Longnose

Every time I think of anything around Tesla I think of Munger's quote.

Anyone figured out how to search 3 character tickers effectively since the forum changed? Every time I put in a 3 character ticker it comes up with no results when I know the ticker is referenced in the forum.

Alone on the history channel. Just finished watching the new Season 8. What can I say... I guess I just enjoy watching people starve to death in the wild. This show is the real life hunger games. Anyone else on here a fan?

I like Andrew from Bonsai Partners. He does some great write ups. His write up on Micron was top notch and I see he's still holding. I took a small position in PushPay from of his write ups and have taken a beating from it. Greentown Management also seems interesting but I've also taken a China beating with BABA too. so I guess adding more China companies just sounds hard right now... who knows could turn out great. I'll definitely keep reading his letters in the future.

Awesome! I am about half way done with this book. Once finished ill read the nomad letters.

Excellent, I actually had a family member gift it to me for fathers day. I just read through Pabrai's chapter one. So far so good. I've heard good stuff about the Nomad letters.

I only use IB for non-US stocks. I use TD ameritrade for everything else. Great platform. Think or Swim is great if you are really into the technical indicators (I'm not, but I pull them up every now and them). I dont use margin so I dont know how their rates compare to other platforms. I also have a robinhood account as my gambling account. I think RH's interface is the most user-friendly of any platform. It is crazy easy and all the no fee stuff is great. There is not quality research to be dont on RH so I do that all offline. I just dont trust RH with the majority of my money with all the publicity around their major fails and flaws. Someday I hope other brokers can catch up with how simple and effective the RH interface is.

hmmm... realized this might just about sum up my BABA investment thesis. guess we just gonna let it ride.

Has anyone read this yet? I know there is mixed feelings about Pabrai from members of this forum but I keep hearing about this book through those channels and was wondering if others have read it and what your thoughts were.

Finally jumped on the BABA train.

Although it may be basic It is a good entry point for many. For myself I like to revisit the basics regularly. Because the "Basics" are what should be important in investing IMO. I personally believe its why so many people love warren. Because he is able to distill complex topics or concepts into their basic forms via analogies or stories. While I don't agree with everything Phil says I do listen to their podcast to learn and be reminded of the basics. Its why Pabrai has a following too. He only preaches the basics.

Today I was talking with a friend and he brought up Chuck Feeney. The billionaire who gave it all away. Its a pretty cool story for anyone who isn't familiar or who wants to look it up. Then we got caught up talking about being charitable. I've always wanted to be more charitable with my money and i like hearing about how others do it. Pabrai talks about giving away 2% of his net worth every year. Some of my relatives have tied charity into their Christmas instead of giving out gifts they make donations to foundations in the name of all the kids/grandkids. Then you get into the challenges of giving it away effectively. I've been to a few charity events and donated to some of those causes but I always feel like I'm donating to a black hole. I know Bill Gates talks about the challenges of trying to solve the worlds toughest problems and using money wisely to do that can be a challenge. Anyways, I'm not sure what I wanted to get at here other than I hope to be more philanthropic in the future and admire many charitable people in my life.

Agreed, Like him or not he's a good guy and hes done a lot more positive things for the world than negative.

Like I mentioned before if every couple only has one child the reduce the population by half in one generation. That fact is pretty staggering. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/09/03/chinas-population-to-drop-by-half-immigration-helps-us-labor-force/?sh=5024df2f3d65 This article talks about some of the issues around that fact. Not only is china dealing with this for long term population decline, they have the issues around more boys than girls culture in china favors males over females. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_preference_in_China#Chinese_one_child_policy I have thought about these social issues quite a bit as I have a decent position in MOMO (Chinese dating app). Overall the Chinese are incredibly hard working and resilient as a people. I am confident they will overcome these challenges but it will take its toll. I think the Chinese economy will only continue to grow even if the population may peak and decline in the next 50 years.

Yes, Its happened to me a few times. Usually if I try again an hour later it is fine. But it is annoying when it happens.

I took an upper division populations class my last semester of college as an elective. It became one of my favorite classes. Something I've reflected on regularly is replenishment rates. We see in many western societies a large decrease in birth rates. Many european nations now have negative birth rates. This fact has always boggled my mind. If every couple only has one child. We reduce the population of the planet in half in one generation. I remember studying the after effects of the china one child policy. It still causes them issues. I like this topic...

