ScottHall

The biggest thing that I've gotten out of this thread is that we should all be douchebags to people who don't have the same opinions, outlooks on life, and socioeconomic backgrounds as we do.

At today's prices? Not particularly. I recommended it internally at The Motley Fool when it was half this price a few years ago, though. To be clear, that video isn't a stock pitch. It's just an explanation of a business model. I won't be pitching stocks in any of my videos, just explaining subjects that I find interesting.

Thanks for the compliment. No, Scott Hall is my real name. I got that a lot in 1st/2nd grade, kids asked if I was named after him. I didn't even know who he was.

Just one? I don't think I'd be willing to buy just one stock. If you mean to add a new one to my existing portfolio, that's a bit easier. It'd probably be Priceline. It has consistently been on my list of runners up, and I've just never gotten around to buying it. The economics of that business are very attractive.

I never went to high school. I dropped out of fourth grade, and also community college. It's sort of an interesting story. I applied to the company I work for now three times before I was hired. The first time was for an internship, and I was not given an interview. The second time was for its "Analyst Development Program," and again, I was not allowed an interview. Soon after I began talking with one of the guys who was hired for the program on the company's message boards, and I told him about a company that had just sold half of its acres of the Niobrara shale to Chesapeake for more than its entire market cap, and still had the rest of the acreage on its books. The company was Samson Oil & Gas. I told him I thought it could be a big winner, and he agreed and bought some shares. A month or two later the shares had doubled and he doubled his money on the investment, and I had tripled my money. We both sold out and made off like bandits. We also got extremely lucky, as it turned out, but the money spent the same. And that was the start of it. He recommended I get an interview for the next round of ADP, and although I was very socially awkward at the time (still am, to a lesser extent) I didn't perform poorly enough to not get hired. From there, I eventually was promoted to Senior Analyst, but I grew bored of my role very quickly. A month or two later, someone in marketing ended up asking me if I wanted to come work for him, and I thought it'd be a fun challenge and agreed to do so. So that's what I'm doing now, and how I got there. In a nutshell.

I agree. I basically view myself as someone who found an exploit in how society works & values people that let me get away with not following some of its rules and traditions. I think that's interesting, for sure, but it's something I think anyone can do if they're willing. There are probably better uses or ways than I've figured out, as well. Thanks for listening. Soonish, on the next video. I'd guess by the end of February, but possibly sooner. I am thinking of tackling the difference between professional boxing and MMA in regards to economics for the fighters, focusing on the importance of bargaining power. But I have a dozen ideas; the first one just took quite a bit of effort, so I'm figuring out how to do it without investing multiple weeks into production time. I intend the next one to be much shorter; probably six or seven minutes. In terms of percentage, my highest return ever was GGP. I was very young at the time so my stake was very small, but I bought shares at $2 and sold when they hit $16. Should have held longer as it turns out. After that, of public investments, Samson Oil & Gas, where I earned more than 200% in a year or so. My worst investment was when I was trying to figure out if there was a way to consistently profit from junior mining companies, and I had -70% on some of those before I figured it wasn't worth the hassle to figure out which ones were going to get bought out. Overall (private and public investments) I've generated a little over a 20% XIRR since 2008, which is satisfactory to me. Strictly speaking, that's true. I think I have 6 college credits from before I dropped out of community college. Third grade is my highest level of completed education, though. I continue to work because I like the company I work for and my friends who work there, and it's an easy way to stay in contact. I negotiated a part time deal, so I'm semi-retired as it is. Additionally, so long as I remain an employee, I can trade in shares of my employer, which is a privately held company. I can't really go into more detail about that, though. A little over 20% XIRR since 2008. That's difficult, because I don't really think about investing on a yearly basis, but rather a continuous one. I suppose they're the same companies I own currently. Over the next year, who knows. Over ten? Essentially, my existing portfolio. I plan to retire as close to the people I care most about as possible. Right now, that is my family. :)

