beerbaron

Maybe soon he'll be the one asking you to lunch anyway! BeerBaron

I could not find Arlington's 13F... anybody has the edgar name where they disclose their 13F? BeerBaron

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

The graph of the decline is quite symetrical, just a quick look shows about 3 years to bring the debt to income to 2000 equivalent and 6 years to get back to the 80's. Why oh why would someone buy 10Y and 30Y bonds? Anybody has the equivalent for Japan? BeerBaron

Well, SJ was one of my error of omission, I read 10 years of financial statements in 2009 and did not buy around 19$ because I could not determine if I was buying at the high of a cycle and what the moat was. I still don't have any answers on both of those points tough... BeerBaron

First time I hear someone on this forum talk about Richelieu except for me. It' a big chunk of my portfolio since 2008. They always seem to operate better then most companies. Sadly it is rarely cheap... BeerBaron

For some reason I can't see it when I go to the site. I just see an ad for SmokeyBear. Try with a different browser. It did not work with Chrome but seems to work fine with IE.

Jeff, il ya juste beaucoup de personne sur ce forum...it quite surprising the geographic diversity. I'm in Lemoyne/Longueuil too. BeerBaron

Liberty, get your ass in Montreal. The ladies are much nicer over here then Toronto. ;D

I'm in Quebec too. Seems like there are many of us on this board...Maybe if we have critical mass we can have a meetup to cry in our beers or something. My first language is French, but I still find the political and economic situation in Quebec pretty depressing (not that the language that you were randomly born into should be used to define anyone, but I just want to point out that it's not only Anglos who are frustrated by how things are here)... We should organize a get together one day. I'm up for Beers...

Look at their webcast. He still uses the same updated chart showing redundancies VS rates. He seems right based on the graph. BeerBaron

So far Ray Dalio has the best explanation for QE or credit creation. He basically says: "Credit can be created by anybody, when someone comes and paints your house and you say I'll pay you in 30 days, you are creating credit. The FED does the exact same thing when she buys bonds, except that there is no claimants for the liability." BeerBaron

Yes, invest in originators that know what they are doing (Altius for example). In the junior miner sector it's a mess that I would not invest directly unless I wanted to lose my money. BeerBaron

SJ, don't judge a book by it's cover. "We had no role; the U.S. company is in fact our largest company, and they had business reasons for doing it, but we played no role at all,"

It's a different Buffet then what we are used to. I guess he change it's speaches to a more mainstream approach as he got older. BeerBaron

Getting free float brings down your cost of capital. Hence reduces your discount rate as well. Now, try to do a present value of an an infinite number of periods above the discount rate and see which number it gives you. BeerBaron

I use a 3d System rapid prototyping at work, and it's a great tool. But I'm very sceptical when I hear that it's going to be as big as the Internet. First, I don't see a rapid prototyping machine printing any electronic device. An IC mask is precise to the nano-meter, I can't think of any non-high tech lab equipment precise to the nano meter. Second, there are varieties of materials in all products. Take a look at the amount of polymers on the market, each has it's speciality. No consumer could afford to have 50 cartridges to build stuff. Finally, it might seem efficient but it's not. It's a very long process to 3D print and it requires that the machine does not stop in the middle of the printing. It might make it's path in some specialities, for example handyman work, artists and such. But not at the levels the Internet did. BeerBaron

Yeah I was facing the same dilemna last year. I was with Questrade and I had something like 30K that I wanted to convert to USD. 1% of 30K met 300$ or put differently, 2.5 years of IB monthly fees. So I switched to IB. BeerBaron

So what happens to exports when the central bank of Japan becomes the buyer of those bonds? How' s their currency going to be affected? The answers are simple and China has no advantage to lower the cost of producting goods in Japan... BeerBaron

Just use IB, last time I did a transaction the currency conversion came to something something like a lunch a McDonald's. BeerBaron

Take a look at their bond results, managed by Brian Bradstreet. Watsa is not alone in this he's got an amazing small team! BeerBaron

That sounds like a story from a bad thriller. If China would do a financial attack on Japan, the central bank of Japan could easily buy all the Japanese government bonds. The rising sun country could actually benefit from a devalued currency. BeerBaron

So, if QE2 didn't produce the expected results why is QE3 suppose to do a better job? Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan calculated that as of July 2012 there was "very little impact on the economy" and noted "I'm very surprised at the data. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/alan-greenspan-sees-two-separate-161122638.html The definition of foly is doind the same thing twice and expecting different outcomes Albert Einstein

I've noticed that too. Actually, when volatility was peaking in 2008/2009 I started to reason that it wasn't fear, it was greed. Nobody in their right mind wanted to blow that opportunity to buy things so cheap by tying up their capital writing puts. Even though the premiums were the best ever, why would you do that when the big money was to be made riding the shares back up. And what sort of an idiot writes a call at the bottom when he can buy a call instead. So that drives up demand for the calls relative to supply and makes them really expensive. I think you guys are right. If I remember properly it was the bet LTCM had made when it went bust. The market went up, and most of the the time if the market goes up, volatility goes down. The wrote a bunch of put betting the volatility would go down. External events made it happen otherwise. BeerBaron

5% Inflation would solve some of that debt trap. Not the structural imbalances tough. BeerBaron