longtermdave
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Posts posted by longtermdave
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The fishes; there’s variation in how it’s applied, but the messages are clear. Ultimately there’s a bounty, and a ‘permitted’ short position.
When it’s over both the target and the whistle-blower are no longer part of the organization, and the whistle-blower walks as an example.
10% commission. Reinterpreted as re-possession being nine tenths of the law.
This part was too opaque for me. Can you add some detail? How would someone short in a business like you're describing? I assume "walks" means "survives"? The commission goes to...the surviving members?
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After watching one out of the many short videos (on valuing banks - dodged it by quoting Aesop), I was stuck by how much he's slurring. He sounds like I've heard other older people sound after getting new teeth. Is this new? I don't watch videos as much as I read transcripts, so maybe I've missed this.
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84.8B cash - 24% of the market cap.
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I don't know why it isn't in the link that started this thread, but in the SEC filings there is an additional note. This is what integrity looks like:
GoodwillWe have not done as well as the market for a couple of years and we wanted to take this opportunity to address that:
1. We could explain that we have been managing money for than 30 years and explain that there will always be times where we are going to underperform for a period of time.
2. We could point out that in 2004, we won the Morningstar Manager of the Decade award in Canada.
3. We could write a lengthy tome of more than 100 pages on each of our significant holdings with the goal of demonstrating convincingly why we believe that they are so cheap and why we believe that the market is so wrong.
4. We could write about why we believe that our sound investment principles and a commitment to integrity and being fair to our investors should translate into better results over the long term business cycle.
But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, the reality is that we have not done well in the recent past and, particularly, in the previous reporting period and the previous year. So, as a gesture of goodwill and what we believe to be the fairest way to behave, we made a voluntary capital contribution in February 2016 of $918,468 which approximates to the 2015 management fees that we were paid by Chou Opportunity Fund. We have also decided to voluntarily waive the fee going forward for the calendar year 2016.
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I spoke to a Brit about this two days ago. He thinks you should stay in because of what happened with Norway. The Norwegians have to obey EU trade laws or they can't access the market. At the same time, they have no voice in determining those laws because they're on the outside.
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And more...
Buffett's Bad Year Puts Berkshire Shares In A Funk
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Even people who know better get sucked into these things, despite "modern" theories.
During the first part of 1999, Soros funds were betting big against Internet stocks, in keeping with Mr. Soros's view that the Internet craze would end badly. As that craze instead kept gathering force, the Quantum Fund found itself down 20% by last July. Mr. Druckenmiller, who was concentrating on investments such as currencies, took back the reins of the stock portfolio. But, calling himself a "dinosaur," he looked for help.Mr. Druckenmiller recruited Carson Levit, a respected money manager who grew up in Silicon Valley and didn't mind paying sky-high prices for tech stocks. Mr. Soros, however, put Mr. Levit through a grueling eight-hour interview, disagreeing with him time and time again. By the end of the session, Mr. Soros said: "Stan obviously wants to bring you in, but I'm still nervous," Mr. Levit recalls. "He looked at me like I was sort of a nut." Still, Mr. Levit was hired to help manage the biggest part of the Soros stock portfolio, soon to be dominated by tech stocks.
You can see Cialdini's principles of influence acting in this case: authority, social proof, reciprocity, liking, scarcity, and commitment & consistency, all combining to generate an almost irresistible Lollapalooza that sucked in everyone, even though they knew it would end badly.
http://www.colorado.edu/economics/courses/econ2020/4111/articles/soros-fund.html
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Munger Says Prepare for Harder World as Purchasing Power Slides:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/munger-says-prepare-harder-world-185025204.html
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i hope people can separate between the "people/posts" vs "tool used"
Is that separation really appropriate? I think it's underappreciated how tools and the way they're used influence our psychology and behavior. Many people here seem to sense this, and I suspect it's the source of the "don't fix what's broke" responses. If the influences are subconscious, how can you be sure some changes won't be damaging?
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NPR's Planet Money had a good episode on cotton farming and how cotton is not all the same:
http://apps.npr.org/tshirt/#/cotton
Actually, the whole series is good.
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Think of your house two ways. First, as a place to build a family, a community, and great memories. Second, as a source of large hidden liabilities like a new roof, new HVAC, new garage door opener, etc., that will pop up unexpectedly. In addition, there's the constant updating to keep the Mrs. happy. These are all bills that will come due eventually and you'll need a good cushion of cash to cover many of them.
