Valuebo

This is a good tip. I bought plenty of second-hand books (both in Dutch and English) when I was in Thailand last year. 50-100 Bath per book max. The hard part is getting them all in your backpack. ;D I've also found some good used books on amazon at steep discounts.

What I meant with the line you quoted is that at some point you will have a whole sector or even the broad market offer (much) bigger bargains (in large caps) again than currently available. I don't know whether BRK or BAC will be one of those bargains, but it is certainly possible. I guess you generally have to take what you can get. You don't get to choose what is going to sell off and just have to decide whether you can get comfortable with what the market is offering you. I don't believe that names like BRK, FFH and BAC are some of the best investments you can find now. Maybe when looking at US large caps. Not that they are expensive but if you can't find better bargains you should probably hold some cash yes. I wasn't on this board until a few months ago, but from looking back do agree somewhat that I am surprised that the level of optimism in certain names today appears not much lower than it was several years ago at much lower valuations. Looking back at the AAPL thread, for example, it seems there was not nearly as much enthusiasm as I would have expected a great business trading at ~15-20% FCF yield in mid-2013 to generate. That said, IMO this part of the cycle more than any is when talk of valuation is important, and when checking your assumptions carefully with others is likely to be useful. It was much easier a few years ago to throw darts and find something that was reasonably priced or underpriced. +++

I think it's interesting that there is so much talk about BRK and it's valuation / Buffett-discount when in 2011 it was trading at less than half today's price. It was a lot quieter back then. Whatever the discount, it's small compared to what you could get a few years ago! And guess what? In a few years the same will happen again. Same with BAC at 75-80% of IV and FFH since the run-up. Idk, maybe it's just because the board has gotten much bigger but it's certainly interesting to see how acceptance of risk among many has changed in just a few short years. Correct me if I'm wrong btw...

I read it this morning but was thinking about it before posting anything. No need to delete your thoughts just because no one responds in the first few hours? Anyway, here it goes (very briefly): I believe there exists a healthy balance to everything. Just as spending all or more than you make can be unhealthy, I also believe that being too extreme can be detrimental to your physical and mental health. I don't see how sleeping on the floor and saving $500-$x000 is going to help me over the long term. Maybe one can skip medicines as well and take mints as a placebo. It's cheaper right? On average most people can hardly be called intelligent and among other things they lack decent discipline, an independent mind or critical thinking skills. Because of that, the things you did (leaving school, making it on your own and being emotionally freed of the need for material wealth) would never work for them. That's why the educational system works. It's why having debt to keep up with the joneses works in our capitalist society. Idem for 9-5 jobs etc. Most people need this structure to function properly. Take it away and you get a bunch dysfunctional fools. :D Despite being sceptical on certain points, I have respect for what you are trying to do. I just don't think that we are even close to getting on that level (and beyond) as a society. We are all idiots trying to figure it all out. There is so little we know, especially on subjects like behaviour. So yes, life is crazy.

Are they thinking of using big data to calculate risk profiles of google users? Then this could be of benefit for the customer as well.

Everybody makes mistakes when they start out. You and I invested in Fortress Paper if I recall. We learn from experience. Some things you can be told, and some things you have to find out (painfully) for yourself. There's a normal cycle of learning where you don't know anything, then you think you know everything, then you realize you didn't know much after all, etc. If I have a recommendation for our new member, it is to stop posting for a bit and read the forum's archive (yes, go back to the beginning thread by thread and read -- or at least skim the less insightful ones. Go through the investing section, the general section, the berkshire section, the fairfax one, the books, strategies..). When I joined in 2010 I did this, and it made me learn a lot. Take a few months to do this, as well as to read more books recommended in the books section, that'll be worth it. You'll find out soon enough if you have the investing gene or not. Some people are just gamblers down to their DNA... sure I get that but come on. He read 'rich dad poor dad' 8 years ago and still believes it has value after all that time? My first book was Rule number 1 by phil town. It was probably a lot better and I still thought it was shit after doing some other reading. I was 20 and knew absolutely nothing tbh... I still know next to nothing btw. I don't see how someone like that can grow to be a decent critical and independent thinker, sorry.. .Taking terms like MOS and making up your own bs definitions doesn't make you an investor either. Not to mention his "process" and hubris. He had a few ok years and starts thinking about retirement? his first 30%+ down year will be fun... Just read his posts. You have people that learn and you have people that don't. He is welcome to prove me wrong. Oh and the early 2009 topics here are the best reading material of the crisis that are available to us. Our memory of history is flawed. Real time postings of intelligent and experienced forum members at the height of market fear show us what it really was like.

