scorpioncapital

so if you can earn more on cash there is less incentive to invest or do business - therefore just sit on cash. If you have none, I presume they want to coax more people into the labour force. When spending is reduced I presume this is for non-essentials? I mean, I do understand all the arguments why recessions are bad - after all - how precise can they be? Do you want to reduce the wealth to the point that people can't pay rent or eat, or run out of money? Or do you want to reduce inflation temporarily, hopefully most? people can get by during this period on the essentials. I have always been relatively price conscious, perhaps thrifty but is the idea that most people are not. Most people just spend too much and the Fed is now going to try to take that punchbowl away?

I don't understand how hammering the stock market reduces inflation. Do people actually spend a ton of their capital if the stock goes up a few percent short-term or even medium term? Or do people invest for many years, for retirement? Are the aggregate withdrawals when the market goes up the cause of significant inflation?

I am not sure if the attack on capital such as taxing unrealized gains or a wealth tax is inflationary or deflationary. Either way, it makes those investors living off capital far less well off - an endangered species.

"And if you are a self-employed single person...even tougher. Loans are harder to come by as you don't have any spousal income and are self-employed, pay twice as much on pensions/employment insurance, etc." It seems perverse that self employment and entrepreneurship, the engine of wealth creation is taxed higher than working for someone else.

I don't understand the quote that if the oil price fell and he made a fair offer. Why would he not make a fair offer now? Would the company sell at 80 if the oil price fell and the stock was at 50? But today oil price is high the stock is at 70 and they would not sell at 80? So they are saying in a point of economic weakness they would sell lower than now. Sounds like buy high, sell low! In a cyclical stock why would it matter selling the company at differing prices based on the oil price?

I have read that Fukushima was not such a bad disaster. I mean a few people died just being evacuated. And Wikipedia writes, " 1 confirmed cancer death attributed to radiation exposure by the government for the purpose of compensation" And that was due to a pretty rare tsunami! These new reactors are nothing like the stereotype we have of Chernobyl. It is highly unlikely to have major safety issues so the German position is not rational.

I see this too. Remember that Chevron wanted to buy Anadarko but lost out to Occidental. It woud be an interesting twist of fate that now they get it rolled up in Oxy if that were to happen. Seems like Berkshire becomes like the matchmaker and could own a very nice stable share in a diversified energy conglomerate at no doubt a very lucrative cost basis.

1,000,000,000 is your wealth. The 1 is your health. Take it away and you have just zeroes.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the tailwind of the country's system they are in. I remember Buffett said if he was born in something like Siberia there would be no chance anything would work out. Or what if you put it in a stock market in country where it got expropriated or the stock market shut down? I wonder if the great investing nations will have the same tailwind going forward. That may be a different experience for millenial generation.

so if 3-4% withdrawal is needed then could you just buy any asset with at least a 3-4% dividend yield and call it a day? Also this 3-4% rule assumes a minimum capital amount like 1 million?

Lots of good advice. So do people target a specific aggresiveness/risk portfolio based on what they have as the initial capital? Say you are somewhere between have enough to buy a no growth dividend stock and live off it forever and need a 10 bagger high risk stock which may go to zero but you need it. Do you try to be aggressively opportunistic while controlling risk?

If so, how did you do it? I see that if you withdraw funds from margin you risk a margin call while waiting for your investments to 'mature'. Could take years. Or do you get dividends enough to cover living costs? Do you have a part-time gig that tops it up while waiting for investments to mature? Do you go for some bold risk taking and make a fortune on some security each year? Seems to me if you make some mistakes or the equity does not compound fast enough your withdrawal rate has to be very small in the first decade or two of this activity?

I think he is trying to run a balanced ship. Seems Apple is his go-to tech part of his portfolio so he's not gonna add a Google on a dip, unless it was a huge dip maybe. So he nibbles on that. He added to energy to round out the commodity hedge against infation/stagflation. Just seems to me Berkshire is a very balanced ship that mimics in some ways the SP500 but with slightly more energy exposure now.

