jobyts

With the new layout, google sounds like their vision is to enter into the bloomberg.com space, instead of just being a portfolio viewer. They already won the war with yahoo. Bloomberg does provide a watchlist, but people use the website bloomberg.com mainly for their news content.

What I found is, www.google.com/finance => New and useless finance.google.com => Old version with portfolio

Inside Google, some VP deserves to lose his job.

My most favorite feature of the old google finance was the portfolio performance graph (not the individual stock graph; but the cumulative performance graph of the whole portfolio). Can someone please suggest an alternate solution now?

In the tennis world, a set of players are vocal for a rule change to invalidate the second serve rule. A player who is on the other side of the argument (that is, supporting the current rules) says, "those who do not like the current rule can intentionally fault the the second serve, others could play the regular game with the second serve." You could see how absurd the above argument is. Just because Buffett prefers a system where rich people need to pay more taxes, your expectation that Buffett should pay more taxes than the current laws mandate, is a similar one. When Buffett says rich should pay more taxes, he is talking about changing the current tax laws. He is not asking the rich to pay more taxes than the law mandates.

1. Paid parking lots With Uber, why should I take my car? 2. Real estate I can buy an RV. The RV drops me in front of my office, goes somewhere else to park, come back in the evening to pick me. Goes some safe place to park and sleep at night, I don't care where. It could even park in the middle of the road, keep watching for the cops car. When it senses a cops car, just drive away. 3. Hotels When I go for a business trip, an RV comes and picks me from the airport, takes me wherever I want, drops me back at the airport. This is more private. Why should I take a hotel room? A self driven RV could replace mid range hotels and condominiums. It could be an interesting business idea.

There are series of lectures from the Harvard law school, starting with the trolley car problem. I'm posting it here, since there are more such problems he talks about. Starting with the part 01,

Very little discussion here on the content of the article, most of the posts are on his high fees, track record, his failure as a money manager, merits/demerits of being a permabear, etc. This logic seems to be reasonable. Hussman probably underestimated the power of the market to accept a lower expected future return on stocks. I also think interest rate has an impact on the future cash flows. With a lower interest rate, companies could borrow money cheap, and use it to fuel future growth and future cash flows. Hussman probably missed this aspect as well.

May be I just reinvented the wheel, but here's my hypothesis on why it is hard to beat the index. Any feedback welcome... * Technical analysis works very well as long as many people do it. * Investing in index based on market cap/stock price is momentum investing, a type of technical analysis. * Many people buy the index. * Positive momentum helps the fundamentals too. Being part of a popular index thus creates a not so trivial moat. * The momentum and the moat makes it hard to beat the index.

