shalab

Hi guys - I checked with Fido and Etrade, looks like both stopped offering the ability to buy south korean stocks in 2016. Are there other options (besides buying ADRs or ETFs) to buy stocks directly in KOPSI? cheers! shalab

Are you ahead (> 10000) after taxes?

Many have tried to invest like Buffett. Some tried to eat like him too. http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-diet-conspiracy-theory-2017-10

To be honest, most hedge funds add no value to an investor especially if investing in taxable accounts. Even if they beat the index by 3-4%, most of the gains will go to pay taxes. For institutions, it may make sense as many are tax exempt. Hedge funds make sense if the manager has alternative strategies or invests in different markets/industries as a diversification mechanism. It is also difficult to find people who are ethical - especially with other people's money.

NYTimes weighs in: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/09/upshot/where-should-amazon-new-headquarters-be.html

Not fair to anyone to have folks like Buffett, Malone etc. on the list. I am looking for the next set Too old ;) He is somehow out of date, one foot in the grave, the other in "old economy" [read "on the top of a banana shell"]. [j/k]

Best jockey to invest with - if a person is missed, can you please add their name?

Great work - if one looks carefully, Verizon, Microsoft and apple are the main culprits. In Microsoft's case, net income and stock price have moved in opposite directions

Added Nevada and Austin. Chatted with a friend from AMZN - apparently the employees also get to vote on the location. There isn't a whole lot of enthusiasm for Toronto (weather + taxes + not US) but Boston, Austin or Denver metro area are all in play. Apparently Denver is preferable to many as it has many outdoor activities like Seattle. Cost per city: https://www.recode.net/2017/9/9/16278136/amazon-jeff-bezos-top-cities-top-new-second-headquarters

Let us do a poll to see what people think. Details here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/?node=17044620011 In addition, the current employees can choose this place to relocate. In 10 years time, this likely will translate in 5B/year in salaries alone. At 20% federal tax, it is 1B/year in revenue for the government.

Cigarbutt, really appreciate your optimism and positive outlook: Here is an article from mainstream media on the impact of free trade on US jobs. http://www.newsweek.com/free-trade-costs-american-jobs-332962

+1. The amount of lobbying even in small town city governments is astonishing - a person doing 9-6 job has no chance to alter government policy.

Cigarbutt, your arguments are well reasoned. I don't think the savings rate by itself is a huge issue in trade deficits - the US banks hold > 13 trillion in deposits. (http://www.bankregdata.com/allDP.asp) As DTEJD has said, the US doesn't have reciprocal agreements with most countries. So government policy/regulation does play a big role on how trade works. In addition, there is no need to have a trade war, I like the Wilbur Ross approach, tweak and enforce the current agreements. (you should listen to his confirmation hearing as commerce secretary). It was his position that multilateral agreements don't work well as a lot of compromise is needed to make the agreement palatable to everyone. Your point of cost and consumption is right on - if the cost is high, people would think twice before spending. In the reports you shared (including the one by the congressional group), it doesn't look at the US jobs lost due to these agreements. In the last election the majority from both sides thought that the US government is not acting for the benefit of its citizens. Part of it might be the Triffin dilemma. Free trade is one aspect of it but there are others such as the cost of education, health care which is increasingly beyond the scope of an average citizen. So people in general have the feeling that they are not progressing forward. You can compare this to countries in Eastern Europe or Asia which were impoverished but have made good progress in the past two-three decades.

FWIW, every country has its positives and negatives. I have enjoyed my several trips to Canada and have a very positive view of the country. Once a border guard was grumpy (we were crossing the border past midnight) but otherwise no major issues. I checked out how to become Canadian permanent resident but the paperwork was quite involved. Our favorite insurer (FRFHF) has a lot of operations in the US and reports book value in USD. So we are very close ;D.

The usa is not just another trading partner - 50% of Canadian FDI comes from USA. 2/3 of outward Canadian investment is in the USA. A lot of Canadian jobs depend on USA bilateral trade. If the govt of China was running USA, Canada would have become northern USA a long time back : -). The situation is similar with Australia and to a certain extent the U.K. http://selectusa.commerce.gov/country-fact-sheets/United_Kingdom_Fact_Sheet.pdf The USA is unlikely to be hurt significantly in the event of currency devaluation - production will simply move to the US as the US economy is very flexible. Around 50% of the earnings of SP500 are from overseas. The US still attracts the best and the brightest from around the planet. The US population is expected to cross 400 million in the next few decades whereas that in Canada will also increase but not significantly - the US population will be more than ten times Canadian population. The economy will also be much larger. The population in Europe (Germany, Russia) will decline significantly. Chinese population will also age. Furthermore, the US has the most arable land, plenty of water supply and abundance of natural resources. Even with the current GDP levels of ~60K/person, the US GDP will cross 24 trillion. (it already is at 19.3 trillion now) The US has started exporting pulses to places like India. India has second largest arable land (after US) but huge population growth, conversion of agricultural land for housing is causing it to import food. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/pulses-production-expanding-as-consumers-cultivate-a-taste-for-us-lentils-and-chickpeas/

EU may survive if Germany subsidizes all other countries through trade or other incentives. It runs a surplus. It is the same the us has done to sustain NATO.

