enoch01

I have been looking at those puts as insurance, but find that the premiums are too high! I would love to know a cheap way to insure. Bingo. It dawned on me that things are getting pretty expensive when I have to buy crap like DGIT to try and make a buck. For now I just keep building cash. Maybe buy some Fairfax if it gets cheaper. I don't have a lot of good ideas.

I may buy market puts for the first time in my life. Could be a bad idea as I probably have no advantage here, but it's an indication of my worry. I have a lot of cash.

From Buffett's letter this year: I got nervous when I read that. Yes I know that Berkshire is big, and significant outperformance is harder the bigger you get. But it wasn't too long ago that he and Charlie were saying they were hopeful to outperform by a few points going forward. So I speculate that this streak is not quite over yet. Now I don't think that's because Berkshire will have explosive growth in book value in the future. Rather, I think that it will maintain the streak because it will perform better than the S&P during a decline.

Easy -- I am getting taxed at about 52% on the sale of my warrants. So effectively, the puts are on sale for half off. And what if BAC keeps rising to $15? So the decision to go to cash is not so simple. Good point about the taxes. My situation is different than yours. I still have BAC common, also some MSFT and SD. I sold all my BAC calls when they spiked recently. I don't think it will act like a coiled spring as much as it did when it was below, say, $10.

Doesn't anybody just plain sell stuff and hold cash nowadays!? Every time I've thought about buying puts to hedge I think I must be making this too hard. ;D Currently sitting at 70% cash.

How would you short this?

Good presentation, thanks for posting!

So this seems like a pretty big deal: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/22/eurozone-crisis-cyprus-bailout-russia-vote I have been selling significantly since they voted to confiscate a portion of deposits. I don't see how this doesn't spread to the next weakest areas.

Somebody must have had a gun to their head during this negotiation.

Not sure I caught this prediction regarding timing. Can you point me to it?

An excellent letter to read, especially after having read through the comments on concentration and leverage in another thread.

This begs the question though, if it's so obvious, why aren't most people here doing something like that? Actually, twacowfca made a thread on the idea and a lot of people followed it. I was one of those and it has worked out very well. 70 days ago, I rolled a BRK long into the 70 strike LEAPS when BRK was offered at WEBs buyback price. As luck/skill would have it, the LEAPS are up 56%. Additionally, a majority of the implied financing costs have been retired. Twacowcfa's return is even higher as he bought a short term OTM calls at the same time. I did something similar (thanks for the idea twacowcfa!). This is an interesting thread, and I don't have much to add. But one thing to remember is that if we treat investing like business ownership, it really isn't that crazy to concentrate in very few ideas. There's an added benefit of the prudent use of uncallable leverage with investing that I suppose you can't really replicate with private business ownership. Great point about survivorship bias, CONeal. Now I'm getting nervous that this thread about leverage is getting a ton of attention.

OMG! I have been investing for years, but never knew what I was doing. I was floating in a sea of despair. I knew I was searching for the right way to invest, but the fact that I didn't know what I was looking for made it that much harder to find. They say when the student is ready the teacher will appear. And here you are. Look at this treasure trove. Don't time the market. Check. Buy a high value wide moat business! Check . . . um, could you perhaps explain this "wide moat" concept? Also, you mention "the intelligent investor". What is that? Who wrote it? Thanks very much! +1

Awesome - thanks for that.

Thanks very much, cubsfan! :)

Just out of curiousity, if you live withing a social network of theists, how many of them condemn the killings in Tokyo, Dresden, London, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima as terrorism? Terrorism being defined as the targeting of civilians for political or military gain. In other words, is there even "objective morality" within the true believer networks? My question being, why is this a topic of "theism" vs atheism if the "theists" don't discuss it as such? Which national religious leader is going to condemn the US engagements of civilian populations in WWII and demand apologies from the US government? I'm willing to say none of them, but perhaps I'm exagerrating. This is an interesting question. In fact, the nature of ethics doesn't appear to be a "theist" versus "atheist" question, at least among the white-coated cognescenti. Some interesting statistics: http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl ---------------------------- God: theism or atheism? Accept or lean toward: atheism 678 / 931 (72.8%) Accept or lean toward: theism 136 / 931 (14.6%) Other 117 / 931 (12.6%) --------------------------------------- Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? Accept or lean toward: moral realism 525 / 931 (56.4%) Accept or lean toward: moral anti-realism 258 / 931 (27.7%) Other

Thanks!

0% cash. But I am a very small fish managing just my money. I go to cash when I run out of ideas. I think selling BAC at 12 reflects some price anchoring. If it had sat for the past 2 years at 12 I sort of think we'd all be pounding the table about how cheap it is. It is still below TBV and far below book. Moynihan is clearing the deck of past issues. ML is doing very well. They have that huge, very low cost deposit base sitting there, smiling at us. Blah blah blah. Thank you moore for the idea about brokerage firms, that's worth thinking about.

What I want to know is ... who is Tilson now going to fight?

8) http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/01/the-futures-so-bright.html?m=0 Of course, this does not necessarily correlate to bright investment returns.

Read "Confidence Game". I would say Ackman thoroughly enjoys this sort of thing.

Of those 4, Ackman is the only one short.

I've been buying the 2015s, at or slightly out of the money. No reason BV can't grow at 10% per year the next couple of years, I figure.

I am comfortable with a concentrated portfolio while it is rising. I am uncomfortable with it while it is dropping. Regardless, I typically have less than 10 positions because that's all I am able to follow adequately.

+48% Biggest drag: DIMEQ - beware when payoffs depend entirely on court decisions, especially as a passive minority investor Biggest lift: BAC - nothing to add that hasn't been said already