Uccmal

That sucks. Michael Bloomberg not making enough money?

Investors are not required to submit a T5008. Just leave the T5008 aside and calculate capital gains/losses yourself. Thanks. Thats what I have always done.

I have done it for years except this year. I just go through my monthly statements for my US holdings account and select the highest number. Never been a problem. Related: Are investors required to submit a T5008, or is that just a requirement of fiduciaries? The statement from my broker is grossly inaccurate in terms of gains and losses because it only encompasses one year. The S3 statement covers all this ground anyways. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute, eh. Mind you, I did start this six weeks ago.

DTEJD, Leaving aside the concept of automous vehicles and focussing only on the business of Uber/Luft. It doesn't surprise me that it took a study to reveal that drivers aren't making any, or at least very little money. Most people dont have a good sense of what the overall costs of driving are. Insurance, wear and tear, fuel costs, and so forth add up. Uber/Lyft, if they make any money at all, are making it on the backs of their (suckers) drivers. In every city in the world there are cab companies, usually a few, in some degree of competition with one another. This has been going on for a hundred years. Why would we think that they haven't optimized the cost structure? And the cabbies and cab companies have been operating with the above mentioned driving costs all in. If Uber and Lyft had to start paying the full costs they cannot beat a cab company. Needless to say, I wouldn't touch an IPO in either company with a barge pole.

I'm sorry but that is complete horseshit. Jack Welch is so revered only because the stock has done well. That and great timing - he retired while the stock was on the top. The problems that GE is facing can be traced back to Welch. Meet the numbers, beat the numbers at all costs - Welch. Juice earnings by under funding pensions - Welch. By the way that liability is now 1/4 of GE's market cap. But sure Welch was awesome because he gave a great speech at Cornell. Welch created a rotten culture at GE and that rot has continued to spread. That rot has created spores which now permeate the management ranks at GE. I would love it for Berkshire to buy parts of GE but why would I want to bring that pit of dirty vipers into my pristine home? Maybe they'll pick off some peripheral divisions. But the only way I'd like for Berkshire to swallow big chunks of GE is together with 3G. Where they have the 3G guys go in and fire everyone and start from scratch with management. I concur with this. Welch was the waste of space and a borderline crook. They would use the Capital divisions to manage their numbers every quarter to just beat the estimates by .01 per share. Now, Immelt did have 15 years to clean it up and could never really get any direction. Just too big. My vote goes for Ikea (probably not for sale). It would go a long way to soaking up the 100 M. Quite frankly though, BRK should focus on utilities and dividend out any extra cash. My fear is that, like GE, no one will be able to run Berkshire for long without problems starting at the various subs. To a degree it reminds me of GE. Sooner or later it will start to unravel. There are just too many moving parts. Warren built it, understood it, had the vision, and the management skills. Whoever takes over gets parachuted into an operation that is partly in Warren's head.

Paul, Why are you asking... Has he indicated he is out of stocks right now? To answer your question he has always market timed, IMO. The late 60s you mention; early/mid 70s when he was buying everything in sight; and 2008/09 are the most obvious. By its nature, value investing is market timing for the most part.

It is an important issue. 2 or 3 weeks ago. TD was done for quite a few hours 3 or 4 days running. I complained and got an apology, and the usual BS speil. Today & yesterday would have been really lousy days not to have access. I didn't do anything much but you never know.

Enbridge; Algonquin Energy; Emera; Bam and subs; BCE; Russel Metals; First National; The big banks: Ry is probably the best. TD second best. Despite peoples misgivings about the housing situation in Canada they continue to perform. They may be in for a a short one or two year hit if housing levels readjust, which would be a good time to buy (same with FN). An oligopoly protected by the government has its advantages. Each of the ones I mentioned operates in an Oligopoly or regional monopoly except Russel which is just well run. There are others I dont hold such as Magna, Linamar, Loblaws, Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons, Premium Brands. They just never get cheap enough. A recession would be a good time to buy the banks, and these other ones. Agree on Power Corp. Pwf: They lost their mojo when Senior Demarais turned it over to his sons. Its become their private gravy train.

