watsa_is_a_randian_hero

I'm not sure what your beef is with them...you said 'f them' in the other thread and snowden was a hero without providing any rationale for how thats related to an investment decision first..i'm going on vacation tomorrow, so I won't see any response you put here, so advance warning this is more of a unilateral message than a conversation (sorry about that) But second, I would encourage you to have an open mind on pltr. PLTR has in certain crowds a bad rep which I believe is misunderstood. consider the following: if you're concerned about snowden and human rights violations, why would you invest in the other tech companies you listed that haven't stood up to china? pltr takes data privacy, controls, governance very seriously. Seriously enough that they are given the most credentialed approvals for government work in the US and in many allies abroad whatever your politics, even if you thought pltr has done evil through its involvement with the US government in things like ICE or counterterrorism, Karp has made a very good argument as to why american companies, citizens, and tech giants have a duty to not turn their backs on the government and assist in the governments missions (to the extent they are not blatantly immoral). Every other tech giant gets rich using american infrastructure and rule of law and doesn't complain about it, but then doesn't want to assist the government in protecting rule of law when it comes to it. if pltr didn't provide the service, someone else (like another company on your prospective investment list) would. whomever the winners are in AI, the US government will be a user of their services. It is illogical to say you wont invest in PLTR today because of their involvement with the US government today, but that you want to invest in basket of AI companies to find the eventual winners. The eventual winners, if not PLTR, will eventually provide whatever services of PLTR's that you are currently opposed to. pltr is moving beyond government work. their corporate work is the future and far bigger potential and more interesting why would you pass on a company 'on principle'. On what principle? the principle that you are closed minded and opposed to making a buck? PLTR in my base case will have a multi-hundred billion valuation in ~5-10 years (rivaling the size of other SaaS majors like CRM, ORCL, SAP). And it won't necessarily be from eating their lunch (the pie will grow), so those companies market caps will also increase in that time. What does this mean? Potential 10 bagger, even after doubling from listing price, and considering dilution in the coming years. I agree with you though owning a basket is best, as the risks are high to any given name. I also own data companies such as CRM, ORLC, NOW, AMZN and other techs as well (aapl, qcom, csco, wstg, tech mutual fund). PLTR seems to be the most exciting in terms of potential relative to price right now. I would strongly encourage you to take an open minded look rather than dismissing 'on principle'.

100% agreed. also too many posts by small group of posters, who dominate this board and comment every 2 minutes on every topic. I have been part of this community since the MSN days, and a long while back made a suggestion that it have a reddit like function where you could upvote/downvote relevant threads, and a Dalio-like spirit where you could upvote/downvote posts from individuals, and some sort of algorithm that demotes posts that are either downvoted or from individuals with low scores on past posts. I also suggested individuals have a total post limit per month so this isn't filled with as much spam.

The women disagree with you that it was consensual, including the 13 yr old girl that Trump allegedly raped in Jeffery Epstein's apartment: The number of women who have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault is at least 12 https://www.mic.com/articles/156669/how-many-women-have-accused-donald-trump-of-rape-or-sexual-assault#.KujVwb2jl I could pay someone to accuse you of raping them when they were 12...that doesn't mean that it happened. Trump is not epstein or weinstein or cosby...there is nothing credible or convicted (or even prosecuted). Again, you can't say "____ brags about assaulting women" when assault is a crime he has never been convicted of (or even prosecuted for). He bragged about getting women because of fame and money - you have to be really ignorant to be oblivious to this. Anyone who says that just sounds jealous that he gets laid because he has fame and money (and you don't, so you feel some need to take him down). To really hammer the point home about how ludicrous the idea is, envision you are trump and have his personality. Think long and hard about it, and the ego. Do you really think someone like that would say they need to assault a women to get laid? This would be a total contradiction to the personality. Requiring assault to get laid is an admission you couldn't do it on your own...this is a total contradiction to Trumps talk-track...he would never "brag about assaulting women". He would brag about getting laid (consensually) because of who he is (fame/wealth/personality)...those who don't see this are failing an iq test or just simply blinded by jealousy.

