Travis Wiedower

Yes, I did everything myself. It takes more time, but it's very doable (several others on this forum have done the entire process themselves as well).

I believe in some states you don't have to register if you have fewer than five clients, but each state is different so confirm that. Maybe that'll save you a few hundred bucks, but honestly an RIA can be done super cheap. My total was around $750 (and ~1/3 of that was the LLC registration).

1. Investing in some obscure stuff is possible (or at least easier) through one fund. 2. Similarly, there are some fringe cases where normal stocks/options don't work out under the separate account structure. If one of your accounts has only $20k, investing in stocks that are over a couple hundred dollars may not be possible. If a client has $20k and you want to take a 1% position in a $500 stock, well that's not happening. 3. Investing one account is easier than investing more than one account.

IBKR (although I'm sure you're already aware of them). That's the only company I own that I think could be a long-term compounder.

The best companies, in my opinion, are ones that can invest large amounts of capital at high rates of return. If a company can earn 30% on incremental invested capital, I want that company to keep its earnings and reinvest them. If they instead pay it out in dividends, then I have to reinvest it at my own rate of return. While I don't have a multi-decade track record yet, I'm pretty confident my long-term expected IRR is not 30% (I also have to pay taxes on the dividends which I didn't factor in). Of course no company can earn 30% forever so eventually it has to slow down and pay dividends. The better investor you are and the more life you have ahead of you, the more you should want dividends. Buffett receiving dividends early in his career that he could compound at 20% for 40 years are worth a lot more than dividends paid to a retail investor.

Won't flying cars only take off (pun intended) if they are significantly safer than the current options? Same as self-driving cars. If flying cars are just as dangerous as current cars I doubt they ever get off the ground (ok, I'm done). I think the auto insurance industry is heading for a cliff they probably can't avoid (besides branching out into other areas I guess).

I keep a Word document of quotes I come across and like. Most are investing related, but also some motivational ones. As I read through Ali stuff this morning, I wrote down the following ones from him: "Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing." "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life." "A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life." "I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'" RIP.

+1 to basically everything benhacker has said. I set up my RIA completely on my own and agree with his insights. Interactive Brokers is great at performance reporting for separate accounts. It's a couple of mouse clicks to run performance reports that consolidate all separate accounts into overall numbers. They also automatically send activity statements to clients on a regular basis. In my opinion an RIA can't be beat for a small guy wanting to manage family and friends money while building a track record, but I can't wait for the day that I run a fund (again, for many of the reasons benhacker stated). Sionnach, I haven't transitioned from RIA to fund yet, but from what I've heard it's not a huge deal. A lot of investors will operate both at the same time because they have legacy clients that aren't able to invest in a hedge fund and it'd be pretty disrespectful to kick those early clients to the curb. You may want to shoot Dave Waters an email. In his recent letter he mentioned that he's in the process of opening a fund (in addition to the RIA he already has). He may have more specific advice in this area.

Great video. Even more amazing before I realized it was sped up :D

Vanguard VFINX or VFIAX.

If I bet 2% of my net worth on something, I have a lot more than "almost zero" conviction.

Nate is spot on. To add to that, I run an RIA and the Ohio Division of Securities audited me a couple months ago. During the process I specifically asked about my investing blog and my shareholder letters (being posted online) and they were fine with everything.

I'm not aware of one. You can go to otcmarkets.com and download a spreadsheet of all OTC stocks and go through them one by one. I know it's not what you're asking but that's what I've done. Even if there was an OTC screener there's no way it could be exhaustive because so many OTC companies either don't file with the SEC, only post financials on their website, or require you to email them for results (or they're just completely dark and have a fuck you attitude towards inquiries ;D).

In the super illiquid nano-caps I don't think the market price (last trade) really means much. Like global said, a retail investor reads something and wants to buy at any price, or alternatively, someone wants to sell their 100 shares at any price and tanks the "market" price. I have one position that my original purchase was a limit order 40% below the "market" price and it got filled. In that same stock I've seen several trades done that are either 50%+ above or below the previous trade.

While not as extensive as the Keynes specific books, New Ideas From Dead Economists talks about him quite a bit (as well as other influential economists). I found it to be a great overview of how economic theory has evolved over time.

As notorious alluded to, comparing debt to actual cash flow is good. Since you referred to Value Line, I assume your numbers are GAAP which may not be accurate. A lot of people like net debt/EBITDA which mostly makes sense--anything over 4-5 is high.

Yup. For high level stuff, I prefer Morningstar and a little Yahoo Finance. Gurufocus has some cool charting options as well.

I like that JRH; I try and think about what biases are affecting me as often as I can. After reading Thinking, Fast and Slow earlier this year I wrote a blog post on some biases that I think especially affect investors: https://traviswiedower.com/2016/01/14/human-biases-make-investing-hard/

Even if there was a correlation, it wouldn't be because of causation. The finding would be that wealthier people have lower divorce rates or something like that (possible I suppose, who knows).

I was driving an SUV that auto brakes when it senses something in front of the car (similar to Tesla, no autopilot though). Being the curious person I am I had to test it out. While cruising at ~50 I came upon traffic and let the car come to a complete stop by itself. Had my foot hovering over the brake but never touched it. It was definitely scary, but also very impressive. Like Liberty said, you have to realize how much better technology is at this stuff than humans are. Even the best driver in the world can easily get distracted, foot slips off the brake, etc.

I've started thinking about some purchases in terms of future compounded value lost. Makes life less fun :-\

Yeah I'd be interested to know the relationship between oil price and alternative energy investments. I'm sure it does have an effect but, like you, I think they might be overestimating the degree. Probably only affects it at the margins as major alternative energy projects are long-term. I don't think Elon or guys developing fusion etc really give a damn what oil is. That article referenced Merrill claiming $60 vs $100 oil pushes peak demand to the right by five years. My faith in that number isn't much though.

Interesting article that makes a lot of sense. Saudi isn't stupid. They know peak oil demand is coming whether they like it or not. Might as well attempt to delay the day of reckoning while they figure out WTF they're going to do to make money in the longer term.

I feel like rating agencies may be better off nationalized. The current setup has the incentives ass backwards.

I don't know the answer to your question, but if nothing else you could copy the annual letter from Value Walk into Word and save it as a PDF (make a couple formatting corrections if necessary).