I am holding out on replacing our vehicles for 2-4'years in favour of an plug in hybrid, or all electric. One way to think about this is where we get our electricty from. The utilities that deal only in electricity and renewables should continue to grow. I have looked at the data a bit. Electricity demand will rise, but not dramatically but enough for utilities to have to raise capacity. I haven't come to an opinion on how fast this will happen. Suffice to say it is happening, and the speed of adoption is getting contantly faster. How fast this displaces ICE vehicles is anyones guess. Then there is the age of the existing fleet. Put another way, I haven't sold my oil stocks, or Enbridge stock yet. But I am not going to overload in these areas either.

If you have a less than $500 in liquid assets then basically anything is a potential financial catastrophe. lol. I simply love reading posts like this one from rb! It's all about getting out of the financial swamp / quicksand, and to stay there [stay out], by not swimming naked. Some prefer more frothy waters than others, though. [ : - ) ] Being a good saver and better than average investor has its benefits. The ability to just pay for things you need or want is priceless. Car breaks down... spend the 1400 to repair it. Kids need something... just buy it. Need a new (gently used) car... pay cash. Need a 30,000 line of credit... just ask. One doesn't want to go overboard but then frugality is a hard habit to break so thats generally not an issue. Now, I could do without a sudden bill for 96,000 but it wouldn't break us. I dont know how people live paycheck to paycheck, barely making their credit card interest payments. The stress must be brutal.

DTejd, I always love your posts. There so filled with local colour. Just for me to get this straight: Detroit is located on not one, not two, but three bodies of water, at least.... okay two, if we dont count the St. Clair river cesspool. We have the quite large Lake St. Clair, and the gigantic and quite clean (mostly) Lake Erie. And Detroit has high water prices. Boggles the mind.

An interesting question that I wrestle with. Aside from my oil holdings I have moved into things I consider safe, with less growth potential than I would normally like. Utilities are a big part of this: Bep.un; Aqn, Enb, Ema-TSX; Obviously my returns will suffer if interest rates rise rapidly. But, should there be a downturn I would expect interest rate rises to be put on hold or even reversed. None of us can predict what will happen going forward. Central banks worldwide have messed up the normal business cycle. So, we kind of have to protect against a number of scenarios. One thing I am sure of is that there isn't much that is cheap right now. I was screening a few Nasdaq stocks this morning and the PE ratios are very high. If I were a betting man, which I am, I figure that oil prices will continue to rise and will ultimately generate a market pullback and recession. Oil prices have less effect overall but are still a huge and important part of the economy. If they rise too high prices for everything go up. Central banks would like to keep raising rates so they have ammunition in the next downturn but I am not sure they can do much before the next recession.

It sounds more to me that you are speculating on the properties of bitcoin, while simultaneously calling those who call it valuable speculators. Quite ironic. "It sits on a computer in a database that can be shut or compromised by anyone at any time.Gold doesn't suffer the same fragility and I consoder it a useless investment as well." - This alone is demonstrable proof that you do not understand the basic concepts at play here, and therefore should not have an opinion on its value. It may very well be worthless - but you have not taken the time to understand even the basics to be able to make such a claim. I very clearly said I didn't understand it... that I was a lay person in terms if IT, if you bothered to read my whole post rather than cherry picking. If I cant understand it, I guarantee that 95% of the rest of the population doesn't either, and most of the rubes going apesh*t over it haven't a clue. And I have researched it, and I still dont get it. The not understanding what it is is going to be a real impediment to its implementation on a large scale. Rkbabang comments have been helpful. Yours are not.

