oddballstocks

Yes, if you're already wealthy and can live off your returns when why bring in partners? I agree with that. If you have a few million of your own cash forget partners. But if this is $2.5m of partner money you'd be better off working at Costco. At $2.5m you'll have $25k in management fees, and let's say you earn 10%, the historical market return (being realistic, not pie in the sky) so the fund earns $250k. You get 10% of that, another $25k. You're at $50k before expenses. You have to pay for healthcare, compliance, legal fees. You can earn $23/hr at Costco today with set hours, and healthcare. After tax you walk away with more. The problem is there is a rubicon here. If you have the ability to do this professionally for someone else you might make $80k-120k at some fund. To do that on your own you need $10-15m in assets. And suddenly $10-15m isn't hobby money anymore. As racemize said, if you're content being a hobbyst that's awesome, live off your own capital and enjoy life. But if you're wondering how to grow your business then you need to learn to sell, like the vol guy, the country club guy, like anyone else who sells. And let me say, selling isn't bad. When I want to go to the park on a sunny day but my wife wants to mulch I am selling her on my idea. As an analyst/PM you are SELLING others on your ideas. When you interview for a job you're selling yourself. When you're trying to win an argument you're selling your ideas. When you try to get accepted into a college you're selling your ability. Once people accept and realize that we all are in sales things get much easier. This isn't some slimy door to door vacuum thing. And when I see so many people against the idea of selling it makes me realize that most people have no idea how sales and business actually work, and second why some people are successful and others aren't.

I'd log into Amazon and start buying books on marketing and sales. Traction Spin Selling Pitch Anything Tested Advertising Methods You just had an 'ah-ha' moment, and if you embrace it you will do well. You just realized you are running a business, but have no idea how to do the thing that keeps a business alive, selling. You also learned that the whole "returns matter" is a myth and that the academic theory about commodity businesses is false as well. I mean why aren't people beating down your door? You charge the same and have a better product than competitors? Hmm, maybe a commodity business doesn't exist. Build out your unique value proposition. Why am I investing with you? What's different? Why are you unique? This is why we have so many niche funds, because this is how they sell. The problem is everyone thinks selling Buffett works, it doesn't, there are too many doing it. Sell something different. Unless you're doing 50% a month, or flipping houses, or doing real estate courses, or some options trading program you don't sell returns. If you sell returns money flows when it's hot, and by hot you need something that will pack an venue because people are greedy. But....even then returns don't sell, they get people interested, in any of these return based scam things they get people there then they have hard closers working like dogs to convert people. The pitch is mostly the same, the product is good and you'll miss out if you leave. How will you feel if you miss out? That's a very basic psychologial mechanism, the feeling of losing out. It won't create long lasting customers, but if all you want is $5k for a seminar who cares? Why did you start a fund? What's your background? Here are some concrete examples. You used to be a doctor, but now you're a fund manager. You'll be using the scientific method to discover investments. You are great under stress, and can handle extremely complicated situations. You have an edge in bio-related stocks. Think unconventially. I talked with one guy who marketed himself as follows. He joined the nicest country club where he lived. He went and golfed EVERY DAY. He would go alone and join up with anyone looking for a partner. Then he'd give them stock tips. His strategy was that 99.9% of the people would forget the stock he named. He didn't care. If a stock went up in a few weeks when he was with them again he'd mention that fact. "I mentioned XYZ last time, it's up 15%" He obviously never mentioned ones that went down. This got people interested in him. And they were his perfect clients, doctors, lawyers, executives. He grew his fund from $1m to $40m like this in a year or so. He runs a vanilla value fund, but he marketed and sold. This is your greatest challenge right now. I'd put 100% of your energy into it.

