twacowfca

There is already a class action lawsuit that is well into discovery. What they have dug up is overwhelmingly in favor of the plaintiffs. It will eventually be settled probably for low double digit billions of dollars, but that will be cents on the dollar of what their shareholders lost. Therefore, some shareholders will likely opt out of the settlement and persue separate claims. And on and on it will go.

BAC will probably survive, but there is an elephant in their kitchen that won't go away. That elephant is piled high with the credible claims of everyone who held their stock during the crisis. Those stockholders lost much more than the current market cap of the stock after management rushed the acquisition of ML while covering up the huge MTM losses in their portfolio. Their misconduct in the coverup was blatant. Lewis actually fired one of his high level managers for standing up at that time and saying, "This is wrong!"

That area is the most exquisite biomechanical machine in the body. The pain described may be related to trauma to the ligaments, tendons and fascia around the arch rather than neuropathy per se, but it's not wise to second guess her physicians. A second opinion by another physician who specializes in treating musculoskeletal pain in a different way might be helpful. There are two philosophies of treatment that could be considered. One is to relieve the pain through treatments affecting the nerves in the area or through surgery. This isn't always completely successful. The other is to assist the body to restore normal function. There is a simple treatment called prolotherapy that is often highly successful in similar situations. A group at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver has had an amazing track record using this therapy for Achilles Tendonitis. Perhaps your friend might contact them and see if they think prolotherapy might help his daughter. There is also a physician in Chicago, Ross Hauser, MD who specializes in prolotherapy. He's the best there is. See caringmedical.com :) Frank (Tim's out today)

What's the approximate locus of the pain? That might be important. Was there trauma in the affected area? If so, please describe if possible.

Yes, but it is very rare for a high energy storm to hit the US or the Gulf of Mexico oil fields so late in the season. :)

Great excerpt. Speer isn't the only one Hitler mesmerized. Read Leni Riefenstahl's biography. In a sense, Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine mesmerized a whole nation. :(

Hear! Hear! Very well said! :)

Let's not go there again. Once one gets to know most of the frequent posters and what they own, it's possible to infer portfolio size. Most posters have small to midsize portfolios. :) When a retail investor or a hedge fund approaches a certain size of 100M or so, it becomes increasingly difficult to get in and out of many potential positions because of liquidity constraints. However, once that critical size is reached, a whole new world of opportunities opens up that is off limits to unsophisticated investors. For example, the opportunity to buy amazing derivatives. All in all, the advantages of that critical size largely cancel out the disadvantages.

Let's not go there again. Once one gets to know most of the frequent posters and what they own, it's possible to infer portfolio size. Most posters have small to midsize portfolios. :)

A funny thing happened while everyone was watching the indexes last week. A number of mostly better P&C companies hit 2011 highs. Including: WRB ACE CB ACGL FFH LRE RLI and even an also ran like TRH Look for more new highs for these and others as buybacks kick in now that the hurricane season is over. :)

Lots of hedge funds invest pension money and endowment money. Okay, you are right about that. However I wonder what the breakdown is for the hedge fund industry. For example: How much of hedge fund profits (what % of fee profit) comes off the assets held by the bottom 50%? I think the bottom 50% only have $1.5 trillion in combined net worth (at least according to The Daily Show). I have a strong suspicion that for the most part the hedge funds are profiting off of the wealthy. Not likely, unless you consider pension funds for public employees to represent the wealthy. Calpers, for example, is huge all by itself. I think that the great majority of assets invested in hedge funds come from intermediaries.

Interestingly, that's what we did. We put our large cash pile some into FFH and mostly into TRH about the start of the downturn and then sold TRH for a small loss when the possible acquisition by NICO fell through. Then, we put most of the proceeds into BRK when Warren gave us the free put on the stock. Also, added some to LRE and a speculative situation. All in all, we are about where we were when the market peaked a few months ago, up > 20%. More importantly, our portfolio has inherent resistance on the downside to market volatility and plenty of upside. :)

The obvious answer is: The S&P 500 is worth what people are willing to pay for the companies in it. Most factors are highly favorable for valuation now. A static evaluation, like the Fed Model, indicates that the S&P 500 should be worth more than treasuries. But historically, treasury prices are in a bubble, and security prices in general are inflated.

The revenue projection is a mirage. The imposition of such a tax would likely reduce the number of transactions subject to the tax to a very low number, perhaps .1 to .01 of the current number of transactions. The greatest burden would fall on the less sophisticated, those who use ATMs and money orders who probably would reduce their necessary transactions very little!

Interesting. He tells it like it is. Most of the top 1/100 of 1% are fund manager, investment banker, VC types or the CEO's and other higher ups of their more successful creations. Plus government contractors. Who of these are parasites and who create wealth and prosperity?

Yes. Much appreciate your posts, and thanks for the background on Friedberg. :)

Not to mention the Wright brothers, Glen Curtis and . . . Drum roll please . . . Bill Gates :)

He posts that return for Global Macro since 2001, not 1995. Am I missing something? Performance of his closed funds is mixed. The worst is Global from 1997 to 2005 that lost about half its value. All in all, his performance is positive, even without the exceptional returns this year. He seems to be very nimble, and he may be getting better with experience. :)

Quote from twacowfca We're all deep value guys who don't care a thing about which way the market is going or the trend of a stock, right? However, my evil twin says this may be a good technical sign. Good relative strength after a stock has been beaten into the ground is positive for outperformance in the near future. It's possible that closing at the high may help filter out false positive signals caused by nothing more than short covering. Short covering is often associated with higher volume in contrast to yesterday's modest volume. If accompanied by improving f-score type fundamentals, it's a great sign for a strong and long rebound off the bottom. However, I don't know how BAC's more important fundamentals are trending. Quote from Parsad Ppphhhhttt! ;D Sorry Moore. I only give out raspberries to any technical analysis answers. Cheers!

