Jurgis

I see where Liberty is coming from. Like he said, when you haven't heard about value investing/moat/whatever, reading Buffett/Graham/etc. is like a "wow" experience. When you have heard this for 20 years, it's like "meh, moat, yeah, meh, margin of safety, yeah, meh, capital allocation, yeah, tell me something new". ;) I get it that people find some new nuggets in Buffett writing from time to time, but overall, yeah, another BRK letter/Q&A, meh. ::) ;) Edit: There's also the fact that moats erode (or is that walls that erode and moats ?? - fill up? ::) ) and the concept is not as great and easy to exploit as it was in the day. But that might be separate and more serious thread. 8)

I hate to tell this to you, but I think your renters are dead. Maybe even mummified.

I nearly invested in this Egyptian tourism business, but then I realized it was just a pyramid scheme.

BTW, this seems like a good thread for: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-04/apple-s-1-trillion-chase-unprecedented-try-totally-logical Ignore the headline (or accuse me for promoting a bubble ;D ). The article actually has some good numbers and charts.

Author's definition: Accepting this definition, I don't see how 3/5 of FAANG "offer little chance of any positive risk premium relative to bonds or cash, using any reasonable projection of expected cash flows". ::) BTW, it was authors who included Apple in FAANG. It wasn't me. Although it does make my case easier. Otherwise, I would have said 2/4. 8)

So you buy total market index and short top ten companies to remove them from the index. Insta profit and outperformance. 8) For sarcasm impaired: yes, it is. Or not. You can try it. Maybe it will work.

Pretty much zero valuation analysis and then claim that FAANGTB are in bubble. At the time when Buffett is buying one of the As. ::)

3rd order effect: China, understanding the strategic importance of long term investment, picks up the slack, allowing it the distinction of being able to helicopter into developing countries with new medical discoveries it can give away to extend and cement its soft power in countries that are going to be relevant in geopolitics 20 - 30 years from now. We're in checkmate here folks, we just haven't figured that out yet. We got fat and lazy while the Chinese have been working to throw us off the high horse. It reminds me of the intro to Rocky 3, where we see that Rocky has lost himself to the glitz and glamour of his fame. TV commercials, magazine photoshoots, the "perfect" family Christmas and his face on merchandise everywhile Meanwhile we are introduced to Clubber Lang, a young fighter making his way up the rankings. We see him brutally knock out his opponents while Rocky is beating up a bunch of palookas we later discover were set up as tomato cans for Rocky to squash by his manager Mickey. And while we see Clubber Lang dedicate all of his time to improving himself to better his chances at his chosen profession, we see Rocky making appearances on The Muppet Show and shilling for American Express. Rocky had grown soft and the Rocky brand was more valuable with him beating up tomato cans than risking his title against legitimate competition. But sooner or later, if you don't take the fight to your competition, your competition will take the fight to you. Rocky couldn't duck Clubber Lang forever, and when he eventually did fight Clubber Lang he discovered that his match ups with the palookas hadn't prepared him to face real competition again. Ever since the Cold War ended, we've been like Rocky. We've been resting on our laurels and beating up palooka countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, while China has been investing in its domestic infrastructure, building up its soft power around the world and rising up the rankings. The day is coming soon that the US will get knocked out cold and be unable to answer the 10 count, and it's our own fault for letting our country fall apart. All that wasted money for wars could have been used to reinvest in America and make us more competitive, but I guess reinvesting in your economic moat is a tough sell when many people believe American Exceptionalism alone has imbued us with our gifts, and that philosophy has made us arrogant and lazy. We're in checkmate; when you're in checkmate, how can you win? You've already lost, and you can't win a game that you've lost. At least, not conventionally. But there is another alternative, famous in Go clubs around Asia... The Nuclear Tesuji. You flip over the board and the pieces go flying everywhere. It's total chaos, and the usual rules and expectations no longer apply because we're no longer playing the same game. China has been besting by building up their strategically important infrastructure. It's time we do the same, by issuing trillions of dollars worth of bonds to build up our own domestic infrastructure to catch up with China. And we need to do this while we still have Donald Trump in office, because he is uniquely qualified to deal with the next step of the operation. Being the first of the major powers of the world to default on its obligations to the others. Donald Trump has had six business bankruptcies so far, that is not an easy skill to hire for. And dare I say it's one we've NEVER had in the oval office before. We are going to build up our own domestic infrastructure with the money of foreign governments, and leave them holding the bag. It's Economic Judo, and it's something Trump is very familiar of pulling on his creditors. He can do the same thing for ours, but first we need to build as big of a foreign debt as possible. The more money we borrow, the more we make up for our cumulative trade deficit to these countries since free trade became the flavor of the day. We'll have had the benefit of decades of lower prices and we'll get the last laugh by pulling back all the money that has been sucked out of the pockets of American families by free trade with our Nuclear Tesuji. ScottHall for Secretary of State! ... at the very least: ScottHall for Anthony Scaramucci! 8)

