enoch01

cc: the “have we finally hit the bottom” thread

Be well Picasso. Thanks for sharing more of your story. It’s inspirational.

“I’d rate it a 10,” Trump said at a White House press briefing Monday when asked by a reporter how he would rate his response to the pandemic. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487883-trump-gives-himself-10-out-of-10-on-coronavirus-response Surprised he didn’t say “11”. Notwithstanding, it was the most realistic conference so far, and for that reason offers a glimmer of hope that we will get our act together.

Asset-heavy businesses?

-7.5% Sears and CBI competed for the biggest negative contributions. Should have gone levered crypto!

SD, At what price are you buying bitcoin, and at what price are you selling?

I confess to never really understanding it. Here's the conclusion: (my bolding). Isn't it tautological that one should prefer "compelling" investments over cash? That's just what a compelling investment means.

+30%. Unless I start contributing more by posting about ideas, this is probably the last time I will post returns. Pretty lame otherwise. Currently have 80% cash and 20% in Sears common + calls. I am bored.

It's difficult to wait for that first double on the fully hedged portfolio of 4-5 leveraged and optimized positions (netted out, of course). I find that writing BS on message boards helps pass the time - it's easier than sitting on my hands.

Maybe "value shorting" is dead.

Don't do your son's work for him. Tell him to get a job and see how it goes. He's a university student - I consider that an adult. If he was interested in getting hired by anyone here, maybe he would've joined and started messaging people? I'm guessing he hasn't done that, so maybe you can draw some information from that fact.

i just think levine nailed the reasons why the ONLY chance of recovery for private holders is through the courts. he just explained it from a different perspective.

Low.

Your attitude isn't unpopular, but if these are just forgiven what happens to the people who paid them, or those who paid cash for school? To me this seems like a very quick way to drive a huge wedge between age groups. Those above 35-40 have a small amount or no school debt, and those under have a lot. But the old guys running companies are in the older bucket, any chance there could be some spiteful discrimination? My wife and I don't have any school debt. But if the government is just going to give out money why don't they just pay off my house or something? At the same time what universities are charging is bordering on comical. In the grab for as much cash as possible universities have done themselves in. What used to be a third-rail view, that going to college wasn't necessary is now catching on. I think they've made their own bed. I would hesitate to hire someone with a lot of debt including school debt. People who are skating close to the edge can quickly end up in financial distress which has repercussions for work performance as well as increases the risk of fraud or theft. Maybe it's not popular to say that out loud, but it's something I think about. The cost/benefit ratio of college education is at least an order of magnitude higher than even just 10 or 20 years ago. My elementary school age children will have a very different graduate level education experience than I did (B.S. and M.S. in engineering). Besides the fact that the debt is a huge burden, there are so many more options for self-directed learning these days. In fact, I expect prospective employers may look favorably on someone who has been proactive and entrepreneurial in obtaining their education. We will likely look for Advanced Placement classes, followed by community college options, with perhaps the last couple of years at a state school. And that's ONLY IF a college degree is actually required for what they want to do with their life. In a way it's a little sad that it has gotten to this point. But the incentive structure established decades ago has made a mockery of the college education system.

+5% Happy New Year everyone.

You and I are out of our minds.

http://www.fasab.gov/pdffiles/oct08mins.pdf http://www.fasab.gov/pdffiles/dec08mins.pdf

Don't know about crazy, but a little odd, yes. "Why did federal regulators design a financial support program for Fannie and Freddie on the basis of academic estimates of future performance rather than tried and true statutory accounting and claims-paying ability (which is the standard for all regulated mortgage insurers)?" http://www.fairholmefundsinc.com/Reports/FAIRX2015SemiAnnual.pdf This non-lawyer agrees with merkhet: from a legal perspective this doesn't seem relevant.

Ever since I switched over to just using mega-large fonts for everything, I'm getting through many more pages per day and have become a much better investor.

+21% YTD, +83% TTM. LOTS of volatility last month or so.

How is it that so many here know so much about all this stuff?

Are you short anything? Or were you?

I'm glad I don't have to get into the game of trying to justify low single digit rental yields because I'm too dumb to understand what any of the above means.

Good for you on relatively cheap rent though. Prices sound like they are firmly in greater fool territory. I'm astonished at how low some of these quoted rental yields are. Your hypothetical landlord's situation were he to buy it today: $2k * 12 / $750k = 3.2%. By contrast, I own a rental at an 11% yield in the U.S. Nothing special, I bet there's millions of them in the U.S. available at similar prices.

No asset goes up at 6-10 times the rate of inflation. Sure it can, just for some reasonable or unreasonable amount of time.