I knew someone on here (CoBF) who wrote a program to grind through the Investment Ideas forum and calculate returns. Two things stuck out: 1) The shorter the thread the higher the returns 2) There were some people who created a lot of 1-2 post threads who killed it He ran the same thing over VIC and got the exact same results. And before anyone asks, no I will not share what was sent to me. It was a few years ago, and I wasn't the one who wrote it. Anyone with freshmen level programming experience should be able to do the same thing in a few hours.

There is signal value to being a member if you're trying to get a job. But I'm not sure beyond it. I have a friend who forwards interesting ideas, mostly it's the comments that are interesting. I submitted something years ago, it was rejected, it doubled as I predicted, no dice. I talked to others, they said the same, they submitted excellent ideas, did well, nothing. Then I started to think, it seemed like VIC was some sort of investment honeypot where Greenblatt could harvest the best ideas out there for nothing in return. They show the formula for what you should fit your write-up into. I believe if you can find a mid/large value stock that meets their parameters that's in the US you have a chance of getting in.

Bloomberg does their own as well. They have a shop in Asia that manually inputs this stuff by hand. SNL inputs by hand as well.

I can take you to a few No-Go Zones in East Cleveland as well, same with Cincinnati, and that's in urban areas. Why don't you come out to W PA with me and we'll go driving down some rural dirt roads, the type of places where people come out of their house if they don't recognize the car and yell at you asking what you're doing. I have on accident a few times turned onto barely passable dirt roads and I'm always met by a local who isn't happy I'm there. And these are the types of locals who have an abundance of guns and spots to hide a body... I've only been to Europe once, but it felt much nicer than the US. We never worried about making a wrong left turn and being in a ghetto. I did stumble on a gypsy camp, but it seemed like they kept to themselves. In most of the Rust Belt it's common to have a guard at the entrance of a factory. In most cases (now) this guard is making sure your car isn't stolen while you're working. But like most places in the world, if you have street sense and can navigate away from those sorts of areas then America is incredible.

I love the idea of renewables, but sun doesn't shine at night and wind isn't constant either. Until we get Silicon Valley to solve those problems we're going to need something else to fill the gap. In terms of blue chips being cut down... This wasn't just in the 1930s crash. Look at any major crash and it happens everywhere. What's unique about the US is we haven't experienced this again. We had the 2008 crash, but everything bounced so quickly.

Which is essentially paying $18,800/year for 5 years (or about 100k) for your Canadian citizenship. For US healthcare, it's crazy expensive if you're not on an employer-sponsored plan. It's absolutely ridiculous. If I was retired or whatnot, and not wealthy, I would not be living here. I always ask, who is getting rich from all this? Is it the doctors? I don't think so. The government? Doubtful. Insurance/Pharma? Now we're getting warm... I have my own plan this year. To keep things updated, for a family of six in the US: $960/mo for coverage, with a $3800 deductible and $14k total out of pocket. I think there's a 20% co-insurance or so. This isn't terrible at all. When I was able to buy through a group it was $200 a month, plus a $5k deductible and the company paid $1000 a month on my behalf. I was able to find something better on my own. But all of that said. If you're tapping out on health care that $18k a year is cheap. Also worth noting. I've since done some research into this. The investor visa is ONLY available in Quebec. Canada suspended it, but Quebec still has it. For $1.2m USD you can become Canadian and live in Quebec. Worth considering at least...

https://www.alphavantage.co It’s realtime with 20 year history. You have to write code to call and parse, but it sounds like you already have that.

LOL, that is hilarious. Are you new to reddit? HA..so true. I thought it was a clever post, but a bit on the simple side.

This is key, if you're offering an out at any time then you need to have the cash laying around. That isn't ideal. Talk to your accountant. There are tax implications as well for the remaining partners. Typically in small business transactions like this the remaining partners buy out the seller over time.

