berkshire101

What real estate related companies like REITs, developers, etc or companies growing through acquisitions?

Someone should look at Stella-Jones. I haven't done any work on it but it has 30% annual return over the last 20 years. $10k becomes $1,268,714.32. It has a $3B CDN market cap and I never hear it mentioned anywhere. I will be looking at them! Thanks! :)

Bought BRK.B today.

He's a billionaire now. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-03/jamie-dimon-becomes-billionaire-ushering-in-era-of-the-megabank-iagiwwl8

Also Sun Hydraulics (SNHY) - Allen Carlson Amphenol (APH) - Adam Norwitt Factset (FDS) - Philip Hadley

I would add Howard Hughes (HHC) - David Weinreb, Grant Herlitz, and Bill Ackman. Kennedy Wilson (KW) - William McMorrow and Mary Ricks Ross Stores (ROST) - Barbara Rentler and Michael Balmuth The TJX Companies (TJX) - Bernard Cammarata and Carol Meyrowitz Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI) - Kenneth Lowe Core Laboratories (CLB) - David Demshur Realty Income (O) - Management in general

Does anyone see the glass as refillable?

This video helped me remember and think more about the books I read. Basically, writing it down really helps.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2015/05/06/bill-ackman-baby-buffett-howard-hughes/ Thought this was an interesting and fun read on Bill Ackman.

I bought some SNI.

Okay thanks. This site: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-california.aspx has it where if your income is between $50,870 and $259,844 then the state tax rate is 9.3%. So I'm guessing you're paying 25% for federal and 9.3% for state, making it a 34.3% tax rate for short-term capital gain. Ouch, that sucks.

Just curious, are capital gains taxed only at the federal level? This chart: http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/articles/Taxes-Whats-New shows that if you're in the $37,450 to $90,750 income bracket then the tax rate is at 25% for short-term capital gains. Are there any capital gains at the state level too? I live in California by the way. I know that long-term capital gains are taxed at 15%. It's reduced to 5% for individuals in the lwoest two income brackets. Thanks!

I usually root for the underdog so I'm rooting for PacMan

I like Morningstar for their most analysis. But now that Schwab provides that service with a brokerage account through their partnership with Morningstar, there isn't a need for subscribing to the service directly.

It's quite simple. You usually just want to do an automated customer account transfer service (I think that's the acronym?) aka ACATS transfer. It takes maybe 7-10 days. As mentioned above, if you close out completely, Fido will charge you maybe $25-50 (I can't remember). All positions will be transfered in kind, and the basis (if properly reported / known at Fidelity) will be transferred accurately to IB within maybe 1-2 months (usually works well). Note, if you have some mutual funds at Fidelity, IB will need you to liquidate those if they aren't in their list of funds they can hold... but other securities should be just fine to move. It's really quite easy and seamless in my experience (I fund most new accounts for my clients this way and that is where I am speaking from). Also, even if you had a margin account, it's simple to transfer over, you just need to let IB know you have a loan at the other broker I believe. Two small notes: 1) If you have $0 cash at Fidelity when you transfer, the account closing fee will be considered "margin" and thus you can't transfer, so just a heads up to have net-cash after the closing fee. 2) On joint accounts, make sure you speak with IB support and title your new IB account *exactly* how they want given your Fidelity account... middle initials and other somewhat minor titling things matter to IB. 3) Also note to understand IB's joint account withdrawal rules... generally (I think it's still like this) they say that you can deposit from a bank titled under your name, or wifes name, but they will only let you withdrawal into a jointly titled account. Hope that helps, glad to see IB getting more business! :) Thank you very much! That was really helpful! I'll give IB a call and hopefully they can help me with the transfer. Thanks again! :)

I don't have margin on my account. It's a joint account. I want to know if I have to liquidate my holdings in order to transfer brokerages. And how long is the process and how much does it cost? Thanks.

Has anyone has experience with transferring brokerage accounts? I'm thinking about switching from Schwab to Interactive Brokers, mainly because the cost is much less. Thanks!

Not enough. But I take like a 30 min nap when I get home from work.

It says right in the first link that they can liquidate the positions for you and you have no control over what they sell. You are also required to post more collateral if the value of the assets go down in value Read the section titled "Understanding risks associated with your LMA account" Yes, I saw that. A mortgage is callable too if the lender deems that you are no longer qualify to meet the required obligations. It's a safety measure the lender usually states upfront. That's something I'll clarify at the meeting. I don't plan to leverage 100% of my portfolio. At most, it's 25%. So my portfolio has to drop 75% before I'll start to have a margin call. I'm more interested in having the ability to define the loan duration and the fixed-rate option for the monthly payments. Hopefully it's not too good to be true.

FYI, Here are two brochures from Merrill Lynch that I stumbled upon: https://mlaem.fs.ml.com/content/dam/ML/solutions/pdf/303601PM%20LMA%20Fact%20Sheet%20with%20rates.pdf https://www.ml.com/publish/content/application/pdf/GWMOL/MLWM_RO-Personal-Financing-Capabilities.pdf

So quick update. I talked to my financial advisor friend. The product is called a loan management account. I scheduled a meeting for next week to discuss the matter more indepth. Basically, the advantage of getting a 30-year mortgage is that even though your house may significantly decline in value, if you can still make the payments then you're not force to sell the house. So if I could get financing on those terms for investments then it would be ideal. With a typical margin account, most sell securities to pay back the margin. Since I have a taxable account and don't want to take a tax gain hit, making monthly payments to pay off the loan would solve that problem. I think.

I read the FAQs and it says the proceeds may not be used to purchase securities or to pay down margin lines, and may not be deposited into Schwab brokerage accounts. >:( :(

Did you use this to add leverage to your investment portfolio? I don't keep a huge cash balance in my portfolio. So if there is a significant decline, having this financing available would be a great source!

Well... a margin loan is callable. So if your investments decline significantly and you can't meet the margin call then you'll be force to sell your securities. This loan is too. But there's a duration on when it's callable. So it's more predictable, and the interest rate is tied to Libor. I think my brokerage is asking like 8-10% interest on a margin account. I'm not expert on this. That's what I got from the short 10 minute speech.

I'm not sure if the subject title is the correct term to use. Hopefully someone can shed some light on the matter. At my weekly toastmasters meeting, the speaker (who is a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch) gave a presentation about his job. He spoke about a product that his firm offers that not a lot of people have heard of. Basically, if you have investments (such as stocks) worth say $500k, you can take a loan against it to buy say a house, car, vacation, start a business, etc. It's equivalent to getting a mortgage and you make monthly payments. He said this way, you don't have to sell your investments. Rather, you can let it grow and use your earned income to pay the loan. You get to determine the duration of the loan. Some people get a 20-year loan to buy a house. And the interest rate is tied to Libor. It seems like you're getting a mortgage to buy whatever you want with. Also, the loan isn't reported to the credit bureaus so it won't show up on your credit history. You can go to a bank and still get a traditional loan. Has anyone heard of such a product? I'm not sure what the correct term is. It would be cool if you could get a 30-year fixed mortgage at today's interest to buy stocks. I asked for his business card so I'll probably give him a call soon.