holy sh*t this topic... Wouldn't have read this a few years ago. Can we expect one of these topics weekly in a few years?

How would holders of Greece govt bonds not care about a grexit?? Sure, in 2012 they much owned for a much smaller percentage by governments/ECB but even in a more illiquid market the risk imo should have been priced in more if a grexit was/is likely. Maybe you thought I was talking about the broad bond and stock market Hielko? In that sense I obviously agree.

So it seems that the game of chicken is coming to an end. As expected, the new government was barely able to get anything (so far). Let's hope they get back on track and find a decent compromis asap because the last few months can't have done much good. Looking at bond yields, it doesn't seem as if the market was really expecting a Grexit at any point. This wasn't exactly the case in 2012.

I don't see how you can say that someone who spends 150k would ever be considered frugal. Income should almost irrelevant. Would you call someone who saves $5k/year on $20k income more frugal than someone who saves $150k on $300k income? Also, saving 50% or more is only possible for a small set of people and even more unlikely if you live somewhere where taxes on income are above average. Members of the board are largely from the US and Canada and highly educated so I understand we are not talking about the average person here.

I heard our friend Warren has a cold. Maybe that is why?

Haha this is really starting to lead it's own life, beautiful. That means that if he reads 1.5 page per minute, which I personally consider fast (assuming 400 words per page that is an above average speed at 600 words/minute), he has to read 11 hours a day. Non-stop and at that pace, just to read his 1000 pages. No time to reflect on what was read (which is at least as important), bathroom breaks, eating, making annotations, ... If he skips a day/week he has to read two extra hours/day just to make up for it. Eagerly waiting for the day they read 2000 pages per day!

This might be off topic in this thread, but compounders are also boring to tears. Especially for active investors such as people frequenting this forum. There is no action - you just buy and hold. And hold. And hold. That's why very few people ever held BRK or FFH (or for that matter MSFT, GOOGL, WMT, JNJ, IBM ) for 20+ years. And most of the people who did that are not "investors", but rather employees or in case of BRK old ladies from Omaha. ;) Even most self admitted Berkheads or Fairheads on this forum have traded in/out of BRK/FFH more times than they casually admit. Or at least kept a non-trivial amount of their portfolio in companies that were sold much more often than compounding would call for. ;) Unfortunately action is a drug. A very difficult drug to kick for active investor. Indeed, to quote Munger, quoting Pascal:" All of humanity's (or, in this case, an investor's!) problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." A lot of truth in that. One of my biggest 2014 mistakes, learned a lot from it. By coincidence, I'm having my best 3-month period ever (wasn't yet around in 2009) while making only 1 trade in the last 4 months and barely watching my account. I normally made a few trades per month. Very random data point of course but being rewarded certainly helps to build discipline and keep up good practices.

Life Expectancy: 84.23 years Lower Quartile: 76.62 years (75% chance you will live longer than this) Median Lifetime: 86.34 years (50% chance you will live longer than this) Upper Quartile: 94.06 years (25% chance you will live longer than this) 59 to go. I guess that is high for men.

This is the worst and most stupid election outcome I could possibly imagine. Its insanely bad and the Greeks are insanely stupid. The Greeks have literally done nothing in terms of structural reform. And the guy they have elected is a lunatic who has just allied with another lunatic. The Greeks annoy me and I live in Canada. My government hasn't even given them any money. Imagine how much the Germans, Finns and others hate the Greeks. Nothing is going to settle down. This is going to get very very ugly. I meant it was a good outcome given that they could have scored an outright majority. I don't believe they will get far without compromises.

