ForEx trading? It is simply too bad that they could not have added some amount of leverage, then they would REALLY have something! PERFECT for retirement accounts! There have to be CDS'es on these. Then we really are talking multibaggers.

OT. I'd be long Elon Musk's Neuralink, since human intelligence and knowledge acquisition in particular seem to be hitting walls dealing with complex multifaceted problems. Although I continue to be amazed by new discoveries, especially in math and physics where problems and their solutions have moved beyond being understandable by very very few.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-09/the-big-problem-with-machine-learning-algorithms https://www.etf.com/BUZ

If you're in UK, I don't know if Fido allows accounts from there. Also their UK commissions would likely differ from US commissions, so US commissions rate may not be very helpful for you. If you'd open US based account with them, then you're likely suffer currency exchange twice... Fido commissions on foreign exchanges vary from $9 to $19 to higher. Whether that's expensive, depends on the size of your order. Edit: I just tried an example trade and commission shows as 35NZD. Not sure if that's variable or not. FWIW.

I heard you could buy a ring of invisibility, slightly burned, but still beautiful... my preciousss. 8)

https://www.propublica.org/article/in-montana-a-tough-negotiator-proved-employers-do-not-have-to-pay-so-much-for-health-care

See what oddballstocks says in AMZN thread: he claims that companies have to deny it by law if it's some kind of national security investigation? I have no clue if this is true. Somebody more knowledgeable in laws/etc has to comment. 8)

I don't think he said that his hedge fund is/will be in US. Some people assumed that but I would have guessed it's not in US.

Has anyone looked at MTG in depth? I see a lot of wheeling and dealing through years, so it's tough to be comfortable and figure out what their real return is. Reminds me of Liberties. But I would not invest in Liberties without Malone. Anyone know MTG management in depth? It doesn't seem to be closely held https://www.mtg.com/leaders/ Kinnevik used to be the main shareholder, but during the summer they dividended out their shares in MTG due to antitrust issues connected to a merger in another holding. MTG was a very small part of KINV. Cristina Stenbeck is the largest owner of KINV and will therefore be the largest owner of MTG too, even if diluted by now just controlling her own shares directly. KINV also converted their A-shares into B-shares before this spinoff, presumably to prevent takeover attempts as the market was flooded with MTG shares. If Stenbeck is not intent on being a long-term owner of MTG and its future spinoff, I presume that both companies are on the auction block rather than her selling her shares. But that's just a hunch from me. OK, thanks, got it. So Cristina may be interested in good returns or she may be interested in other things or bigger fish. Wiki says she's looking more at e-commerce in recent years, but wiki might not be great info source. And who knows what she thinks about esports/MTG-after-split.

Has anyone looked at MTG in depth? I see a lot of wheeling and dealing through years, so it's tough to be comfortable and figure out what their real return is. Reminds me of Liberties. But I would not invest in Liberties without Malone. Anyone know MTG management in depth? It doesn't seem to be closely held https://www.mtg.com/leaders/ Edit: They have "Total Return" button on https://www.mtg.com/the-share/ page. It's not very impressive though better than pure share price graph. Though OTOH looking at Liberties/etc., the media space has not been doing greatly in last couple (5?) years overall.

OT? I'm gonna use this forum to complain about Fido return calculations for accounts that have positions in foreign markets (not ADRs, but full fledged foreign). Their return calculation is screwed up. When I sell foreign stock, they show it as cash deposit. And suddenly my return is negative since their return calculation says "hey your account value dropped by X. And hey, there's a deposit of X. Well your return is negative X/total %. Have a nice day". I complained, but no results so far. >:(

The call that he was talking about is so deep in the money that it wasn't selling at a premium. Ah. Thanks. I'm still lost on this one. Even if there is no premium and the call's price is exactly equal to the price of the stock minus the call's strike price why bother exercising the call. Commission fees alone would make this a worse strategy than just buying stock, correct? Even still, it seems most extremely deep ITM calls will usually have a slight premium to them. I think the thought process here is: yes, the deep ITM call has slight premium, yes, you will have to outlay more cash for stock, yes, you will lose on commissions. BUT. You can now lend the stock at 30% interest, so you are better off converting to stock than holding ITM call. You may ask then: why did that person buy the call in the first place instead of buying stock? Well, it likely was not deep ITM when they bought it, so the above equation was not as attractive.