I know a guy on this board who's a retail investor with >30% compounded returns from 2001 to present. Would you discount his posts? Ericopoly has even better returns as discussed many times on the board. Would you dismiss his posts because he keeps chickens? Twacow, I think you misunderstood my statement. I have said several times that Ericopoly is one of my favourite posters on this board he is clear, logical, and has a unique way of simplifying things by applying mathematics. Quite simply, when he posts I will spend extra time reading what he has to say and rarely rush along as I find myself doing with others. With regards to the personal spending and cultivation habits of the members, I think here too you misunderstand as I went on a little rant on that thread commending these individuals and supported the younger generation members for employing such strategies. I even threw out a favourite Confucious quote of mine, which I use a lot with my family members and occasionally my wife :) Now to the second part of your post I have to draw a line in the sand. There is no doubt that you know a lot of retail investors that have compounded at 30% or better in their PA's, but that still doesnt make them a professional investor. I have compounded at better than 40% in the PA I pasted here, but I have achieved nowhere near those results in my fund. I could afford to be more concentrated, and was 100% equities mostly with a little cash as you could all see. If any of the users you mentioned could continually compound at 30% or better, they would be starting their own partnerships by now and attracting AUM. Its very easy to start a hedge fund, I started mine with just $1.3 million dollars in 1994. So if the users you mentioned could so easily compound at those rates they would have done it by now, because running a fund hands you a call option on other peoples money. The pressures of managing money for others, having potential redemptions, audits, fair value accounting, marketing etc. These are all elements the help build an investor over time. It is like the famous line of what going to college tells me? Well going to college tells me you can stick to something and you end what you start. I feel the same way about professional/non professional investors. If you are really so good, stop playing triple A ball, and join the big leagues. Especially in the US where setting up a partnership is peanuts. In Canada the process is a lot more cumbersome. So let me organize where I stand on this, as it perfectly fits in with my previous position. I would gladly listen to the posters on this board with 30% CAGR in their PA's, and frankly I will listen to what they say more often than others. But where I truly value their opinions is in disecting a specific investment idea, because when it comes to Macro we are in a completely different frame of mind. They may have a job to supplement their investment income, they may have such a small PA that it doesnt even matter if the world goes to hell (Generally this is the case I find most often, less skin in the game tends to equal more sensational claims, as the investor dreams of a situation where his little capital can be turned into significant capital with no risk), or they may just get a kick from posting long winded bullshit filled posts which mean nothing to them but everything to the person reading. So your post was inaccurate, but I think you can agree that when you have a mixture of people from all walks of life with different expectations, and incentives from an investment program it is not the end of the world if we know their personal interests when making bold statements. Charlie Munger has spent a lot of time discussing personal incentives and the importance of knowing what the other side's ultimate goal is. I think we can agree on that. My goal when saying that I am bullish while everyone is bearish is not to get the small members on this board with their personal PA's to buy the market as I don't think that will have any effect on me personally. My goal is to provide balance or expand on my personal position and share my views. The guy with nothing to lose who is crying wolf can cause a lot more damage to members who have no idea what his personal situation is. Thank you for your thoughtful post. I appreciate your sharing good ideas, and I don't disagree that a doomsday scenario is unlikely with The US Fed's keeping the spigot open. I do, however, think it's advantageous to have diversity of opinion on the board with a big range of sophistication. Sophistication is no protection from the madness of crowds.

That's a great perspective. :)

Here's another bone to pick: the idea that a young guy should't save his money in an extreme fashion, living on rice and beans plus Mom's leftovers. The truth is that frugalness is the road to riches. Read about Buffett's early life. There is a recent academic study that showed even from a Markowitzian perspective of maximizing the arithmetic mean that it's much better to save as much as possible and be fully invested in risk assets when you're young than to have a more balanced portfolio for a lifetime.

There is difference between taxing warren more and taxing warren at least at the same level as some one who works in mines or cleans toilets. I don't have fixed opinion on rich getting taxed lot higher but I do strongly feel that rich should not pay less than regular Joe. And if we extend your logic of money is better off with rich guys then why not have zero tax rate for anyone having net worth over a $100 Million. That will not next logical step. There already is a zero tax rate for the rich: income from tax exempt municipal bonds. Take the Walton family. What might happen if we raised the tax rate on the super rich to 90% for example? The Waltons might pull their money out of WalMart and buy municipal bonds. Wow! Wouldn't that be good for the country!

I know a guy on this board who's a retail investor with >30% compounded returns from 2001 to present. Would you discount his posts? Ericopoly has even better returns as discussed many times on the board. Would you dismiss his posts because he keeps chickens?

Yes, informally. LRE's debt is about 8% of their capital with no restrictive covenants and very long term. BRK's is also low, but not quite so low considering subsidiary debt. FFH's is higher, but they have large hedges. :)