What happened to this board?

[Dustin T]

When valuations are higher, this is actually the logical course of action, especially for individual investors, rather than lowering standards further and further and spinning trash as gold. When people don't have investment ideas, they don't have investment ideas.

 

Innerscorecard, what markets are you referring to where valuation is higher? There are 60,000 stocks that a North American investor can invest. There are always pockets of cheap stocks: eg., HongKong, Russia, Greece, many stocks in these areas are not trash as I think of the word.

 

I definitely agree that there are cheap stocks out there, or sure. But the crucial variable isn't whether there are cheap stocks on an absolute basis, or even enough cheap stocks for individual investors to be completely fully invested. It's whether valuation levels are higher or lower than they were when this board was more active. All those international opportunities existed then, too, but there were also more US and large-cap opportunities then as well. So the aggregate amount of actionable ideas is lower now than then, even if it is still enough for people to be fully invested. Some people will be entrepreneurial and risk-seeking enough to find the ideas that exist currently. That's why we still do have posts on this board. And others won't, which is why there are less posts than before. For example, copying 13Fs will be less frutiful than before, because this only draws from the universe investable for 13F filers.

 

I agree with innerscorecard. There will always be undervalued opportunities, but there were a lot more 1,3,or 5 years ago. My suggestion is to follow the threads about the stocks you are interested in and ignore the ones you find less illuminating. Nothing wrong with a little small talk on the fringes and it's going to be a larger part of the conversation when compelling investment ideas are few and far between.

[cwericb]

Is the Board becoming a victim of its own success?

 

I don’t think so, but the biggest difference over the last few years it that the number of subjects of discussion has increased as the number of posters increases. that is only natural. But times are also far different too. Fairfax is not struggling for survival or to regain its reputation, the dark days of 2009 are behind us, and there is not much exciting going on in the markets right now. Also the board is much more international than it was originally.

 

I check the board several times a day and still find it tremendously useful even if it is a little less concentrated than it used to be. I do notice that many of the older members post very little and on the other hand I am amazed where some others get the time to make so many posts.

 

I wish there was some way to identify poster’s age group, occupation, investing background, or a rough total value of their investments because that can reflect on their credibility. Of course there is no way of checking the validity of the information they offer, but at times I will check to see how long they have been board members. But some kid living in their parents basement maybe posting their profound thoughts or paraphrasing something they read on a subject.

 

However, if anyone is a little disillusioned by the changes here they need only look at the inane comments you will find on Stockhouse or Yahoo boards to see how great the quality of our board is.

 

I also agree that a little more participation by Sanjeeve would be welcomed, but with the number of posts and the number of subjects how would that be possible? Methinks he has a lot on his plate at this time in other areas.

[Liberty]

When valuations are higher, this is actually the logical course of action, especially for individual investors, rather than lowering standards further and further and spinning trash as gold. When people don't have investment ideas, they don't have investment ideas.

 

Innerscorecard, what markets are you referring to where valuation is higher? There are 60,000 stocks that a North American investor can invest. There are always pockets of cheap stocks: eg., HongKong, Russia, Greece, many stocks in these areas are not trash as I think of the word.

 

I definitely agree that there are cheap stocks out there, or sure. But the crucial variable isn't whether there are cheap stocks on an absolute basis, or even enough cheap stocks for individual investors to be completely fully invested. It's whether valuation levels are higher or lower than they were when this board was more active. All those international opportunities existed then, too, but there were also more US and large-cap opportunities then as well. So the aggregate amount of actionable ideas is lower now than then, even if it is still enough for people to be fully invested. Some people will be entrepreneurial and risk-seeking enough to find the ideas that exist currently. That's why we still do have posts on this board. And others won't, which is why there are less posts than before. For example, copying 13Fs will be less frutiful than before, because this only draws from the universe investable for 13F filers.

 

I agree with innerscorecard. There will always be undervalued opportunities, but there were a lot more 1,3,or 5 years ago. My suggestion is to follow the threads about the stocks you are interested in and ignore the ones you find less illuminating. Nothing wrong with a little small talk on the fringes and it's going to be a larger part of the conversation when compelling investment ideas are few and far between.

 

One of the things with most of those 60,000 stocks is that if you write about them, nobody is going to reply and the thread will sink. That's understandable, most people look for businesses they know and understand, which is why the period when everybody was writing about the big banks and Sears and AIG and GM and so on generated so much activity. Everybody knows these names.

 

But start a thread about HEICO, and you'll be lucky to get a reply 3 weeks later if you ask for it, and that's still a multi-billion business, so forget about most tiny OTC stocks or foreign stocks that nobody has heard of when it comes to generating sustained discussion.

