enoch01

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.

Several weeks ago I closed about half of my put position on The Royal Bank of Canada (took it down to 2% position of current portfolio), only because I couldn't roll it to 2017. I'll ride the rest of the position into the ground. If the rest of it does go to zero this adventure will have cost me about 3.5% of current port. The funny thing is that all the ingredients are there for a bust, it just hasn't happened yet. Canadian real estate - to the moon!

It is always darkest before dawn.

Since I'll be back in DC by then, I'll report back what I hear. Thanks in advance merkhet, looking forward to it!

Hilariously, Mr Market is still pricing Canadian banks at about 2xBV.

Mrholty, welcome to the board. I sympathize with your DIMEQ experience. I lost 90% of my position. I remember judgment day very well. Thanks for your story.

In a similar vein, I cannot recommend "Value Investing for Dummies, for Dummies", enough.

My biggest argument against concentrated investing is why not go all the way. If you have three ideas why dilute your best with your second or third best? So here we have it, someone is finally doing that, and amazingly this concept seems to be gaining traction. Buy one stock and buy a put. Sounds perfectly foolproof, nothing can go wrong, losses are protected and gains are ensured. As long as we can all pick the stock that will go up the most each year this strategy is foolproof. Do you use a max position size? If so, what is it and why? Sorry if you've talked about it before and I missed it.

There is always a possibility something goes wrong with any stock.

The past couple of years, most of the time I've had a lot of cash (say 50% to 60%) and a few positions that I thought had really good chances of being 5X, 10X, and low chances of being zeroes. Trading Sears calls this way has worked very well in 2013 and 2014, and the large cash percentage has helped me sleep until it has worked out. I haven't always done it this way, and maybe I won't ever again. I seriously doubt it's repeatable. Right now I have almost 70% cash.

Ah, the airing of grievances. The highlight of the celebration. Here's several. 1. If you're part of the seemingly every growing contingent of younger posters still living at home, please don't offer life advice. 2. For newer posters, please don't feel the need to weigh in with your views on every single thread. 3. If you post about how much angst you have with your investments and you don't know if you're investing properly, etc, please don't then 5 minutes later offer advice to someone else who asked an investing question. 4. If you're under, say, 30, please feel free to get rid of the world weary tone like you've seen and done it all. Ah the good old sarcastic holier-than-thou tone, every time I look up for the poster's name it ends up being the same guy. Do you ever contribute anything besides complaining about other people's posts? This board is free to leave if it's such a drag on your life, you know. LOL. This forum is morphing into a strange beast. I don't know if it's the bull market, Sanjeev's more reduced role, or something else. As oddballstocks said, go read Kraven's post history - one of the sharpest guys in the forum, and probably has one of the best long-term records.

+70% Sears, the gift that keeps on giving.

Mainly by vomiting in a trash can. LOL! Mainly I've just been shrugging my shoulders. How about waiting for the bankruptcies, and then seeing how things shake out?

Interesting response from Treasury. Johnson asks FHFA to consider ending the conservatorship by entering into negotiations with Treasury. Watt says that the negotiations have to be initiated by Treasury. Treasury then says that they're waiting for Congress. Oh, politics. So now the President will have an out when the GSE's are released: He really wanted to work with the Republicans (really, he did), but the Republicans just weren't able to "come to the table" and "work together" to accomplish housing reform. Therefore, he really had no other choice but respect the FHFA's decision to release the GSE's. He'll be "proud of the work" that Watt has performed during the conservatorship in setting Fannie and Freddie on a safe, solid path for the future. "If you like your 30 year mortgage, you can keep your 30 year mortgage." I have been buying more of the preferreds recently.

I may be dense, and I apologize in advance if this sounds like cold water, but isn't the conclusion trivially true? "...this essay is not focused on remaining fully invested at all times, but instead advocates remaining fully invested when there are still compelling investments to be made." If compelling investments can be made, then by definition they are better than cash, right?

Congratulations!

I've sold the banks. I've been early. What's interesting is that CMHC insurance in force had been holding steady, and actually has been shrinking a little recently. CMHC historically has been about a 10% ROE business (your banks thank you). So someone has been willing to take in less premium to insure riskier than normal mortgages these days. More evidence of irrational behavior. The government effectively underwrites. Look at Tangible Common Equity / Assets and then Tangible Common Equity / Risk Weighted Assets in the Canadian banks and compare to JPM, BAC, etc. Canadian banks have some of the thinnest direct capital levels of any financials on the planet. The question is if/when the Canadian economy faces a recession, will the banks be bailed out of mortgages at par by the government or will they have to raise capital. If a large hit to real estate happens nationally I think the public outcry would be that shareholders are no longer entitled to 20-30% ROE's on obscene amounts of leverage on tangible common. BINGO. The Canadian government has been gifting to the banks to such a degree that it is almost comical.

I've sold the banks. I've been early. What's interesting is that CMHC insurance in force had been holding steady, and actually has been shrinking a little recently. CMHC historically has been about a 10% ROE business (your banks thank you). So someone has been willing to take in less premium to insure riskier than normal mortgages these days. More evidence of irrational behavior.

Thanks for the notes. This is getting interesting.

Was just about to post on this topic. The probability of finding a bargain in this market is much lower than 2009. If you weren't good then, you might want to think about playing it safe now. I chose very well over the past 5 years and I'm basically tapping out now. All new funds or all divested assets are moving into very safe, boring businesses. In short I am turning over my wins into low probability losers. The real market (meaning american business) is heating up like crazy. The stock market forecastsed this behavior. Chances are if you're spending a lot of time value investing right now, you are missing out on earning potentially greater sums by working/doing business/making moves. That's one of the major reasons I have personally been inactive on the board. When work slows down, I know it's time to bargain hunt. When work speeds up, it's time to do real work. This has almost been my exact experience as well. I work in the engineering services field. Backlog is growing by leaps and bounds, and we are hiring the people we should've been hiring probably last year (we were still too scared to hire much last year).

That's what you get if you started investing after 2008... Nope, you're not the only one. I'm moderately amused with the influx of (predominately new) people on the forum that think 40% and 50% returns are somehow easy to achieve and/or the norm for investors. This seems to dovetail coincidentally with the amount of people looking to start funds because they're sure that they can continue (begin?) to outperform. +1

You know what the Stroh's could have used? Some of the good "habits of the wealthiest people".

Today I am not buying a Tesla. Today I am also not selling a Tesla.

Another net worth discussion. Maybe we are getting close to some kind of top.