meiroy

Well, I suppose he was right that 2011 ended up being a tough year for equities, but we're still waiting for the S&P 500 to hit 500... It's something interesting to consider. It's also important to keep in mind that these guys occasionally come out with such statements as a confidence marketing tool. People give a lot of credit to sounding confident. He could have said nothing or "I usually couch my belief by saying merely that 2011 will be a tough year for equities." But, again, it's not that important if he got his prediction right on timing, he even states clearly that he cannot predict where the bond market will be five years from now. He states some interesting concepts which are worth thinking about when combined with other sources of information out there.

He says that if it gets to 40 or below he is concerned about the geopolitical risks, my guess he is talking about chaos and collapse in various countries. Seems like a reasonable assumption, though for sure not a definite outcome as prices can be manipulated back up. Iran has been talking about opening up lately, Qatar has reached some sort of agreement with Saudi Arabia, so if these guys sort it out, somehow, oil prices can go up quickly. Russia is a failed third world country, we should adjust our expectations accordingly. The oil, commodities, Europe, China... it's all linked and this time it is different, it's not a pop of a tech bubble due to fed tightening or whatever. I'm still invested, but being ignorant of the general macro situation is a mistake at least in the sense of "not losing money" by being cautious.

Thanks ni-co, very interesting.

Margin account with IB is the easiest and cheapest way that i know of. Yes, easy to do with USD and foreign currency pair though have to be careful it doesn't go the other way with x40... Or use ETFs that track the currency as long or short and buy directly or via options.

ZenaidaMacroura, Would it be correct to guess that you have/had like 40% in call options with negligible short positions? My random number for the year is about 41%. At the beginning of the year, seeing where the US economy is going I hoped it would be significantly higher. Next year we're going to have, hopefully, good economic environment + volatility = awesomeness. Looking forward to that.

OMG, I got edited by the Parsad. Well, I got to keep him busy. He obviously doesn't have enough to do.... "F--ing Engineers. " Why would firing engineers be censored? Engineers get fired all the time. S-t happens.

One condition for a 100 bagger is conviction. There's simply no way I'd be able to hold through all the way to 100 (unless it happens while I'm sleeping due to a short squeeze or something). Micro caps are obviously the way to go, though.

Isn't it free just for trades in US common stocks? Everything else is expensive, some very expensive. Also free trades have to be done via a mobile APP, to my understanding.

Reasonable, yet as wiser men than me have said (hah! beat that!), that's a base rate bias. Consider the divorce rate (base rate) now consider your statistical chance to "not divorce". Everyone who marries including yours truly ignores this number which does not even include all the "not divorced, just miserably living together until we die". It's not pretty when you think about it. It's also reasonable to stash some money away as on your divorce day your spouse might see you nothing more than the lowliest dog and try to get far more than half (so I'm told). Personally, I don't care about the money, a far more important question IMNSHO is how to guarantee a joint custody of the kids in case of a divorce. Giving away half your asset is nothing compared to having no part in your kids' lives. EDIT: just to be clear, I wrote the above as per my own personal experience as a yacht partying billionaire. In addition, this post will be updated as soon as I can Google up some Buffett quote relating to this subject.

1. China and the USA will have far better relationship benefiting both. 2. Putin will get off his high horse or at least put on a shirt. The Ukraine issue will be resolved. 3. India will become a better place for many of its people including plenty of officials. 4. CoBF will have the best thread. EVER. 5. Middle East will calm down significantly after agreement by Qatar to support Saudi Arabia/Egypt. 6. 50% of my portfolio will be in oil companies. 6. All will be good. Other than Europe. Cause Europe is f*cked. Happy Holidays! Love and Kisses to All!

Interesting. Does current cost of legal services follow this oversupply?

Vish_ram, 1. He's definitely not calling this a 100% causation. It's a reasonable probability correlation. (by reasonable I mean that you might want to do something about it but for sure not throw all your portfolio in. Which is why I asked about how to weigh this having no clue how to roll it in short duration.) 2. Before 2008 and after 2008 are completely two different environments.

twacowfca, Thank you. Could you elaborate a bit on the why [probability] that the market would go up while the WSBASE has been going down? Last time you humbly said 50% but you were right. Also, if you may, how would you weigh the position as per percentage of total holdings and probabilities of the event taking place as you expect?

uh, why are we talking about Russia like it has some efficient market economy with rule of law. It's not and it doesn't.