It's a great book if you're writser. But then you don't need the book. 8)

First step of treatment: give the hospital all your cryptocoins. ... Profit! (for hospital)

You can't invert: - You are starting from example of one. Assuming aliens are similar to humans is hubris and has close to zero chance being right. - Humans do not have capacity to "find a planet with intelligent alien life" right now - assuming you mean sending a probe or spaceship. When we have the capacity, the ways we would handle it will likely have significantly changed. It's like asking a sixteenth century person "what humans would do if they sailed to Mars"? "Duh of course we'd subjugate natives, convert them to Catholicism, rob their temples of gold, then mine for gold, establish colonies and grow sugarcane.". Was that answer very helpful when you compare at what actually happened in 20th century?

Seriously? :o

Is it worth spending time to read this assuming you have already followed the Theranos saga on CoBF and press? Is there something interesting/new in the book beyond the schadenfreude?

He who dies with the most toys wins! 8) Apropos: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-23/bankers-don-t-think-you-re-rich-unless-you-have-25-million

This might be better use of time than some of the investment (??) threads you know. 8)

He who dies with the most toys wins! 8)

watsa_is_a_randian_hero explained it well. Anecdotally, whenever I looked where my earnings and net worth fall, the numbers were pretty consistent with https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/ and https://dqydj.com/the-net-worth-of-different-age-groups-in-america/ numbers. Although it's likely that all the numbers are coming from the same single source anyway.

I think I agree with KCLarkin on: Which I don't. So I think I mostly gave up on trying the top-X restaurants. I might want to try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyabashi_Jiro though likely I won't ever make an effort to book it half-year in advance and then book a trip to Tokyo for same date. ::)

Partially OT: I just looked at Kindle excerpt of "The Four Pillars of Investing". The author in chapter 1 makes the same point about survival bias and hindsight bias that I made about Buffett's claim this year that it was "obvious" to everyone that US will win the WWII and therefore investing in US markets in 1942 was a gimme. Author has some good examples. 8) Even if one thinks that this lesson does not apply to US now, it might be a good one to keep in mind when proclaiming bright future for countries X, Y, Z and terrible future for countries W, T, U. These are not as knowable as they seem in hindsight.

Thanks guys. Fido should not mislead investors by saying that fund is closed. Should just say that it's not available. I guess since it's not available nobody bothered to change the message or something. I could complain but probably won't bother (but then that's why the message will never get fixed ;)).

I thought Sequoia reopened the fund after Valeant disaster. Fido says the fund is closed. So did they never reopen or did they reopen and then close again really fast? I tried searching the news but my Bing/Google-fu was not up to chops. ::) Edit: Morningstar page says SEQUX is open. Should I try to kick Fido about wrong info or is there more to the story? Anyone knows? Edit2: Maybe it is only open if you go directly to SEQUX and not if you go through brokerage? Edit3: Sequoia page has a link "open an account". I clicked up to the point where it asked for SSN. So I guess it is open for new investors directly? I still did not find any info if they restrict purchases through brokers.

https://qz.com/1287701/bitcoin-golds-51-attack-is-every-cryptocurrencys-nightmare-scenario/

I'm not a gourmand. I was in Maido in Peru http://www.maido.pe/ , which is No.8 according to this list: https://www.theworlds50best.com/list/1-50-winners It was OK, nice, but nothing special really. There's quite a few non-listed restaurants that I would prefer both food-wise and price-wise (see my New Orleans recommendations for example). Though clearly Peru prices are way better than most of the others on this list.

This is probably the best rent-vs-buy calculator: https://michaelbluejay.com/house/rentvsbuy.html It's still US specific though and likely not up to date for the latest tax changes. The number of variables and the unknowable future can make the decision hard. I somewhat agree with SD:

For Google and Facebook that has definitely been true. Microsoft is close to a 1000-bagger since IPO I think, before adjusting for inflation. There's definitely a bias for companies to go public later, which has taken some of the opportunity out of growth investing for the little guy. The issue with 100x baggers - as with any investment - is really how long you hold and when you sell. The survival bias on success stories like MSFT, GOOGL, FB is huge. And there's a lot of growth tech companies where you would have made great returns if you sold at the right moment. And if you held past that, you didn't. From what I understand, this might be a bit less of an issue in angel/private co investing. But even there the timing of exit may radically change the return.