Agreed, I think this applies to all the trading partners of USA. A lot of the lobbying was done by corporates to open up USA markets to do labor arbitrage but the reverse isn't true. Free trade was promoted by a bunch of academics using outdated models. USA trade deficit against China is 350 billion dollars and 75 billion against Germany. The first one is more than 1000 dollars for every person in the USA. The second one is 250 dollars for every person.

The global liquidity and wealth has grown tremendously since 2000 - primarily on the back of real estate. It is impossible to say what the future holds - but it is strange that little known places in Canada cost more than cities with robust economic growth in the U.S

For comparison, in the meantime - FRFHF book value decreased from 406 to 378 (or 388 including dividends) - a decrease of -4.4% and MKL increased from 555 to 643 an increase of 15.86%. The former trades at P/B of 1.28 whereas the latter trades at a P/B of 1.65. BRK trades at a P/B of 1.44 (including KHC stake).

Someone posted this in the fool's board - thought it is an interesting way to look at BRK. BTW, the book value is not adjusted for KHC market value still. A gap of 12 B pre-tax or about 9B after tax. ----- Here's a fun way to look at how well they've done lately, and a way of thinking about the cash drag: A year ago, Berkshire as a whole had shareholders' equity of $263,025m. Of that, $72,679m was cash which has earned nothing and is still there: the start-of-period dead weight. So, the "shareholders' assets that produced any earnings" were at $190,346. That still includes tons of goodwill and intangibles. Shareholders' assets are now at $300,659, up $37,634 in a year. So, the increase in shareholders' equity represents net earnings of 19.8% on the starting equity at work. Thought of as a type of after-tax return on capital employed, that's a wonderful number. It's only 14.3% increase on the entire starting equity balance. So, the cash drag can be estimated as 5.5% in this quite good year. That's a pretty high estimate, as Berkshire would have no financial credibility without some big chunk of it.

Sd is right on the ball on this one. UCCAML is also correct. One has to remember that Watsa is from India and he puts family above everything. Watsa is getting on in age at around 70 years or so. Time for him to hand over reigns to his family.

IV: if we take 50% of float as being equal to equity at 50B, the book value is equal to the current market cap! Regarding FAMG - Microsoft's pre-tax earnings have dropped in the last five years (even adjusting for restructuring costs) from ~27B to ~23B this year but the stock has doubled. In the same time, the long term debt has gone up from ~20B to ~76B. If we put the pre-tax multiple of 10 to the earnings as some folks are saying, this is worth only 250B give or take. However, the market cap now is 575B. Something has to give

That includes folks like Watsa also - he still says in his annual letters that the goal is to get 15 percent annualized return. This hasn't been the case since 2010. No one seems to question that - if Buffett did it, there would have been many critical articles about him in this board and the general press. Nice summary! +1. No particular bone to pick with Pabrai but he's the archetype of the helpers Buffett talks about. More marketing versus investing skills. Also this idea of "what's wrong with having very high goals?". Yeah right, try telling your potential investors that you aim to beat the index by modest amounts. Even they are eating crow. I remember distinctly Longleaf stating their goal of index+10%. So, my money saving tip I've developed is not put any money with those who state a large outperformance goal.

This is a good post, p/b is a metric like any other metric. If you look at the debt (debt/equity), another picture will emerge. Now, many techs have surged because of p/e expansion, not necessarily because they increased earnings or book value etc. In some cases, the debt has also increased tremendously. I asked in another thread when people think the tech stocks will rise another 50% from current valuations. In Berkshires case, everything else being equal and without a major recession, it will be five years or less. It is difficult to estimate this for the techs.

Book value at end of Q1 - $124 (including KHC stake of 10B not counted in book value - actual value is close to 15 B, -5B for tax allowance) Book value at end of Q2 - $129 SP500 perf + ~1.5% => 4.5% gain from Q1. If book value is $128, P/B is 1.32, if book value is 129, P/B is 1.31. For comparison - average P/B for SP500 company is 3.1. The famous FAAMG stocks look like this: AMZN => 27 FB => 7.2 GOOG => 5 AAPL => 5.9 MSFT => 7.7