The Superinvestors on the Corner of Berkshire-and-Fairfax

[ValueHippie]

I know - yet another guy who promotes his own blog...

 

However, I think this might be interesting! I scraped all users and posts from this forum and did some analysis.

 

TL;DR: The average return of all posts in the forum underperformed the market. However, some users performed extraordinarily well!

 

A huge thanks to Liz (@ScottHall) for being a tremendous editor!

 

You can find the post here: http://findstox.com/2019/09/15/the-superinvestors-on-the-corner-of-berkshire-and-fairfax/

[Jurgis]

Assigning an idea to the person who started a thread and assuming that this person invested/held that company since the thread start is really questionable methodology. After that GIGO.

[ValueHippie]

Assigning an idea to the person who started a thread and assuming that this person invested/held that company since the thread start is really questionable methodology. After that GIGO.

 

Of course! There are a dozen more reasons. Anyhow, I still think it's entertaining to look at  ;)

[wisowis]

Assigning an idea to the person who started a thread and assuming that this person invested/held that company since the thread start is really questionable methodology. After that GIGO.

 

Yeah... e.g. Cardboard on the top-performing users. His performance was entirely driven by Amazon. But he suggested that as a short idea, calling it a fraud. Oops. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/amzn-amazon-com-inc/

[writser]

Assigning an idea to the person who started a thread and assuming that this person invested/held that company since the thread start is really questionable methodology. After that GIGO.

 

Yeah... e.g. Cardboard on the top-performing users. His performance was entirely driven by Amazon. But he suggested that as a short idea, calling it a fraud. Oops. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/amzn-amazon-com-inc/

 

So that makes him the poster with the worst track record? I feel like that should've been researched too. Who are the worst contributors to this forum? Maybe topping that list is a reachable goal for me.

 

Also I should have been nicer to yadayada. His star burned bright but short.

[Foreign Tuffett]

Assigning an idea to the person who started a thread and assuming that this person invested/held that company since the thread start is really questionable methodology. After that GIGO.

 

This. It's an interesting exercise, but is largely meaningless insofar as figuring out who the best investors on this site are.

[Gregmal]

COBF helps make everyone money! Including bloggers seeking click alpha!

[SharperDingaan]

It would seem that if your name appears on the list ... you've failed.

You've been leaving too many breadcrumbs on your trail, and become traceable!

 

SD

[LC]

Always the smuggler, SD! That’s why you’re posts are so interesting, what a great perspective :D

 

I am glad to contribute simply by making the rest of you folks look so good :D

 

I think someone did a similar exercise a few years ago, tracking the investment ideas thread post date vs. stock performance. I think he layered the number of replies into the analysis as well. And the threads with the least replies performed on average better.

 

Also it would be interesting to layer this information vs. self-disclosed annual performance threads.

[Guest longinvestor]

What folks post as their performance on an anonymous message boards is to be taken with a grain of salt.

[scorpioncapital]

What folks post as their performance on an anonymous message boards is to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

In some games, average is not enough to get you any points. In Investing, you can even win with average if you live long enough. But performance without a large population size of who is trying and what they are achieving in the aggregate is meaningless. And I don't think in investing this statistic is so easy to gather like census statistics.

[Gregmal]

What folks post as their performance on an anonymous message boards is to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

In some games, average is not enough to get you any points. In Investing, you can even win with average if you live long enough. But performance without a large population size of who is trying and what they are achieving in the aggregate is meaningless. And I don't think in investing this statistic is so easy to gather like census statistics.

 

One of the greatest and most underappreciated pillars of investing is the notion that the most you can lose(generally speaking) is 100% of your investment. While the amount you can make is often many times that. The key to this is proper risk management, but its a truly powerful and liberating thing once internalized.

[ValueHippie]

What folks post as their performance on an anonymous message boards is to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

In some games, average is not enough to get you any points. In Investing, you can even win with average if you live long enough. But performance without a large population size of who is trying and what they are achieving in the aggregate is meaningless. And I don't think in investing this statistic is so easy to gather like census statistics.