I agree. But I also think one of the reasons is that it is hard to invest in individual Greek stocks for a lot of investors. The only broker that lets me invest in individual Greek stocks is 'degiro', a Dutch discount broker that I consider too incompetent to deposit a significant sum of money. So there are a couple of names I can't trade at all and for a couple of names I have to trade the extremely illiquid German listings and hope I don't get ripped off - which I don't like either. I'm also not a fan of buying an ETF because I have no clue about how to value most Greek stocks (especially banks). Basically there is a hodgepodge of reasons why I don't have any Greek exposure and that's probably exactly the reason why it will outperform :) . Are there any other names you like / own besides Intralot? You make some good points, it's a pain for me as well. What do you mean when you hope you don't get riped off when buying German listings? Do you mean in terms of liquidity and spread or are you referring to another risk? I'm only long intralot atm but have been looking at an index ETF, OPAP and Metka. None of them seemed compelling enough until now and haven't done any work on others.

I believe this was one of the better elections outcomes for Greece. Enough power to change something, not enough to dictate. I believe Greece will pull through, especially given ECB stimulus, lower euro (tourism is almost 20% of GDP so added bonus for Greece) and lower oil prices. Short term will be a drag because of uncertainty but longer term things should settle imo. Just my 2 euro cents. The silence on the board surrounding Greek stocks is also telling. Here you have one of the most hated stock markets in the world and almost no one is talking about it. Everyone is swooning over the US at all time highs (even though that is a quality that is present in most years during bull markets and perfectly normal). Anyone experience with Ossiam? Seems like an interesting ETF if they keep costs decent.

Very down to earth kind of guy. Interested to see whether he bought more Greek stocks in the second half of the year.

The problem is that whenever I try to talk to Gio, he somehow manages to misinterpret my posts. That's why it might be better to just ignore him altogether, even though I didn't mean to attack him. I don't seem to have that problem with other members here, on the contrary. The fact that English is our 2nd or 3th language doesn't help either. Still agree fully with what both said (cobafdek was talking about our process, hence the apologies), but weighing what you should and shouldn't say over the internet will always be a pain when communicating with some. Thank god we have emoticons. Right Kraven? :) Agree with the lack of negativity lately. More negative posts or criticism of others doesn't mean it can't be constructive and balance things a bit. From time to time, I'm sure I would benefit of someone telling me more how idiotic some my investments are.

You are both right, my apologies. Should've been more nuanced or learn to shut up when I disagree with Gio.

Most of all because I would actually welcome a stock market crash!... Anyone who knows and cares about what I am doing knows this! I understand tombgrt and investor-man are the true gods of investing... Ahahah!!!!... But for the rest of us, mere mortals, an 11% in less than a month is an anomaly, a rare event... Nothing but a curiosity... And as a simple curiosity intelligent people would have read my post! Cheers, Gio Which was part of my point (and that of investor-man's post I'm sure). It occurs often, especially if you are concentrated, both to the up- and downside. There is little use in eyeing your results on a YTD basis starting in the fourth week of January... It adds to greed, impatience, etc and likely stems from a long bull market. Not healthy imo. Gio can flip the tables and act as if we are the ones boasting about our returns and how we "don't get his posts" if that is what he wants to do with our input. :)(FYI: I care little about my month over month returns and even less about what other people think about them. The latter because I mainly copy others in my investments. I add little personal value and look at any positive returns as the result of the hard work of others.)

The Halo Effect at work for Alexis Tsipras. Will be interesting to follow the next few days.

Topics are getting sillier with the day, no offense. Time for a down year. I'm up 27% ytd, 24%+ not counting currency gains. Please bear with me too.

This euro devaluation versus the USD is brutal. If this and cheaper oil don't boost economic growth in the EU, I don't know what will.

My lack of proper patience. Even for core holdings it's damn hard not to constantly add and trim positions as they move. It's very likely I would suffer less of this as I increase my stock diversification. Certainly something to improve in coming years as "wanting" rarely equals "getting". Also add lowering expectations for the future to help with that.