Bob Rodriguez: Trump Might Be Acting; Huge Financial Crisis Still Looming The legendary money manager, recently retired, is as candid as ever in an interview with ThinkAdvisor "This is a critical year," Rodriguez says. "It's going to be an incredibly dynamic, hostile environment." "This is a critical year," Rodriguez says. "It's going to be an incredibly dynamic, hostile environment." Legendary money manager Robert Rodriguez, who predicted the financial crisis of 2008 and the dot-com bust of 2000, has never been shy about speaking his mind. Nor is he now, officially retired from the financial services industry, as of last Dec. 31. Indeed, the controversial value investor is as candid as ever, an exclusive interview with ThinkAdvisor reveals. For decades, Rodriguez — CEO of First Pacific Advisors for 25 years — has maintained that the 2016 presidential election and the following eight years would determine the direction the country would take leading to either happy days or distressing decline. Today, Rodriguez is hopeful that President Donald Trump will remedy all that ails America — or what the former fund manager believes ails America. For five years now, Rodriguez has warned of another massive financial crisis unless major structural changes in U.S. fiscal policy, regulation and health care are implemented. He insists that “excesses” in the system continue to cause pressures that will lead to a meltdown, which, he says, is unquestionably on the way if the status quo isn’t changed. Precisely when that crisis will occur, he’s not sure. In the interview, Rodriguez offers predictions for the economy, the markets and the Federal Reserve, among other hot-button areas. He also serves up his provocative point of view on what might be Trump’s negotiating strategy and style (think Oscar, Emmy, Tony). Rodriguez earned a striking record during his years at First Pacific, based in Los Angeles. The firm’s FPA Capital Fund, which he managed from 1984 to 2009, boasted an annualized return of 14.2% during that period, according to Morningstar. It outperformed the market indexes by 500 to 600 basis points compounded for those 25 years, Rodriguez says. In the bond arena, the FPA New Income Fund’s annualized return came to an impressive 8.8% under his management. Safe to say that most of the time, Rodriguez gets it right. In 2009, he forecast a substandard U.S. economic recovery accompanied by elevated levels of unemployment and subpar GDP growth of 2% “as far as the eye can see.” Indeed, from June 2009 through June 2016, GDP growth averaged about 2%, according to the Commerce Department. In 2012, Rodriguez turned over day-to-day management of FPA’s two key funds to his partners but continued with the firm in an advisory role before retiring at the end of last year. He may be out of the investment industry, but he’s enthusiastically into something else: researching an area of “collectibles of historic importance,” as he describes his project, cryptically. ThinkAdvisor recently talked with the famed investor, who was speaking by phone from his home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The opinions he expressed reflect his personal views only and not those of FPA. Here are highlights of our conversation: THINKADVISOR: What do you think of President Trump’s job performance thus far? ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: The good news is that it’s nice to see someone who’s trying to fulfill his campaign promises. Targeting tax, regulation and health care is long overdue. Any bad news? It’s going to take an extraordinarily herculean effort to attack even one of those areas in a major way because of entrenched interests. There are strong forces both within and outside the Republican Party that don’t want to see him succeed. Some people criticize Trump for being unpredictable and erratic and for using Twitter excessively. Your thoughts? I have my anxieties about the current president, as I know many people in the country do. But I hope he has the potential to try to pull off what he says he will. The last time we had a president who balanced the budget and had the U.S. debt at zero was Andrew Jackson. He was considered a pretty unstable person too. Do you think President Trump is unstable? You have to ask yourself: Does his way of behaving reflect his normal way of thinking, or is he a great actor? Part of the art of negotiating is to be viewed as somewhat unstable and unpredictable. I see…Ever try it? That’s exactly the type of negotiating stance I decided to take when I took back [repurchased] First Pacific Advisors from our British owner, Old Mutual. At a management council meeting with my parent company in 2004, I was over the top. I stood up and was screaming. I accused some people in the room of being [analogous to] “ladies of the night” and that they were out of their blanking – beginning with an “f” – mind. I knew what I was [deliberately] doing, but did anybody else know? No, except my COO. I had told him I was going to give an Academy Award performance. What do you think Trump’s chances are for reforming taxes, regulation and health care? If anybody can potentially break the logjam in one of those three areas, it might be Trump, though his window of opportunity is incredibly short. He hopes to have major tax code reform [accomplished] in eight months. That would be monumentally historic. But I’m hopeful. Trust but verify! You said in 2010 that if the U.S. didn’t get its balance sheet together by 2013, we’d have “a crisis of equal or greater magnitude” than the 2008 financial crisis. That didn’t happen – thank goodness. I still stand by what I said. I felt that pressures would be building and that something significant would likely have to take place because the finances of this country were, and are, on a non-sustainable course. But there’s no way to forecast a timeframe explicitly. As of today, what’s the likelihood of a crisis? We’re eight years into a recovery, and we’re going to be working with major changes in taxes, regulation and health care. Are the odds in our favor that that will postpone a recession? The more extended the cycle becomes in terms of time, the greater the odds of something negative occurring. This is a critical year. It’s going to be an incredibly dynamic, hostile environment. In 2009, you said that if nothing was done about the fiscal situation, we’d be facing a huge crisis with total debt outstanding of about $20 trillion to $24 trillion by 2018. Still think so? Well, we’re at $20 trillion right now; and by the time the presidential election of 2020 occurs, current budget estimates say the U.S. debt is going to be at least $23 trillion — without anything that Trump does. Over the next five to 10 years, if deficits continue to rise and the debt continues to expand, will that lead to the 4% GDP growth that he envisions? I think it’s a low-odds outcome. This is a ticking time bomb. The president says he wants to spend money on upgrading the nation’s infrastructure. If he does, how can he keep the deficit down? If you don’t have