There are really two ways to look at this: 1) True AI - My co-founder and myself joke that getting to artificial stupidity would be a good first step. We're a long way off here, maybe a step or two off the starting line. 2) Situational AI - This is leaps and bounds beyond what was available a few years to decades ago. This is self-driving cars, or behind the scenes apps. The intelligence needs to be coded into it, but it's extremely powerful. This is because there are bounds. True AI would say that a self driving car might decide one day to learn chess. But situational AI doesn't need that and doesn't care. Consider your day to day. The automatic routing for Google is mind blowing. It evaluates real-time traffic, looks at estimated future traffic based on patterns and gives you a route. What's even crazier is there are thousands asking for the same routes at the same time, and Google is intelligent enough to not cause traffic jams. It is able to re-route people and disperse traffic. That's incredible. I think AI and robots are two separate discussions. The intelligence to program something to recognize doors, recognize stairs, and understand how to turn a knob is fairly simple. The difficulty is programming a robot to mimic human muscles and interactions. You're conflating two different things here. Ultimately AI will slip into different aspects of our lives. Like Google maps we won't notice it improving. I don't believe in the singularity, but I think AI will be helpful and will make people's lives easier. I know some of the software my company builds might be viewed as AI-ish to end users, but it's really just taking a lot of information, knowing what to do with it and outputting a value.

Yes I was trying to do the same thing. What I did is kind of a poor man's integration. The accelerated rocket has its own proper time...but its proper time is instantaneously increasing at the same rate as an observer that happens to be travelling at the same speed at that particular moment. To figure out the real proper time in the rockets frame of reference you have to do an integration where the proper time is continuously changing. I'll work on that this week. But what I did kind of approximates that since I look at observers that are within 0.5c of the rocket at each stage of the calc...their proper time must be within a factor of at most 0.866 of the rocket itself and so I can figure out what the rocket is experiencing by looking at what each successive observer measures. But you are right. Acceleration to speeds close enough to light speed to make the galaxy seem really small are possible within a lifetime. So its possible to traverse the whole galaxy in a person's lifetime. Pretty cool. This is fascinating. The question is then what sort of thrust is required? How much energy do you need for each acceleration? From what I've read there are two issues. The first is the raw power, the second is overcoming Earth's pull. So in theory if you wanted to do this you'd need to build the ship in space. You wouldn't need to waste as much energy escaping the Earth. Unfortunately we don't have the tech to build spaceships in space currently.

+1 And of course since indexes are market cap weighted they are essentially overweight 'great companies' meaning that index investors are doing just this. If you want to buy the market leaders in each industry don't waste your time researching, just buy the index. You will always be overweight the best, even when the best is shuffled around. If you're looking to buy cheap companies and churn you can do better than the index somewhat easily if you have a disciplined process. If you're buying 'the best' then it becomes really hard because these companies are A) in indexes and B) the largest positions in the index. So you are essentially betting that you can find something better than the best companies in the market that hasn't been discovered yet. That's really tough.

FDIC insured?

I can't. I think its a theoretical possibility but happens rarely in practice. But even if it did, I'm not sure how to screen for debt. Does anyone know how to do screens for debt? Can I just use EQS? The problem with the whole idea is that its very strongly premised on the idea of the debt becoming the equity because otherwise the debt has no "ownership" over the company and so its really nonsense unless this is the case. How much money are you looking to deploy here? I ask because this would quickly become a very active involvement. To make sure the debt has standing you're going to need to hire lawyers, stand up the debt committee (to make sure you get what you want) and then fight it through. I think an easier route to go is to find a company like this that has a bank line, then call the bank and try to buy it off of them. The bank likely knows there's trouble, and will want to dump it and would take a discount to par. So say you can buy it at 90% of par then force the company into receivership you have your equity upside as you can rebuild things and get it on track. Not bad in theory. I'd try to test it on a small situation before a big one. Network and build connections at a bank and see what they'll sell. Here's how you do that. Approach a bank and say "I'm looking to buy some loans from your very best customers." They'll package up anything they want to unload and you're off to the races. Sounds like a cool approach.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15616880

