rohitc99
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Posts posted by rohitc99
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3 hours ago, cubsfan said:
@rohitc99 Sure - it's pretty well laid out in this forum that was fairly active last year:
https://thecobf.com/forum/topic/19734-which-activities-in-life-brings-you-the-most-fun/
The discussion focused on physical activity. Lots of great comments about the benefits and what works for those of us that sit on their ass all day making money with our heads buried in screens...
My view, at about 7 years ago, was to wake up and get serious about myself:
Good luck.
thank you !
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1 hour ago, cubsfan said:
I’m 69 now. Interestingly, I had to get with the Boilermaker program starting about 7 years ago.Lucky for me - I feel much younger than I did in my 50’s.
I’d actually call it the happiest period of my life.
I had to get with the Boilermaker program starting about 7 years ago - can you share that if you dont mind ?
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17 hours ago, Haryana said:
That sounds unfair, a simlar argument could easily be made about India as well using just a few India specific stereotypes.
Sure you can say that, unless you are based in India or have invested and understand the country dynamics. Then you can separate the signal from the noise
However for me china does not fall in that category. I have no clue how to handicap the geopolitical risks and hence my comment. If one has an intimate knowledge of the country and its dynamics then they have an edge.
We extend that argument to a sector too. If you dont understand the risk, why would you underwrite it?
My comment was tongue in cheek and not a reflection on the country or its risk. Its just that if you have to guess and learn based on other people's opinion, then why take that risk?
Just my opinion, but same has occurred with fairfax and their investments in africa v/s china. My guess is Prem watsa grew up in India. That definitely gives him a far deeper insight into the country compared to say africa or china ?
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No offense to china bulls, but i reminded of munger's quote - if you mix turds and raisins when i think of investing in china tech companies. great companies, cash flow etc etc ., but politics and the geopolitical drama is a 7 footer
there are enough ideas in North america or Europe for sure
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3 minutes ago, Spooky said:
Ugh... I struggle with this myself. My rational brain tells me just to buy the S&P 500 and forget it. But the investing game is just too much fun.
do both ? percentage split can vary based how much fun you want to have
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2 hours ago, sswan11 said:
My dad is a 90 year old neurologist who is still working. We (his kids) have to drive him to work, as he has macular degeneration, but he still practices (at a large teaching hospital).
+100 ! wow, talk of contributing to the society and others
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1 hour ago, james22 said:
Can't buy relationships.
What makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life? According to the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted, the surprising answer is: relationships.
The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and overall healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Life-Lessons-Scientific-Happiness/dp/198216669X/
ofcourse i am only joking. None us are machines trying to maximize our networth
that said, somehow the stats show that as the cost of raising children rises, birth rates are falling. Me and my wife wanted kids and did not think of the economics behind it. but at the society level, this is changing
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1 hour ago, Saluki said:
It's all mental/emotional. In previous eras, being poor meant that you didn't know if you were going to eat that day. Now it means that you have an older iPhone. Beyond your basic survival needs, all money is just a story that we tell ourselves. The poor, middle class, and rich, all eat the same kind of food, drive on the same roads, get treated with the same medicine and wear similar clothes. In the 1500s, a peasant had one or two set of clothes, and you could tell a lord from a peasant by the way they were dressed. Today, there is some psychological difference in an expensive suit vs a cheap suit, but if I showed you a picture of a rich kid starting his internship at Goldman or a poor kid wearing his interview suit, I don't think you could tell who was rich and who isn't.
So to some extent whether you are rich just means whether you can afford your desires, which are related to the story you tell yourself about them and about money. If you like expensive cars and champagne at the club, and you can afford it, then you are rich and if you want them but you can't, then you aren't rich. But if you don't have those desires, you are rich if you can afford the ones you want with no problem. I have one house, one car, one lady and one dog. I like to travel and read books. I am rich because I can afford it. If wanted 3 houses and 3 cars and 3 ladies and 3 dogs, and a ferrari, then I am not rich. I'll stay with the way I am. I like being rich
+1 if you are a poor immigrant to begin with, then you are rich the day you make some money. when you reach the 50 percentile, you feel wealthy ! low expectation
its because the reference point was much lower and hence the story is much better. Kids born to such immigrants are not this lucky. They start with much higher expectations
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My takeaway from the thread - how expensive raising kids is. No wonder population growth is slowing and even dropping. I am sure my kids and their generation is already on the fence on having kids of their own and it is showing up in the stats already
From a pure economics standpoint, marry - dont have kids and you can retire 20 years early
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I am of indian origin and have been investing directly in the Indian markets for last 25 years. However i still hold FIH as it gives access to opportunities like BIAL which i cannot get directly (lived in bangalore for 8+ yrs too)
There are some public investments like IIFL which are good investments on their own. This company is growing AUM @ 25% and could continue for a long time
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17 hours ago, Parsad said:
After visiting China in 2015 and India in 2019, what I've been saying ever since then is that the Western world better hope that China and India don't find a way of putting aside their border issues and historical disdain for each other. Because if they ever put a free-trade agreement into place and worked together with the rest of the Asian region, it would dramatically tilt global economic, political and military power!