As a layperson with limited IT background I find the whole thing incomprehensible. I am pretty sure I am not alone in this. Its not physical, unlike gold, or cash, or even my bank card which allows me access to my cash. MMM has it well covered. Maybe someday when this nonsense blows over there might be some utility behind the concept. I am troubled by the fragility of it as well. Without government backing it could face elimnation in a multitude of ways. It sits on a computer in a database that can be shut or compromised by anyone at any time.Gold doesn't suffer the same fragility and I consoder it a useless investment as well. What we are seeing right now is pure speculation. When someone on our message board makes 12000% returns based on pure speculation that someone dumber will buy it, I know we are not in Kansas anymore. I see how libertarians can be attracted to the concept but if anonymous money is needed I have trouble developing trust in those on the other side. Like the dot.com bubble I will wait a few years for the bubble to burst and the fragility to be worked out before I go near it.

I'd love to see a store like that just for the experience (kind of like how I like to visit a large Ikea store once). But, after visiting the store on vacation, could you imagine yourself using the store on a regular basis? Seriously, 52 aisles is not grocery shopping, but rather it's your trip to the gym. In my neighbourhood, I have a number of grocery options within about 3~ish miles of my house, but I invariably end up using only two. Both stores are 15,000 or 18,000 square feet, which was about right during the 1980s, but is about half of today's standard. For most of my grocery needs, I am happy to visit the smaller stores as long as they are appropriately priced because I mostly use the peripheral aisles and I don't really want to walk a mile to buy a a couple of steaks, five pounds of potatoes, milk and a loaf of bread. And I really don't want to walk an extra 100 feet as I pass by clothing, dishes and other housewares. I just want to buy the ingredients to make supper and then to get the hell out of the store. Am I alone here? SJ No, I avoid the big places like the plague. I want to be in and out, and not walking a half mile to get groceries. I have other ways to exercise. Now, the average North American probably could use the exercise. I would think the future is more boutique shops. One of the things I like about France, Italy, and Spain are the small shops with bread, chacuterie, and normal groceries. I’m from Galicia, Spain. The American concepts are way more apealling. Lidl and Aldi are successful in Spain because they are cheaper and carry their own gourmet brands. Still, most people buys at Carrefour. Carrefours, at least the ones I have been in, are not very big compared to a Loblaws. Anyway, someone else suggested this board is not representative of most peoples shopping habits. I know my Wife and I aren't. But, when I think about the many people I know, most avoid big grocery stores, so there must be a certain subset who love these things, and a subset who dont.

I'd love to see a store like that just for the experience (kind of like how I like to visit a large Ikea store once). But, after visiting the store on vacation, could you imagine yourself using the store on a regular basis? Seriously, 52 aisles is not grocery shopping, but rather it's your trip to the gym. In my neighbourhood, I have a number of grocery options within about 3~ish miles of my house, but I invariably end up using only two. Both stores are 15,000 or 18,000 square feet, which was about right during the 1980s, but is about half of today's standard. For most of my grocery needs, I am happy to visit the smaller stores as long as they are appropriately priced because I mostly use the peripheral aisles and I don't really want to walk a mile to buy a a couple of steaks, five pounds of potatoes, milk and a loaf of bread. And I really don't want to walk an extra 100 feet as I pass by clothing, dishes and other housewares. I just want to buy the ingredients to make supper and then to get the hell out of the store. Am I alone here? SJ No, I avoid the big places like the plague. I want to be in and out, and not walking a half mile to get groceries. I have other ways to exercise. Now, the average North American probably could use the exercise. I would think the future is more boutique shops. One of the things I like about France, Italy, and Spain are the small shops with bread, chacuterie, and normal groceries.

2017: 2.7 2016: 36.8% 2015: -20.1 2014: -2.9 2013: 59 13 yr. average: 30.3 All after tax except 2017: Pay taxes directly out of my brokerage account. I spent all year repositioning my portfolios for sustainable dividend growth. Blowups: Aimia prefs, and other small stuff that got lost in the wash. Mostly, my stocks did nothing all year except pay their dividends. Still waiting for the oil relateds to pop..... and waiting.... and waiting.

25 years later. Lewis is a good writer. He does tend to bend things to suit his thesis as he did with the Big Short. On the other hand Buffett has always carefully cultivated his folksy image to cover up his sheer ruthlessness. No one becomes as rich and powerful as he is without being extremely shrewd. There is nothing overtly dishonest going on, except he is lying to himself, which we all do.

