flesh

That last bit was the first time I've LOLed on COBF. That doesn't happen often so thanks. It's like tears, I get about 2-6 tears a year. In a sense I use to write copy for my direct mail marketing, basically, I took the copywriters work and changed about 10-20% twice a year for a decade. It's absolutely astounding what people respond to when in a emotional state. For some this is most of their lives. I use to think I was a scoundrel, fooling people and all, now that I've experienced the other end of the spectrum, unabashed honesty with others, they think I'm a scoundrel.

If I didn't persevere every time a woman said or implied maybe, I would have had zero women in my life. In any form or fashion.

Made final purchase in AT-atlantic power today.

After spending a lot of time frustrated but learning from my experience selling TSE, NC, PCLN, and RLGT early (very early in some cases) I've come up with the following heuristics. In order for me to remember something every time, I must have rules. I know I don't have the will power to do the right thing in every moment but I do have the will power to remember some simple systems/checklists. 1. I can't sell more than 1/3 position per day. 2. I can't sell 1/3 position until I've spent at least 2 hours updating the story/thoughts/valuation, In order to sell out of a position totally I'll have spent 6 hours spread across at least two weeks. 3. I can't sell more than 2/3 of a position in one week. 4. I have to hold for at least 1 year. 5. The only exception to rules 1-4 is if the thesis has clearly changed. Basically, this controls for emotional spikes, neuroses, and laziness. It forces you to think nearly as critically when you sell as you do when you buy. Over time, it forces you to feel potential future pain of making a buy decision without thinking critically. You can't take the easy way out. In the short period of time I've implemented this it's benefits have become obvious. Try it if you don't do something similar already. It's easy to remember regardless of the circumstances and is a realistic approach. -Cheers and thanks for the input.

Absolutely a beautiful life we should all aspire too. Regarding his choice to compound instead of subsidizing his families wishes, a great success for consequential-ism in my view. If he was worth 20 b and not 70 b, would he have inspired so many? If he was worth 20b and not 70b (or 100+ if he hadn't given away shares) would he have inspired as many billionares to follow suit? Is it worth making personal sacrifices to effectively improve the life of untold millions over time? In hindsight the answers to these questions are obvious, he didn't have the benefit of hindsight which makes his story all the more brilliant and delightful and gives us a glimpse of what the world could be as we all battle our personal demons to become more pragmatic and less emotional and subjected to our "monkey minds". Coming full circle I can't help but think his bad habits, which he couldn't help but calculate with precision, are the incarnation of his own "monkey mind" and I suspect likely a manifestation of his balancing act regarding his own "monkey mind". I.G, he found the least enduring ways to accommodate his inherent weaknesses simultaneously allowing for all the possible strengths to manifest themselves. Whether recognized in the history books or not, I suspect he will have compounded a greater number of mindful dollars than actual. One of the few who I'm confident will remain in my mastermind group until the day I die. If he's not that enduring I'll have become a better man than I can imagine now.

I've only used gurufocus for research myself. I noticed morningstar premium is pretty cheap. I'm curious to know from those of you who have used both what the difference is? Also, if there's other research sites you prefer I'd like to hear about it. Thanks.

I'm also a recent victim of Whitman, The aggressive conservative investor was more painful than straight academic accounting text books. One book not mentioned is Howard Marks The most important thing illuminated. Also, I really enjoy bio/autobiographies of anyone who had tremendous success with equities. Bernard Baruch, Morgan, Carnegie, etc. I find that understanding what the actors thought/felt at different points in history about the market is demystifying and if you read enough about the history of the market you start to piece together what many of the relevant actors were thinking feeling at different times in market history.

sci, grave plots. My parents have grave plots paid for our whole family 10 years ago, no one is dead yet, it maybe be another decade before anyone is and will be many decades before all of us are. Too bad it's going out of style, I'd like to buy one.

2016= 15% avg 26% in cash so roic much higher. Nothing lost more than 1% of capital, almost every position contributed. 2015= 6% avg 24% cash, started incubator hedge fund 1-1-15 TSE killed it rest of portfolio lost money. 2014= 25% 10% cash 2013= 46% 5% cash 2012=26% 5% cash 23% cagr, 14% avg cash position, all the risk ratio's are good apparently, although I don't know why people care. Never used margin/options, very little shorting. 2011, picked up Buffett's biography on my way to cape town, read it twice back to back. Biggest mistake through first five years of investing is underestimating what people are willing to pay when things look rosy, selling prematurely. Second biggest is being a bit under invested at times. Third, investing in things that require something to go right for the thesis to work.

I see, so presumably china would have to put the hammer down, which I have no way to quantify. For those of us in the USA or any other country with the desire, doesn't what I said still stand? If it promotes black markets and reduces taxes the govt could go after those that facilitate the transactions/any business directly or indirectly related to it and make it a criminal offense?

