cobafdek

no_free_lunch, looking at my portfolio, I see it possibly evolving into a collection of holding companies. I own a similar collection (BH, BAM, BRKB, CHEUY, CSWC, FRFHF (a small amount), L, LUK, MKL, and PICO), all bought at BVs less than 1.2. I recently sold DJCO (with its BV greater than 2). I considered buying a basket of closed-end funds selling at steep discounts to NAV, but I found that the amount of time needed to research these seems to be no less than just researching for cheap stocks. I also have more confidence in the capital allocation skills of the holding companies, and don't know too much about the closed-end fund managers. Not to mention that closed-end funds seem to have hefty expense ratios compared to ETFs and Vanguard funds. As alternatives to active value investing, either of these two strategies is still a step-up from passive index investing. I guess it's tough to send us value investors (who enjoy the game) out to permanent pasture.

Several years ago, my liquid net worth achieved > 25x my household annual expenses (currently it's > 30x). I've been avidly reading mrmoneymustache.com, and since "retirement" is really a state of mind, I decided to retire (in my mind, at least). I've been actively value investing for about 15 years. I don't need my "day job" any longer, but fortunately it's always been interesting. Finding almost no new investment ideas in the sense of screaming bargains for the past year or so, I toyed with the idea of switching everything over to modified passive index investing with Vanguard index funds, with a simple plan: 1/4 of the portfolio each in Index 500, Small Cap Index, Total International Index, and Short-term Bond Index. I would rebalance once a year, and adjust the bond percentage to between 0% - 50% depending on overall market PE (the lower the market PE, the higher allocation to equities). This plan should average 6-8% annual returns, or equivalent to doubling the portfolio every 10 years. In the past few months, I found a few things of screaming value, such as GP Investments. And it feels like I've been bitten by the active investing bug again. Maybe I had just been exercising that most valuable trait of value investors (patience) to the extreme point of boredom, and now I think I may be actively investing to my last dying breath, just for the sport of it. What would you guys do?

alwaysinvert, I understand you, man. In a merger, with good hidden assets, whether it's First-In-First-Out or Last-In-First-Out, you can end up with a great credit score. It can go both ways.

Parsad, it is time to privatize the USPS. I believe so as an unabashed right-winger. However, I do like to read thoughtful liberals, and this one gave me some pause: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120808,0,2015318.column