ValueArb

Then why the deflection and attempt to poison the well by accusing me of positions I don't hold?

You know I’m exactly right about Putin so you dodge, deflect and change the topic.

Good investors investigate their mistakes in search of biases and poor thought processes. Thats not unusual, its common to investigate accidents for causes in order to prevent them in the future. To quote the esteemed philosopher William Burr "If I got bitten by a rattlesnake, wouldn't you ask questions? How did it happen? Did you not see it? Were you f-ing with it? How did a snake get so mad it almost killed you?" You assert Putin has 1000x the information that we do (without justification mind you) and yet are unable to explain how Putin didn't anticipate the western response to his invasion of Ukraine, or the Ukrainian response to the invasion, or the failures of his military despite its massive advantage in men and materials. The problem isn't in the volume , or even the quality of the information, its in whether it was even accepted or used. How many generals do you think stood up to Putin and said our trucks are in poor shape, our logistics terrible, our troops are poorly trained and led, our tanks are death traps, and if we don't take Kyiv quickly we'll get stuck in a quagmire, maybe for years? And then our most valuable ships in our Black Sea fleet will be at risk, our air force will suffer substantial attrition, and this new war will be fought with drones that negate much of our advantage in armor. How many do you think told him it would be a piece of cake, three days tops? We weren't there but the results clearly show that Putin only listened to the 3 day generals. If there were any who had any clear insight into the difficulties Russia would face in this invasion, their views weren't given any weight before the war. In fact they probably weren't allowed in the room. We know this because Putin has never fixed anything in two years, or changed his command structure until he finally demoted(?) Shoigu just a few weeks ago. This is the all too common story of dictators. They end up surrounding themselves with loyalists out of fear of being overthrown. Loyalists always end up being yes-men and boot-lickers, because anyone who tells the boss they are wrong gets ostracized and booted out of the inner circle. Generals who complained about Putin cronies stripping their maintenance and training budgets were demoted, fired or killed years ago. The surviving generals are the ones kept their mouth shut and agreed with Shoigu on whatever he told them to. Your posts are 100% appeal to authority. Putin is in charge, so he must know more than us and can't be stupid! The problem is all those thousands of GRU analysts and agents preparing reports are writing what their superiors allow to be written based on what is palatable to Shoigu so that any reports presented to Putin are consistent about one thing, its not Shoigu's fault! Instead, as always it's western agents fomenting color revolution to undermine Putin and Russia. Since Ukrainians can't be as good as Russians, the only explanation for Ukraine still standing is that NATO troops must be fighting in Ukraine! Western agents must have convinced Wagner to revolt! Most Ukrainians secretly hate Zelensky, love Putin and long to be part of Russia, but roaming UK assassination teams suppress dissent in Ukraine just like our FSB teams do in Russia! Did you know the US had germ warfare labs in Ukraine!!!!! They must be slowly poisoning our troops, by injecting bioweapons into our good soldiers vodka bottles!!!!!!! So pick a lane. Either Putin has access to all the true intelligence on their failures in Ukraine, but he's just too stupid to make good decisions. Or he's not dumb, but built an organization where everyone near the top knows their political survival requires telling Putin what he wants to hear and blaming rivals for every failure. Because he's failed, utterly. Ukraine is debacle for Russia far worse than Vietnam was for the US. It simply can't be true he was given good intelligence, and made good decisions. Either his intelligence were biased and bad, his decisions were terrible, or both.

The SP 500's PE has been at "untenable" heights for most of the last 15 years and its earnings have tripled since 2009. But lets agree that its due for a correction and that its Berkshire beating returns of the last 15 years are going to be given back, and that Berkshire will be "winning" when hat happens. The problem is that before 2000 there never was a need to come up with excuses for Berkshires performance. So even conceding the S&P 500 seems significantly overpriced, the comparison wouldn't even be close matter if Berkshire was increasing in value over 15% a year. But since 2000 book value is barely growing 9% a year, making it unlikely Berkshire is going to increase in value at any higher rate in the future. It just gets harder every year as that portfolio grows.

Yea, Putin went from controlling Crimea so he could have deep water ports for the Black Sea fleet and 10% of Ukraine (the Donbas), to controlling Crimea and 15% of Ukraine, all at a cost of only a half million men, most of his modern tanks, 10% of his air force and nearly half the Black Sea fleet sunk or disabled. All while being trapped in a Vietnam like debacle for three years he can't get out of lest he risk being overthrown. Thats a level of genius that even a youtuber in his mothers basement could not comprehend, i'll give you that. Best part of the video is in the comments. Putin and Russians love to compare themselves to manly Spartans defending civilization from soft woke western fems, all the while forgetting that the Spartans were ultimately crushed by Thebes and made utterly irrelevant for the remainder of history because the Spartan flanking group was eviscerated by Thebe's Sacred Band, made up of 300 gay lovers who were the real baddest warriors in Greece.

