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With all due respect, and I really don't mean to be offensive. All that you've wrote is bullshit. Firstly, value investors tend to badly in frothy markets. So in these times frustration is inevitable. Secondly, by definition stock returns are lumpy. You don't get returns or out-performance on demand. And definitely not on your schedule that you can put neatly in a powerpoint. Thirdly, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Value moves around and you just have to go where it is. In the 40s and 50s net-nets were awesome. In the 90s and oughts plenty of value in the small caps. In the early 2010s large blue chips were value as hell - easiest thing ever!. In 2011-2012 I was buying Microsoft and Cisco around 8x earnings. I put 25% of the portfolio in Microsoft in the $24-$26 a share range and 15% of the portfolio in Cisco around $16-$17 a share. Now those thing are about 3x plus a load of extra dividends. Is that not out performance? We these names something that nobody knew they existed? No. The funniest thing is that around 2012-2013 I've read a J.P. Morgan research report in Microsoft where the analyst significantly raised the discount rate on Microsoft because the discount on the stock was so great that it wouldn't be possible. Also while I picked Microsoft and Cisco, around that time I've strongly considered buying a lot of Google. At that point it was trading around 12x PE ex cash. I decided against it because I didn't think they could maintain attracting the level of engineering excellence they got in the past. Or some nonsense like that. Nonetheless it was on sale big time! Berkshire was selling around book or 1.1 book around that time. So please tell me what amazing resources and technology do these supposed firms have today that they didn't have in 2012 and they weren't able to take advantage of bargains then but today they're scooping up all the value?

I just don't know that anyone from the west can confidently invest in china. There is just so much fraud. The auditors are a joke. We've seen audited financial statements where the cash just wasn't there. CASH! In my opinion the fact that a company's size or that it has real operations and a real business that we know of is no defense. Enron was a real company with a real business and real operations. It was also a fraud. Furthermore the US is a place with very little fraud yet we still get the Enrons and the Worldcoms. China is a high fraud place. It follows that there are a lot more Enrons over there than in the US.

IBM... Yea... That was a mistake. This is what I love about berkshire mistakes. They break even or turn a small profit. Somehow it's always a little heads I win tails you loose.

I don't care if anyone knows I smoke pot. John Hjorth asked me not to post about it here, so I stopped, and then he decided to bring it up anyway. It's not about my use of pot; I'm very proud of that, and have written about it extensively. But when you ask me to stop bringing it up, and I do, and then you start bringing it up yourself, that means you're now the instigator and have no room to speak. I hope John doesn't mind if I start posting about weed every week again, since he likes to talk about marijuana now. The way I see it nobody can stop you from posting income anything - well except Sanjeev but he's pretty liberal in that way. What I would say is that you should try to post your best. Post if you have something to add. If you try to do that i don't think that John's opinion should have anything to do with it. Maybe whether you or him bring pot up should be something you guys hash out privately. But honestly, you can post your insights about pot and I just don't give a shit. So I just overlook anything you say. I simply don't care for that information. So you have a choice. You can be a troll, and I don't think anyone will stop you from that and lots of people will just ignore you. Or you could try to post your best and be considered a valued contributor. Now, maybe you've turned a page - some of your recent post don't feel that trolly. But it takes time to rebuild a reputation. Sins of of the past are called that for a reason. You can't just say that you've turned a page and everyone should move along and shut up.

Scott, you have talked extensively and proudly about your pot use on this forum. You have exalted (in your case) the benefits of using pot. Once you do that you don't get to put that back in the box. You don't get to dictate when people can or cannot bring it up or direct on which platform they can bring it up on. Here's the thing. This is an anonymous forum. Nobody investigated you to figure out if you smoke pot. If you don't want people to know that you smoke pot then don't tell them. But if you think that you can wave it in everyone's face and them they should refrain from mentioning it. Then man, you've smoked too much pot!

Well for one Apple is a lot cheaper than Google. That has to count for a lot. Also I'm not that sure that google has a higher probably of growth than apple. I can make a case the other way around.

I think that all these comparisons to indexes miss the point that you have to be comfortable with what you hold. Let's say that I didn't buy Amazon, or Netflix, or whatever. Yes I've missed on returns from those names. But it's not like I didn't know they existed. I didn't buy them because I didn't feel comfortable holding those. So then why would I put together a portfolio that has heavy weights in those names? After all the S&P 500 is just a portfolio of stocks.

I actually like the Big Mac. I also liked the Big Extra but unfortunately it's no longer with us. I will also echo what SJ said about the road. I travel around quite a bit by car and McDonalds on the road is awesome! Personally I think that the world is getting pretty snotty these days. I don't actually need a $20 burger made in a special way with tears of virgins or whatever. A big mac is quite satisfactory.

It works for most paywalls that allow you a number of free articles.

This is not what you've asked for. However, I'm not 100% sure but I am pretty sure you can hold international stuff in your RRSP/TFSA at Questrade. You just have to phone in the trades to their trade desk and pay bigger fees of course.

LOL, i think you can bypass the whole paywall if you just go right click->open in new private window.

Investors are not required to submit a T5008. Just leave the T5008 aside and calculate capital gains/losses yourself.

Yep, do it for myself, do it for clients. It can be a pain in the ass. A few points. 1. The values for the 1135 are cost not market value. 2. Securities in TFSA and RRSP are not counted. 3. Foreign securities held at a Canadian institution do count. 4. If the cost cost of the securities is less than $250k then you can do the simplified version which is a lot easier to do.

