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Spooky

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Posts posted by Spooky

    POLL - Likelihood of Taiwan Invasion by China before 2030

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    10 hours ago, Gregmal said:

    In a very basic way, the difference is that Trump and family ran a business for decades. Before all the libs lost their mind, he was even regarded as fairly good at many aspects of it. The Biden family has done nothing but get rich off “serving” as an elected official. Nothing symbolizes what’s wrong with politics better than the Biden family. 

     

    But this is in essence my point - doesn't Trump's foreign business interests create a conflict of interest that may lead him to make decisions that are not aligned with US interests including potentially not supporting Taiwan? President Jimmy Carter, for example, put his Georgia peanut business into a trust arrangement.  

     

    POLL - Likelihood of Taiwan Invasion by China before 2030

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Spooky

    Sure I'll do my own research with a view to finding the truth. Even assuming there is some truth to this, how can you go after Biden while ignoring what Trump and his children have received from from China? Don't you think he has a conflict of interest? It looks like from the materials you sent Biden received $40,000 but Trump's businesses received $5.5M (that we know of) from the Chinese government while he was president.

     

    POLL - Likelihood of Taiwan Invasion by China before 2030

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

    ^^^   It is best to just stick to the facts. And this thread is about Taiwan and the potential of an invasion. Unfortunately, that has everything to do with US foreign policy, like it or not.

     

    - Hard to understand why you ignore the millions in payments the Biden family have received from Chinese. Those payments have been extensively documented by banks, and congressional investigations.  Feel free to argue those payment were "legitimately earned" and not the result of influence peddling by the Chinese to Joe Biden. Ask yourself why Hunter is in court for tax evasion and hiding payments?  Form your own conclusion on the facts - but I call it corruption.

    But please tell me what the "legitimate" business was that earned them millions from China...

     

    -  Why would you ignore the handling of North Korea by Trump in favor of our allies? Any reason?

     

    -  Why is it NOW that China is making waves about invading Taiwan, but not during the Trump term?

       Any reason?

     

    Keep avoiding the facts as you wish.

     

     

     

    Can you please send me a source for the millions in payments received by the Biden family from China? You are accusing me of ignoring facts but you didn't respond to any of the facts about Trump and his business interests. The reality is that trump has done exactly what you are accusing Biden of, it is all out in the open. How can you trust someone to act in the best interests of the US when his businesses received $5.5M from China during his presidency (and who knows what else was promised after he left office)? Someone who would throw Ukraine under the bus unless they give him a quid pro quo to help him get dirt on Joe Biden?

     

    Trump's handling of Kim Jong Un / North Korea was a joke - do you not remember all the flattering / declaration of love by Trump? Do you not remember how he treated South Korea, a key ally of the US in the region? It didn't accomplish anything.

     

    China has been making threats about Taiwan for so long, including under the Trump administration. This was just one article I found with a quick google search: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-vows-to-resolutely-smash-any-taiwan-independence-moves/2020/05/29/ae9c1af0-a158-11ea-be06-af5514ee0385_story.html

     

    As part of a NATO country I am praying that Trump and the republicans do not come into power again. https://www.reuters.com/world/we-will-never-help-europe-under-attack-eu-official-cites-trump-saying-2024-01-10/

     

     

    POLL - Likelihood of Taiwan Invasion by China before 2030

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I am trying to keep an objective view and just focus on the facts / reality as it is and just limit my response to the China / Taiwan issue in this thread. I am not an American so hopefully I have more of an outsider's view.

     

    I have not seen any creditable evidence that Biden has been compromised by payoffs to China and yet we have seen the opposite with Trump. China was by far the largest spender at Trump's properties while he was in office: https://www.wsj.com/politics/china-saudi-arabia-top-list-of-foreign-governments-that-spent-millions-at-trump-properties-during-his-presidency-277317cb. There is also the matter of the Chinese trademark's held by Ivanka that were fast tracked once Trump became president: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/22/ivankas-trademark-requests-were-fast-tracked-in-china-after-trump-was-elected/?sh=6f9b99e51d60. He also promised Xi in a phone call that he would remain silent on the issue of Hong Kong democracy: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/politics/trump-xi-hong-kong-protests/index.html

     

    Trump failed to divest / put his business interests into a blind trust as required under the constitution and is profiting from potential enemies of the US which creates a conflict of interest. As we have seen many times, trump is only looking to enrich himself and is a threat to American interests and the American led international world order.

