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innerscorecard

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Posts posted by innerscorecard

  1. First stocks in the late 70s in high school, but not meaningful amounts due to a lack of meaningful amounts. Shortly after more meaningful amounts went into bonds since interest rates were in the double digits and economies were tanking. Then from 1983/4 on almost exclusively invested in equities.

    Note: I'd be substantially wealthier today had I:

    - not bought a house by selling securities

    - not paid off renovation loans by selling securities (at the worst times in terms of market cycles)

    - not lived a fairly high lifestyle for my income (saved a lot when young and then very little as aged)

    - not avoided investment debt (always thought I should be borrowing and buying more BRK), and all other debt (could have mortgaged my house years ago and invested the proceeds)

    - moved a lot less money to cash well in advance of market collapses

    - kept working at my old job rather than quitting to work for non-profits, etc.

    ...

     

    But do you think all these decisions helped lessen your stress and thus improved your quality of life sufficiently so that it was worth it? Or were they just mistakes?

  2. Why would you invest differently in your Roth IRA and in your taxable accounts? They are both simply containers for investments, with the exception that you don't pay taxes on realized gains in your Roth IRA, since you have contributed to it with after-tax income.

     

    In fact, it would be better to do your active investing in your Roth IRA, as ERICOPOLY has done, and have index funds in your taxable accounts, yet you are doing the opposite!

  3. "They’re priced between $76 and $320."

     

    "With social media campaigns spearheaded by the likes of Tess Holliday, Ashley Graham, and Denise Bidot encouraging women to wear bikinis and bathing suits that make them feel comfortable regardless of their size, Maxim associating with that side of the women’s body movement — not the objectification one — could be a good move."

     

    Very interesting - looking forward to seeing how this actually plays out. Makes sense to find ways to make money from the Maxim brand that don't involve selling subscriptions or advertisements. Selling clothes is hard - but maybe Lanphear can do it.

  4. I completely agree with everything you said. And even having a presence in China doesn't guarantee that either, of course. It's necessary but not sufficient.

     

    I've seen big institutions, supposedly the smart money, being taken for a ride in really funny ways. People simply don't do the proper due diligence, especially when they have increasing risk appetite.

  5. But many Chinese, even people who are educated and intelligent, will read Buffett and Munger and Lynch and then conclude, well, fundamental analysis works in the West, but not in China. In China, they'll say, you have to invest based on government policies.

     

    There is zero trust regarding public filing and insider trading is very common. That's why people (including myself) don't rely on fundamental analysis.

     

    Right - I'm not saying people should naively adopt Western-style fundamental analysis, either. I'm just saying what I believe the consensus more or less to be.

     

    The other possible way to think about the problem, assuming fundamental analysis was impossible or useless, would be that if you cannot perform fundamental analysis, you cannot invest at all, rather than that you must invest in a more speculative fashion. No one has to enter the domestic securities market. One can always choose not to participate (although seemingly, you cannot easily choose to get out once you are in!).

  6. http://goinglongblog.com/decoding-chinas-swoon-its-impacts/

     

    Interesting read. What do you think, Inner Scorecard?

     

    Another interesting take on China’s market:

     

    http://scottgrannis.blogspot.ca/2015/07/china-stock-crash-index-up-only-72-in.html

     

    One thing that was interesting to me was the statistic of how many trading accounts were open - Solomon said less than 100 million accounts. I remembered previously seeing Credit Suisse saying there were 258 million accounts open, so this struck me as interesting. Something was lost in translation somewhere.

     

    It's never something I had researched before. So I went to the website of China Securities Depository and Clearing, where they say there are 90.9m investors - as opposed to accounts - multiple accounts are allowed now - as of last count (90.7m of which are individuals). 89.9m of these are in A shares (2.4m are in B shares).

     

    Of these, 30.2m transacted during the most recent weekly period for which there is data available (6/29 to 7/03). (Only 0.3m transacted in B shares.)

