rb
-
Posts
4,182 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by rb
-
-
In my opinion the issue with the funds is not just the fees or what's going on with the markets at that particular time (there's always an excuse). I think the bigger issue is the one of failing conventionally vs. succeeding unconventionally.
Most fund managers make very nice salaries and have no incentive to do anything out of the ordinary no matter how profitable it may be. You do something out of the ordinary and it works out you get a pat on the back and an attaboy. If it doesn't work out well you're fired. So the portfolio managers in effect screw the clients for job security.
-
From what I remember of that deal, they got outbid and WB didn't follow up due to valuation reasons. Oh, and Cool wasn't around back then.
-
I would stay away from RBC. They have no respect for the client. Their general attitude is that it is a privilege for you to do business with them. I didn't use RBC services even when i worked there and they were free. Plus they really screw you on fx.
-
Sounds like it is getting pretty frothy up there in the great white north. I though you guys were mostly sober, restrained, Jim Carey types. :D Anyone sort of looking forward to the next bear market, a little?
Yes, we were the adults in the English speaking world. We were fiscally conservative, had strong, healthy and profitable banks and jobs and all that. But c'mon, that was boring as hell and you yanks were having such a party! So we though why should they have all the fun, we can party too! So we went and got ourselves some credit and bought a bunch of expensive houses with 5% down and rate reset mortgages. And now we got our own housing bubble yay! :D.
Now since we were such brilliant real estate investors and our house price now are higher we went back to the bank and slapped some lines of credit on those babies and we can use the lines to trade stocks where of course we can make 15-20% per year - no particular reason why esp after the market had such a huge run.... just because we're awesome! And of course we're gonna buy those stocks on heavy margin, I mean it worked so great when bought the houses... what could possibly go wrong?
So now unemployment is a bit high, our banks may be a bit shaky, and we levered up to our eyeballs but man.... the music is bumpin and the booze is flowin!
-
TD is really good and their fees are kinda ok if you have a certain level of assets. My registered stuff is with Questrade. They're cheap and trading is good. However their back office is atrocious. Expect to send any documents about 3 times cause they'll loose it twice. And all the ppl on the phone are idiots. But as I said, once you get past all that they're ok....
rb
-
Very good list Lathinker. For Henkel don't forget their massive construction and industrial adhesive business. Henkel will be a really nice elephant for BRK to have if they can get it at the right price.
A few names I would like to add to the list:
Listed
-Norma Group - Joining products
-Symrise - specialty chemicals
-Brenntag - chemicals distribution
Private
-Schluter Systems - construction materials
-
This brings me back to my point that the issue isn't really valuations but finding willing sellers.
The rules of a BRK acquisition:
1. Management must stay on and continue operating the business.
2. Capital allocation gets taken over by Omaha.
3. The rules above are not negotiable.
-
Opening a RRSP or TFSA at IB is the same as opening any other account. just make sure you check the right account type at the beginning.
You don't need to worry about having multiple accounts. IB offers an advisor account that allows you to have up to 5 accounts under it. You should open and advisor account the get in touch with IB and tell them to move your existing trading account under the advisor account. Then open up the registered accounts under the advisor accounts just like any other account. No need to worry about handling multiple accounts. When you log in with the advisor account in Trader Workstation you can trade in all sub account simultaneously.
Now there's one caveat.... if your trading account is pre mid-2013 before they added a number to the accounts then you can't move your account under the new advisor account. You'll have to open an advisor account, then open a new trading sub account under the advisor account then get in touch with IB and ask them to move your positions from the old account to the new account and then open your registered sub accounts under the advisor account.
Thanks, much appreciated!
What do you mean "add a number to the account"? Where can I see if my account has one?
I don't know if you can "see" it. At one point in 2013 around October they added a digit to the account number and account numbers went from having 6 digits to 7 digits. If your account pre-dates that it falls into the category I mentioned. I think its a technical thing on their side.
-
Now there's one caveat.... if your trading account is pre mid-2013 before they added a number to the accounts then you can't move your account under the new advisor account. You'll have to open an advisor account, then open a new trading sub account under the advisor account then get in touch with IB and ask them to move your positions from the old account to the new account and then open your registered sub accounts under the advisor account.
That’s a weird limitation. I guess I’m lucky that my advisor account was pre-2013 as well.
There's no luck really and it's not a limitation either because there are work-arounds. I think it's a technical thing on their end.
-
Opening a RRSP or TFSA at IB is the same as opening any other account. just make sure you check the right account type at the beginning.
