watsa_is_a_randian_hero

there are some very long replies here that I didn't bother to read. tl;dr. However, I made the same trade as tallpop; I bet on Prem's word that the deal would get done, despite my own belief that BBRY was worth far less than what he was willing to pay, and this was a bad deal for FFH. Someone serious about wanting to maintain an ironclad reputation for deals (such as WEB) would not have gone so public with such a high-profile deal (most high profile deal in firms history) and then backed out. Bottom line: I will not make a bet solely on Prems word again. Translate that into having less "respect" for his good name, if you want.

I would agree its not an A yet. I would say its gone from D- To B-. I don't know the difference between family office and friends/family. I would think family office is for family offices though...guys working full time managing 100mm+ for a 1 client, a specific family

German has fish. Did on paper. Took me about about 45 min :o

I too have also tried lobbying head of HR for a self-directed option...to no avail. The response was because of fiduciary duty, they thought offering it could do more harm for some EE's than the benefits it would offer other EE's. Basically, to protect the retirement assets from day-trading. The strategy of index fund and then rollover is good, but if you want to have a long-term career at a company then this doesnt really help. If you are young, married, and both spouses are maxing out (17500), plus getting a match, then you are probably saving $40k-50k per year. After a few years with the same company, this very quickly becomes a large % of net worth. My strategy has been to invest my 401k assets in asset classes I don't normally get much exposure to in my actively managed accounts, such as REITs, fixed income, and emerging markets. I have a 0% weighting to domestic equities. I have also been lucky in that the funds offered are either index funds or funds with fairly decent track records.

I trade almost exclusively through IB. However, I did open an account with fidelity to trade Portuguese stocks, which IB didn't have access to. Fidelity charged 19 Euro for the trade, and will charge 1% to change currency. You can avoid the currency charge by wiring euro to fidelity from IB. I'll warn you, I did this fx wire 2x, and 1 time there was some trouble, though the funds eventually did make it. I'll second the opinion offered by TTTDodder...I try to avoid foreign stocks in an IRA unless I don't think it will issue dividends.

It is dangerous to think about your market correlation this way. I own a ton of stocks that are uncorrelated on a day-to-day basis...literally betas that would measure 0. However, it is more appropriate to think about what would happen if the market dropped 50% with a repeat of 2008-09...everything becomes much more correlated in a flight to liquidity and quality.

+1 Also, I oversee the 529's my uncle set up for his family. Another issue I've noticed is, for Ohio at least, you are limited to 1 trade per year. Thank you father government for knowing what is best for all of us! I understand the intention...to prevent families from daytrading, or market-timing their funds and, as is common with most retail investors, buying high and selling low. That said, while I am a long term investor, if the market is hot or if stocks drop, I prefer not to make 1 single trade...my preference is to fade in or out with smaller baby-steps. This becomes impossible to do. Also, if you sell a portion of a stock fund because the market is hot earlier in the year, to the extent the market drops later in the year it becomes impossible for you to buy back in. Aggravating.

I've had problems for a couple months now where I'll pull up an individual stock quote and it displays a quote from days prior. Additionally, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with Y! Finance for other reasons. The site used to be great, and then 2 or 3 years ago they changed the format. There is a lot less relevant information available directly on the homepage now. There are more article links and less data. Additionally, I find the article links becoming more and more political and left-leaning (I am right leaning, so this is annoying, but I would prefer an apolitical website). I wish they'd remove all of the garbage commentary, polls, political headlines, self-help articles etc. and revert back to being a business/investing oriented homepage. Its too bad there is no good alternative. They took a clear market leader and made it worse, and nobody has stepped up to make a better product yet. That said, I still have Y! Finance as my home page today.

Is the downside risk of having a house with a mortgage any different then being a renter? I view it as the same risk. If I get laid off, or if the market plunges, I still need a roof over my head. So assuming you are a renter now, you already have that risk. Also, if you own your home free and clear this does not eliminate your risk. Plenty of people owned their homes free and clear during the depression and still lost their homes because they did not have the cash to pay taxes. Point being, you are never really "free and clear," and so I'm not sure I would sleep any better at night. Finally, I think if you are worried about sleeping at night, I would continue renting for yourself, and take the money and buy real estate that you rent out to another. This way, you are supplied with a fixed income, but have the flexibility to downsize your self if you dire circumstances arrive. I think this would be the ultimate "low risk" option.

