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Seanzy

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Everything posted by Seanzy

  1. I was thinking the same thing about this post.
  2. @thepupil, question. If the company buys back shares at a terrible price way above intrinsic value, and the long-term shareholder does not wish to "reinvest" and chooses to sell shares equal to the repo, then is the company forcing the shareholder's hand in paying a potential capital gains tax? Does the shareholder have to decide whether or not he will earn a greater return by holding the stock than he would by reinvesting the after-tax proceeds in an alternative investment?
  3. Does Buffett, Berkshire, or a subsidiary lend out shares?
  4. Question: I remember reading Warren Buffett made money in gold and his rationale was that he was by buying it at a price below its cost to pull it out of the ground. Why was this sound investment reasoning? If cost to produce doesn't really affect value/market price of gold, then was he also anticipating some sort of rise in the price of gold?
  5. JRM, I highly recommend reading "The Bitcoin Standard", in it, they discuss the ratio of stock to flow of gold, bitcoin, and others.
  6. Hasn't Warren Buffett talked about this? Didn't he say a good protection against inflation is a high quality company with pricing power such as Hersheys or Coca Cola that can increase its prices and pass on inflationary costs to the consumer, without needing to worry so much about a loss of demand? He even talked about how return on equity is positively affected by such companies during inflationary periods. I think real estate has also done well historically, during periods of increasing interest rates. I remember seeing a chart about this, but I don't remember whether it was referring to real rates or nominal. Also, regarding GDP, why has no one mentioned the possibility of wages increasing? I keep hearing about inflation over and over in forums and on the news, but there is no mention of possible wage growth. Big companies and employers are more efficient now than ever. They have been reporting pretty decent earnings. Couldn't it be the case that many companies start increasing the wages of their employees over the next few years? Wouldn't this contribute to higher GDP, and to a gradual lowering of the Warren Buffett indicator (ratio of Wilshire 5000 to GDP), which is bound to mean revert? I am trying to figure out if our economy is a bubble about to burst, or if we are undergoing what Ray Dalio refers to as a "beautiful deleveraging", where fiscal austerity, debt monetization, wealth redistribution, and fiscal policy all contribute to gradually combat the long-term, secular decline that we seem to be undergoing right now. I believe consumers are experiencing inflation, whatever the numbers say, at least in terms of cost of living increases. Have you gone to the grocery store lately? Prices are higher than they were 6 months and one year ago. Shouldn't wages be increasing soon? Employees will start demanding them. There is evidence to support this here: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth Maybe the Fed knows what it's doing, and that we should all have some faith that things will be okay. Also, bitcoin lol. Don't get me started.
  7. Does anyone know of a free API to obtain historical stock prices that are adjusted?
  8. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -Marianne Williamson, Author, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" The above quote was improperly attributed to many people, including Nelson Mandela, whose foundation admitted the quote should be attributed to Williamson. My other favorite quote: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” -E. E. Cummings, American poet This is a beautifully structured quote and resonates with me very much. The last four words serve as a double entendre, perhaps even a verbally ironic one, because “and never stop fighting” can be interpreted as either a command from the author to never give up being yourself or as simply the ending to his definition of what it means to be yourself. I see some irony in these last four words, because the tone of the quote is one of exhaustion, but his command is to keep fighting anyway. It is almost as if he feels exhausted by being himself. Life is hard enough as it is, but to be nobody but yourself, well, that's exhausting. And so when he commands the reader to "never stop fighting", well he is saying something a little contrary to what it means to be yourself because fighting back at life would also be exhausting. The irony is that he is telling us that the feelings that come with fighting back at life are worth the exhaustion of being yourself. Or perhaps irony is the wrong word. Perhaps that's the message of this quote! Another thing I like about this quote is that the word "like"—ordinarily used for comparative purposes—is missing from this sentence where it is to be expected. When we speak, we would normally say, "to make you like everybody else", not "to make you everybody else". The author is doing a few things here. First, he is emphasizing the exhausting force of the world attempting to make us march to the beat of its own drum. He is saying there is no need to compare you to everybody else by using the word "like", because you are either being yourself, or you are everybody else. But this is exactly what makes this part of the quote so powerful. Second, by NOT using the word "like", he is subtly telling us to join the fight to be ourselves, in rebellion against the world, because when you interpret the last four words of the quote as a command, he is telling us to never stop fighting at being yourself. The moment you give up, you are (like)everybody else. But if you fight, then there is is no need to use "like" in this sentence, because you are not "like" everybody else. He isn't using the word "like", so he is obviously fighting the fight, and leading us by example. There's a Japanese proverb that goes, "The nail that sticks out shall be hammered down" that pretty much sums up the world we live in and highlights the importance of such powerful quotes to be ourselves.
  9. A moat, or durable competitive advantage, is not so much about taste as it is about the cost to replicate equal earnings power and pricing power. Buffett has talked about this. He believes that even if he invested billions of dollars to create a cola that competes with Coca Cola, he would not be able to do it. This is because Coca Cola is one of the most recognized brand names in the world, and it is distributed everywhere. Coca Cola probably spends about $7,600 per minute on advertising. Even if restaurants agreed to sell a competitor to Coke or Pepsi in their soda fountains, they probably would not make as much money on it, on average, in the long run. Lack of long term distribution growth would eventually force them out of the market. This is because Coke, over the past five or six decades, has actually LOWERED the cost to purchase its syrup each year, as its business scaled in distribution, thereby making it less likely for someone to be able to compete with it. Regarding tastes, however, Buffett has mentioned that Coke has no "taste memory". If you drink tequila, you would get sick of it really quickly. Few people drink it before noon. But Coca Cola has no taste memory. You would be happy to drink it with an early lunch or throughout the day. You won't get sick of it. Lastly, your tastes are an exception, not the norm. Go ask 30 people if they enjoy drinking a coke at lunch, the movies, or a sporting event. Don't ask them if they actually do so. Ask them if they ENJOY doing so.
  10. That's easy. A copy of "Think and Grow Rich", by Napoleon Hill. It's THE book to be successful.
  11. Guys I would like to go to the meeting for my first time, although I've researched Buffett for eleven years. I am trying to get there from the San Francisco Bay Area and find lodging as cheaply as possible. Any advice? Thank you!
  12. Download the app called "n-back". It helps you build and maintain your short term memory, reflexes, and dexterity with your fingers. It asks you a simple math problem like 8+4. You are then supposed to remember the last digit of the sum, so in this case it's "2" because 8 + 4 = 12. Then it asks you another math problem, but you are supposed to enter the 2 you remembered from before while committing to memory the current sum's second number for the next math problem. This repeats until you have completed ten math problems as quickly as possible in a timed format. It sounds complicated but it's not. It increases in difficulty based on the number of math problems you must remember. Just try it.
  13. In 2014, I wrote a blog article about McEwen Mining (MUX) on SeekingAlpha.com. You can read it here: https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/17457762-seanzy/2675201-an-investment-idea-to-consider-mcewen-mining-mux On July 23, 2015, I purchased shares at $0.66 per share (the market cap was around $225 million). This was just about the lowest price it had been in ten years. More important than the price I paid, however, was the reasoning, thought process, and mental model behind my investment decision. I have been trying to understand Warren Buffett's investment decision making process for over ten years. I had been working two jobs and saving up every penny for an opportunity like MUX. This is not a recommendation, and I definitely did not want to give away my secret sauce at the time I wrote my article, but if you read it, you will see some of the major reasons why I believed MUX was such a bargain at $.66 per share.
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