thowed

Just wondering if anyone here is on BlueSky? Seems to be gaining traction as an alternative to Twitter, which a) is full of idiots, b) is hard to search for company tickers, as they've all been hijacked by Altcoins and c) has Bill Ackman trying to impress Musk by making teenage boy jokes (he actually made a 69 gag - unbelievably cringe...). I found a couple of friendly faces, but would be great to know if any more. Cheers.

BTW - everything (well, most of it) about this thread feels like the sort of sh1tposting nonsense I'd expect now that Trump's back. JFC. (I'm not a Democrat, before anyone starts, just anti-idiot).

Erm, isn't the whole point of that, that you don't have to put up any 'collateral' for it, so it doesn't matter if you're wrong?

Because BTC is experiencing high speculation?! I think it boils to simply that Bitcoin is THE Brand in Crypto - a lot of people buying in now may have barely heard of ETH. It still seems bizarre to me that the big brand is one where a) the creator is unknown (can you imagine the red flag in any other industry?!?) and b) based on older, slower technology than the competition (though precedent in VHS/Betamax etc.).

I think there's some cross purposes here. I don't think @dealraker is arguing for keeping the borders open to Illegal immigrants. Neither am I. I think for all of us here, if you want to be an investor, believing in the rule of law goes hand in hand with that. I think he's saying that the inconvenient reality is that SOME illegal immigrants are working hard doing jobs (& not committing crimes) that some locals don't want to do any more because they've got comfortable and lazy. You see it all over the developed world. If you get rid of the hard-working illegals (along with the bad guys), and generally show a view of hostility to prospective legal immigrants, then there's going to be inflation, because to get people to do the crap jobs that only immigrants tend to do, the wages are going to have to go up a lot. So I don't think Charlie is on about the morality here (correct me if I'm wrong) - we all agree we want to get rid of the bad guys - but just the need to see that there are trade-offs here. This is all a bit off-topic anyway.

@dealraker Thanks for the reality check. In the UK, Brexit is an example - it has been a nightmare finding decent tradespeople for building etc. though arguably this is not because there's been much success in getting rid of immigrants, and possibly more that skilled immigrants find it less attractive being in a country where the economy is stuck e.g. the Poles have been going home where business seems better (also, ironically given 2011, the Greek economy is also pumping!). People don't like immigrants, until they've gone, and people realise what they were doing.

Bill @wabuffo did something similar recently & referenced brklyn, but I can't remember where - Twitter? Don't know if that prompted this?!

Black-swan opportunities. Asymmetric super-nova. There are a whole load of great indie band names in that post.

Certainly feels like this at the moment.

Look, a headline about seals being kidnapped and having headphones put on them is stuff straight from a comedy skit! All I meant by 'political' is that people are taking this cartoon stuff seriously! It's just some Twitter clickbait. Anyway, nothing else to add.

Can we leave out the Extreme Political stuff please - which at this point is most things Musk says - such a shame. Thanks. It's just too polarising and doesn't really add anything.

I still will be very surprised if CGT goes up to 40-45% this year (though can't say never). The press have a reasonable sense of what's going on, as politicians are always talking. They've said not 39%, so I think 30 much more likely. They've also said no CGT rise on second properties. Anyway, it's all personal - I'm sad that the Conservatives are determined to elect an idiot as a leader, which will keep them out of power for longer, which will mean Labour will gradually get more crazy too. But fingers crossed a miracle happens and they keep taxes at a reasonable rate and manage to reduce wasteage in services, reform the NHS etc. etc.

I mean, nobody really knows, but the recent press has suggested it won't be quite as bad as we initially feared (human bias, possibly). Many assumed that CGT would go back to 40% which it has been more often than not - there is a not unreasonable argument that Income & Gains should have the same rate (what that rate should be is a separate thing...) as people will always try to convert things to whichever is the lower. However Starmer recently said CGT won't be 39%, so... maybe 30%? This is on shares, property is different. Only other thing is timing - my hope/guess is that it'll come in on 6 April - start of the new tax year, rather than from the Budget Day. Hope that helps. I won't go into IHT as that wouldn't really affect foreign investors anyway.

Think this is spot-on, generally. The good, smaller charities tend to be a lot more efficient with their spending and expenses. Some of the big-name charities can be shamefully wasteful with their expenses. It might be a bit nerdy, but I look at a charity's accounts these days before donating, to make sure they're not doing silly things with their money. I don't know what it's like in the US, but in the UK there are some decent resources for finding good, smaller charities. Finally, Doctors Without Borders (in the UK we use the French name) got some stick above - I haven't looked recently, but traditionally they were one of the best big charities, and would go to help people in the danger spots - when people were saying 'they help the bad guys', I think the truth is that they help ordinary people who are suffering in countries with bad governments. Again, this may no longer be the case, but the Red Cross used to have a not so good reputation, in terms of spending, but also being a bit shy about going to the danger spots. But as I say, I'm not guaranteeing this is still the case (I hope it isn't). Anyway delighted for everyone giving money to deserving causes!