Started to invest on my own in 2005. I guess I'm ok at this, results have been satisfactory. That's the key right? Since I've had good results I'm 'good'. If results were poor I'd just say your time horizon that you're judging me on wasn't long enough yet.. It's interesting what you can do with a little saving juiced with investing. I commented to my wife this morning that she has $60k saved in IRA's. That's notable considering she worked for six years and rarely saved more than $2-3k a year. I've had some good picks and combined with time and she has more money saved for retirement compared to most 35 year olds. And that's mind blowing because she only worked and saved for six years. I agree with Jurgis, luck plays a very important factor in all of this. You need to know when to pull the trigger, but I've had a lot of lucky things happen too. Time seems to be the biggest factor. I sometimes toss around the idea of figuring out a way to setup an IRA for my kids, then tossing $10k in there for each. They're young enough (and the youngest especially) that simple market growth on that 10k might mean they'd never have to save a cent for retirement. For the baby $10k today at 10% is $5m when he retires at 65, a crazy thought.

Case in point: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-21/pittsburghs-startups-blame-google-for-stealing-tech-talent I know the Birchmere guys, and Google is draining talent. NoWait was a huge hit for them. Another drain is Uber. They've taken hordes of PhD's from CMU and the robotics lab. I have mixed feelings on this. The robotics lab was doing some ground breaking stuff that's been put on ice due to Uber's brain drain.

It's an interesting question, I like that "Pittsburg" is on the list, but Pittsburgh, the city in Pennsylvania isn't. Is this Pittsburg Kansas? I kid..we didn't have an "h" for a few years in the 1800s, but have had one since. What makes a region desirable? Everyone can claim good schools. I mean there are good schools everywhere, it's almost as if they're evenly distributed with our population.. I'm not sure it's a good thing to have Amazon. We have a few tech companies, Google, Apple, Uber etc and it's done some good things, but also put pressure on the market. Google has 450 employees here, I'm sure it's dwarfed by whatever's in NYC or Boston or whatever top tier cities there are, but they pay CA prices here. There is a Googler down our street. They overpaid for their house, overpay for everything and are trying to sell their house at a wildly inflated price. They are price insensitive. They purchased a second house and are dumping money into it like mad. The thing is making $175k here is more than what most mid level execs make at generi-corps and more than what most business owners make. Yet that's a fairly entry level salary. We have already had a boom, the O&G boom, and it'll be back once prices tick up again. Booms seem fun, until you're paying boom prices. Land went from $1500/acre in the country to $8,000/acre because suddenly everyone thought they were living on a gold mine. Rental prices increased, construction companies stopped caring about anything but O&G, it was madness. Even hotels. O&G guys were paying $120/night for dumps, so mid-tier places realized they could charge $150-200/night at a Fairfield Inn deep in the burbs and people would be forced to pay. Now compound this with 50,000 new jobs. The price pressure would be intense. Is that good? I don't know. I know someone second-hand who is moving from here to work for Amazon in NYC. He said the price difference for a house here to the burbs in NJ isn't that much. It's depressing to me to realize that I'm on the verge of living in a HCOL area. With Amazon and a few other tech companies who knows, this could be just as bad at NJ in terms of price, not something I'm excited about.

Here's my thing with auto loans, they're too small to move the needle. Look at past debt fueled falls, the debt is LBO deals, sovereign debt, or housing debt. The smallest end is housing debt, but we're still talking $200k-500k sometimes more in HCL areas. Contrast this with subprime auto, a $15k loan for a Dodge Neon at the high end. Maybe all those Neon loans go bad at once, there is still an underlying value, probably 50% of the face value, so a $7.5k markdown. How many of those loans do you need to make to equal one or two phoney home loans, and or a few bad pieces of corporate debt? I don't dispute that there is probably bad auto lending, but my point is this isn't the rot that will kill the system. Beyond that auto lending is a small portion of most bank's loan books. It isn't like residential or commercial lending where that amount dominates the book. For my $.02 it will be something that rocks the confidence of the system. Right now we have confidence in everything. Even TSLA which is having trouble producing cars is given a halo. Same with fraud laden ICO's, they've been given a market blessing. At some point some event will happen and people's eyes will be opened. When the confidence flows out a lot of things are going to fall like a rock.