They don't like the touching, but they are not saying it's sexual harassment. The quote from one of the accusers, Amy Lappos: “It wasn’t sexual". From another, Vail Kohnert-Yount, "Though she told the Post that she doesn’t believe Biden’s conduct constituted sexual misconduct" And from Reade herself: "Reade told the Union that she didn’t feel sexualized by the way she’d been treated". That's odd, because later she claims he slid his fingers up her skirt and inside her. Her story changes. You don't think he's a creep? I can admit that Trump is one. Not even in the same ballpark. Trump brags about assaulting women because, as he explains it, he can get away with it due to his being a celebrity -- grabs them by the pussy. It's in his own words on videotape. That's when he isn't paying off adult film stars to keep quiet about his extramarital affairs with them. Comparing Trump to Biden is absurd. Trump brags about doing things that are consensual. Trump has never bragged about assault. this is one of the things that has always bothered me about the way the media twists words. What is the definition of assault? When did trump brag about that? If you're talking about the Access Hollywood tape...the whole thing was a statement premised on his words "when you're famous, they let you do anything." If you think that fame and money doesnt helped a dude get laid consensually, you don't know how the world works.

this is capturing the sentiment of most out there...but is missing the point people were UNDER reacting in Jan. this is not "just the flu". there is no herd immunity from natural antibodies or vaccine, and its about 100x more lethal when you look at conditional probabilities. That said, the real point is, the market was extremely inflated, and now there are no buyers. The market had kept chugging along under momentum, but all value players had stopped being net buyers long ago. The only buyers were momentum. And all it took was something to change the direction of the momentum, and there are literally no buyers now. The market will continue falling until it reaches a level enticing rational buyers to step in, and there was previously a big gap between current market prices and rational prices. As of last Friday, the market was trading at top 2-3 percentile of dividend yields; now it has regressed to 51st percentile in 5 days. Is it unreasonable to think it could fall to 90th percentile (implying another 10% down from here)? 97th percentile (28% down from here)? With momentum traders now on the other side, this thing will keep falling until it is clear coronavirus is contained.

Yes - when Trump was elected and Obama's administration came to an end! ;D ;D ;D Something that I keep track of that I think is a better yardstick for measuring savings is if you took your net worth * the dividend yield on SPY, and compare that to my spending level. This provides a market-adjusted measurement of savings. To the extent the your net worth goes up 1:1 with the market, your earnings under this measure won't change. Your net worth is up this month with the market, but could fall back next month to the extent the market drops, and you have no control over this. This alternative measurement I'm describing will change (1) to the extent you outperform or underperform the market, (2) to the extent you increase your savings by adding to it, and (3) to the extent the absolute level of dividends issued increases.

I work in valuation, for the top provider of valuations globally to private equity firms and hedge funds. We have a disputes practice as well. PM me and I can give you our disputes contacts, as well as other firms in this space it might be worth talking to.

This is my perspective working for a midsize financial consulting firm with 70 offices globally, that takes in a lot of data from institutional investing clients, and sometimes takes in PII on engagements, and also has an investment banking arm: The new rules are so burdensome, that most people either aren't savvy enough to comply without tripping up on some small aspect and/or view it as too costly to fully comply in every way, so firms turn a blind eye to some aspects of compliance.

I'm with you Cardboard. There have always been a large difference in the lifestyles lived between the upper upper 0.01% (or put whatever cutoff point you want on) and everyone else...but I think social media and youtube has advertised the benefits of that lifestyle on a more widespread basis. Unless you get to the point where you are a billionaire, you will always have people significantly wealthier than you with significantly better "toys", homes, experiences, lifestyles, etc.

Well, my reply "I dont think this is the case" because not everybody understands this, and its possible that the writers of these articles misrepresent the word "percentile." That said, my explanation is consistent with the statistical definition of percentiles, and how academics have used the term in context of wealth/income.

As a similar measure of how I'm doing...I've begun monitoring the each year the Forbes 400 Net worth threshold (currently around 2 billion) vs my own net worth, and the ratio. The ratio itself is not that meaningful, but it can be meaningful to look at how the ratio has changed over time. There is a large skew in wealth, mainly driven by the way our economy is structured to provide massive rewards to scalable value-adding creations. That large skew in wealth results in a small minority bidding up luxury goods, high end restaurants, vacations, private schooling, etc. If you are interested in purchasing goods/services in this category, your personal CPI is largely affected by this wealth skew. ie if this is you...in a bull market, if everyone is making money in the stock market, and you've invested in conservative bonds, not keeping pace...you're getting poorer in real terms of your personal CPI. My goal therefore is to not lose pace with this skew and keep up with it, so as to be able to keep up with my personal CPI, which is why I monitor this ratio year-over-year.