sufficient money in your family budget, you make choices about what you’re going to spend and not spend on. That’s what’s going to happen [regarding the U.S. deficit]. If not, the debt will explode beyond what it already is. What’s your take on the Federal Reserve? I wouldn’t give [chair] Janet Yellen the responsibility of managing a hot dog stand! She’s as clueless as [chairs Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan] were. With the Fed’s insane monetary policy and distortion of the financial system for the last eight years, they haven’t accomplished any real economic growth. What have they done? Repression of interest rates has helped the budget in the sense that it’s keeping rates low and has driven the financial markets. But it’s going to end with many unintended consequences. Is this a sustainable outcome as you’re quadrupling the debt of the United States? The odds are it isn’t. What track do you think the Fed is on as we speak? If we have a crisis right now, the only one in the sandbox that can be blamed is the Federal Reserve. However, if the federal government starts spending and building up fiscal policy stimulation and something happens, then the Fed can have somebody else in the sandbox to point their finger at. What do you see when it comes to securities industry regulation? This is a battle that’s going to take place over the course of the next year. One reason I’m no longer in the investment industry is that I got completely and totally fed up with the out-of-control regulatory environment. I said, “I’ve had enough of this crap!” Dodd-Frank is the epitome of regulatory insanity. The [securities and Exchange Commission] doctrine of “broken windows” is anathema. Hopefully, President Trump can turn all of this back. We’re at a 25-year low in new business startups – and that’s in the face of an economic recovery! What’s your forecast for the stock market this year? I absolutely, categorially hate the equity market. I’ve continued to liquidate my personal equity holdings, including [some] this year. I’m at my lowest exposure since 1971 — less than 1%. Is that because you think there’s another crisis en route? There isn’t any question that there’s going to be a crisis. The timing is questionable. Uncertainties are continuing to build because Trump wants to expand fiscal policy but doesn’t want to address entitlements. I don’t see how you can expect to have a sound budget in this country unless you start addressing entitlements. Some of the things Trump says sound good, and some make no sense. He wants to attack the tax code, but there’s an issue about how to do that. All this creates high levels of uncertain outcomes. What does that mean for equity investors? It’s not the kind of environment a classic value investor would describe as [having] a surplus of investment opportunities — it’s a wasteland of opportunities. Are you getting compensated for the risks in the equity market? Absolutely not. We’re close to all-time record highs in valuations. Anything else contributing to uncertainty in the market? I don’t believe a lot of investors are thinking about how index-type investing can destabilize the marketplace when things aren’t so rosy. The rapid growth of exchange-traded funds and index funds could add more destabilization to the equity market because they don’t carry cash: When a redemption comes in, it’s an automatic sell right into the marketplace. As active management becomes a lower percentage of the total investment universe, there’s less liquidity in the system. So, if you’re invested so little in equities, what are you invested in? Transportable hard assets that are fully paid for. What do you predict for the bond market? You’re not getting compensated for risk in high-yield bonds — a 5% yield to take on the credit risk in a worldwide system that right now has higher leverage than it did prior to the last final crisis. There’s less leverage in the corporate sector, but there’s greater leverage in the sovereign debt sector. Our country has created a Gordian Knot: The system is so highly levered that you can barely have an interest rate increase before it starts to drive a hole in the U.S. budget. It’s even more of an unstable environment than it was 10 or 20 years ago. What are the greatest threats to the market this year? A failure to achieve tax reform, regulatory reform and whether businesses will accelerate or moderate capital spending. If you don’t know what the tax code is going to be, you’ll probably want to wait a little to see how the winds are blowing. What do you think Mr. Trump should do first in working with Congress? Attack the tax code. You already see pushbacks in the regulatory area. Do most businesses want to reduce taxes? There will be large segments that will be working on the Republican side of the aisle that will be impediments to reform. Businesses say they want lower taxes. But if, for example, a large chunk of your manufacturing is in Ireland — a very low tax rate zone — and your competitor is a U.S. company, you may say to your congressional representative, “I don’t want lower taxes” because that means you're going to have more competition coming from the U.S. into Ireland. Further, I don’t think too many tax attorneys and accountants want the tax code simplified. Does the wealth management industry want it simplified? How many individuals have used advisors to create generation-skipping trusts to minimize their taxes? If you change those rules, what about them? This is why getting structural changes made won’t be an easy task. This is going to be a war. As a first-generation Mexican-American, what do you think about the wall that Trump wants to build between the U.S. and Mexico? It took your forebears seven years to enter the U.S. from Mexico. Between 1916 and 1923, there was no fence between the border of Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona. You could just walk across. My grandmother explained to our family why we weren’t going to do that: “Our future is not in Mexico. Our future is in the United States. But I want my children to be able to walk down the street with their heads held high and their eyes looking ahead, not over their shoulder. We will enter the country legally.” That’s why it took seven years. But what about the wall that President Trump said he’ll build? I’m holding a standard no different from the one my grandmother had for our family. I’m all in favor of anything that will be an impediment to restrict the illegal flow of people from the South to the North. It’s an atrocity that we have this violation of law, which is reflective of our broken immigration system. All in all, the Trump presidency is ushering in a unique period in American history. In many ways, this is a fight for what the country is to be. If you believe in centralized government and the power of the federal government, then you’ll want to see Trump fail. If you believe too much power has accumulated in Washington, then you want to see that broken up — you want a return to the states and the local communities.