 

I'm not blaming people. I'm often the same. I see a new thread, I have a quick look, but I have nothing to add about some small weird german business that is outside my circle of competence or whatever, and the thread goes down the memory hole...

 

Just explaining why the big discussions will mostly be around big companies that everybody knows, and as long as these aren't particularly cheap, it'll be more effort to create sparks in the investment board.

[Jurgis]

I will +1 that the following features would be helpful:

 

- Shortcut to mark a thread read without clicking on its last post and clicking back. My OC self spends a lot of time doing this for every thread that I don't plan to read. :(

- Subjectmarks - following specific threads

- Peoplemarks - following specific people. I don't use this, but I +1 for others.

 

Possibly useful, but not clear if necessary, so lower priority:

 

- Ignoring posters. This is somewhat available but a bit hidden? Also not sure if it works since I never used it.

- Post recommendation that is internal to forum and not Facebook "like", which does not seem to be working correctly anyway?

 

[rkbabang]

This is the link I use most often when visiting the board:

 

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/unread/

 

It is up at the top of every page right under your username where it says:

"Show unread posts since last visit."

 

It will immediately show you all of the recent posts that you have not read by topic.  You can quickly scan the topics and click on the ones that interest you while ignoring the ones that don't.  It is much better than going to the home screen and just seeing the last so many posts.

 

[Jurgis]

One of the things with most of those 60,000 stocks is that if you write about them, nobody is going to reply and the thread will sink. That's understandable, most people look for businesses they know and understand, which is why the period when everybody was writing about the big banks and Sears and AIG and GM and so on generated so much activity. Everybody knows these names.

 

But start a thread about HEICO, and you'll be lucky to get a reply 3 weeks later if you ask for it, and that's still a multi-billion business, so forget about most tiny OTC stocks or foreign stocks that nobody has heard of when it comes to generating sustained discussion.

 

I'm not blaming people. I'm often the same. I see a new thread, I have a quick look, but I have nothing to add about some small weird german business that is outside my circle of competence or whatever, and the thread goes down the memory hole...

 

I take a look at every single company that gets a new thread or gets new posts on a thread. However, I usually don't post there saying: "took a look, not interesting to me, thanks". So I appreciate people posting a thread about lesser known company, but I don't necessarily reply, which means that original author does not get motivated to post more. Not sure how to solve this.

[Travis Wiedower]

It is up at the top of every page right under your username where it says:

"Show unread posts since last visit."

 

It will immediately show you all of the recent posts that you have not read by topic.  You can quickly scan the topics and click on the ones that interest you while ignoring the ones that don't.  It is much better than going to the home screen and just seeing the last so many posts.

 

Whoa thanks for posting! Never seen this before, seems like the best way to browse.

[CorpRaider]

I believe a bear market will probably help alleviate some of the "issues" posters in this thread have.  1) If valuations are more on the cheap side of fair, if you will, some of the posters who have gone "radio silent" will likely become enthused about the markets and/or particular ideas and will engage in discussions; 2) many of the warren-come-lately posters who are finding it hard, and perhaps selfish, to withhold their vast wisdom on investing and indeed all things, given their stunning brilliance as evidenced by their superb investing performance over the past five years, will likely quiet down and/or give up investing and posting on this board altogether after getting decimated by the next bear market.

 

Stability breeds instability? Bull markets breed bull-shite?  (present company excepted, of course...haha)

 

Alternatively,  it could all be my fault.  I joined in early 2013, after lurking for some months.

 

 

[arbcon]

I find the unread function helpful as well. Given the high valuations of this market, in my view, currently, I'm surprised to find as many situations on this Board as I do.

[rkbabang]

It is up at the top of every page right under your username where it says:

"Show unread posts since last visit."

 

It will immediately show you all of the recent posts that you have not read by topic.  You can quickly scan the topics and click on the ones that interest you while ignoring the ones that don't.  It is much better than going to the home screen and just seeing the last so many posts.

 

Whoa thanks for posting! Never seen this before, seems like the best way to browse.

 

No problem, I suspected that a lot of people never noticed it, because it was a long time before I did.

 

[frommi]

I read this board most of the time through feedly (or pretty much every RSS reader will do it), this helps to skip very fast through all the stuff thats not interesting to me.

Maybe this is a solution to the "filter" problem?

[RhubarbXIV]

I think the "outside" topics are probably a good thing. Keeps folks off the streets. Everybody needs a hobby when the risk/rewards, or effort/outcome if you will, rise to high levels.

 

After all, didn't Charlie say Warren does merger arbitrage to stay out of bars?

[thepupil]

I get frustrated with the lack of discussion on the stocks I post about and have interest in. My takeaway is they must not be good enough ideas or they need to be cheaper to be more interesting to people.

