Investmentacct

Lets say downside is 50% from here. Per Buffett, if you can not expect stocks to decline 50%, should not be in market with that money. So, Buffett expects it to go down any day and adjusts accordigly. I have watched too many star wars movie recently. Quoting Yoda on few: "Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." "The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side." Yoda: "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose." Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/star_wars_quotes.html#jbWebu2KgljCg2CB.99 That's exactly what I do but I don't know anything. As with Graham's framework for companies there are frameworks that work in global macro and show you where you can find hugely favorable risk/reward ratios for certain macro events. Keep in mind that pure value investors can't know things either. In the end, value investing is all about risk/reward – exactly like global macro is. I certainly agree with you that you should know what you're doing. But a lot of value investors keep arguing that you can know value on the micro level but not on the macro level. I think that's false. And like value guys can point to WEB or Carl Icahn macro guys can point to Soros, Druckenmiller or Ray Dalio. I'm seriously worried, though, that we entered a macro environment in 2007 where strictly applying Buffet's methods maybe won't have the same success rate they had in the 60 years before.

Google Project Fi https://fi.google.com/about/ 20 $ per month unlimited talk and text. Free international SMS to any phone. 10 $ for 1GB data for pay as you go plan . if you use 1.2 GB; project fi charges 12$; unlike other carrier billing full amount of 10 or 15. If you use less than 1 GB data; say 500 MB ; they credit back 5 $ for unused data. Monthly invoice is 32.48 Phone - Nexus 6P Project Fi combines - TMobile and Sprint coverage in to one SIM. You are only dealing with Google Project Fi drectly; no relations to traditional carrier whatsoever. You are expected to receive customer service call within 2 minutes from a live person. Also, if you prefer email, they reply back to your email within 4 hours. Great coverage and Amazing customer service with simplest billing you will see among all carriers. If you are within Wi-Fi ; call always gets received and placed through wi-fi. Another great feature is their international calling rates are the cheapest. Essentially you can carry same phone while on travel abroad; Project Fi covers you 120+ country on planet. True global phone. https://fi.google.com/about/rates/ You can pick up call from phone , desktop, tablet any device where you are logged on google account. Also, you are able to dial from either of these. For feedback from live customers ; you may check out Twitter feed.

Really good book to understand how and why google operates the way it does. And how it has created truly transformational platforms and products. Adds chronology up to as recent as self car driving project.

Happy birthday Sanjeev, Many happy returns of the day! Thanks and regards.

Quote from Greatest Generation - Silent Generation 1925 - 1945 Charlie Munger relevant on the topic. Reduced expectations is the best defense an investor has. This goes for anything in life. Most anger, disappointment and frustration comes from poorly managed expectations. Charlie jokingly said “I’m big on lowering expectations – that’s how I got married, my wife lowered hers.” Expect everything of yourself and nothing of the world and you will always be pleasantly surprised. http://liveyourlegend.net/25-unmissable-lessons-from-a-weekend-with-warren-buffett/ http://www.esds1.pt/site/images/stories/isacosta/secondary_pages/10%C2%BA_block1/Generations%20Chart.pdf

Subscribe to Twitter feed from WSJ so it gives headline of articles. Then follow the method below. What's the google backdoor?

Not sure about spending $2,150 on monthly rent forever and thinking it's an economical option; when you can get same place subsidized place cheaper. Is it only applicable in Canada.? Or why someone would need 500K downpayment for similar space?

>>>houses in good school districts are 2x to 2.5x of average school districts in our area. Also, if you see the data for last 5 years since downturn in home prices lasted in 2010-2011-2012; houses purchased in good school district around that time have outpaced in appreciation by the same factors and multiples. And, meanwhile, rents have increased proportionally as well. We have a 1-year-old son. Over the past year, and the years before as we observed the many people around us who had kids, it became quite clear that kids can be as expensive or inexpensive as you want. And a lot of what people spend on kids isn't actually things that make them happier and better people. In fact, the best thing for most kids would be to spend more time with their parents, and to see those parents be stress-free and happy. Most people spend all their time away from their kids to earn enough to buy a bunch of crap that the kids don't even notice and that they would gladly trade for more time with their parents (do they care if you drive a BMW instead of a Honda or that you have granite countertops instead of wood?). Between me and my wife having forgone about a 7 digit aggregate pay cut over a 4-5 year period, to spend more time with kids, I cannot agree with you more. I stopped going to office from the day my son was born, working from home for 7 years that offered a lot of flexibility. Finally I quit my job entirely when my wife was pregnant with our second. I used to take frequent unpaid 3 month time off as well. Main motive was time with kids. A good school district brings a lot of intangible benefits that I did not realize before my son started going to school. Moving to a good school district though increased our housing costs quite a bit. Vinod

The difference between Al's calculation and mornignstar return could be due to dividends are reinvested every year creating larger # of shares per year. Are you sure about that???? I must be misunderstanding you. You can't add the % dividend increase to the stock price change. It is total dividend plus stock price change. And you calculate the dividend increase as a percentage of the stock price not the prior dividend level. http://performance.morningstar.com/stock/performance-return.action?region=USA&t=KO&stocktab=returns&culture=en-US

As tech world moves more towards cloud computing , we may see capex versus opex debate becoming prevalent. What once considered an depreciated asset on balancesheet (software) now goes through only income statement. so this may pronounce effect. http://logicalisaus.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/understanding-capex-vs-opex/ To me that actually sounds rather bullish. :) Just more evidence that most companies have not really bought into the recovery. Since recessions are generally caused by excess, and companies aren't investing, maybe that will push off the next recession even longer.