To those who get it that the big story these days is the impact on commodities by China's "adjustment": right now China doesn't really have deposit insurance so everyone and their auntie believe that the central government would save their asses no matter what. Once the deposits insurance law becomes a reality, in the near future (question mark) it would be clear what's not insured and the central government would be able to allow things to go bankrupt. Now that would be interesting to watch. So, we got Russia and the rest of the commodities countries going through that and China doing the right thing... US doing good though. Benefit of being a deficit country with a great system and genius founders. If Alexander Hamilton was around I'd kiss his forehead (then he'd challenge me to a duel but oh well)

I'd argue that the failure is a bit of both material and candidates - more people taking it who are less prepared due to the popularity of the program and having companies pay it for you and because the complexity of material has increased. I know a CFA grader with a PhD in Finance and the CFA designation who has commented that the course work and materially is substantially more difficult then it was when he took it. Harder material + a much larger audience of candidates = increasing failure rate Certainly glad the CFA has improved so much with their materials though. Even the last four years I've seen pretty large improvements. +1 I recently had a look at the 2015 books compared to 2010 and there is a noticeable improvement. Personally I think the CFA material is [mostly] fantastic and very interesting -- the Schweser books skip a lot of interesting stuff. True, but Schweser is very good at teaching you to perform for the test. I had to retake Level 3 because I studied from the source books like I did for 1 and 2. As a result, I answered the writing portions in long essay type narratives, trying to consider possible complications, and framing the answer like CFP talking to a client. Not only did I bomb the writing portion, but I spent so much time that I barely finished the morning section in time. Schweser instructors help you with pacing, and with knowing what the graders want to see. GIPS and Level 3 ethics? No knowledge there, just distractions and satanism! What monster still remembers their GIPS rules? Yes, you are right.

I'd argue that the failure is a bit of both material and candidates - more people taking it who are less prepared due to the popularity of the program and having companies pay it for you and because the complexity of material has increased. I know a CFA grader with a PhD in Finance and the CFA designation who has commented that the course work and materially is substantially more difficult then it was when he took it. Harder material + a much larger audience of candidates = increasing failure rate Certainly glad the CFA has improved so much with their materials though. Even the last four years I've seen pretty large improvements. +1 I recently had a look at the 2015 books compared to 2010 and there is a noticeable improvement. Personally I think the CFA material is [mostly] fantastic and very interesting -- the Schweser books skip a lot of interesting stuff.

Some things need to be experienced. I'd recommend a trip to a local Kmart followed by a trip to a local Sears. This way the Kmart will make the Sears look good, and when you see how bad the place is the fog will be lifted from your eyes and this thread will make sense. I was trying to be funny. I'll show myself out as well.

Could someone explain what's wrong with Sears? Thanks.

Goldman just crushed estimates and it's down like 2.5% pre-market. This really doesn't look like some small temporary dip. It's something else this time.

Long term, it is a dip and a buying opportunity. Whenever you see forced selling you can assume there will be some opportunities. In the short term, the buying activity on this forum suggests there is still room to drop further. Can you explain your latter sentence? Definitely does not look like a bottom. Bought some but still at almost half cash (thanks to some wise men here for the timing lessons)

Ok… 1/19.3 x 100 = 5.2%... Now get any book about Buffett and see if he would ever invest in a company yielding 5% (if he doesn’t think its earnings might increase substantially in the future)… only because interests rates are low… Gio Buffett..Buffet... ah, right, yeah, I know the guy, he's interesting.

That's why I asked. We shouldn't expect the financials to have the same ROE/ROA as before 2007. At least that's the way I see it.

Ok… Would you value a company based on what it is yielding today? And comparing that yield to the other choices available? I know I would never do so because: 1) today’s yield might simply not be there tomorrow, 2) I am not really a fan of relative valuations. If what a company is yielding today is not a good way to value its business, why should yield be used to judge the future prospects of 500 companies? Gio I think that there are plenty of books about "value investing", maybe you should try this investment method sometime, it actually works. If you ask me personally, than yes, I always compare expected yield from an investment to any other reasonable option that is available to me.