What I'm saying is that within the first percentile, there's likely a wide distribution, and that since it's probably a power law, that can be skewed quite a bit by a bunch of billionaires. So if you compare that first percentile to the rest and say "to be in the first percentile you need X", you might not actually be accurately representing most of the individuals that compose that first percentile since 0.95 of it might have on average $1m (random number to make a point) and 0.05 of it at the top might have 500m on average. So you're taking the average of the sums in that first percentile rather than look at the median person in that first percentile, and that makes a difference. I dont think this is the case. When percentile's are reported, you report the threshold you need to breach to get into that percentile, not the average within the percentile. That is the definition of percentile. Top 1% means you make more then 99% of others. It doesnt mean the average of those that make more than 99% of others. There is not a skew from billionaires. There are others (more academic than financial samuri) that have done studies using the IRS reported percentile levels and the fed reported. That said, this data is consistent with what financial samuri is implying - that an 8 digit net worth is required at certain ages to be in the 1st percentile. The link below is what I have used before when I was looking into this. The wealthiest age cohort, based on the 1st percentile threshold, is 60-64 (just before retirement). https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/ I was surprised at first too by that finding - that an 8 digit net worth was required at certain age levels to be in the 1%. That said, if you ever have any doubts as to the number of multi-millionaires in this country, drive along the coast from Florida up to Maine, or from San Diego up to Seattle. Count the number of mansions and massive boats. I'm always shocked whenever I travel anywhere in the world on the water, the number of massive boats there are. I am always left thinking - who owns all of these $500k+ boats?

Its not median or average. Its percentile. Its more similar in concept to median - median is the 50th percentile. This is the 1st percentile. Its due to (1) inheritances and (2) point when entrepreneurial efforts start to get critical mass for many people in that category. I think regarding #2 there are a lot of people who have private businesses that are hard to estimate value of for purposes of determining net worth, and these value estimators based of fed reserve household net worth studies may underestimate the value of. By the time someone is in their 40ths though, they may finally be starting to pull excess $ out of the business rather than reinvest, resulting in $ that is invested in "easier to value" items for purposes of the fed reserve study, such as real estate and marketable securities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_parity

this is america. hudson bay is not. i think hudson bay is older

"I am thinking of selling the coins that I have that are worth over say $10 and keeping the rest for no good reason, they might be interesting for my kids to see" I would do the opposite. The ones that are worth under $10 will probably always be worth under $10. They ones that have appreciated to date have appreciated for a reason (more rare, actually have collector value, bullion value), and will likely continue to appreciate.

contradictory

I think you are seeing the point I'm trying to make now. What is your definition of political genius? Mine would be someone who can navigate whatever political system they're in to garner enough support to achieve their goals (with the first goal as being elected)***(edit: someone who does this in the ordinary course is just a standard politician. Someone who does this with the odds stacked against them and still comes out successful is a political genius.). For many politicians that goal would be wealth or continued power - Trump already has these things, and hes 70 years old. I think for him its ego and legacy. I would certainly say Obama is a political genius himself as well...he also had his own huge upset victory against HRC. What I said about Obama earlier was just stating I think that the gridlock was his failure - and if the country didnt perceive it as such, dems would have had more success in congress in 2010/2012/2014/2016 - 8 elections in a row. Like I said, for Trump expect him to push big sweeping changes to be remembered for. I would expect many grand sweeping changes structurally to the way our country works, and I would expect him to work in a bipartisan way to the extent necessary. I'm talking about big changes - our tax code, obamacare, immigration policy, our strategic foreign alliances (Nato, UN, Russia), trade policy, etc. Maybe not all, but there's a reason those are targeted areas. I think emerging markets are all beat up right now. They have been beat up for a while, first china, then oil/commodity bust, now worries about trade with US. However, overall and setting aside the specific worries of some of the discussions (such as Trump with China), historically what has been good for US growth has been also good for emerging markets. EM is priced as one of of the cheapest asset classes on a relative basis (comparing multiples and rates across the board). Perhaps a good place to start is Ishares russia (that is only partly a joke; for me though, I just own the EM index).