I am agnostic, personally, and view having a strong opinion of the supernatural either way to be pretty conceited. My paternal grandfather's side of the family was Presbyterian and my maternal grandmother's side of the family were witches & gypsies, so I've gotten religious education from several different perspectives. Ultimately I determined they were all pretty much speculating, and that religion is more useful as a social tool than it is as an actual belief. This also applies to atheism. Because I was bored and I figured you guys would be interested in talking to me about just about anything. What's the point of life in general? You're probably going to die anyway, so there's really not much of a difference between if you get hit by a truck tomorrow or live to be 100. I think asking those sorts of questions are sort of counterproductive, as more often than not there's no satisfying answer if you follow the chain of thought to its logical conclusion. For practical considerations, you probably should care about my life quite a bit. Realistically I am a huge outlier in a lot of ways, not all of them positive. But I do think there's something to learn from that about how society in general could operate more efficiently, and certainly there's something in my life that you could apply on a personal level to do so. You don't have to talk to me about investing. I'll discuss anything that I have any thoughts on, regardless of the subject. I don't have thoughts on everything, though. Thanks. I agree. Ericopoly's thread is pretty interesting, for example.

You guys really should ask me more questions. :(

BTW, for those worried about cost of admission to try out this guy's newsletter service, most reputable newsletter publishers offer a money back guarantee. Agora is doing a 30 day guarantee, here. I've seen up to multi-year guarantees for some of my employer's services. You're probably safe trying it out and just refunding if you don't like it.

I wonder if this dude has had a 100 bagger before. The best investor I know has a cost basis on Amazon of $3.

I love options. Particularly, the yields I can get from selling them on stocks perceived to be particularly volatile. I recently made 5% on notional in a couple weeks (not annualized) by selling the Wayfair $35 puts. They expired worthless. LEAPS and warrants interest me from an investment perspective... short term stuff, I'm more interested in being the insurance provider.

Most people should just be in index funds. I wouldn't talk him out of it.

Don't die. Have a good time. Hang out with friends and family. That's pretty much it.

Congrats on the board appointment. PICO's an interesting one, though I've never owned it. Unless that's a total coincidence that a new board member was announced today.

What brought this on? By the way, the problem with Warren Buffett isn't that he has flaws. So do you, so do I, so does everyone on this board and in the larger world. The problem is that value investors deify him. I know value investing has its own Holy Trinity with Graham, Buffett and Munger, but it's important to recognize that although you can learn a lot from these people, their investment philosophies are not authoritatively right. Meaning, just because they invest a certain way doesn't mean you have to, and it doesn't mean there aren't better ways. One of the best investors I know is a high growth investor, who buys all the stocks everyone on this forum hates and has for several decades. His returns are quite good, and they'd be out of this world if he could figure out how to filter out failed growth investments (80%+ losers) from his picks. I've been working at incorporating his insights into my own investing style, which has gone from deep value to a growth/value hybrid over the years. So far it's worked out well but it's still very early days. I have 40+ years to go. The key point is that Buffett's style is Buffett's. Graham's style was Graham's, Munger's is Munger's. There are things you can take from each of these people without deifying and/or demonizing them, but their philosophies aren't something you should copy and paste over your own. They're men and men are fallible; humans are without exception all weak in certain ways. I've gotten much more use from these men by looking at the frameworks they've provided than from their actual investing philosophies and quirks. Ben Graham was great for being a pioneer in the valuation of securities, rather than his specific techniques for valuing them. Buffett is great because he crystallized concepts of unique forms of leverage that can give insight into which sort of companies can earn returns supercharged by financial steroids. Munger is great because of his use and study of mental models, which allow you to use the teachings of all three men (and many others) and apply them in ways that they weren't necessarily originally intended, at least when viewing their writings narrowly. All three are legendary in the field, and for good reason. But all of their work can be improved upon; Graham was essentially a visionary who challenged the investing conventions of the time and gave the world a baseline for valuation that was pretty much unheard of at the time. Yet today, many of his more fervent supporters are zealous about his theories and are unwilling to accept that there may be better ways to go about investment. Not that all do, but it's a pretty sizable bloc. It's sort of ironic; a visionary who challenged convention ended up breeding a cult that refuses to accept any other standard than the convention he established. It's sort of interesting to me. Followers of the man who brought the concept of float to light have largely missed Amazon, one of the greatest beneficiaries of float in the modern era. So many love the concepts, and understand them. But they are not comfortable with the application beyond the basics that Buffett handed them. The opportunity cost on that is huge; you just have to get a little creative with your thinking. That's how I view the whole church of value, anyway. So many great ideas and concepts that are misapplied, underapplied, or applied so devoutly that the good concepts of other investing philosophies are shut out. The fathers of value investing are great men, and these is much we can learn from them. But they are not gods, and they should not be held to such a high standard either personally or professionally. It is not fair to them, and it is not fair to us.