You don't need to worry about having multiple accounts. IB offers an advisor account that allows you to have up to 5 accounts under it. You should open and advisor account the get in touch with IB and tell them to move your existing trading account under the advisor account. Then open up the registered accounts under the advisor accounts just like any other account. No need to worry about handling multiple accounts. When you log in with the advisor account in Trader Workstation you can trade in all sub account simultaneously.
Now there's one caveat.... if your trading account is pre mid-2013 before they added a number to the accounts then you can't move your account under the new advisor account. You'll have to open an advisor account, then open a new trading sub account under the advisor account then get in touch with IB and ask them to move your positions from the old account to the new account and then open your registered sub accounts under the advisor account.
-
Well first of all your broker may not want to borrow for you shares that don't trade. You may want to check with them first if you can do it. Also I don't know how you want to structure the arbitrage. But if you use both IE and IVAN shares make sure that they are the same shares... ie, ISINs and CUSIPs match. Otherwise it shouldn't matter if they trade or not. You can short OTC stuff.
-
I am negative on China mid-term. They have taken on too much debt and they have to delever. I don't think that even the Chinese government would argue with that. Long term I understand your bullish arguments though I'd think there's quite a difference between arguing with work ethics and with potential productivity gains. But what you're talking about is the very long term (20+ years). I'd be very cautious to conclude from Dalio's arguments that China is going to be great for the next 10 years. You never know but I think the probability isn't high.
Every debt bubble is slightly different. Brazil has great potential, too and been having it for 50 years but that didn't keep them from having a lost decade. Debt expansion and contraction are very powerful and far more important than productivity gains when you're planning for the shorter to midterm. I don't think that Dalio would argue otherwise.
I agree that there's a lot of debt sloshing around in China and they may hit a deleveraging cycle. Over there it should be a lot easier since they have what? 13-14% nominal growth? Also the gov't may step in, setup a bad bank and do essentially debt forgiveness. That would make it a lot easier for the economy. They've done that in the past and it worked well.
Not saying that China won't hit any bumps in the road. But I don't see why that would be such a big deal. The developed economies have had a lot of recessions. It's normal. Nobody said that US or Germany economies are finished because they had a recession. I don't see why it should be different in China's case.
rb
-
Do you have a regular account at IB?
-
So let's see if Buffett will become active in Europe/Germany. In fact, there are some excellent businesses in this country, but it is tough to find anything cheap.
I think that it makes perfect sense that BRK would buy business in Europe and especially in Germany. Furthermore I disagree that there's nothing cheap in Germany. Maybe not for you and me, but not for BRK. There are tons of great businesses in Germany that have fantastic operations but the capital allocation is atrocious. Once BRK relieves the management of their capital allocation burden, then the value of those business should increase significantly.
I think the issue here is not the valuation but whether BRK will find willing sellers.
rb
-
Liberty,
I think that you have posted under the wrong thread. I think you meant to put it under "Global Trading in Canadian Registered Account". Can you move the post and I will reply there so I don't muddle topics.
-
It sounds like a nice thought, but the proposal is totally vague and unenforceable. How do you measure what's in the best interest of the client?
If you look at say BRK in the 80s (not that any advisor would recommend BRK to clients) it was basically an insurance company that did leveraged (float) and undiversified stock market investing while at the same time covering large risks (CAT) in insurance. No matter how the write the rules (probably using ridiculous EMH concepts), under them BRK would look completely wrong for the "regular" investor.
-
I just found out that Interactive Brokers Canada now has RSP and TFSA accounts.
Do they allow U.S. dollars to be held inside registered accounts like RBC?
They do allow CAD and USD to be held inside registered accounts, but no other currencies. So you limited to investing on Canadian and US markets in those accounts. Also their standard $10 minimum fees per month applies for accounts below $100k.
rb
Interesting. Can the minimum $10/month fee for small accounts be covered by trading in other accounts? IE 3 total accounts (non-reg, RRSP, TFSA) spending a total of $30/month across the accounts? My TFSA is pretty inactive, and I'd prefer not to pay a minimum commission on it. Do you know whether market data subscriptions count against the minimum?
No kidding. I'd rather not pay then either, but I may cave. Right now the registered are with Questrade and those morons are so incompetent that I think I may rather pay 120 per account just so I don't have to deal with them. I'm doing the cost benefit analysis against a nervous breakdown.
Anyway, IB doesn't count pooled commission across the accounts for minimums. Each account has $10 minimum in fees. Market data subscriptions do not count against minimum. But they waive US mkt data fees when you do $30 in commissions and I think that's pooled across accounts. Not really 100% sure though because I trade so little that very seldom I test that.