The manpower, brainpower and capital available would dwarf any other free-trade market! You would then have a serious challenge to the USD. Thankfully, it is very unlikely that will ever happen. India and China have a hard enough time keeping their own jurisdictions in line, they would not be able to take a stiff arm approach to other countries like that. Cheers!
I think there was some attempt in the 60s and India was caught napping which resulted in a war. I doubt there will be trust again and btw, there continue to clashes and disputes across the border
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1 hour ago, adesigar said:
My issue with investing in India is the currency keeps losing value almost as fast as the stocks keep going up. Sensex went from 20k to 60k in the last 15 years. Currency went from 1 USD = 40 Rs to 1 USD = 80 Rs.
Also you have to assume an average of 3-4% depreciation on the currency on average. Its a unstated policy to continously depreciate the currency to boost exports. After the payments crisis in early 90s, the govt would never want that to happen
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58 minutes ago, adesigar said:
My issue with investing in India is the currency keeps losing value almost as fast as the stocks keep going up. Sensex went from 20k to 60k in the last 15 years. Currency went from 1 USD = 40 Rs to 1 USD = 80 Rs.
You will have to look beyond the sensex. 5 companies - reliance, HDFC group, infosys, and icici bank account for 40%+ of it.
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3 hours ago, Munger_Disciple said:
This is a great post. Survivorship bias is a real problem with the concentration strategy and it won't work for most people. It takes a unique skill and temperament to succeed at it (Munger, Buffett). It is worth remembering that even Munger & Buffett's buddy Rick Guerin blew up with this strategy even though he somewhat partially recovered from it with his real estate investments. We only see mostly the successes resulting from the strategy but never the huge number of blowups. Even Buffett & Munger are hugely diversified later in their life through their ownership of Berkshire which owns a variety of businesses.
+100
imagine a young munger going all in on BABA. we may have never heard of him in the alternate universe
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44 minutes ago, RedLion said:
@Viking this is a fantastic post, and a fascinating and impressive story!
Sorry for the short response, as I know this post was partially in response to my query in the What are you Selling thread, but I'm getting ready to get the toddler out the door to a medical appointment.
I agree that the highest returns are likely to come from concentrated investment portfolios. I agree with @SharperDingaan that you need to be concentrated to get wealthy, and diversified to stay wealthy. I have personally experienced both sides of the concentration coin, and am in the middle of a couple year long diversification campaign for managing my own stupidity.
Traditionally I've had a concentrated portfolio, beginning with buying gold coins as a teenager in the late 90s (my first multi bagger) and rolling that money along with savings (and even some 0% CC cash advances in the aftermath of the GFC) into stocks with some big swings, but favorable high double digit annual returns (around 15% from the late 90s to 2016 when it all went to shit...)
Then I went on to do something REALLY STUPID in 2015. I took a highly concentrated position in Kinder Morgan warrants which got wiped out and took a massive over 50% drawdown on my portfolio. During this same year I got divorced (not as a result of the investment drawdown at least) and suffered a personal hospitalization during a lapse of insurance coverage. This sent my net worth significantly negative, and I still had a huge tax bill that I didn't have the money to pay. So this period in my life certainly taught me some hard lessons about risk management among other things, and it continues to color my philosophy.
On the flip side, I've done very well with concentration both before and after my huge drawdown in the public markets, but the most life changing example of this has been in my business endeavors. I do own a 50% stake in two different closely held corporations. The first had been fairly successful as far as these things go, and the second ended up providing a compelling opportunity. Ended up going all in on the second corporation including with borrowed money. This second venture is on track to return about 100X its investment (pretax) in operating cash flow, and has turned into a life changing opportunity. I should point out that this strongly influences my investment strategy because now only about 8% of my liquid net worth (and a lot less depending on how you value my closely held shares) is inside tax advantaged accounts, the other ~92% is in fully taxable accounts, and I am currently in a pretty high tax bracket in a high tax state.
So that brings me to my current chapter. I think I could put up higher returns with a concentrated portfolio. I've done it from around 1998-2016, and again from 2018-2021. In between I had invested any available capital in my first closely held corporation and paying back back taxes. For me it's not worth the risk of making another stupid decision like I did in 2015/2016 to try to get 15%+ annual returns. Also, I now have a strong desire to find long term compounders that can increase in value tax deferred over time to be sold off as my tax bracket allows to prudently manage returns.
One idea that I've been gravitating towards since the beginning of 2022 is to make a variety of changes that I believe will allow me to earn a decent after tax return. I would like to limit each position by invested capital to 5% of the portfolio. Try not to make more than 25% of my investments in one particular industry, and try to avoid taking on more than 50% of investments with strong correlations to higher or lower rates for example. Focus on companies earning high returns on invested capital at decent valuations. I don't exactly have a buy and hold plan, it's more of a hybrid. The plan is to let the winners ride tax deferred, and then to evaluate losers and underperformers to sell off in a tax neutral fashion if possible to raise capital for additional investments. I think you'll almost certainly outperform my strategy, particularly on a pretax basis, but I think you're a better investor than I am anyway, and I really just need to beat inflation by a few percent a year with as little tax friction as possible, and I'll be just fine and sleep well at night.
great story and inputs from you and viking
can you share more on the business ventures, without giving out personal details. what kind of opportunities are these ? how did you source them ? what was involved in running them including your effort and what was your due diligence process
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2 hours ago, patience_and_focus said:
It depends on what people want (when given a choice - autocracies don't count). Part of Western bias (in middle east) was assumption of wanting western style democratic states.