I lol'd at oddball, but your question is the relevant one. Like Morgan said, this kind of military style might work for some people and some companies. Wouldn't work for me, though I do see value in being more thrifty, more organized, more detail oriented, etc. There is recognized psychological value both for the person doing it and for the clients. As long as it does not blow back killing growth/innovation/etc. I.e. they might not have invented glass ceramic ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Donald_Stookey ). But perhaps they did not need to. :) Not a company for ScottHall, definitely. 8) The funny thing is that my grandfather ran a pretty good sized construction/engineering company for about a quarter century, and was also strongly motivated by efficiency. The margins in the industry are generally terrible, and at the time for the niches the company worked in, were about 1-2%. So he'd say, hey, if you guys can do your jobs just one percent more efficiently, we'll double our profits. Got a vanity license plate printed up to that effect, which is pretty cool. Did some work on the BART system, which is (to my understanding) how the company expanded from a rather small outfit to a pretty large company in its own right, though by no means massive. It eventually sold out to a roll-up, I think towards the end of the 90s. Quanta Services, PWR. I never heard stories this extreme, though; pretty sure it wasn't anywhere to this level, given certain stories I heard about personnel issues in the "old days". Probably wouldn't fly at all at CF Braun, perhaps rightfully.

This company sounds batshit insane to me.

Turn off the AC and/or use Audacity or some other editing tool to isolate & remove the background noise. It'll improve production quality a lot. You could get a higher quality mic, though note that if your computer has a shitty power supply you'll get an awful buzzing noise with some of them (Blue Yeti is what I use), which is time consuming but not particularly difficult to remove in post production. Edit: Actually your audio isn't too bad, it's the guy on the other end.

Many retailers do count online sales in their SSS numbers. For example, from WMT's 10-K: http://d1lge852tjjqow.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000104169/e9f9e299-fd66-4675-b9a9-9f6e56e5cc2b.pdf?noexit=true

Well, good luck on his call but doing this with 100% of a portfolio is probably insane even if he turns out to be right. It's one thing if it's your own money, but managing on behalf of others is a different story. At least he's upfront about it so people who are uncomfortable can get out if they want.

I'd come but I hate dressing up.

This game looks pretty awesome. I love the Cold War theme, maybe I'll pick it up. :) Thanks for the recommendation.

Ever played the Europa Universalis games? I really like those I haven't, but I've played Crusader Kings II pretty extensively. It's from the same studio; the goal is to expand your family's influence over generations. I imagine I'd like Europa Universalis as well.

Hi everyone, I was wondering if any of the members of this board enjoy strategy board & computer games. It seems as though the traits required to enjoy investing would overlap with some of the traits required to enjoy strategy games, so I thought I'd ask. I'm on an 18XX kick right now, which in my view is pretty close to an ideal game series for equity investors. I've been playing a lot of 1830: Railways and Robber Barons in particular, and enjoy it quite a bit. When I was younger I used to be very heavily into the election simulators from 80soft but I've lost interest in these over the past five years or so.

This has been obvious for a long time now. I wasn't so sure. He's done a great job with his restaurant businesses, all things considered, but I think that a different skillset is probably required here. So I think he's probably a good businessman, but not necessarily a good leader. No, he's not a good CEO or leader of people, and the restaurants were doing best when he had better people around him. The restaurant business in the last couple of years has been neglected, as he over-leveraged it and was focused on CBRL and other endeavours...such as getting control and voting rights. Cheers! Well, you've been following it a lot closer than I have and have experience with the man so I'll defer to your judgment on the matter.