I'm not a military expert. But I would definitely prioritize Bradleys over Abrams. They are very capable against Russian tanks on their own, cheaper, easier to maintain, lighter so they can go more places and far more useful since they carry troops. A big tank with a big gun like Abrams/Challenger is really designed to be used is on large areas of open ground where they can see and destroy targets thousands of yards away. Using them in heavily defended areas with minefields, trenches, or urban combat usually requires moving with infantry to keep them from getting ambushed. The closer the defenders are the easier it is for their weapons to penetrate. If Ukraine had a break-through situation where squads of tanks poured freely into large unprepared fields behind the lines, tanks would get much more important. They could move at relatively high speeds that would make them harder to target with artillery and drones, and destroy enemy positions from miles away before the enemy is even prepared for them. The Bradley seems to work better in dense combat areas like urban areas. Its auto cannon is more than enough to suppress most targets, while troops can use it for cover as they exit the back and then work to flank the enemy position. And when they run into a Russian tank, they blind it using the auto cannon to paint it with a high volume of rounds so they can run away or setup to take it out with a TOW.

I have zero doubt that Ted and Todd are talented investors, certainly far more than I. But as I have said repeatedly on this forum, I think the problem for Berkshire isn't how good Ted and Todd will be once Warren is gone, its that Berkshire has grown so much that beating the market with such a large portfolio is extremely difficult for anyone, including Warren. Since January 1, 2009 its close but BRK appears to be trailing the SP 500 with dividends. Thats a 15+ year period where the portfolio started at $120B and ended at $350B. I don't know what strategy Warren or his successors can come up with to make it easier to produce market beating returns. I think buybacks have been helping, when made at attractive prices they not only improve future returns but also keep investment capital from growing too much. They could pay dividends to reduce the size of the investment portfolio as well, but they probably can't reduce it too much because of insurance requirements. I think one area where Berkshires size doesn't handcuff it too terribly is in acquisitions. I mean it still makes it harder to take advantage of small opportunities but Berkshires structure with a trustworthy management that can make quick decisions with huge amounts of capital is unique. So will T&T pile up dry powder for opportunities that only occur when Mr Market is in his depressive stages? That strategy could mean accepting decade long periods of underperformance between opportunities. I predict that a decade or so after Warren passes that whoever is running Berkshire will try to split it up to deal with criticism over market lagging returns. Breaking up Berkshire might sound like a failure, but it beats the alternative of having a Ballmer like CEO who decides the way to deal with its enormous size is to find and enforce synergies across all the disparate businesses. I would shudder to find someday GEICO cross selling Sees Candies, every subsidiary required to ship on BNSF whenever possible and every Pilot location forced to host a Dairy Queen.

Most reports I've seen say the Abrams has performed exceedingly well in the Ukraine. Sure, drones are a problem but they are bigger problems if you don't have tanks. Tanks are meant to go into dangerous areas and protect their crews while raining down heavy fire on protected positions. No tank has ever been immune to anti-tank weapons, the question is how tough is it and how safe is it. Ideally when one is knocked out, it saves the crew and can be repaired and returned to service. Again, the reports I've seen say Abrams been outstanding at crew protection. And "prone to breakdowns"? The Abrams is very tough, its engine can use a variety of fuels and run far longer than its typical western maintenance intervals. US Abrams crews have commented on how much longer the engine can go between rebuilds than its specifications. We have at least a thousand first gen Abrams rotting away in our depots, and they should all be serviced and sent to Ukraine.

I stand corrected. Putin was clearly well informed when he thought Ukrainians would greet Russian troops as liberators, that the special operation would only take three days, that their logistics were adequate, that their trucks were well maintained, that their troops were well trained, led and motivated, that their navy would dominate the black sea against an opponent without a navy, that their air bases and oil refineries were safe from drone attacks, and that the EU/UK/US wouldn't lift a finger to help Ukraine. I'll make sure not to share any alternative points of view in the future, esp. from youtubers no matter how well informed they've been on military topics.

LazerPig is youtube military historian who specializes in debunking popular beliefs about specific military systems (he's done videos on how the T-34, the T-14 Armata Tank, most Nazi tanks and the A-10 all sucked or suck, the F-35 & Chieftain are actually very good, and the Fighter Mafia was way wrong on Stealth). He also does some very good analysis on strategy/ukraine. This video he's branched out into a political analysis of Putin. It's an hour long but I found his perspective interesting. Most specifically Lazerpig believes that Putin is insulated from reality, fed misinformation about Ukraine by his own supplicants that he actually believes (its full of Nazis, Ukrainians will greet Russians like liberators), and that Putin has always believed in a grand western conspiracy to spread Color Revolution (democratic rebellions against autocratic governments), and that this explains his attempts to manipulate western elections and push divisive political movements like Brexit, Scottish Independence, and MAGA. It does make a certain amount of sense that a man who spent his entire career before politics planning and executing anti-western psy-ops (and assassination plots) believes that western nations are in a grand conspiracy to bring him and his allies down with elaborate psy-ops and assassination plots.