-
I don't know why so many people hate the book rich dad poor dad. It's my early inspiration to investing in early stage. Maybe his attitude is bad but I believe we can learn something useful from everybody.
Maybe because the guy is a hack who doesn't care how many peoples lives he ruins as long as he sells a couple of extra books?
Always upselling. How many books, board games, and seminars do you need to convey a set of ideas? I don't think than anyone who stood the time as a great mind ever uttered the words and if you want more detail buy my other book, and my board game, and drop by one of my seminars.
Shilling for real estate during the bubble.
Promoting irresponsible and reckless financial behavior that is sure to leave the practitioners worse off....
The list goes on and on!
And no, you can't learn something from everybody. Some people are just wrong and even worse, some are crooks.
-
Example trade:
TSE:STN, 100 shares, bought Dec, 2014, sold Feb, 2015 for 6.6% gain. Annualized : 40%/y. Interest cost: 4%/y. I am still holding 50 shares in my non leveraged account. In just two months, I created a 13% margin of safety for my 50 shares positions.
You know, the private equity industry is all obsessed about annualized returns - they call it IRR. However in the industry there's a saying - "You can't eat IRR!". That means that your annualized returns on a small short term investment doesn't mean much. You're richer when you make a lower "annualized rate" consistently over a long period. BRK shareholders aren't so rich because WB made 40% in one year or 6.6% on one trade. They are so rich because he made 20% compound over 50 years.
Also I think you got the concept of margin of safety wrong. I recommend "The Intelligent Investor" (see chapter 20) instead of "Rich Dad Poor Dad".
-
I think it's quite naive to assume that the USD/HKD or USD/RMB peg is a purely political decision. If there's no other form of rebalancing going on they will be overrun by the markets – as it has always been with such pegs.
I promised I would come back with a post about HKD/USD peg so here it is.
One of the things that govern this situation is the monetary trifecta that all countries want: A fixed exchange rate, open capital markets, and independent monetary policy. The trick is that they can only have 2 of the 3.
Now in the past markets forced pegs to break because countries tried to have all 3.
In all of the broken peg situations that I know of, countries with weaker currencies came under attack with basically a carry trade that depleted their reserves and had to break the peg and devalue.
So how would you try to break the peg to a currency that is stronger than the one it is pegged to? Well you would go long HKD short USD until Hong Kong gets tired of accumulating reserves.
Now you may think well if a big trade gets put on then that will increase money supply and smack the HK economy with inflation until it comes to its senses. Well… no.
A little background here. HKD is not issued by the Central Monetary Authority, it is issued by the commercial banks (3 of them). By law, the banks must have in reserve the USD to back all the HKD it issued and stand behind them. The commercial banks also get to set interest rates to balance the whole situation.
Now, back to aforementioned inflation. Inflation doesn’t just magically happen. It happens when monetary infusions get transmitted through loans which create too much money chasing not enough goods. If money doesn’t get lent out then no inflation.
The problem here is that the new HKD will not get lent out. This is because when you increase the amount of HKD through the attack on the peg, HK banks will drop rates on HKD. This creates an arbitrage opportunity and other market players take the opposite side and neutralize the attack.
Now let’s go even further and assume that the market ignores the opportunity to make risk-free profits because it is utterly convinced that the peg will be broken and day now or something like that. Then all that’s need to do to sterilize the new infusion of HKD is for the banking regulator to raise the reserve requirements of banks. So again no inflation. Peg stands.
rb
-
Withholding should not be impacted by whether something is OTC or listed.
-
Berkshire exited XOM. Not sure if I read it in this thread.
There's another thread dedicated just for that.
-
Thanks a lot CM. I have a meeting this week with CRA and I will bring this up. I'll post any official documentation I may get from them.
rb
-
I just found out that Interactive Brokers Canada now has RSP and TFSA accounts.
Do they allow U.S. dollars to be held inside registered accounts like RBC?
They do allow CAD and USD to be held inside registered accounts, but no other currencies. So you limited to investing on Canadian and US markets in those accounts. Also their standard $10 minimum fees per month applies for accounts below $100k.
rb
https://www.interactivebrokers.ca/en/index.php?f=11792
IB only allows funding of RSP and TFSA accounts in Canadian Dollars.So I can only fund the account in $CDN. But U.S. trades can settle in $U.S. inside the RSP/TFSA?
Yes, but you can hold USD in the accounts and trades settle in the trade ccy. So once you fund you FX CAD to USD and you're good to go. Their FX fees are negligible. Nothing like RBC.
rb
Good Businesses in Europe
in Berkshire Hathaway
Posted
You can probably work it out using BRK's ARs and MidAmerican regulatory filings.