     

    So if you're going to see an immediate negative wealth effect, it might mostly be for these 30 million or so active traders.

     

    Website (Chinese only) is here: http://www.chinaclear.cn/zdjs/xmzkb/center_mzkb.shtml.

  7. In China I imagine that eventually reality will hit and people will realize that they may be in trouble and that the higher-ups will only be bailing out their friends (strategic alliances) and not the little guys.

     

    People already realize this. They just thought they could front-run the other suckers.

     

    Can you give us your perspective of the Chinese market/economy? You have a unique perspective relative to the rest of the board.

     

    I know just enough to know that I don't know enough to have a strong opinion one way or the other, but also that the strong opinions that most hold (whether Chinese or not) are completely unfounded and based on insufficient evidence.

     

    Things are ok here. I know and/or have spoken to (in Chinese) people from a big cross-section of society, from entrepreneurs to professionals to blue-collar workers, and in many geographic regions. (And yet I realize that is still far more biased and far too little of a sample size to say anything conclusive.) The frustrations of living here remain and will not go away anytime soon. But life goes on, and society is generally stable. And of course, things are generally better for far more people than not than they were 5 years ago and 10 years ago.

  8. Chinese tourists are notorious. I think there was a problem a while ago with people taking shits in the halls of museums in Egypt if there was a line in front of the toilets. There are lot's of amusing horror stories if you search for them. A lot of them behave like complete uncivilized pigs. Chinese government had to issue a press statement that this behavior was unacceptable.  Straight from the countryside and Mao's era. And a lot of these idiots just discovered the stock market! still buying stocks at 100x earnings lol. And to think that a lot of these stocks are frauds. At least the dotcom bubble had somewhat of a legit reason behind it (an exciting new technology).

     

    I just came from China a week ago, and I saw nothing of the sort!  In fact, I think every one with any such ignorant view of China needs to make a trip to get their facts straight.  You'll be surprised exactly how quick this population has taken to capitalism and how sophisticated their country is becoming in short order.  Yes, they will hit a wall, but just like the United States before the Great Depression, the world should have taken note on who was about to dominate the next 70 years!

     

    In terms of online boorish behaviour, China has over 1.6B people and counting...you are going to get idiots doing stupid things.  How many videos are there of pig-like U.S. Walmart customers, yet that is a subsection of the subsection of the shopping base at Walmart.  What I saw was mind-boggling in China, and if anyone thinks that Shanghai isn't the #2 money centre in the world already, should simply go stand on the Bund in Shanghai at night and look at Pudong across the river.  Then, you will realize exactly what China is and how the people there are no different than the ones here...they want to take care of their family, they want a better life, they want to be comfortable and happy.  Cheers!

     

    Looks like you had a great trip here!

  9. As reported recently, more Chinese are following Buffett and Munger. That's a good thing and I believe will be absorbed broadly there.

     

    I doubt this is true. By my observation, Buffett is not popular among professionals since people want to get rich quick. And most of the investors are retail investors who probably never heard about Mr. Buffett.

     

    Buffett is very popular. The most popular fundamental retail investor forum is called "The Snowball" (雪球网), after all!

     

    But many Chinese, even people who are educated and intelligent, will read Buffett and Munger and Lynch and then conclude, well, fundamental analysis works in the West, but not in China. In China, they'll say, you have to invest based on government policies.

  10. David Winters appeared on Wealthtrack, and I couldn't believe how he twisted the truth. Everyone should listen to the whole interview themselves (http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/premium-winters-2/), but I also wrote an article about some of my thoughts on it on my site (http://www.innerscorecard.co/blog/2015/7/3/david-winters-is-digustingly-disingenuous).

     

    It's interesting that Mack didn't ask him a question on the Buffett/Coke dispute directly, despite that being her teaser on Winters last week. Perhaps Winters required her to not ask him about that directly as a precondition for having him on this time?

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