From what I understand, he sold it because he wanted to use the float like Warren does to make investment and other purchases. He may not have known that in most states there are regulatory laws that prohibit insurance companies from making "riskier" purchases with their float including public securities. I believe his insurance company was based out of Louisiana where he could not make use the float the way he wanted to. Nebraska is one of the few states in the country where insurance companies can buy public securities with their float. This is probably influenced by the fact that Warren / Berkshire are located there. I think people are pretty harsh judges on Mohnish. I think he does a great job sharing his methodology and I am grateful for all he puts out into the universe so I can learn from it. He said in one of his recent talks. There are 1000 ways to mecca. He's just following his. We all make our own investing decisions.

I agree, post mortem analysis is very revealing and healthy. Its always worth doing a post mortem on any investment successful and unsuccessful. Did your thesis turn out right or were you just lucky? I have studied Allan for quite some time and really like his style. I hope things have turned out well for him. But anything we learned and shared is education for all.

I am in my 30's and my state just opened up to most everyone. I got my first does of Pfizer yesterday. I am grateful I have avoided getting COVID up till this point. My father in law died from COVID last April and I have a friend who is a little younger than me that spent 10 weeks on a ventilator and just got off last week. Granted I have hundreds of friends with minimal symptoms. But that doesn't stop me from doing my part. I would love ten years from now to add COVID to the list of viruses like smallpox and polio that have been eliminated in the US because of vaccines. Don't know if it will happen, but a man can hope.

The best DFV video in my opinion. Also in line with the previous comments, I am not convinced many money managers in the industry do much more than this anyway.

I was recently gifted some crypto. Being gifted it helped break down the barriers to entry and helped me learn more about it. I started thinking about buying more but I keep running into fees. Every time I want to do a transaction there is a fee if I want to move it from my exchange (coinbase) to my crypto wallet (exodus) there is a fee. And what what I have gathered if I want to send or buy something in crypto there is also another fee. Seems to me that If I don't buy a crypto like an old school investment (back when all the brokers charged fees for transactions). That inactivity and speculating that its only going up is the only right answer with crypto. Correct me if If I am wrong or direct me to where I can move crypto around without paying the so called "miners" every time something moves.

"The first secret to a happy life is low expectations."

bonsai partners has a pretty ballsy concentrated portfolio. He also did a stellar write up on micron.

Looks interesting with revenue growth, stable margins, and high ROIC. This thing deserves a thread of its own, IMO. Maybe this is similar to MU, cyclical, long-term trend is upwards, buy when others are looking the other way? SIMO’s memory controller business is a much better business than MU, imo, because there is less pricing fluctuation and it is fabless. Gross margins are fairly stable around 50%, so it’s not as good as a CPU or analog business, but much better than totally commoditized segments like memory. I can start a thread and write a few lines, but my thesis isn’t deep: it’s just an OK to good and somewhat lumpy business that is cheep. Every time I look at SIMO, I think "why is't this priced higher?". I first bought some shares of it in 2017, at $42. My "analysis" back then was (I wrote it down) : "Looks like a solid company. Makes money, has no debt, is in a market that has a future. Is the market leader?". Today I still agree with my thesis, and now it is priced at $39 ??? In a crazy market where "everything" is priced to perfection, I just don't get why this has been more or less flat for five years. My main reason for not buying some more SIMO is that often when I think Mr. Market is wrong, it turns out there is some valid reason for the price being what it is... Not sure my comments will be that constructive but like you I look at SIMO periodically. Most times my thesis is about the same as yours. I've come to the conclusion that SIMO's just not growing very fast. Revenue has been near flat from 2017 till now. Margins have slimmed up a bit. I would bet they are looking for the next leap in growth. I hold MU as well. Sometime I wonder if SIMO is, in Pabrai's terms a "hidden compounder" If you purchased MU in the bottom of a cycle and held for more than 10 years MU compounds north of 20% per year through its cyclicality. I wonder if SIMO being a supplier of the semi conductor industry has similar traits over very long periods of time. My big thought would be what is the moat here? can it be sustained for 10 years? I dont know all the ins and outs of creating semiconductor controllers .