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beerbaron

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Posts posted by beerbaron

    Amazon, Google, or Apple: Which one (if any) will go kaput?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Honestly, who cares which one Taleb thinks it is, he's a good mathematician but mediocre investor. Forecasting the death of one of those 3 companies in 10 years is ludicrous, it's statistically probable that one of them will die within 10 years, but knowing which one of the three is impossible with the current available information.

     

    Keep searching for the secret Pabrai elephant, it has more chance of making you rich!

     

    BeerBaron

    Thank you Bill Ackman!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Maintaining jobs for the sake of giving job is good politics, but a bad policy.

     

    BeerBaron

     

    BeerBaron possesses the uncanny (and very uncommon!) ability to communicate big ideas with small (but very clear!) sentences. It seems to me the hallmark of every great investor!

     

    Or is it just the alcohol in all the beers you drink...?! ;D ;D ;D

     

    Just joking! I am most certainly a fan of yours! :)

     

    giofranchi

     

    Thanks Gio, that's a nice compliment. I don't invent those quotes usually I borrow from the great minds and leaders that went before me (this one borrowed from Brian Mulroney on VAT tax reductions). I like quotes they bring a solid point to an argument :)

     

    Have a nice day

    BeerBaron

    Paulson Having Another Tough Year

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    its funny when people with barely enough money in their trading accounts for Paulson's car service has the audacity to call him "lucky" like he just woke up and was able to manage money and win big.....

     

    Well, I suck at hockey and I can barely score a goal every 5 games...it does not mean that I think Scott Gomez is a great player because he's would kick my ass.

     

    BeerBaron

    Portfolio positioning

    in General Discussion

    Posted

     

     

    I'm just pointing out that it's not strictly about needs that keeps people reaching for the little bit extra through these forms of added risk -- it's about the fun, the personal relationships, and the adventure as well.

     

     

     

    Which is why, Eric, that when you say you are headed to the sidelines (clipping dividends from high quality, low risk stocks) after the next wave of wealth, I don't believe you!  :)

     

    To some degree you are right but I have to play a game with myself to try to keep this manageable from a psychological standpoint.

     

    One of the funny things is that I want to move my RothIRA assets from Fidelity to Wells Fargo (where I have my checking account) but so far the only thing keeping me at Fidelity is that performance feature.  I'm so vain!

     

    My advice to anyone running a brokerage business is to get one of those systems implemented right away -- it increases the stickiness of customers (although, maybe if you were doing poorly it would be an incentive to switch brokers).

     

    It's a good incetive only if the customer has above average returns!

     

    BeerBaron

    Portfolio positioning

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    This is why I'm almost through with this game.  My results are so lumpy it's driving me sick with emotional extremes.  Really, at this point I want it to be the last big score so I can think less about the markets.

     

    In 2008 I was down 23% YTD at one point, but then finished the year up 20%.

    In 2009 I was down 50% YTD at one point, but then finished the year up 84%.

    In 2010 I finished up 20% on the year.

    In 2011 I was down 35% YTD at one point (but it was down 50% from the April high so felt much worse).  I finished down about 25% on the year.

    In 2012 I suffered a 35% decline in July from the March/April high

     

    At least youre retired, if you lose sleep over those paper losse you can recuperate during the day :)

     

    Seriously tough why are you still doing an all or nothing approach? I'm sure you have enough to live for the rest of your life. To paraphrase Munger: "I remember when we did not have money and it was worse then not earning a proper return"

     

    BeerBaron

     

    BeerBaron

    Portfolio positioning

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    It would be good to hear from the current super investors such as gio, Sanjeev, twacowfca, valuecfa, Moore, uccmal, tariq et.al ( I am sure I left a few out - error of omission, not of commission... )

     

    Shalab,

    sorry! I don’t know how, but I missed this thread of yours!