     

    If we want to talk about US foreign policy and international security more generally that probably needs a different thread.

    POLL - Likelihood of Taiwan Invasion by China before 2030

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    17 hours ago, cubsfan said:

     

     

    You can be sure that Taiwan, Japan & the Philippines will nuke up if the USA is unwilling to continue to extend our defense umbrella to our Asian allies. USA protection against China/North Korea has always been implicit for decades in exchange for keeping nuclear proliferation under control. But now President Biden is dangerously close to abandoning Taiwan. The others in the South China Sea are watching - and our allies will certainly invest in their own protection (nukes) - should the US let Taiwan fall.

     

    You can be sure of that. The faster Biden is cast out - the sooner the world will be.

     

    Not to get political but Biden has explicitly stated the US would defend Taiwan multiple times (against the advice of his advisors). Trump was the one who told Xi he didn't care about them cracking down on Hong Kong and would likely abandon Taiwan and also NATO. Seems like the America First / international isolationism is a republican priority. 

    Have We Hit The Top?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Dinar said:

    You pay $10MM for a property that generates $400K per year in cash flow on an unleveraged basis.  You can depreciate most of the $10MM, excluding the value assigned to the land, which cannot be depreciated, unless it is an agricultural property, in which case part of the value of the land can be assigned to minerals in the soil and can be depreciated.  The part that you can depreciate is in theory can be written off against taxes over 39.5 years.  However, iif you run cost segregation study, you can depreciate over shorter periods (windows I think 15 years, roof - 25 years, boiler - 10, etc).  So say $8MM of the 10MM can be depreciated, and on average over 20 years.  Then for the first 20 years of ownership, you have a $400K per annum depreciation tax shield.  In addition, most people borrow when buying real estate.  Say you use 50% leverage.  Then, assuming $5MM of debt at say 4% interest rate, you get a $200K annual interest bill.  So in year one, your taxable income = -200k (400K - 200K depreciation - 200K interest.)  In year 2, assuming 3% inflation, your unlevered cash flow = $412K, your taxable income = -$212K.  

    In addition, there are other interesting tricks. I am sure @Gregmalcan explain better, but if I am not mistaken, when you refinance a property with a larger debt balance, you can increase your taxable basis in the property and get another depreciation tax shield.  Lastly, most people who do this tend to use appreciation in one property to borrow additional funds to invest in other properties and effectively keep getting bigger and getting more and more tax shields.  I think President Trump was a good example with less than $500K in taxable income.  

     

     

    Thanks Dinar, pretty interesting.

    30 Year Portfolio

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Over a 30 year period I agree that an index fund makes the most sense. Personally, I would probably pick something like the Vanguard All Equity Portfolio (VEQT.TO in Canada) since this gives you international diversification. VOO / SPY would be another solid choice.

     

    If I needed to pick individual stocks I would pick BRK and CSU.TO. These are essentially diversified conglomerates with world class capital allocators at the top that have a tiny probability of going bankrupt. Over a 30 year time period, the capital allocation skill of management is probably the most important factor. The governance and incentive structures are also critically important to foster a long term view, ensure alignment between management and shareholders and ensure the company has the correct CEO. CSU's board is comprised of a large number of executives / insiders who have been at the company for a very long time and have a significant proportion of their wealth invested in the stock. Typically this has been the same at BRK but it may change in the future. Greg did purchase about $100M of stock with his own money though. 