Its taking time to work out. I have a huge position in WCP. I kept buying right through tax loss selling season, amd it was tax loss selling. The stock in early 2017 was above $11.00 and will be way above that soon. Should oil remain at this price, or rise, eventually these stocks will be like rocket fuel. The companies will raise their dividends or pay special dividends, if they have concerns about price sustainability.

I really like the way you have summarized this. It is basically a mental model that you have formed from experience. Re:'Valeant analyst at Sequioa: This poor person had an unenviable task. It speaks to greater problems at the Fund company, and extremely poor management: - If the analyst was hired to look at Valeant or assigned valeant, and nothing else, then what does one expect the analyst to do? I dont know details of the situation. Hopefully, the fund took a good look at the situation and fired the managers in charge of assigning work and executing trades, rather than the specific analyst. It also speaks volumes in how people can get enraptured by numbers and by the story. We all do this. I have a similar reverence for BAM and its subs. I think the difference is that BAM and subs have real assets that you can go visit, and real fee income, and a long track record under current management. I get around my rapture by buying on dips and sizing my position accordingly, and genrally handicapping my expectations.

Nice post. The ability to walk away is powerful. I did this with Aimia Prefs and Seaspan this year. Aimia went for a loss. And the ability to explain an investment in a brief paragraph so that someone else can understand it is equally powerful.

I would say investing in publically listed companies is my circle of competence. If we mean knowing what to avoid, and the hazards inherent in the process then I am competent. I have made alot of mistakes in 20+ years of this. It started with buying FFH above $400/ share in 97/98. But that mistake taught me how to think about value, and guru investors. Due to the knowledge I built up I was able to speculate using options on FFH years later. Some of my worst mistakes: RIMM instead of APPL at exactly the wrong time. Just to compound that I wrote puts on RIMM and had to buy them back at a loss. So what did I learn here. That tech is very hard to predict. Kudos to those who can do it. Generally I think its just luck. Also, I just dont write puts anymore - the probability of a loss outwieghs any potential gains. Sometimes mistakes are not really mistakes, or show you something you didn't know or consider. I bought alot of Pennwest when its turnaround started. Then the commodity price collapse happened. I sold at a loss and the rest is in the PWT thread. What did I learn: When buying commodity producers he sure the one you buy is well protected, and you have thought about the downside, and that the downside may be more prolonged and deeper than you have considered. The same of course applies to companies in any business. 2008/2009 taught me that ALL companies will get severely beaten in a downturn. Every single day I am aware that the sh*t could hit the fan that day, and to have a thought process ready for that. This extremely long bull market has made everyone very complacent, incuding me to some extent. The other thing to consider is that the next recovery may not be as rapid as 2009 (initially). In a general sense, if I can easily define how a company makes its money then its within my circle of competence. That doesn't mean I will buy the stock at its listed price. The problem with this is that its also everyone elses circle of competence. So my only edge is psychological in nature.

My numbers are fine for the times I indicated. And I was right there with Eric on the options. But they paid off the most in the summer of 2006 when the lawsuit was announced. I was mostly out of them by '07. I dont know how to assess how any one stock will perform during a major crash. My observation from 2008/09 is that everything goes down no matter what their financial position, some more than others.

Fairfax went down as well so it was not a good bet going into the crash. I bought some FFh at the very bottom in March 2009. There is no company that went up when the market tanked like it did. I suspect the reasons why all companies drop in market crashes are two fold: 1) General fear the world is ending. 2) Margin calls cause people to have to sell whatever they can. FFH fall 2008: 300 - down 50 from its recent high. Up to 400 by January, then back down to around 340 on March 9. Back up to 400 where it sat for 5 years - Cdn. Dollars. So while FFH made money from the crash the stock did not reflect that.

Right. They have continued announcements all day. Selling off non-core assets, issuing shares at subs. Alot of moving parts on quiet days, let alone today.