matjone

They should just change the limits on traditional IRAs and allow you to contribute the full 23.5k. I was held captive in one of these plans for 10 year with wells fargo as the administrator. They didn't charge 2% but it was much higher than vanguard. Another thing I don't understand is why you are allowed to invest in company stock but not other stocks. I worked at a company in the O&G industry and we had a lot of guys with no investing knowledge to speak of heavily concentrated in company stock. This is a problem anywhere but especially in a volatile industry like O&G. Now a lot of people are getting hit with a double whammy of a layoff and a huge reduction in net worth. I guess the argument is that these people know the company intimately and can invest intelligently in it, or that it will improve their work ethic and morale if they own some? Whatever the case I'd bet it has been the cause of a lot of financial problems for families.

That is who I had in mind when I was talking about Graham and Schloss. Schloss' record was incredible - he ran a fund almost 50 years, trounced the market and I think he only had a double digit loss one year. For those two years in the early 70's Munger had over a 50% loss and Schloss was down around 15%. IIRC Tweedy Browne who followed a similar style to Schloss also did relatively well during that period. If Munger had had those two bad years at the beginning of his investing career instead of the end his investors might have lost faith in him.

My impression from reading The Snowball and a few other books is that Buffett started out really concentrated with his own money and diversified more when he was running other people's money. I think that is what I'd do too. If you've been lucky enough to get a fund going and you can beat the market by a few points, you've got something pretty good going for you, so the thing to do is just don't screw it up. If the market goes against you in your personal portfolio, all you have to worry about is whether your assessment of the business has changed. When you're running a fund you are also worrying about whether your investors change their mind about you before the market changes its mind about your stocks. Of course that is true whether you hold 1 stock or 100, but concentration comes with higher volatility and more risk of your investors bailing on you. I think Walter Schloss and Graham are good models to follow for managing a fund. Focusing on downside protection and staying diversified keeps your investors from freaking out and keeps you alive to fight another day.

sorry, somehow I replied in the wrong thread. I intended to post in the thread about wide moat stocks.

What I would like to know is whether anyone has personally beaten the market with this strategy or knows someone who has. I'm not trying to disparage it and it actually has a lot of appeal to me. It just seems like there are a lot more guys beating the market with value investing and maybe that is because it is easier.

Do they have 10 years of financials for japanese companies? After googling it seems a bloomberg terminal is 24k/yr. I like to keep costs under 1% of assets so I'd need several million before I'd consider getting one. I agree on being too cheap being a problem though. I see this with myself, I've always planned to subscribe to your newsletter and Norman Rothery's as well but I always end up putting it off for "someday". I didn't grow up well-off and as often happens with people from that background I acquired a habit of severe frugality. Overall my frugal tendencies have served me well but it is something that really gets ingrained, so it is hard to override it even when you know it is the rational thing to do.

Personally I think the last few comments are rather silly. Everyone knows that you're supposed to keep your money in physical gold coins which you go swimming in each day, a la Scrooge McDuck. On a more serious note, here is an example of what I am talking about: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/president-obamas-2016-budget-targets-retirement-accounts-2015-02-05 Earlier Obama proposed putting a cap on the amount that would be allowed to be held in a tax deferred account. It was based on the amount that would be required to fund an annuity paying around 200k IIRC. I'm not sure if this changes anyone's mind but anyway it's probably worth taking into consideration.

Most people seem to be basing their decisions on the current law. I'd suggest looking at the things the democrats have proposed on retirement accounts recently. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the assumptions being made today turn out to be wrong.

maybe just threaten to leave?

Scott, I just realized I intended to harass you with more questions last time I posted here and for whatever reason didn't get to it. I am intrigued by your new quality approach and would like to learn more about it if you wouldn't mind delving into it. First of all, how long have you used this strategy and how have you fared with it, both absolutely and relative to the market? Secondly, would you mind providing some examples of past investments or maybe even current holdings? I imagine these are mostly large caps so you wouldn't have to worry too much about moving the market mentioning them here (I know you mentioned google on twitter). And if there is anything else you'd like to discuss with regards to investing investing, I'd like to hear about it. TIA

I am too cheap to subscribe to anything but I used to read the WSJ from time to time. You could see a change in tone when Murdoch acquired it. I guess it is still valuable if you want to use it for news and ignore the editorial part though.

I have a theory that if there is a rematch Mayweather may throw it to set up a third fight. If there are no other fighters who can draw like Pacquiao can then that would be the best move money-wise, right? I'd like to believe that isn't true but like Eric says, there is a hell of a lot of money at stake.