As for India, I have been told by numerous immigrants that people there are very independent minded in the sense that they don't like being told what to do and there is also huge diversity of language (> 25) and culture (like Europe). That is why it's like herding cats. But all in all people prefer their way / subcultures and are allowed to practice that. That is what matters.
Exactly and also a lot of social issues like casteism as not imposed top down. Does not mean its acceptable or fair, but it a feature of the society and the government has been fighting it for the last 75 years with some success and progress.
that said, the level of freedom is very high (maybe too high sometimes). What prem has been pointing out in his letters is not hyperbole, there is a lot change happening in the country. he referenced this video ..worth watching especially from an investing standpoint too
India has leapfrogged a lot of western countries from a digital infrastructure standpoint
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10 hours ago, mcliu said:
Are the majority of people in more democratic countries like Mexico or India really better off than people in less democratic countries like Singapore or China?Cannot speak for Mexico, but can for India. Its tough to compare and its changing very rapidly in India. some of the indicators are changing and quality of life is improving a lot. In the next 5 years a lot of social indicators will be much better
Its difficult to say what is better ? having freedom, but worse economic indicators, or the other way around. The ideal would be both, but nothing is ever ideal
In Urban India, a lot of social and economic indicators are above world average. Its the rural areas where a lot of catch up has to happen
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1 hour ago, Viking said:
Do people want to get into the US? Yup. Desperately. Do lots of people want to get out of countries like China. Yup. Desperately.
Is the US perfect. No, of course not. It never has been. Go back and watch some videos from the 1960’s and 1970’s. What a mess… What about the 1920’s or 1930’s? Even worse.
Despite all the hand wringing, the US is and will be fine. It will prosper and its people will prosper. The winners and losers will change at the margin. Just like always.
I am finding one of the great challenges of getting old is to not become that ‘crazy old uncle’. Angry. Unable to handle change.
+1
reminds me that old quote from churchil i think - Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others
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39 minutes ago, ICUMD said:
Could yield some interesting opportunities for Fairfax India.
This development is very positive for Fairfax India in more ways than one. For one, they will have less 'unfair' competition where political leverage is used to buy assets
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3 hours ago, gfp said:
Thanks for posting that. It makes a lot of sense to me. My experience speaking with Indian friends about this is the sentiment from that article, "for Indian people, this isn't news."
absolutely and this has been the case for a long time. Only names change. And inspite of that the country continues to do fine and per capita income continues to rise
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5 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:
The real problem with Adani is that the Indian government / Modi is likely a participant in this fraud (if that’s what it is). Modi strikes me as someone who is an enigma for me, with stuff like this:
https://time.com/6249393/the-modi-question-documentary-bbc-india-controversy/
If Adani is a fraud, then maybe the Indian economy is a fraud too of sorts.
thats quite a leap of faith. Did enron or FTX make US economy a fraud. Is govt corruption only in the developing countries ? what is lobbying and regulatory capture ?
There is fraud in India and all kinds of regulatory capture like any other country. But 95% of businesses are legit and creating value which is no different from the US
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39 minutes ago, KPO said:
I tend to think the underappreciated aspect of oil is in its uses in things like the roads we drive on (how is asphalt made?!?) the tires on all cars (especially heavy EVs) and the oil based plastics that make up a significant portion of auto interiors (including EVs). Also, more generally you can’t build many products or develop chemicals, including most fertilizers, without fossil fuels. The runway is more than the ~10 years the ESG crowd thinks fossil fuels will exist.
+1 including pharmaceuticals, paints, comestics and even food and packaging. if you dig into the chemicals value chain, oil related chemicals are everywhere
till we can figure direct carbon capture at scale and right cost and somehow convert that cheaply to hydrocarbons, i cant see usage of oil go to zero. ofcourse usage of oil for fuel could drop sometime in the future based on current trends
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have you explored platforms like fundrise ? any views on it ?
https://fortune.com/2022/07/09/rental-property-homes-recession-proof-investment-fundrise-ben-miller/
thanks in advance
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34 minutes ago, Gregmal said:
Few more VAL warrants
I have been looking at TDW and VAL too. any reason why you picked the warrants over the common ?
Fairfax India new issue
in Fairfax Financial
Posted
Outside of the BIAL, the other companies such as IIFL and other financials (~ 30% of the book value) are doing quite well. Some of them are growing 25% for now. When the biggies like ICICI bank can grow assets for now at 20%, the smaller companies in the financials space can do better
So a 15% annual growth in book value is not a very high bar