You realize that what you wrote is self contradictory? Assume stock is rising. Then buying client positions first is better, but selling them first is worse. Assume stock is falling. Then buying client positions first is worse, but selling them first is better. You are assuming at least one of two things: 1. That your purchases/sales influence market price more than the overall trend does. Which might be true for microcaps, but it's not true in general. 2. That you will be buying on uptrend and selling on downtrend, which would be very lucky but not achievable in real life. I think you are wrong with your assumptions. Your implicit assumption is that you can predict tomorrow's prices based on today's move. What is a 'rising stock'? A stock that goes up next week? If so, why would you sell it at all? Same for buying a 'falling stock'. Better to think of stock prices as opportunities. If you think it's too cheap / too expensive it is an opportunity and it seems unethical to act on that opportunity for yourself before you act on it for your LP's. What happens afterwards is anyone's guess. And if you think an opportunity will be even better tomorrow than today (because of a perceived uptrend / downtrend) why would you act on it today for yourself or for your LP's? I am not saying I can predict tomorrow's prices. But I am saying that assumption that buying/selling for clients first is best is not necessarily correct. In fact, depending on your style of investing, it could be wrong more than right. Edit: I'm somewhat just referring to the old value investing trope that value stock continues falling after you buy it and continues rising after you sell it. But since I've been told that there are rules and regulations, I'm just gonna say that OP should follow them.

I think that stress tests are good enough and break up is not needed. I don't think that's a good area to spend time for Sanders or Democratic Party. There are other more important things. But I'm sure there are people who think differently. BTW, someone can remind me why AIG/etc are subject to stress tests and BRK is not. Isn't BRK (re)insurance arm bigger than these companies?

What Hielko said. Same issue with selling: sell yours first or clients' first? Both could lead to better/worse results for clients. Ultimately it's an issue of trust: either your clients trust you or they don't. If they don't, doing the right things may help but may not. If a client wants to distrust you, they can always find a reason. The industry standard is that clients accounts are traded first. This is enshrined in regulations and in things like the CFA rules. It doesn't matter whether the client gets a better price or not: you can't control that. All you can do is trade for them first and avoid front-running. Well if it's industry standard and is in regulations, that's another story. 8) Have to do what regulations and rules say. 8)

You realize that what you wrote is self contradictory? Assume stock is rising. Then buying client positions first is better, but selling them first is worse. Assume stock is falling. Then buying client positions first is worse, but selling them first is better. You are assuming at least one of two things: 1. That your purchases/sales influence market price more than the overall trend does. Which might be true for microcaps, but it's not true in general. 2. That you will be buying on uptrend and selling on downtrend, which would be very lucky but not achievable in real life.

What Hielko said. Same issue with selling: sell yours first or clients' first? Both could lead to better/worse results for clients. Ultimately it's an issue of trust: either your clients trust you or they don't. If they don't, doing the right things may help but may not. If a client wants to distrust you, they can always find a reason.

It's not bad article, though it simplifies things a lot (for popular consumption). You might be better off with the actual source https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.00631.pdf that this article summarizes (it goes from 27 pages to half page, so there's that 8)). Although even source article is IMO biased towards issues, but then that's the goal of the author. 8)

Great decision. Full support for California. Boards do very little work rubberstamping management party line and collect big bucks for it. Qualifications? Qualifications for board is a joke. There are maybe handful of companies that take qualifications for board seriously (see Constellation Software). Let's spread the free big bucks that were collected by golf circuit white males to women and minorities. It won't be worse than it is.

He's probably not friendless, but he likely does not listen to friends. How this ends, who knows. It could end up well or not. My best wishes and support to Elon and everyone in his companies. "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Elon."