     

    My last thought is that BRK is like an index fund to a degree - Warren and Charlie have set their criteria for buying companies (see the Todd Combs interview from the Graham and Dodd breakfast). You can evaluate these criteria against the criteria set by Standard and Poor's. BRK also has some advantages versus the S&P (insurance float acting as leverage, no dividends so more tax efficient in taxable accounts). I also like the tilt towards energy given that in the future we are going to need more and more energy and they are becoming a big player in the space with good assets in the US with advantages against competitors (being able to retain capital for reinvestment rather than needing to have a high dividend payout ratio).

     

     

     

     

    Have We Hit The Top?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    10 hours ago, RedLion said:

    This right here is why I started investing in residential real estate.
     

     Buy 10 million of 4 CAP multi family with no debt and you’ll basically pay zero tax. 

     

    Can you explain more about how the tax shield works in this scenario? 

    Share your Portfolio 2024

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Updated allocation for now since last year. Not a lot has changed. I cleared out a lot of small positions to concentrate more on my best ideas. Over 2023 I added to CSU, BRK and BAC. Added new positions in FFH.TO, PARA and VIOO. Sold half my BN.

     

     

    Capture.GIF

    Micro Caps and Buffett's >50% returns

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    10 hours ago, Partner24 said:

    Do you know some groups of investors who invest in nanocaps and have the fundamental value investing mindset? I would like to share and dig some idea.

     

    And if some are interesting in doing so here, we could start a post in the investment ideas section! 🙂 Interested to join?

    Cheers!

     

    I would be interested in digging into some micro / nano caps.

    Best idea for 5 year MOIC, if could only own one stock in retirement plan (not ETFs)

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Spooky

    11 minutes ago, Sweet said:


    How do they manage / weight VIOO?

     

    My concerns with the ‘small cap’ ETFs is they cut the winners.  For example, let’s say the next NVIDIA is hidden in there, does it get cut above a certain market cap?  That would seem like a dumb thing to do. 
     

    I agree that I like looking here than the SP-500 because of the Mag 7 dominance, but concerned about how the portfolio is managed.  Cutting companies because they are no longer ‘small cap’ would be counter productive.


     

     

    This is definitely a concern since if companies win they will get too big and cut out of the index. Another option would be VTI which would let the winners ride but then you don't get a profitability filter like with the S&P indexes. The mag 7 is also a smaller proportion of VTI but still pretty significant (over 20% last time I checked).

     

    With the S&P 600 I'm aiming to keep reinvesting the dividends in my tax free account (RRSP) hoping to match the long term return of ~12% a year.

     

    2023: the year of cash and t-bills

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Spooky

    Solid year for me, didn't do much except some opportunistic buys:

     

    CSU.TO up ~50% not including dividends or spin-outs (~43% of my portfolio at the start of the year)

    BRK.B up ~12% (~21% of my portfolio)

    VOO up ~21% not including dividends (~7% of my portfolio)

    BN up ~16% not including dividends (~4% of my portfolio)

     

    Bought the following during the course of the year:

     

    BAC up ~19% not including dividends (~ 3% position now)

    VIOO up ~15% not including dividends (~ 1.5% position now)

    FFH.TO up ~20% (~ 3% position now)

    PARA down ~2% not including dividends (~ 1.5% position now)

     

    Cash is back up to ~7% position size now.

    Readressing the post -Buffett Era😥

    in Berkshire Hathaway

    Posted

    I'm still optimistic. Charlie has compared Greg to Jim Sinegal which is very high praise and Buffett has said that he understands capital allocation as well as him. Ajit will still be there in the insurance group. Todd and Ted also seem pretty impressive. Overall, however, while the structure of the company remains in place it can keep chugging along with its decentralized businesses doing their thing.

    Have We Hit The Top?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Gregmal said:

    Who cares? It was a total mistake last year to sit around wondering "whats the fed gonna do" and its a mistake today. Thats just a dumb way to invest as theres far more important variables out there. 

     

    Agree with this. I'm not basing investment decisions on speculation about the Fed and am fully invested. Just have a feeling there will be some more volatility ahead.

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