Sanjeev, Many happy returns of the day! Enjoy !

Sanjeev, Contributed to great cause. Thanks as always. Rgds.

It seems in his last visits Prem might have visited Gujarat,india where Modi was State minister for 12 years before he ran national election and won by big margin. You would able to see marked difference between overall india vs gujarat. Rgds.

Bachelors in Electronics Engineering, MS in Comp Sci . Working in Health IT.

Many congratulations and best wishes , Packer. Thank you for your insights.

Thanks Giofranchi, it was just an observation. Agreed with what you say. We all here would prefer to have 2009 type of year, so that we do not have to think, but buy. Thanks for 17 year reference. I re-read below two articles from buffett from 99 and 01 circa. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/11/22/269071/ http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/12/10/314691/ No, wait! I can agree with Packer that the bull market might go on for yet another while… but don’t tell me it has just started… please, look at the chart! It is 5 years now the market has gone nowhere but up… Isn’t that a good enough definition of a bull market? ;) giofranchi Well, you don’t want to make things too complicated, do you? … What you have written is what happens during “secular bear markets” … But do you really want to talk about that? If you do and care (but I am not sure!), 2009 as the end of the "secular bear market" is simply inconsistent with history, meaning what can be observed about “secular bear markets” of the past: 1) Inconsistent with the mean duration of “secular bear markets”: 9 years instead of 17 years. 2) Inconsistent with market valuations: in 2009 market valuations were still much higher than they were at other “secular bear market” bottoms. 3) Inconsistent with logic: in 2000 valuations were the highest ever reached, and the secular bull market just ending was one of the longest lived. Why then should we expect a shorter and a more benign “secular bear market”, instead of a longer and a tougher one? giofranchi

We probably can go back to 1999s (about 14 years) s&p 1553 and find market has gone nowhere in real sense. No, wait! I can agree with Packer that the bull market might go on for yet another while… but don’t tell me it has just started… please, look at the chart! It is 5 years now the market has gone nowhere but up… Isn’t that a good enough definition of a bull market? ;) giofranchi

Supposedly about 15% of Californians are uninsured. Does anyone believe they have an extra $9,492 in their annual family budget with which to purchase one of these bronze plans? I'm curious to see how many people actually sign up versus pay the $500 penalty. The penalty of course is only 5% of the actual cost of insurance. Not much of a penalty really. I believe you still have to factor tax credit based on income level, which considering median or avg income of 55K for household in CA , would be about 6000 to 7000 dollars. Please check how much will tax credit help me from below link. Let me know what you think. www.coveredca.com/frequently_asked_questions.html

In diamond bar, chino hills area where we moved in 2011, we were able to purchase 3000 sf home about 625k price range. In similar neighborhood, one can buy 2000-2200 sf home today for similar price range. Same neighborhoods during bubble were about million plus. Our criteria was to be In good school district, safe neighborhood, and be closer to LA from what positives it offer , But farther enough to be in family oriented neighborhood.

For past two years have coverage through QBE First Praetorian (sold through Wells Fargo) in so-cal.

Happy birthday Sanjeev . Have a great time!

Congratulations on 7th anniversary. Best wishes for many more great years ahead. You are one of the most down to earth and humble person I know. Thank you for all you do. Rgds.

Since we donot know how old are you or what is your preference in raising family. But, to be on the safe side , in general schools and safety are better in suburbs versus any US downtown for that matter. May Austin is exception, since more high tech jobs are there. In Los Angeles , downtown would be ghetto place to live , unless you are single. But, do concur with you on activity though in local market here in southland. We purchased in July 2011 home in decent suburb in LA. At that time home was foreclosed by bank and was on market about 6 months. No competition what so ever. Now , in same city if you list a home today after 25% of appreciated values, people are willing to buy without ever looking or inspecting them. Homes move to pending status on the same day as they list as no inventory on market. For what we see, Mostly people are chasing the missing interest rate boat. Thanks and rgds.

That summarizes my position nicely. I want the stock to go up fast, or I wouldn't have bought Leaps. I like to see a company succeed but I have bought all the stock I will ever buy and now I want that share price up. Raising the dividend to 0.50 instead of the buybacks would have pushed the stock above $15.00 quickly, possibly even up to $20.00. Now we wait another year which means another cycle of leaps, and the frictional costs involved. That's the risk with LEAPs...there is always a time arbitrage involved and hell of a lot shorter than the warrants. Do you still hold any common or warrants? Or did you switch it all to LEAPs? Cheers! Sanjeev, Do you concur with Eric's assessment that tarp warrants in longer run (yr 3 to 6) are losers game? And, what are your view on bac warrants going forward ? Thanks.

Eric, Congratulations for great returns past 10 years. Have you used / do you use leverage from margin loans? Or leverage only consists from options , warrants etc? Thanks for clarifying. Rgds.