Well the piece is written by Geroge Athanassakos. His whole thing is about distressed value, Ben Graham type balance sheet investing. His program is also sponsored by Fairfax btw. While both companies own insurance companies Berkshire's insurance operations are vastly superior to Fairfax's. Similarly, at least since GFC Berkshire outperformed Fairfax on the investment side. It's important to note that while following a similar ideology or model Berkshire and Fairfax are very different companies. In the end, in my opinion honesty is lacking at Fairfax. Other reasonable minds may, and probably will, disagree. But that is my opinion based on their actions. I really do want to like Fairfax but Berkshire is the better company and will probably outperform.

I think the article while it doesn't delve too deep is pretty spot on. Btw, I don't know anyone that works 40 hour weeks. And yes, they're generally pretty exhausted. I think the most famous case of under employment was Albert Einstein. He had time at his job at the patent office to gaze out the window and perform his "thought experiments". He came up with the idea for special relativity while he was riding the bus. Now imagine if some managing director of something or other came to Einstein and said "you have to come up with special relativity by Tuesday at 8 PM and it better not have any spelling mistakes in it!". If that was the case I imagine we'd live in a vastly different world and not for the better. In my view most people work for money. And in our current system the incentives are all screwed up. They're not designed to maximize productivity. So you get what you incentivize. Do I know a way to fix it? No.

I think that you make some good points but you're generally wrong. First off IB will not let you do 4 or 5x margin. They enforce Reg T margin which is 1:1. In Canada you're actually allowed to have 2:1 margin but IB still enforces 1:1. Of course you can use derivatives to manage that but it's not straight up margin. Second, as long as the strategy is communicated clearly to the investors in the fund I don't see any reason why using margin to generate returns should be a problem. If the investors are ok with it and its risks, game on. Similarly on fees. That is a matter between the manager and his clients. If the clients are aware of what they are paying and they're ok with it why should that be an issue. Thirdly, a lot of what you base your post on is a fallacy. That the people should "do it themselves". Here's the thing: People don't want to do it themselves. So they have other people do it for them. And yes they pay fees for that. It's just how it is.

Yea.. that Buffett quote from the annual meeting is bullshit and he knows it.

Yea that's pretty shady. Then one can also lie. If they want to be shady and dicks so can their users. I'll go on a limb and say they have no way of verifying their users data.

Every time I hear this argument I wonder, where do you draw the line? Curious to hear your thoughts. It's not my thoughts you've asked for but i'll share them anyway. Blame the open forum. :P The way I see it legalization will lead to an increase in use - it may be small (i don't see a lot of non users lining up for smack if it suddenly became legal) or large (alcohol). But a share of substance users are actually high functioning. That share I imagine depends on the substance. But I also believe it's a lot larger than we think. Furthermore the way the laws are setup now we have the state basically ruining more lives related to substances rather than the substances themselves. Right now we seem to be in possibly the worst position possible. Even with the laws in place now demand is strong. We haven't been able to really do anything about the supply despite spending enormous amounts of money. Then we spend even more piles money to catch drug users and small time retailers and incarcerate them. Given that it's illegal it breeds more criminal behaviour and we spend more money to police that. Then the proceeds of the drug trade go to fund organized crime and terrorism. So we need to spend even more money on dealing with organized crime. Then spend stupendous amounts of money on military and intelligence to deal with terrorism. Though I suspect that if it all gets fixed the US would find some other reason to shower money on the military. So where do you draw the line? I think nobody knows. Maybe there should be no line. But I think a smart way to do it is one step (substance) at a time and see how things develop. I honestly think that any change is good because we can do no worse than we are right now. Some final points: 1. We're just whistling Dixie out of our ass here. The US has a horrendous record on this going back a really long time. That's not at all likely to change. 2. None of what I wrote here matters to you if your kid is a heroin addict.

Nevada has secrecy laws and lax reporting requirements. If you were running a fraud you would find those appealing. What screener are you using that gives you the option to filter out based state of incorporation?

Also repatriation is more of an accounting term. In reality that money is already in the US. So there's nothing really to repatriate. What'll happen in reality is just changing ownership of treasuries.

Because that inflationary event will be neutralized by the Fed by hiking rates.

IB has extra insurance on top of CIPF. Up to 3 million i think.

I have met Mr. Chou and yes he is a great guy and I also think that he's a great investor. But he's made mistakes. He's gotten too attached to things like Sears and Overstock.com. That was bad. If he didn't hold a sizeable chunk of Berkshire his results would be even worse. Sadly ours is a business that doesn't put too much value on being nice. For a fund manager under performance is the worst thing. But he must get out from under it. He'll have to radically rethink and change what he's doing.

Yea playing nice depends on the industry. Auto rentals is concentrated and don't play nice. Cellphone carriers looks like they try to undercut each other but they actually play nice. Breakfast cereals have quite a few players but play very nice. Looks like paint also plays nice. The key is to figure out the industries. Man paint things must be crazy in NYC. Up here in Toronto it runs me about $50 per gallon for high quality Benjamin Moore paint (contractor grade is about $25 a gallon and the contractor BM is actually pretty good stuff). Each gallon gives you about 400 sqft of wall coverage. 500-2000 would mean 10-40 gallons of paint. Yes I'm ignoring sandpaper, plastic sheeting and rags.