Sure - I should contextualise more, and add that obviously my opinion is just of one person. I think traditionally they were quite a big deal just in terms of size - so they got a lot of business by default - your lazy work pension (i.e. 401k) guy might use them, and your grandma, because she didn't know any better. So I imagine a fair bit of their business is legacy stuff like this. I looked at their funds once (they get various fund managers to do versions under a 'St James' brand) and the fees were even higher than the already high charges you expect. I think now the internet has provided transparency on these things, more and more people have woken up to it, so I would imagine fewer people will use them going forward. But I haven't looked at the numbers. Hope that makes sense. So basically crappy in the sense that if I had to suggest a Wealth Manager for a family member, they'd be bottom of the list. But of course, this doesn't necessarily make it a bad investment, depending on valuation, turnaround opportunities etc., which I don't know about.

I'm sure you've researched it properly, but I'd be cautious on this - they really are pretty crappy, even by the low standards of UK Wealth Managers. On the other hand, they charge outrageously high fees, so as long as not everyone leaves, maybe it will work.

Cheers for reminder - have ordered - Nate been a great contributor here and on his blog, so happy to have it.

Oof - I think it is always dangerous to predict Macro - effect if one person gets in. All I remember is: 2016: 'everybody knew': 1) Trump wouldn't get in. 2) If he did, the markets would tank. So even if you got 1) right, you'd probably get 2) wrong. Therefore personally I don't want to think top down about this.

@Milu Great topic. Succession is so hard - there are a bunch of UK fund boutiques - exceptionally run by the founders. They have put in careful, long-term succession plans, and the next generation seem perfectly smart. But.... it just doesn't feel like they're working. Maybe some of it is just perception, but some people just have 'it'. I don't think Berkshire will fall apart just like that, and there are known unknowns e.g. will they break bits off and realise more than the SOTP? But I certainly won't have the same confidence in Berkshire when he's gone.

Fair dos, I was thinking more of younger Warren, where it felt like it was more calculated risk, though of course the Salad Oil thing could've always gone wrong. Think Spek nailed it with 'You can be a genius and shill at the same time'. And yes, in terms of innovation, I'm sure a fair bit of it happens by people taking stupid risks. I suppose as long as that's clear to investors how much risk they're taking, then it's fair enough. In addition - this thread is pretty rope-y now, and most people sound a bit cross & defensive on their views, and I don't think we're learning much...

Thinking 'personalities' like Musk are all good (fans) or all bad (haters) is hopefully not what anyone on this board will do. Because I think we all know that if you transfer to thinking that about a company, it means you're going to be unable to perform any sort of analysis with any detail or nuance. Personally I have a problem with Musk's risk management. With both Tesla and Space X, it seems that he came incredibly close to going bust. So sure, he's achieved some amazing things with the companies, but he came too close to the sun, and so it very nearly didn't happen. This is one of the things with Buffett - he did it without basically 'playing the lottery'.

He has his Credits and Debits. To take an example: Credits are stuff like this. Debits are amplifying the problems that Greg said on Page 1 of this thread - people of different political persuasions used to be able to rub along together much more than they do today, and Twitter/X is part of the problem IMHO.

Ha ha - spot on. I have a bit of KR1 as I'm lazy & like to delegate, & definitely too lazy to bother to learn what it means. ETFs aren't perfect, but if it's for a small part of your portfolio, they should be OK most of the time (though from '08 aftershock, I still prefer Physical Replication, just can't help it).

Fair dos! It was just funny that you didn't give a name, and then seemed to have disappeared! To answer the OG question, I mean, no, I wouldn't copy someone else completely. But as per Greg's answer, I have certainly been influenced by a small number of people, a few of whom are on this board. Sometimes it's investor letters. Sometimes it's Twitter. And it takes some time, for me anyway, to really feel confident in a person, and even then I won't follow them blindly, but if they mention something, I'll take a look at it and work out if I want to look at it in more depth. And sometimes where there's a triangulation i.e. it's liked by a few different people I respect, ideally who have different styles, then that's a good sign. Everyone has their own research style - for me, I like as many different data points as possible, Qual and Quant. Anyway, thanks for mentioning this guy, he is an interesting character (though given the others who have done it, I am not a big fan of people who lunch with Buffett, which is probably unfair!). Interesting that he chose to retire in the US too. Fascinating that he posts on social media - and I note that he was talking about going hard into Tencent in the Summer, which was a pretty good call (as of now, and it remains my benchmark China company in terms of decent governance, though this comes from others, I'm not an expert). n.b. It seems as though his early record was from a few big bets? i.e. he was at college with the Net Ease founder, so knew him & backed him, and then through him met the PDD founder. Maybe I'm being churlish, but this is not the sort of investor I'd generally follow, as there is arguably an element of luck in knowing the right people and leaning in, rather than having a repeatable analytical investment process. But still, kudos to him.

This thread is some excellent clickbait.