Fidelity told me that they will not allow me to do international trading from my IRA/ROTH IRA account. Is this a Fidelity rule, or it's going to be the same with any brokerage firm in the US?

When I say 50K profit, I just used an example to illustrate. Person Y does not have even a brokerage account now, I will be taking care of everything - risk, tax filing, online account management etc. The amount will be in the range of couple of millions. This is from private company investment, so to move to SPY or BRKA, I will have to sell the equity. As mentioned by few from the board, this tax saving strategy is probably not worth for this amount.

I was wondering if the following tax strategy has anything illegal based on US and California tax laws. Person X comes under high tax bracket. Person Y, who is an extremely trustworthy relative of person X, comes under very low tax bracket. Step 1. Person X lends $100K to person Y as a personal loan. (just a bank to bank transfer) Step 2. Person Y uses the $100K for investment and after, say 5 years, the amount grows to $150K. Person Y pays short term capital gain for the $50K he gained, but not much since his income bracket is low. Step 3. After 5 years, person Y returns $100K immediately back to the person X. No tax for both the parties, since it is just repaying the borrowed money. Step 4. Person Y gives back the ($50K - the tax he paid) to the person X as a gift over a period of multiple years, each year's gift within the tax-free gift limit. This way, person X avoids paying higher short term capital gain tax and avoids hitting AMT due to the long term capital gain. Does this strategy work? Are the tax assumptions I mentioned in each steps accurate?

Thanks Jurgis. After seeing the results of last year's + cumulative returns and the level of research by some folks here, I don't think I could ever achieve that kind of results by doing my own research. I'm exploring an opportunity if it's better someone else managing my money. At present I do not have much money to manage, but there is a reasonably good chance that I could end up with a very large amount of money within the next 12-24 months time frame, based on how well my current company does. So my goal is to shortlist few money managers and get used to their investment style by silently watching their posts, until the time comes. If anyone is not comfortable advertising themselves, you could send me a private message. But a group message might help others as well.

Was wondering who all in this group are professional money managers and managing other people's money. If you don't mind, can you mention the firm's name as well? (Managing friend's and family account without a legal entity doesn't count) Not sure if this is against the forum policy.

I tried SP500 data from yahoo finance onto my excel sheet, tried to calculate the SD. I'm getting completely different numbers. When calculating the mean, how many years is he including? Can anyone try this on the excel sheet and share how you got the 2300 number?

Read in the review section of (http://www.savingtoinvest.com/maximum-employee-and-employer-401k-contribution-limits-and-catch-up-amounts/) that loan repayment is not counted towards the yearly contribution limit. So, by taking a loan and repaying it with interest, one can technically contribute more than the yearly allowed limit, and hence grow more money without paying taxes after each stock sell.

Since Scotland wanted to stay in EU, the voting to come out of UK can happen again, after their failed attempt 2 years back.

Couple of questions related to US tax/401k related. Q1. If I have an investment capital loss of say, $10,000 in the current year, I get a tax deduction for a maximum of $3000/year. In the next year, if I have a capital gain of, say $7000, will my taxable capital gain cancel out with the last year's $7000 capital loss? Or, I need to pay tax for the capital gain of ($7000 - $3000 = $4000)? Q2. If I take a loan from my 401K, say, I need to pay an interest of 4%. Will this 4% go into my own account that I can invest and later withdraw when I'm elligle to withdraw? Or, it goes to Fidelity or IRS and I will not see that 4% money again. Thanks in advance.

That sounds like Donald Trump ;)

That's what I'm hoping for. I'm one of those lifetime democrats who hates to vote Hillary. :'( The problem with the Republican party is that the people who vote for the republican primary are more towards the right extreme side. To win the nomination, the candidate has to impress the extremists; but for the general election, the republican crowd is on the moderate side. Last time, Mitt Romney faced the same challenge, ended up flip-flopping, loosing credibility from all sides. My wishful thinking is Trump convinces people that all his rants were just a successful marketing strategy to win the primary, and his principles are actually very different.

Thanks for this useful info. Is there some data available how did the stock market perform during those times, preferable a graph that shows both the interest rate and stock performance, with recession periods? https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1Adu goes upto year 1954.

Watsa in Sanskrit means 'beloved'. In Sanskrit it is a short 'Wa'. Do Canadians pronounce with a short 'Wa' or long 'Wa'?

Interesting. I didn't know rich mathematicians exists!! ;D A joke I tell my math major friends: Q. What's the difference between a Math PHD and a medium size pizza? A. A medium size pizza can feed a family of four.

It's tough to be a non-billionaire. I feel sorry for them.