I am no expert on boxing but the fights I've seen Mayweather in the thing that has annoyed me isn't that he runs, it's that he breaks a lot of the rules as I understand them. I love defensive boxers as well as offensive fighters, in fact Pernell Whitaker is one of my favorite fighters to watch. Avoiding getting hit is impressive and fun to watch. Mayweather is a great defensive boxer, and it's fun to watch him outwit other fighters, but he should be able to do it without holding and hitting, shoving his forearm into people's faces, low blows, and excessive clinching. I don't know if anyone else feels like this, but I am a little conflicted about boxing. On one hand I love it, but on the other I am a little ashamed that I like it. If I am being honest a big part of the draw is that I want to see violence, and a lot of guys have been seriously hurt doing it. If there was a vote to outlaw it I might vote in favor of it. I'd probably still watch old fights on youtube though. I haven't seen the fight, but from what I've heard this is a pretty good substitute:

Whoa, calm down there ScottHall. Two things I like about Pacquiao are that he is aggressive and IMO is a cleaner fighter than Mayweather. Mayweather does a lot of running and clinching and some other stuff that might be illegal depending on who you ask. Pacquiao just fights which is what we are coming to see to begin with. No wonder people are rooting for him.

I'd say Mayweather. Just look at his nickname. I think Mayweather is a really calculating guy who is all about money. One theory I have is that it may have been Mayweather's strategy to delay the Pacquiao fight for as long as possible, solely to build anticipation and maximize the purse. Maybe he figured Pacquiao was the only one he thought might have a chance of beating him, so the max ev move was to extract all the money he could out of the rest of the field, and then go out with a monster payout from one or 2 Pacquiao fights. If he had fought Pacquiao 5 years ago and lost he'd probably be looking at a much smaller net worth currently because his fights would not have been as lucrative. Now if he loses he'll probably get a rematch and make another 100 m or more.

I was looking at the lines on this fight. The line on Pacquiao winning by KO,TKO, or DQ was only 4-1. I figured more like 20-1 or maybe worse. Mayweather has hardly ever been hurt. In fact I think Mayweather is more likely to catch Pacquiao with something and knock him out. I thought about betting on this fight, but I've seen too much fishy stuff happen in boxing.

I know we have some boxing fans here, who are you picking? My take is Mayweather is in another class than everyone else and Pacquiao is going to do a lot of swinging and missing and lose by decision. Of course, as Roger Mayweather says, I don't know shit about boxing.

I saw a report the other day and some scientists were saying the ultimate fate of the universe is a "big crunch" in which gravitational forces will slow the expansion of the universe, reverse it, and eventually pull all matter back into a single point. I think that even if that doesn't happen humans are destined for extinction just like every other species. Kind of puts it in perspective how important it is to be the best.

i am not a programmer. I was trying to do it with excel but I am not sure it is up to the task Does the order matter? If it is 6 then you know your numbers are 2 and 3, but you don't know whether it's a=2, b=3, or the other way around.

are we supposed to be able to do this in our head? when p said "i know you don't know" I am guessing that meant he knew q didn't know it before q said anything, right?

I have a funny story. I used Etrade for a bit and transferred some assets out of there several years ago. Somehow a dividend payment got lost in the shuffle and I ended up with a 60 dollar balance which I was not aware of. They continued sending statements for a few years but I just assumed it was promotional stuff and never read it. One day I happened to open it it and I requested that they transfer the remaining balance, but they said they were going to charge some outrageous fee, 50 bucks I think, despite the fact that I already paid the transfer fee the first time. Also I was not allowed to trade with the money. I decided to screw them in return and elected paper delivery on everything. That was a few years ago and they've sent me a statement each month showing my $60 cash balance. I made another attempt a few months ago and this time the story had changed - they are now saying that due to inactivity they can't do anything with the account and I need to open a new one to get the money. I actually considered doing it and electing paper delivery on everything, and keeping a token amount in there so I could buy stocks subject to corporate actions, class action suits, etc. which requires a lot of mailing.

Yes actually it is him who has put me on a budget :) I think I should have been more specific in my original question. The problem I am running into is that the account minimums are too high for a few hundred dollars of birthday money, but it seems silly to wait until he has several thousand to start teaching him about investing. It seems right now that I am stuck with either fronting the money for him to start a UGMA or waiting until he has more money. I do plan to teach him saving and investing. Even if I didn't I think it would be hard to live with me for 18 years without some of it soaking in by osmosis, but we are planning to teach him to have accounts for saving, spending, and investing and putting a % of each dollar he gets into each one.

My son's first birthday is coming up and he has received a couple hundred dollars as a gift. I would like to invest a portion of this money on his behalf. What is the best way of going about doing this? Thanks

I can attest to the lumina's longevity. That is what I drove from the time I got out of high school till my late 20's. I finally sold it because it needed a new starter or something and I just didn't feel like fixing it. I think it had over a quarter million miles on it and never used any oil or had any engine problems. The only maintenance I ever did was to change the oil every 3k miles. One problem with those old luminas was that they were constantly burning up alternators, so I went and bought an alternator at autozone the first time it happened. They gave me a new one for free every time after that, which I always installed myself. It had to have been one of the cheapest car ownership experiences in history, especially since my parents bought it for me. I should have kept it. It's probably still running somewhere.

Thanks for that info. I put in a ticket with IB to see if they could find a place to sell it.