Bitcoin/blockchain noob here. Doesn't bitcoin encourage black markets and reduce govt tax revenue? If yes, how big must it get before the govt clamps down and rightly so? In the usa, couldn't the govt shut down all the businesses facilitating the trade of bitcoin. Also, couldn't laws be passed that made it a severe criminal offense? Does the govt have/could it use it's billions/agencies too find all sorts of ways to stop it?

I haven't been investing as long as most of you but one that really surprised me I owned was TSE. I started buying it in january of 15' at 15/share and for 2.5x NTM fcf. I believe it's at 60 today. I've never found anything else of that size that was so clearly cheap in such an over valued market. It had a lot of debt but on the jan 15 cc the cfo more or less said it would be refied and was at the time at 9.75%. The only reason's I've come up with that it could have been so cheap is high debt, thinly traded as bain still owned 75% (over hang), and lots of one time charges due to split off from bain, closing a facility, and inventory revaluations due to oil based inputs. It was as simple as adding back a number of one time charges and adding in the savings from the refi. Some shorts were discussing it's commodity side of the business suffering in the future, which they were wrong about it turns out, but I valued it at zero and it was still ridiculously cheap. A good portion of the business was cost plus and multi year contracts. Anyways, I'm happy to hear if I missed something critical and am suffering confirmation bias but this one really smacked me on the head. It was so plainly cheap on current metrics (with adj) that I thought I must surely be wrong. I took a 10% position at 15 and made it an 18% position by adding at 18. I didn't make it larger because it seemed too good to be true. It ironic you can be scared because an investment is too good.

Are you looking only at equities as in roic on equities or are you including any cash you've held? I've outperformed since 2012 while averaging 20% cash in my equity portfolio, therefore my roic is greater than my outperformance but that's a bit disingenuous imo, even if the story is only being told to myself.

He doesn't include welfare, food stamps, unemployments , disability.... which is consequential.

I was brought up to think debt=bad but I've had to retrain my mind. Even the most steadfast and solvent companies in the world have some debt and debt can be a no brainer is your return is much greater than the investment. I have the cash to pay off my house, car, cc's etc but I don't. Here's why, My mortgage is 1200/month at 4.25% (no cost mortgage is why rate is higher) and I bought a place that has a walkout finished basement with a driveway, the basement has a kitchenette, laundry, bathroom, etc, my renter pays me 750/month. When you consider the deduction I'm taking on my primary residence plus the equity gain, my house is nearly free. Even if I didn't have the renter, I can't imagine anyone paying there house off who gets good returns, unless you have millions upon millions and it's annoying you that a payment is deducted each month or something silly. My car loan is 5 year at 1.99, I"ve done 25% a year in equities since 2012, why wouldn't I take that? My credit card debt. I maintain 100k in cc debt at all times. I use balance transfers that cost me 0-3% (usually 2-3%) up front for 12-24 months (1-2% annualized). I invest this money in preferred shares with a positive carry that are redeemable and I expect the company to redeem them in x time and so it's a YTM thing. I also margin these at IB by 30%. I have a simple excel sheet showing the terms I have on the credit cards and when the balance transfer expires. I keep over 100k available on my cc's at all times. To maintain a 100k cc balance you must have over 200k, maybe 250k available that way you could transfer them back and forth. Everyone knows you can transfer balances between cards but not everyone knows you can have money deposited directly into your checking account or sent a check at a balance transfer rate. I just call them and say I wanna pay off my car send me money etc. Everything is on autopay so I don't even think about it. Quick edit here: In case anyone tries to do this with cc's, you should know that when you do a btransfer you should do it on a card in which you have no other debt on it and which you won't use for anything else throughout the bt period. If you have a 20k balance as a balance transfer at 0% and you charge a few hundred for groceries, all future payments will go towards the 0% and therefore the grocery debt will accrue interest at your purchase rate of interest FYI. I just wish I was bankable to the point I could get a loc for hundreds of thousands at below 5%, maybe one day. I should mention that I have 25% of net worth in a sep ira at 3.1% in a cd and also have a 30% cash position in my equities as of now. All of this will go into equities when they get cheaper.

My edge is a combination of it's a numbers game and I look for one foot hurdles. As a straight commission salesman for four years (ten years ago) I typically received 50 leads/week and sold 3 of them and led my team in sales. I had three people in a row over about 10 minutes hang up on me, after complaining to all my co-workers and having a pity party and I got back on the phone and within minutes the prospect said "I've been thinking about doing this for awhile now and in fact I've just refinanced my house to pay off all my credit cards and now I can afford it". I had a two week period where I made nothing followed by two weeks where I made quadruple what I normally made. I expect the unexpected. While most people are masturbating to their dcf's and posting I'm turning over ideas quickly waiting for no brainer's. I could list all sorts of weaknesses but that's not what this thread is about. Now I have to go.