[Guest notorious546]

i would reply to more threads, but then it just fills my "show new replies to your posts." if i could unsubscribe to them after doing a post then i would be more likely to post

 

 

[Jurgis]

I get frustrated with the lack of discussion on the stocks I post about and have interest in. My takeaway is they must not be good enough ideas or they need to be cheaper to be more interesting to people.

 

Can you be more specific? I went through your last 100 post history and all stocks mentioned there have a lot of discussion.

[AzCactus]

I completely agree with Scott---discuss anything and everything means just that.  The other issue is quite simple and was stated before---if a topic does not interest you do not click on it.  This is pretty basic stuff.  If you are hungry and walk down the street and see a restaurant called "Greasy Pizza," its probably a pass if you are on a diet. 

[kfh227]

Strategies and General Discussion should swap order in the list of subforums.

 

Quite frankly, a lot of Strategy stuff is in General Discussion and it shouldn't.  On top of this, Strategies should probably be Strategies and Broad Investment Discussion.

 

It might be best to add a General Investment Discussion subforum to break out general crap and actual investment talk.

[augustabound]

I get frustrated with the lack of discussion on the stocks I post about and have interest in. My takeaway is they must not be good enough ideas or they need to be cheaper to be more interesting to people.

 

Don't be frustrated by that.  I used to think, for a long time actually, that the board was dominated by a group of senior members and the newer members were ignored (ignored is a strong word but the only one I could think of).

I went through the forum from start to finish and found most of the senior members have many posts that went without a reply, including topics started with no replies.

 

I used to get a bit bothered when I ended a thread. No comments after mine must have meant I said something either irrelevant or stupid. After going through the threads like I did showed me most threads die for seemingly no reason.

 

As to the general board though, yes I've found in the forums I've been a part of the last 10 or so years, they all hit a peak at some point and people lose interest. But one thing that made this forum better than most is the lack of idiot posters who just wanted fireworks or just wanted to a pain/troll. This is a good group of people newer and older. Just some people lost interest after a while.

 

 

[thepupil]

I get frustrated with the lack of discussion on the stocks I post about and have interest in. My takeaway is they must not be good enough ideas or they need to be cheaper to be more interesting to people.

 

Can you be more specific? I went through your last 100 post history and all stocks mentioned there have a lot of discussion.

 

For example, yesterday, ItsAValueTrap asked if anyone was interested in AAMC/RESI. I explained why I was not, but no one else chimed in with an opinion. AAMC is down 85% from peak and RESI is at 77% of tangible book. Even though I have my issues and reservations with both, I would think someone else would at least have an opinion.

 

I tried to get people to look at Forestar ( an owner of energy assets, timber, and lots of real estate that is down a lot at a decent discount to book and undergoing activism), but there didn't seem to be much traction. I personally find it compelling but am waiting for a little more clarity and progress to size it up.

 

No one cares about ACAS, a BDC at 70% of book (75%) after adjusting for full dilution, it will split into parasite co and host co (asset manager and yield pig BDC) this year.

 

No one cares about Tetragon, 50-60% of book (undiluted and diluted), 6% dividend, decent mix of assets,

 

No one cares about Equity Commonwealth, cheap office REIT chaired by Sam Zell

 

The reality is that several of these are either not spectacularly cheap, have shitty or greedy (or both) management, and there isn't a ton to discuss about them so my expectations should be low.

 

I just think the 1/10 of posts on BH and SHLD (which i still read and sometimes contribute to the problem) should maybe make it to other ideas. I will say I often don't have much to say about small cap australian companies or this or that so it's not like I'm part of the solution.

 

EDIT: And there are much better more interesting ideas posted by others that get little discussion, didn't mean to make this a personal rant

[alwaysinvert]

I get frustrated with the lack of discussion on the stocks I post about and have interest in. My takeaway is they must not be good enough ideas or they need to be cheaper to be more interesting to people.

If your ideas actually were stupid, you would be more likely to get responses, because then they would probably irk someone. I'd bet most of the good investments here actually have comparatively fewer responses.

 

There are of course dumb reasons for this or else value investing would not work. But there are also good reasons such as circle of competence, trading barriers etc.

[writser]

Thepupil: the good thing is that if even on this "value" forum people ignore a lot of ideas in advance then that at least suggests there are some misvalued stocks out there. I agree with a previous poster: if an idea is obviously terrible people would be all over your thread bashing your idea. And if your ideas were already discussed by hundreds of posters it would probably not be cheap anymore.

[Jurgis]

I get frustrated with the lack of discussion on the stocks I post about and have interest in. My takeaway is they must not be good enough ideas or they need to be cheaper to be more interesting to people.