Richard- I'm not really interested in having a political discussion on this forum. I am interested in looking at things realistically and their implications on investments and the markets. Dems lost, Trump won. Again, I say this not to start a political discussion with you, but to try to point out that many have underestimated him, and I believe he is smart and cunning, and this has implications. He was an underdog anyway you look at this. You think he stumbled in by luck? He threaded the needle for a huge electoral win. He played this whole election, from the primary through, as a chess game always ahead of his opponents. If you dislike him, you would do better to understand your adversary and acknowledge where he has succeeded where others have failed. Again, He is smart and cunning. This has implications on the economy and markets, as he will likely be successful, in my opinion, at making large sweeping changes to our nations trade, political allies, regulations, etc. I think for him part of it is him doing what he thinks is right, but certainly part of it is his ego - this is why you should expect him to be successful at making large changes - he wants a legacy for his ego, and will get it one way or another, even if it means working with democrats for votes on key legislation. On your point on automation, I do agree with you. There are many facets at play in a dynamic economy. On globalization, I agree with you, and so would Trump. He ran on a platform specifically calling out globalization and being anti-globalization. He won for the same reason brexit won. I would expect less "free" trade and more elements of a mercantilism approach. There is a reason US industrials and energy have been huge winners in this rally, while importers (or those who financially engineer imports through transfer pricing of IP) have not.

First of all - these SNL skits are not funny. I'm not trying to be bias (I used to admit the Bush ones were funny), I just think they're not funny. They are in essence playing him off as an unaware idiot - the same as Bush. Its become old hat. Trump is not Bush. Anyone, regardless of party, who does not see the political genius in what Trump just pulled off, winning against all odds, and still thinks Trump is someone of low intelligence should perhaps re-examine their perception of their own intelligence and their own accomplishments. Second of all - this is an investments forum. If you want to discuss politics, why not at least discuss the impact of policy of markets and/or the economy. I happen to think that a key reason we've had such an anemic recovery ) with the US growing at the slowest pace over the last decade since WWII and low labor participation rates) is high regulation, high taxes, government policy on student loans government policy on social security disability. I think that part of this is the pendulum swinging too far (as the case can be in either direction) after the great recession. I think the other driver of this of this is an inability for washington to get deals done in a bipartisan way (this was a failure of Obama's; you can't look at it any other way. If it weren't, Hillary or Joe or Bernie would be sworn in this Friday). I'm hopeful that Trump almost acts as a third party (in many ways he was his own party), and simply acts as a broker of deals between the dem and rep establishments. I think this is a role that he wants and a role that suits him. I think if he can break through the gridlock of washington, then its a win for America. I think this could certainly mean good things for the economy. I think to a large extent the market already reflects this - the market is up 6.6% in 2 months. The question is whether there is still opportunity, given the extremely high market multiple in place, and the countervailing winds of an uptrend in interest rates. Personally I've been taking some profits in the rally, but I was over-invested prior to the election.

You said that for the 2016 thread too.

CNRD. Every other energy/industrial-related stock has done very well in the Trump Rally. CNRD is actually down. A good buying opportunity given where oil is today, and anticipated infrastructure spending.

There is a typo in your sentence above. A lot of people want a lot more than $500k to retire. The word need is inherently premised on conditions. Nobody needs more than $500k to retire. They want to maintain a certain lifestyle, and therefore want more to retire.

Don't take this personally, but I wanted to call this out because I find this is so typical. So many people are so entranced by the mainstream media mudslinging that they didn't evaluate the candidates on their proposed policies. After the fact, the elections over, and now people are saying "I didnt vote for the guy, but when I look at his proposed policies they're not that bad". How can you cast a vote and without having evaluated the candidates actual policies?

No such thing as bad publicity. All this stuff has been known about before, we're just rehashing it. He's in the news, he ran for president, this is all good for his brand. Not really... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/04/what-donald-trumps-candidacy-has-really-meant-for-his-business-empire/ Also remember someone reporting that his kids are pissed at how much the campaign is hurting business. Most of his hotels are in big cities and cater to the upper-middle to upper class. I doubt he has even 20% support among the type of people who have or would have stayed in his hotels. I'm pretty sure he just mostly licenses out his brand to developers, but what developer would want to use his name now? If he loses, he starts his own cable news network. He will immediately have very high ratings with a core following. He has high brand value for the potential to create new assets. You are thinking narrow-minded if you think of brand value as only relating to existing assets.