I usually run 5-10, 6 currently. What do you own that you have such a large position in besides brk?

Thanks everybody, helpful.

Sure, I understood that part, probably reading into it too much. Thanks.

Sweet. Thanks buddy. On it's way.

After looking at the last three years I've found that out of all of the possible mistakes I could make the bigly (trump) one is that I sell too early. This year I bought tse at 23, sold at 34.50, 10% position, nc at 44, sold at 59 10% position, pcln at 1000 10%, sold at 1300 for example. They are now at tse 55, nc 92, pcln, 1550. I'm up 16% this year while averaging a 30% cash position in my equity portfolio, had I sat on my hands I would be up 30-40% plus with a 10 stockish portfolio. Basically, my hit rate (if I hold) is 4/5 picks go up 20-100% within 12 months when looking at the last three years. If I can get myself to sit on my hands, I'd be absolutely killing it however I'm just slightly outperforming (5-10% a year since 2012). The good news is I'm buying right, the bad news is I'm apparently psychologically weak. When I look at this year, I know I sold the three listed above because the returns were pretty great and it all happened quite quickly (1-3 months). At the time I was nearly fully invested in my equity portfolio (40% of net worth) and the selling rationalization went something like, "do I want to wait 10 months for cap gains?", "Am I comfortable being fully invested in this market", "these stocks aren't that cheap anymore anyway". It seems I think critically when buying and not so much when selling. I just did this again with keys bought at 28, bld at 30, and rlgt at 2.74, I couldn't hold them and they are all up 20-40% plus in a matter of months. I absolutely hate admitting this because I like to think of myself as disciplined and rational. I don't seem to be able to hold more than about half my portfolio for 1 year +. Certainly some of you have more experience with this and have some tips/tricks/mental models to deal with this sort of thing. Hopefully I've articulated the issues I'm facing. I'm just so frustrated with myself because I feel like if I could just master this one issue I'd go from good to great but I keep repeating this same mistake. Marrying 40 hours a week of researching companies with sitting on ones hands is proving quite difficult.

http://www.rcwilley.com/Furniture/Living-Room/Chairs/Recliners/Leather/3485277/Dark-Truffle-Brown-Leather-Power-Recliner---Runway-Collection-View.jsp Love this chair for reading, I'm a very lean rock climber and things are always falling asleep when sitting until I found this. Its very comfy and has a high back to support your head so everything can relax. I wish it was heated, that would be perfect.

Sweet, thanks for posting! Can anyone articulate the relevant effects on the financial statements in which brk would benefit from having these intangibles subjected to impairment opposed to amortization? Although WEB does not specifically address impairment versus amortization as it relates to intangibles, here is something on the subject and it's potential to boost earnings 5 years or so down the road. The below is from the 2014 letter. Our income and expense data conforming to GAAP is on page 49. In contrast, the operating expense figures above are non-GAAP and exclude some purchase-accounting items (primarily the amortization of certain intangible assets). We present the data in this manner because Charlie and I believe the adjusted numbers more accurately reflect the true economic expenses and profits of the businesses aggregated in the table than do GAAP figures. I won’t explain all of the adjustments – some are tiny and arcane – but serious investors should understand the disparate nature of intangible assets. Some truly deplete over time, while others in no way lose value. For software, as a big example, amortization charges are very real expenses. The concept of making charges against other intangibles, such as the amortization of customer relationships, however, arises through purchase-accounting rules and clearly does not reflect reality. GAAP accounting draws no distinction between the two types of charges. Both, that is, are recorded as expenses when earnings are calculated – even though from an investor’s viewpoint they could not be more different. 14 In the GAAP-compliant figures we show on page 49, amortization charges of $1.15 billion have been deducted as expenses. We would call about 20% of these “real,” the rest not. The “non-real” charges, once nonexistent at Berkshire, have become significant because of the many acquisitions we have made. Non-real amortization charges will almost certainly rise further as we acquire more companies. The GAAP-compliant table on page 67 gives you the current status of our intangible assets. We now have $7.4 billion left to amortize, of which $4.1 billion will be charged over the next five years. Eventually, of course, every dollar of non-real costs becomes entirely charged off. When that happens, reported earnings increase even if true earnings are flat. Depreciation charges, we want to emphasize, are different: Every dime of depreciation expense we report is a real cost. That’s true, moreover, at most other companies. When CEOs tout EBITDA as a valuation guide, wire them up for a polygraph test. Our public reports of earnings will, of course, continue to conform to GAAP. To embrace reality, however, you should remember to add back most of the amortization charges we report I'm trying to think through the benefit or having pcp subject to impairment vs amortization. What motivated brk to do this? Shield taxes and maintain book value over time? Anything else I"m missing?

Sweet, thanks for posting! Can anyone articulate the relevant effects on the financial statements in which brk would benefit from having these intagibles subjected to impairment opposed to amortization?