 

Can you be more specific? I went through your last 100 post history and all stocks mentioned there have a lot of discussion.

 

For example, yesterday, ItsAValueTrap asked if anyone was interested in AAMC/RESI. I explained why I was not, but no one else chimed in with an opinion. AAMC is down 85% from peak and RESI is at 77% of tangible book. Even though I have my issues and reservations with both, I would think someone else would at least have an opinion.

 

I tried to get people to look at Forestar ( an owner of energy assets, timber, and lots of real estate that is down a lot at a decent discount to book and undergoing activism), but there didn't seem to be much traction. I personally find it compelling but am waiting for a little more clarity and progress to size it up.

 

No one cares about ACAS, a BDC at 70% of book (75%) after adjusting for full dilution, it will split into parasite co and host co (asset manager and yield pig BDC) this year.

 

No one cares about Tetragon, 50-60% of book (undiluted and diluted), 6% dividend, decent mix of assets,

 

No one cares about Equity Commonwealth, cheap office REIT chaired by Sam Zell

 

The reality is that several of these are either not spectacularly cheap, have shitty or greedy (or both) management, and there isn't a ton to discuss about them so my expectations should be low.

 

I just think the 1/10 of posts on BH and SHLD (which i still read and sometimes contribute to the problem) should maybe make it to other ideas. I will say I often don't have much to say about small cap australian companies or this or that so it's not like I'm part of the solution.

 

EDIT: And there are much better more interesting ideas posted by others that get little discussion, didn't mean to make this a personal rant

 

Thanks for your answer. It was a nice clarification.

 

I thought that Altisource had a ton of discussion. I am not personally interested, so perhaps I am wrong.

 

Other companies you mentioned are also not interesting to me. This does not mean they are bad ideas, just not my circle of competence or interest.

 

OK, let me comment on one company just to clarify why perhaps there's no discussion: ACAS. I am very skeptical about BDCs after last crisis, Einhorn's book, etc. I think that like REITs, management has wrong incentives to grow, does shady deals, blackboxes, so it's tough for outside investor to evaluate and know that you're not throwing money into a dark pit. However, I don't consider myself an expert on BDCs, so I would not go to ACAS thread and say the above to people who may know the company much better than I do. So, I opt for no response. :)

 

The above is just one example of why I - or people in general - might not answer on a thread.

 

Take care.

[SharperDingaan]

Some general observations ....

 

Folks move on.  Yesterdays daily poster becomes a weekend poster as he/she moves on with life and does other things. Does not mean no interest, or that the board is not monitored; just less frequent posting.

 

Poster concentration in the same ideas, and securities. Nothing wrong, or unexpected to this; infrequent posting is actually the preferred state, and highly defensible. But ... if you post multiple times/day - you look like a LIBOR market rigger.

 

Cheerleading/bullying. Comes with the territory, but group think is destructive when no other views are tolerated. We collectively get the highest & best use out of the board, when opposing views are forcibly argued in constructive ways -  by roughly equal parties. The value-add is how you choose to apply it to a position - should you choose to do so.

 

Ability to post. The skilled folks you would like to hear, often cannot post - because of restrictions that come with their position. A general post on generic 'investing' has a very different take than a post on a specific security. Put somebody on the spot, and the  outcome is zero posting by the very people that you would like to hear most from.

 

The obvious solution is to post the set of rules by which we all post, and enforced monitoring of those rules. Paying a board membership fee to fund a paid monitor, just turns the board into a private club vulnerable to inside trading abuse; keeping the board exposed to the disinfectant of public scrutiny is the best protection that we can all have.

 

SD

[Travis Wiedower]

I get frustrated with the lack of discussion on the stocks I post about and have interest in. My takeaway is they must not be good enough ideas or they need to be cheaper to be more interesting to people.

 

I have the opposite reaction. When a stock I'm interested in doesn't have a thread already created here (or has one with few replies) I like it even more. If you want to invest in the Apples and General Motors of the world you'll never have a shortage of people to discuss your ideas with.

[Fat Pitch]

The long bull market has definitely reduced the amount of opportunities, but at the same time I agree there has been a general decline in the quality of posts here. I’m seeing lots of posts that begin with “xyz is down 6%, there’s no news, what gives?” Really?  Or my favorite mentioning a new company and expecting others to do the work for you.

 

I am grateful for this board since there are incredibly smart individuals here, but many of them moved on. I’m finding Twitter to be a superior source of information since you can filter out the noise and really narrow down your interests to certain individuals who contribute immensely. There were many gems in the SPAC field that wasn’t mentioned here and these are the classic “work out” situations, but they showed up on Twitter incredibly quick.