Mephistopheles

Of course, nobody can calculate with precision, but if two companies have a significant difference in undervaluation, it may be advantageous to bet more on one than the other. The difference may not be so obvious between your best and second best ideas, but perhaps between your best and sixth best ideas. And sure, less undervalued companies may outperform more undervalued ones in the short term. But then again, even overvalued companies can outperform undervalued ones. It's not so possible to predict the behavior in the short term, so might as well bet on what's more undervalued. Allow yourself a margin of safety. So if you think one idea is 40% of iv and another is 45%, then obviously you shouldn't go all in on the first.

GM and BAC Although, both are very popular in the value crowd. I get more satisfaction in owning stocks that have a temporarily inflated P/E rather than stocks where the numbers all look good. I find the latter a bit boring.

Whether or not Berkshire is the only company that can be put on autopilot, I don't know, as I've heard good things about others such as Prem Watsa. If not, I'm happy to invest in mutual funds. I'm sure there are some mutual fund managers that can outperform ETFs. I'm aware that investing requires analysis of the financials, but as with everything, there can be exceptions. That's all I was looking for.

The $257 billion is the Buffett premium.

In my opinion, and I've mentioned this on the board before, concentration is not as aggressive as it looks on paper, depending on your age. I don't look at my portfolio or net worth as the dollar value of my account. Instead I see it just as I see the value of a stock: as the present value of all of my future cash flows, which in my case is far more dependent on my career than on my portfolio, at this point in time. Which means that even if I bet 100% on one stock and lose it all, my intrinsic net worth isn't affected by nearly that much. (I'm currently in my mid to late twenties)

Thanks everyone for your replies and advice, as always it is much appreciated! I should have been more clearer in regards to the type of stocks/funds that I am looking for. I want ones that I don't have to pay attention to, but that also have good capital allocators at the helm. The obvious one is Berkshire that I mentioned, for which I own a large stake in for my folks. Of course, I wouldn't just blindly buy anything, even a mutual fund. I would read up on it enough to make sure I am comfortable trusting that manager with my money. ie, Even though I have barely ever touched Berkshire's financials, I've read much about Buffett and his shareholder letters and probably know just as much about him as the average poster here. In regards to beating the market without doing any work, aka having a free lunch: We've owned Berkshire for many years and it has done just that, and like I said, I have never seriously looked through the 10-k. This is not to say that the future will necessarily be like the past, but I am confident enough in Warren Buffett's abilities from everything that I've learned from him. Thanks again everyone, I will look at all of your suggestions; especially for the mutual funds, as this is an area I know very little about.

Well, I'd still like to beat the market, even if by a small margin like with BRK. Actually they don't have an affinity for any stock, as I'm the one who takes care of their portfolio lol. But I've realized I don't have enough time nowadays to follow 10 different stocks. I won't be blindly putting the money into anything, of course. I don't mind learning more about Fairfax/Markel through shareholder letters and earnings releases. But I'd rather not worry about doing a deep dive of the financials.

What are examples of stocks that you would own and sleep well at night without the need to heavily research? The only one that I have that fits this criteria is BRK, for my parents, but I want to add a few more. Second part to the question is, what is the appropriate measure of value for such stocks. Again with Berkshire, I stick with Price/Book. I know very little about Fairfax or Merkel, but it seems that many here would recommend them. Are they also valued on price/book? If there aren't too many stocks that fit this criteria, I don't even mind looking into solid value mutual fund managers. Thanks.

With $100,000+ you also get fees refunded for the use of any non-BAC atm, with a smaller limit for $50k+ balances.

Hi Packer, Just curious, what made you sell out of the GSEs?

Let be fair though, he probably bought it used. ;) And when he sells it, it'll probably be worth more if he autographs it. Apparently it was new. Mary Barra convinced him to upgrade, so he sent his daughter to buy him a new one.

Up 26% for the year. Winners include SHLD, BAC common and options, GM warrants. Losers are FNMA/FMCC common and preferred. I got lucky with SHLD, in that I sold out at just the right time before it tanked, and reinvested in BAC in the $15ish range. Took a big hit with the GSEs but made it back up with GM. Last year I was up 60% and 40% the year before. I have a 12.3% IRR ever since I first started investing in 2006, though I've become an exponentially better investor in the last few years, so I think that number should increase as time goes on.

Buffett recently upgraded to a new Cadillac, even though he had one in decent condition. Time to short BRK.

Thanks for the tips guys. I will look into this, thanks!

I'm an American, and I have received some dividends this year from Glacier Media, a Canadian company, for which taxes were withheld. I know that I can claim a foreign tax credit so I don't have to pay U.S. dividend taxes. But I also happen to be a student, and have been able to bring my income below the threshold for paying any taxes in the U.S. So I'm wondering if it's possible to claim a refund from the Canadian government for the taxes, since my U.S. income/dividends aren't being taxed at all. If so, how can I go about doing that? I tried searching for this information but can't find anything useful. Thanks, much appreciated.