Is it possible to build value in commodity stocks or do they always get hit back down either from the commodity price dropping or payment of dividends? I've noticed in some commodity businesses either value builds up very slowly or it never builds up. It's like bank account but with a leaky hole so that the average balance is always flat or declining.

Amazing, although it seems he is buying very slowly despite it dipping below 60 on volatility. Truly wonder if he will go for the whole thing or if he's waiting for some macroeconomic signals.

ok say you have 6000 room for 2022. you withdraw 6000 today. you cannot recontribute the 6k until Jan 1 2023 but can you still contribute 6000 today as part of the original amount for 2022? will the cra track this properly?

We seem to live in a world of more volatile currencies. This leads many companies I see today to report on 'net basis' and 'constant currency' basis. I read the wikipedia, etc..but am confused. Is this the next shoe to drop like SBC not being an expense? If a company translates net profit using non-market foreign exchange rate is it real? It seems similar to accumulated comprehensive income. Insurance companies dump unrealized gains/losses here. Now with companies if they operate in foreign currency, is that currency sitting in that foreign currency and so will reverse if the base currency (say USD) goes back down? Until that time - IF that ever happens (might take years or decades right?) should we assume the net real reported growth rate? In other words, currency impacts, unhedged, should be part of the business management's performance right? If they had hedged their exposure they'd report better results. Strangely I have seen some US companies report higher reported growth than constant currency growth and vice versa. It seems some companies benefit from a weaker US dollar and others from a stronger one. So if a company has say 5% growth rate in real time terms and 10% in Constant currency, what is the true picture of the growth rate? How would you value the company growth rates given currency issues? Ignore it or assume it is a real hit for valuation growth rate for a sequence of years in your DCF calculations?

and you can add on the extra 6500 or whatever will be next year's additional room.

Love the point about the lesson. Some are slower or faster to learn it, but when you learn it on your own skin, it is there for good. But even in a failure we have to ask what made us do it or stay with it. Usually the reason is not half bad, but there is probably a better way to fulfill that need. Cheers!

people are like this is all over. i don't think so . can anyone say why the stock market won't be at this level in 2030, even after many up and down distractions? Traders market it seems.

Wonder why he is slowing down the buying even though it is within his juicy target range. Does it imply not 100% confidence in a full buyout? Another reason? No rush because range-bound? No desire to go above 20% ever?

"The couple has high expenses including eating out, transportation and music festivals, but, according to the host, there is no way they will change those things" I think there is something strucurally wrong with the society if you can't do these lifestyle things and still have a home.

I think there are some strange issues with how each country can set their rates. Look at the margin rates at ibkr - https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/margin-rates.php Notice the cad rate is 0.5% higher than the US rate. After a 100 bps hike. And US will hike 0.75 to 1% next week. There seems to be some mechanism issues in the actual market rate vs what the central banks are targeting? I wonder if this may be the focal point of the next crisis where some bank sets a rate of x but they can't get it within some % of x?

You have added alot just by suggesting a basket approach. This is key if you want to do it safely since there is an expected positive payoff. I am not sure if you can have a case of this time is different where the traditional majority of deals closing suddenly break not according to statistical history. I believe even the pandemic did not lead to such a result. Another way to think about it is to position size quite small if your goal is simply to say preserve your cash. At the current time this would require around a 5-10% annual return from this operation. So you can work backwards from that goal to find out what position sizes and spreads you'd need to top up your cash. I am not sure if this entire operation is better or worse than holding a TIP etf however.

I sort of agree. By making unemployment go up a bunch, productivity down and gdp growth stagnate the CB would be sending a political message that the government needs to wise up. However, the backlash (since the people and government control the government presumably) tends to create populism. I am not sure a cb can be independent in a democracy if things get bad enough, they'll just vote themselves into a banana republic!