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Congrats rk and merkhet! Do you mind sharing your portfolio strategies? I think you rank in the top 1/10 of 1% of fund managers!!
My secrets are that 1) I don't manage other people's money, just my own. I think that right there gives me an advantage over you professionals (no withdrawals) and reduces stress. 2) I go big when I have a good idea. In the past I have usually had 2-5 good ideas at a time. This year it was mostly just BAC with a lot of leverage. 3) I coat tail other investors at least to initially find my ideas. When I find one I love, I invest big. I made a lot following Biglari into Western sizzlin, Friendlys, Steak & Shake. I did well with NFLX and CMG a few years ago (sold both too early), as well as ISRG. I made out very well with the MIDD/OVEN merger a few years back. And now BAC. I have no idea where my next idea will come from, but I'll know it when I find it. It seems to be working so far.
What program/site do you use to get those return calculations?
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Hah! Thanks Mohnish! ;D
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I'm extremely concerned with the real estate market. Two weeks ago i was looking at a multi family property that has listed on the market for 12 days. Within 12 days it had 2 offers and one of the offers was from an international buyer! This market has NEVER been a market where there are international buyers! I had a convo about this with a president of a local bank and he said that its a dangerous time to invest in real estate due to rent rates have not increased really since 2007. But asset prices have increased 25 plus percent since the lows.
What market are you in? I've been funding some people who are flipping residential properties and the term is nearly up on the loan. I've been considering whether I should continue funding their next project since prices are up so much and so quickly.
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I also believe that if the shooters felt they would never make it on the front page of the paper or on nationwide news most of them probably would not commit the crime.
I fully agree here. I just wish it were possible.
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Wow, just saw the news. This is terrible.
Just makes you wonder what's wrong with the world . . .
I think it's what's wrong with human psychology. If you're already disturbed, seeing the shooting in Oregon gives social proof for going out and doing something similar. Just like airplane crashes increase after a first well-publicized one.
Malcom Gladwell wrote about this phenomoen in "Tipping Point" with relation to teen suicide in Micronesia. I thought it was an excellent book.
"No. I think it's much more than that, because once you start to understand this pattern you start to see it everywhere. I'm convinced that ideas and behaviors and new products move through a population very much like a disease does. This isn't just a metaphor, in other words. I'm talking about a very literal analogy. One of the things I explore in the book is that ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is. One chapter, for example, deals with the very strange epidemic of teenage suicide in the South Pacific islands of Micronesia. In the 1970's and 1980's, Micronesia had teen suicide rates ten times higher than anywhere else in the world. Teenagers were literally being infected with the suicide bug, and one after another they were killing themselves in exactly the same way under exactly the same circumstances. We like to use words like contagiousness and infectiousness just to apply to the medical realm. But I assure you that after you read about what happened in Micronesia you'll be convinced that behavior can be transmitted from one person to another as easily as the flu or the measles can. In fact, I don't think you have to go to Micronesia to see this pattern in action. Isn't this the explanation for the current epidemic of teen smoking in this country? And what about the rash of mass shootings we're facing at the moment--from Columbine through the Atlanta stockbroker through the neo-Nazi in Los Angeles?"
I've wondered for years whether there's something different about Canadian society that makes these things less "infectious" there. The news? Societal norms? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the concentration of guns in Canada wasn't too far different from the US. If so, why aren't these events just as common there? My first impulse would be to look at psychological or physical factors rather than the law. E.g., are people less socially or physically isolated? Is there better treatment for mental illness? Is it less stigmatized?
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Wow, just saw the news. This is terrible.
Just makes you wonder what's wrong with the world . . .
I think it's what's wrong with human psychology. If you're already disturbed, seeing the shooting in Oregon gives social proof for going out and doing something similar. Just like airplane crashes increase after a first well-publicized one.
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according to that site it holds 24 stocks - that should get you pretty close to the results in the book, right?
"The strategy generally holds 24 mid to large market capitalization stocks."
I've been giving the professionally-managed account a try for the last two years. It has generally held 30 stocks during that time, and has underperformed substantially: total returns +24% for the S&P, +4% for my account. By reporting only the average performance they're not giving the full picture. It would be more informative if they'd publish some measure of the range of results seen in the individual accounts.
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I found it interesting that he called BofA a "crappy" business at ~26min. I wonder why...
Trust-but-verify
in Berkshire Hathaway
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Maybe I read it a little too darkly? I think he's talking organized crime, and somebody's dead.
This is like trying to interpret a poem, about investing, or something.