They describe the BNY thing the same way you do, so they understood the transaction: "In December 2011, Bridgewater signed a deal with Alexander Hamilton's old bank: Bridgewater fired 91 back-office employees; BoNY hired these 91 practitioners of radical transparency to work Bridgewater's books in an outsourcing contract." I've read the piece, I've spent a few days emailing/chatting with friends about this as well as pondering it. My overall conclusion is this. That Grant has a reputation to defend and he must be sure of whatever he knows to publish this piece. My best guess is there are a few sources inside the company who said "don't quote or mention us, but here's how it works" and they went looking for public scraps to support the story. I've experienced this myself, it isn't uncommon. We don't know what the reality is with Bridgewater. The radical transparency stuff seems weird. Seems even weirder that he can tape employees, but employees aren't allowed to see any management meetings, it's not a two way street. The essence of the article calls into question a number of weird filing issues, the auditor thing and others. But it also points out that for a 1,500 person firm that Dalio and just a few others are really the only ones who invest. And recently Dalio isn't investing anymore, but promoting his book. If anything the article reads like a PSA for subscribers who might be fund clients to consider pulling cash and redeploying elsewhere. There is no "This is Madoff 2.0" or "it's a fraud" just a serious of questions worth considering like "what does it own?" and "why hasn't anyone seen their trades?" I'd be curious to know if anyone has seen the portfolio under an NDA or been able to get a copy under NDA. TwoCities have you seen the portfolio, or any portfolio? No need to know holdings, just a simple yes or know.

They use leverage I believe. The whole story is weird. I don't blame Allan for not working with this advisor. The guy sounds like a PITA, and now he's bitter about it.

What are pain points that can’t be fixed due to cultural issues? What will be your legacy? If you could take your best ideas and apply them to a competitor what would you do? Would you advise your kids to get into this industry? Can you walk me through the process from raw material to finished product? The last one is an interview question I love. It shows if candidates actually understand the business they work in. Most dive into some insane details with no relevance. “We do a PSDOF for the LDP department so they can XA the TF. If that’s approved it moves forward” an answe like this is screaming “I have no idea”

I was recently in a meeting with a mortgage company exec and what he explained opened my eyes to this entire identity world. I won't share the company's name, but their practice seems fairly common. He said they have invested a ton of money into buying identities and tracking people. Tracking: He said if you sign up for information, or visit their website and give ANY information they start to track you. They use a tool that is hooked into the back ends of a ton of common providers (Lowes, Home Depot, furniture sites, carpet sites). These companies share who has purchased what, and that's all consolidated back. This guy said they have a list of every person who's been to their site and then all of their subsequent web activity. If someone goes to the site and then starts to browse for couches and chairs and paint colors they know the person is curious about buying a house. They can then get their contact information and start calling them. Identities: The company requires a SSN and name with an application, so they have this stuff on file. He said with that they can buy identities for most potential clients. But the real information is linked to a driver license number. He said a combination of SSN and driver license number unlocks everything about a person. This company is actively working to acquire as much data as possible. They don't know what to do with it, but they think they want more. It's a hording mentality. Security: This was a sub $1b ($800m) mortgage company, so they're pretty small. The President told me he would hire 'anyone' who could start today and get work done, they're strapped for talent. I didn't ask about security, but given how shoe string and duct tape this place seemed, and their hiring practices I'm guessing security isn't at the top of their list. What this means is there's a database sitting out there with millions of people's information, detailed things such as driving records, detailed financial records and no one is making sure it's secure. It's a sitting duck for being hacked. This was just one company, now extrapolate this across the country. At some point you have to realize that nothing is private or secure anymore.