    I find it extremely interesting… but you made me laugh!! I am really not a good investor!! Surely, I am not in the league of Sanjeev, twacowfca, valuecfa, Moore, uccmal, tariq, racemize, PlanMaestro, ERICOPOLY, Beerbaron, biaggio, berkshiremystery, yourself, and others who constantly write on this wonderful board!

    This is what I have written in a personal message to Bart this morning:

     

    Just a few words about the way I invest my firm’s free cash: I tend to stick with a bunch of owner-operators that I think I understand well enough, just because it fits my personality and I feel quite comfortable with it. I am also very risk averse: right now I am keeping a lot of cash in usd and gold, I also want to be market neutral, so I am shorting the indexes.

    Results, unfortunately, simply don’t care what I am comfortable with…! 2012 has been a terrible year: speculative stocks went up a lot, so I am losing money on my shorts, owner-operators went sideways at best, with FFH (by far my largest holding) that was down significantly from $410 to $350, so I am also losing money on my long positions, gold went nowhere and the euro appreciated on the usd, so I am losing money on fx as well… It really seems I got it completely wrong!!

    Viceversa, a lot of traders on the board are booking spectacular returns: I remember ERICOPOLY who said a month ago he was up 100% for the year!

    So, you see, on the board I just write about what I know, but that doesn’t mean it is the way to go, or even it has any usefulness at all…  :(

     

    No, really, if you have the patience to bear with me, I’d really like to go on posting some thoughts on the board, because I enjoy the company of great investors!! But surely I am not one… not even a “do no harm” investor… “First, do no harm”: I am not even able to follow this basic and most important precept! :(

    But I will get better very quickly, learning from all of you!  ;)

     

    Thank you,

     

    giofranchi

     

    We are in the same category this year results have not been stellar for me. But remember it's not greed that drives the world but envy. Let Ericopoly be in a class on it's own and focus on partnering with the best managers. It's a very logic approach to hands off investing that I apply myself.

     

    Here is to cheer you up, FFH has compounded money at 20% a year for 25 year, what are the odds that it was due to dumb luck? Pretty slim! You have great partners managing your money, just let them do what they are good at and wait for the good news.

     

    BeerBaron

     

     

    Berkowitz, Bruce Almighty

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I know one of the famous value managers criticized the BofA as a bad business (during the period of time last year when Bruce was calling BofA his best idea).  I think that manager actually called BofA a "bad" or "terrible" business or some other non-quantitative adjective.

     

    That manager made HPQ his largest position (or it was right up there amongst the highest weightings). 

     

    But looking out 2,5,10,15 years from now, is it easier to have a better handle on what HPQ will earn or what BAC will earn?

     

    I too at one point last year said some really good things about HPQ but I fortunately sold to buy things I thought were cheaper before I took a major loss.  I've learned too since then more about what an "inevitable" is, and why that is important.

     

    That manager also said in an interview that he thinks Buffett has had better returns because he says Buffett has a better understanding of what a good business is.  Well, Buffett bought IBM, and this other guy bought HPQ.  So that's an example right there I suppose.

     

    And that mystery manager is Seth K... not it's no good, let's call him S. Klarman.

     

    BeerBaron

    Hugh Hendry and David Einhorn video at Buttonwood

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Funny things about China, some executives just came back from a die cast factory visit and they told us the company built a huge complex for 10 times the previous capacity. They also bought hotels, and other land assets.

     

    I don't know about the company's financials but that sounds to me like speculation on real estate big time. I can't imagine the loss of equity a die cast factory could get if those RE assets go down for a prolonged period.

     

    BeerBaron

    Magic Formula Data

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Let's say you're a beginner investor with a small portfolio.. say $10K.  How would you go about using this? It's a bit unrealistic to buy 50 $200 positions (transaction fees alone would be a bit hit).

     

    Just buy 10 and expect more variability in your results. Risk as defined by beta will be higher but risk as defined by long term performance should stay the same.

     

    BeerBaron

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