glorysk87

Eh - I strongly dislike ideas like this where the perceived discount is based on a SOTP analysis that includes ownership of public equities. It makes the *huge* assumption that the market is correctly valuing those public companies. I've seen many SOTP analyses like this where instead of the investment increasing in value to close the discount to the perceived SOTP value, the value of the underlying holdings decreased in value to close the discount. I think if you want to put together a compelling idea you have to go through each of those underlying public companies and get really really comfortable that the market is valuing them correctly.

I see - thanks. I'm looking at a refi right now, but I honestly can't imagine refinancing again after this. How much lower can mortgage rates go? By my math, my fees will be repaid by monthly savings within 15 months of refinancing. I'm about to pull the trigger on it.

Jurgis - how were you able to get a mortgage with no fees? Appraisal, underwriting, title insurance, legal fees - all mandatory as far as I know. Would love to know your secret.

Funnily enough, I sold my house last year and deposited the biggest check of my life without stepping foot in a bank branch...I simply used the camera on my iPhone and my bank's mobile app. Branche's are obsolete for deposit needs, in my opinion. The only thing I've ever needed a physical bank branch for was to get a cashier's check for the deposit for my new house. Other than that, I haven't had any need to step foot in a branch in the last 5 years minimum. I will say, I can't speak to business needs as I don't own my own business. But I would envision bank branches slowly disappearing until there are only branches left in key locations.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/increase-font-size-printing-mozilla-firefox-44532.html

They teach the Modigliani-Miller theorem in the CFA program. Essentially (and there are numerous assumptions here, so you have to take it with a grain of salt) in a world with taxes, the value of a firm increases proportionally with how much debt is used to finance the business. Meaning increasing the percentage of the capital structure comprised of debt increases the value of the business. Largely due to the tax deductible nature of debt.

I don't think so. In a publicly traded corporation generally you have an ostensibly expert management team making capital allocation decisions. If offered a proposal by shareholders, they can generally choose to reject it if they deem it value destructive or even not an optimal use of capital. Think of it this way. Do you think Apple would have been successful if instead of Steve Jobs at the helm, there was a democratic process in which anyone could make a proposal and the one with the most votes was executed upon? The company would have burned to the ground.

I think there are a lot of fallacies in these assumptions. Just because someone is able to read the code doesn't necessarily mean that they're intelligent. And even if they are able to read the code AND they are intelligent, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're able to make optimal capital allocation decisions. Similarly, if someone has a very high % ownership it means they exert undue influence over the decisionmaking process - but just because they have a high % of ownership doesn't necessarily mean that they're able to make the right decisions. Eh. I mean the concept is interesting. But (IMO), I'd consider it burned money to "invest" in one of these. Way too many unknowns.

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-17/blockchain-company-wants-to-reinvent-companies Levine makes a good point. This is, essentially, a general partnership. There's generally a reason that capital allocation decisions are made by a select group of people - generally the experts in their field. Crowdsourcing allocation decisions seems...suboptimal.

Really interesting - that's the only time I've heard him say the word Pepsi in my life.

Americans... ::) :o Supersize me baby. HAHA...really, Americans are the offenders here? You've obviously never been to an Asian or Middle Eastern wedding...