I have thought about this before...as more and more people "index" their portfolios, there are fewer and fewer investors making relative bets. I think the effect of this is more and more correlation (people are trading the index up and down, not individual stocks). In addition to that, because fewer investors are making relative bets, it allows for more pricing inefficiency; but inefficiencies will take longer to correct.

I use HSA Bank. HSA Bank acts as trustee, and you can link it to an Ameritrade account. Fees for HSA Bank are something like $2.50 a month base + $3.00 a month for investment account add-on. Fees are Ameritrade are standard fees. You can do options in the Ameritrade account the same way an IRA can do options (no margin). Not as cheap as IB, but best option I've see for an HSA.

i think hsa's have been priced this way pre-obamacare. I remember doing a similar analysis to evaluate our company plan options a couple years ago. It worked out that the HSA was the best if you used very little...or if you used a lot and hit the max out of pocket. Anywhere in between, and you'd be better off with the PPO. For example people with chronic conditions such as diabetes who know they will use some, but hope to not use a lot. I think this is the way the bronze will be...good if you don't use it at all, or good if you have a catastrophe.

I have had this setup since 2007. I manage money for friends/family. There are many other posts on IB on this board, so I won't go into it here, but I would recommend it. They also have the ability to "link" individual accounts, without needing to be part of the friends/family platform (so long as all accounts are owned by same individual). They did not have this feature when I was there. One thing that wasn't mentioned here is that on the advisor platform, the $10 minimum is aggregated across all accounts...ie if you have 10 accounts and trade in only 1 frequently, the trades from that 1 can apply towards the minimum fee levels of other accounts under the same advisor. At a minimum, open an account there, transfer some money, and see if you like it. I think it is unlikely you'll be disappointed.

Ericopoly - do you know of any companies that will set up the variable annuity structure but allow for investments in individual stocks? It would be much more appealing if I didn't have to invest in a mutual fund.

use IB.

P2P Lending. I opened a Lending Club account this year because of the lack of opportunity in stocks. Watch the video here and look into their stats. Its compelling reward vs risk. https://www.lendingclub.com/public/steady-returns.action

I think using the word "secular" to describe a bull or bear market is just a fancy way to put a story ex post facto around period of time stocks went up or down. Just pay attention to the overall P/E level of the market and macroeconomic risks (such as debt loads).

+1

I have gotten hammered on this stock. Luckily it was a small position; but it has gone from cheap to cheaper, while EBITDA margins has declined and recently even swung negative.

I know of a closed end fund that has a twitter position that was up yesterday in the aftermarket...I doubt that is what he is referring to as I wouldn't call "one of the greatest opps"...I don't even own because the funds position in twitter is not a majority percentage of fund...too uncertain what will happen.

interesting...its been a very long time since I was excited about a listed (not otc) domestic purchase

given your position size and your conservative nature, I would guess its a position with very limited downside.

did the opportunity just recently become available (ie, something caused it to become available)? or has it been sitting there in plain view for a while, and you just recently found the diamond in the rough?

HSA Bank lets you set up a sub-account with ameritrade. Interactive Brokers in my opinion is the best on price (commissions, margins and fees), best on tools, best on product/market breadth. The only thing I wish they could improve is customer service. Would definitely recommend.

I disagree with the statement that the "other side" is algo traders... For these smaller companies, a lot of times I think the "other side" is a combination of retail investors, employees, and former employees. As with retail investors, I think a lot of times people may have bought these companies recently or long ago for many different reasons. They could have bought on "tips," read something on seeking alpha or because they knew employees or management, and now the account is turned over to a new manager who is selling everything, the investor run out of patience, the investor gifted or bequeathed the stock and the beneficiary doesn't want it, the stock is down and they are selling as a stop loss, or the stock is up and they are taking gains.