mhdousa

Another impressive quarter for Denali: http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/07/denali-investors-performance/ Up 34% this year after a 66% gain last year.

He's probably done >25%/year for the past 13 years. I'm curious who are the "lot people on this board" who have done better. I'm sure a few have, but a lot? And your signature is not the definition of insanity.

A great example of how brutal a bad fee structure can be on an investor. On a gross basis, this fund did fine: 11.3% annualized over 17 years vs 7.4% for the index. Net, the return was 8.1% annualized.

Curious if anyone knows anything more about Kevin Byun of Denali Investors, who is interviewed in this issue.

This conversation begins and ends with this guy: http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Long/e/B00DC7EPJK

It was 250k but that may have changed.

Ha. Other than insanely restrictive rules regarding our investments, it's not a bad gig...

It's a great idea as I really admire Mr. Chou, but unfortunately we are not allowed to use Schwab.

Gangtstas. ;) Giving clients great performance and very reasonable fees. I wish more folks were like that. Do you happen to know what the fees are? Thanks From what I remember, they have a dual fee structure. One is like 2.75% and and no performance fee. I think that was for older accounts. The other I believe is 1% and a 15% performance fee. Sanj or anyone else feel free to correct me though. You're correct except the fixed fee is 2.45%.

Hello - My wife works for a financial services company and in a review of our financial interests, they have decided that there is a conflict of interest in our investment with a certain limited partnership that is fairly well-known in these parts (thread title discussing the manager refers to a certain impressive percent gain in the first 10 years of the partnership) because of this LP's very large holding in everyone's favorite insurer. The problem is that this fund has done impressively well during the time we've held it, the manager is brilliant, AUM are still relatively low, fees were reasonable, and, other than a couple SmartMoney articles and discussion on this board, they fly relatively under the radar. In short, it felt like the holy grail of funds. So now we have a decent chunk of change coming back to us from redeeming our account and I'm not sure where to put it. I don't have the time to really get into individual stocks, and many of them are restricted anyway. The more time I spend looking at mutual funds, the more I realize that 99% of what is out there is crap. I like Berkowitz, but unfortunately the Fairholme funds are off-limits. I know Sanjeev's fund is great and we are looking into this. Do people have suggestions for other good options for accredited investors? If the fund is small enough that holdings don't have to get reported, that is even better. Thanks! -M

I don't think so. FAIRX is at 8b in assets. 1% of that is 80m. CHOEX is at 60m in assets. 1.5% of that is 900k. Do you think Bruce Berkowitz works 90 times as hard as Francis Chou? From what I hear, there are a lot of expenses that go into running a US mutual fund.

I spoke with Francis a few weeks back on this issue and he told me that it would probably take between 3-6 months. My hope is that it is closer to three!

This is a great thread. Question for the experts here. I'm trying to do the backdoor Roth as described here. I currently have no other money in a traditional IRA. However, I plan to rollover a previous workplace 401k sometime soon. If I contribute $5500 to a traditional IRA, convert it to a Roth tomorrow, and then a week later rollover a workplace 401k to a traditional IRA, do I 1) have to pay taxes on that rollover because I did the traditional IRA --> Roth in the same year, OR 2) avoid the taxes because the rollover happened after I did the traditional IRA --> Roth?

Normally am I allowed to rollover to a Roth IRA only when I leave the company? Sorry, only just saw this. Ask your administrator, muscleman. Some plans allow in-service roll-overs. Mine, for example, allows me to roll-over my after-tax contributions every six months directly to my Roth IRA. Instead of adding $57,500 to my 401k and only $6,500 to my Roth IRA annually, I add $36k and $28k respectively. Gives me a little more flexibility. How are you able to add 57k to your 401k? Isn't the limit 17.5?

Eric, who did you farm out the management of it to?

Coming to this discussion a little late, but how much of the success of this endeavor depends on the quality of the particular insurer that he's buying?

This is not about investing, but I thought I'd pose this question to the smartest, most practical group of people I know. My wife and I are about to close on a house in the suburbs of New York City. We're in our mid-30s and have a toddler. As many houses in this area are, the house is on the older side (built in 1952) but is in fantastic shape (our inspector thought it was really well-maintained). Given the area, and the local property taxes, the payments won't be cheap, but we're well within our budget. What's the best advice you can give a new homeowner? Thanks! -M

Anyone know what the story with his purchase of Rue21 (RUE) was? Looks like he bought it after it had already been announced that it was being taken private.

Whaddya guys think? It's the 1997 letter. And Pulp Fiction came out in late 1994. Coincidence? I doubt it. In the movie, he's called "The Wolf"

Which one do you have?

My issue with all the 529s I've looked at is they are all indexes. Anyone know of any 529s with decent active or self-directed options?

Right. I looked at the holdings and they looked pretty similar to those of VWO but, you're right, the weightings are a little different. Thanks for the ideas.

Thanks for the replies. Writser and CorpRaider - I was hoping to avoid index funds. These tend to be cap-weighted, so countries with big recent run-ups are going to be overrepresented. I was looking for something more actively managed. DJET1997 - I'd love to be able to do that. I just don't have the time to get that deep into thinly-traded stocks. Tripleoptician - Unfortunately, I'm not Canadian. Anyone know any good actively managed funds, or a good non-cap-weighted index, like EITEX which allocates evenly across countries?

GMO's forecasts, which are based on mean reversion, tend to be quite accurate. Per their most recent forecasts (attached), emerging markets have the most promising 7-year real return forecasts. Are there any funds or other vehicles folks are using to get EM exposure? Thanks. -M 7YrForecasts_813.pdf

I have no guesses on this. I just wanted to say that, as a fellow Sox fan, I LOVE your username.