I second what oddball said: people matter more than anything. But I'll add that you should think about your family too, and how each job would affect them, and your own lifestyle for that matter. If both are equal in that regard, figure out what excites you more. If still can't decide, figure out what will lead you to what you ultimately want. If both jobs lead to the right path, then decide based on salary/bonus/benefits. Don't be afraid to take risks, as this is not a permanent life decision. Ultimately, what does your gut tell you? Best of luck!

I'm up a little over 18% but my personal portfolio is extremely volatile - I was flat a couple of weeks ago. My parents portfolio which I also manage but is more representative of what I would do if I had a lot more money is up marginally year to date.

It certainly takes both intense passion, intense hard work, a laser like focus, and persistence to get to the very top. Garry Kasparov, arguably the greatest chess player in history, is known to spent 12 hours a day on chess throughout most of his career. I heard that an average player knows about 10 different openings from memory, whereas a Grandmaster knows 1,000. Kasparov supposedly has a memory bank of 10,000+ openings. Of course talent is necessary as well. It's genetic, but as others have mentioned, having the intense passion and obsession like work ethic is also genetic. Nate brought up the musicians of Rush who barely even touch their instruments now. I think it's a little different in the world of art. You can spend countless hours on guitar and singing lessons, but you also need to have that natural ability to write music and lyrics which obviously not everyone does and can't be taught. Just look at U2. They're the biggest band on the planet and have been for many years. When they started out, the members barely knew how to play instruments. The bass player didn't take lessons until 15 years into the band's career. Their music is not that hard or complicated for your average guitarist or drummer to reproduce. But it just so happens that they have that talent to write what people enjoy hearing. And hard work is certainly not the major factor in that.

Same link was posted 7 posts up by merkhet.

+1

Many of the non-FNMAS have always traded at a significant discount to FNMAS, and FNMAS is at around $3.50 per preferred share. I don't know if anything of use can be gleaned from the price action the last few days -- I suspect there is some tax selling going on. Actually, most of the preferreds are down -- I believe my prefs were trading at around $4 a share on 10/1. Are you talking about FNMAS being at $4 on 10/1? I looked at the charts for a handful of them and I seem to recall that they fell to close to ten cents on the dollar lowest tick, after 10/1, which is right where they are now. But that would be something if they are down while the common has rebounded so much. The only reasons I can imagine is that the length of time that the market expected this to stay in Court increased after the Lamberth brief and/or simply liquidity dried up since fear increased. Yes, FNMAS is trading higher than the others at a little over 14 cents on the dollar. But the highest traded one I see is FNMAT, which is going for $5.15, or 21% of its $25 par value. So it's valued at twice the other ones. The highest that FNMAT sold for in the past year was 57% of par whereas the highest most of the others sold for were 44%. So there was a discount throughout most of the year but not as substantial as we see now. This is for the same reason as the spread has increased so much between the common and most of the preferreds - because in times of fear, the market is valuing the liquidity of the common and of FNMAT/FNMAS at a higher premium than before. That being said I've managed to build my portfolio with the most iliquid ones, taking advantage of the major discount between common/preferred, and taking advantage of tax losses.

At today's price of $2.07, the common is up 37% from the bottom tick of $1.51 after Lamberth threw out the DC case. Most of the preferreds are just about flat since the same time.

Some of the preferreds traded at $.10 on the dollar today and one even went below. I managed to do a few tax swaps. I hope that Berkowitz is not getting out based on information (or lack thereof) that he is seeing in discovery.

I have 100% the opposite experience. Best in town by far. Maybe it's a generation issue? (I'm under 30). I'm under 30 too lol, but have never been very tech savy. Though I'll probably give it another shot in the future. Seems like it's a steeper learning curve as others here have mentioned. I have Merrill Edge which isn't very user friendly itself, but I felt IB was much worse. The matching to the card is just a temporary measure, once you fund your account they will send a security device to replace the card. +1 IB I don't think they will if you have under $100k in your account. That explains it, I hadn't transferred too much money because the only reason I had the account was to make an international trade. Having said that, why is this device only for accounts over $100k?! It doesn't seem like it would be that expensive.

I don't think anybody is trying to hate on Pabrai. I have learned a lot from Pabrai as well and he seems like an incredible human being. However, those things are independent of the performance cited in the article. I hope he continues to do well and outperform--but hopefully by more than 1.5% over the next ten years. I've learned nothing from him and he seems like a pretty regular human being to me with good points and bad points, just like all of us. Sometimes we all grow a mustache or do something we think looks good until our wife or a friend tells us it's ridiculous. At least it's not a fake mustache, you gotta give him that.