This is an interesting lesson on human perception. I have lived on the border of Phoenix for 20 years, and the last few years every spring I've remarked at how much cooler and nicer the weather has gotten the last few years. I never thought last summer was particularly hot until I finally turned on the news in August and was shocked to find out it was record setting. File this under its amazing what you can get used to. Even yesterday I was remarking at how cool things were since we had just hit 100 degrees for the first time this year. Guess what? Not even true. We hit it for two days in April and five days in the middle of may. I do worry a little about power/AC failures, since my divorce I'm living in a rental home which is great, nice location, excellent landlord, but no pool. If I lose my AC or power for any extended period in August I will have to pack up the cats and drive to Flagstaff.

Winner, winner chicken dinner! I own a little of his Mongolia Growth Group (YAK) because its trading at a significant discount to liquidation value and because they closed their failed mongolian real estate venture its basically going to be forced to redeem everyone and shut down to avoid being regulated and taxed as an investment company. Part of the reason I started buying was thinking he's got a great track record so even if it takes a while to close I may also benefit from portfolio gains. But then I looked through the portfolio history and realized that almost all of the gains were from owning BTC during its last big runup, and getting out at a good time. So, I've stopped buying to reconsider for now. Seems like his big wins are all big macro bets. He may actually have a real skill at it given his track record, but it's something I can't measure, and it seems incredibly volatile. For every BTC win he's got failures like Mongoian real estate.

The one thing I've learned about preferred stock is to vet their rights very carefully. 1. Can they force you to convert at unattractive prices? 2. What are your conversion rights in a change of control? For example, SRG's preferred are trading just above $21, paying $1.75/year (> 8%) and likely to be redeemed in their liquidation within a year or so, offering a potential yield to maturity in excess of 20% annualized. But the reason its at such a big discount is the fear is that SRG will get acquired (and management has stated they are open to it). In a change of control preferred only has rights to convert to common at very unattractive ratio (1.2x), which at current prices easily be less than $10. Worst is that holding on hoping for full redemption might never happen, as the acquirer might choose to carry the preferred as cheap financing, and could even stop paying dividends, and accrued dividends don't earn interest. So you could be stuck with an illiquid preferred trading far below your basis for years. An example is Wheeler REIT, where IIRC they acquired a good REIT and kept the acquired preferred outstanding which plummeted in price because of Wheelers significantly worse financial position.

How about this guy? Gross Return Net Return* Q1 2024 11.90% 9.25% 2023 34.70% 26.45% 2022 16.38% 11.95% 2021 181.80% 142.87% 2020 161.87% 129.49% 2019 18.71% 14.97% Since Inception (1/1/19) 1436.70% 891.08%

Welcome back. The only thing in life better than a job you enjoy is time with your family. A miserable job sucks the joy out of both.

One thing I got from Buffett is to always try to come up with a decent estimate of intrinsic value before looking at the price. If you come across what looks like a great business it's easy to bias yourself into over-estimating its value if you know what price you have to reach in order to own it. I try to have reasonable standards and stick to them. This is really important for the softer, more subjective factors. More specifically if there are intangibles that I really like about a business, I really want to give them a value before I know the price because it's so easy to give them an arbitrarily high value. Another technique that helps limit bias is to keep generating new ideas and have a deep bench of businesses you'd like to own at the right price. This makes it easier to be patient and avoid jumping into mediocre opportunities when you have a lot of options to compare against.

Was thinking that since this has dropped from $1,300 (split adjusted) to below $2 in less than three years it can't possibly drop any more, so I should make it a strong buy?

nm

A long term store of value in something that has no intrinsic value, no cash flow, no dividends and every few years drops 75% in price? And "instant-payments"? Why do I need that when I have Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, etc? Last I checked, Lightning network was doing roughly a billion in annual volume in USD, while Zelle alone did nearly a trillion in USD in the last 12 months. If the Lightning network was so useful, why isn't it being used? And is there any evidence that BTC is used for even 1% of world wide cross border remittances? Again, if its so useful why isn't it being used?

Howard Marks CEO, Inter Milan Vincitore, vincitore, per defaltam

He’s great at the social media game, just bought himself millions in publicity and a whole new group of supporters for only $24K in stock.

What would have been the crazy part to me is if you told me in 2000 that in 2023 70% of Porsche's units sold would be Macan/Cayenne, and Cayenne would have been their most important product line for the last two decades. I miss the Cayenne. Audi just isn't quite the same.

I don’t know RFK Jr has Pelosi’s touch, but he’s buying GME. RFK Jr buys GameStop.

More details, looks like trader was confused by a display that defaulted to confirming the value they expected. ... Two hard blocks generated by the PTE system, which could not be overridden, collectively stopped US$248bn of the basket of equities progressing for execution. The trader was then presented with a further pop-up alert entitled “Final Trade Confirmation”. It contained a wave notional value of all the individual equities in the basket as a total (which was approximately US$196bn). The trader clicked the “OK” option which routed the remaining basket of equities with a notional value of $196bn into CitiSmart for execution using a VWAP trading algorithm, where individual parent and child orders were generated. Matt Levine had a funny thought.

My 2010 Cayenne was the last of the first generation that was first produced in 2002!