 

At the end of the day, what really matters is the performance in everybody's personal portfolio anyway!

 

If anybody here wants to check every post manually to see whether a post was long or short, feel free to add it to the data, which I made accessible to the public!

[no_free_lunch]

Are there any websites that let you track an artificial portfolio and where you can make the results public?  That would be the best and only way I can think of to cut through it all.

[Gregmal]

Are there any websites that let you track an artificial portfolio and where you can make the results public?  That would be the best and only way I can think of to cut through it all.

 

Im not sure this serves a purpose though. I am aware of a few sites like Tim Sykes Profitly that supposedly allow people to publicly display their real portfolio moves. But doing so with an artificial portfolio is an absolute waste of time unless you happen to be a gifted trader/investor who likes to waste time and doesn't like to make money.

[no_free_lunch]

You would just enter trades in your fake portfolio in addition to your real portfolio.  For a value investor who trades every month or two it wouldn't be too onerous.

[writser]

Or you can open 20 accounts and ditch the 19 worst ones after a year.

 

All the focus on short-term track records on an anonymous message board might be fun but is counterproductive.

 

Just focus on the actual content of the threads opened and the subsequent discussion, mostly regardless of who is posting.

[Liberty]

I know - yet another guy who promotes his own blog...

 

However, I think this might be interesting! I scraped all users and posts from this forum and did some analysis.

 

TL;DR: The average return of all posts in the forum underperformed the market. However, some users performed extraordinarily well!

 

A huge thanks to Liz (@ScottHall) for being a tremendous editor!

 

You can find the post here: http://findstox.com/2019/09/15/the-superinvestors-on-the-corner-of-berkshire-and-fairfax/

 

I think you used CSU rather than CSU.to  ;)

[wachtwoord]

I know - yet another guy who promotes his own blog...

 

However, I think this might be interesting! I scraped all users and posts from this forum and did some analysis.

 

TL;DR: The average return of all posts in the forum underperformed the market. However, some users performed extraordinarily well!

 

A huge thanks to Liz (@ScottHall) for being a tremendous editor!

 

You can find the post here: http://findstox.com/2019/09/15/the-superinvestors-on-the-corner-of-berkshire-and-fairfax/

 

I think you used CSU rather than CSU.to  ;)

 

He wrote that in his blog.

[Liberty]

I know - yet another guy who promotes his own blog...

 

However, I think this might be interesting! I scraped all users and posts from this forum and did some analysis.

 

TL;DR: The average return of all posts in the forum underperformed the market. However, some users performed extraordinarily well!

 

A huge thanks to Liz (@ScottHall) for being a tremendous editor!

 

You can find the post here: http://findstox.com/2019/09/15/the-superinvestors-on-the-corner-of-berkshire-and-fairfax/

 

I think you used CSU rather than CSU.to  ;)

 

He wrote that in his blog.

 

You caught me, I didn't real the whole thing.

 

I also wonder why there's no GOOG next to my name despite starting that thread.

 

In any case, I agree that starting threads doesn't mean that much. Lots of threads I started are things I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole now.. Others I just started to start discussion about it, not because I'd want to invest in the company.

[ValueHippie]

I know - yet another guy who promotes his own blog...

 

However, I think this might be interesting! I scraped all users and posts from this forum and did some analysis.

 

TL;DR: The average return of all posts in the forum underperformed the market. However, some users performed extraordinarily well!

 

A huge thanks to Liz (@ScottHall) for being a tremendous editor!

 

You can find the post here: http://findstox.com/2019/09/15/the-superinvestors-on-the-corner-of-berkshire-and-fairfax/

 

I think you used CSU rather than CSU.to  ;)

 

He wrote that in his blog.

 

You caught me, I didn't real the whole thing.

 

I also wonder why there's no GOOG next to my name despite starting that thread.

 

In any case, I agree that starting threads doesn't mean that much. Lots of threads I started are things I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole now..

 

It's in the calculations, but not in the one graphic. That's because in that graphic I zoomed in a bit to only look at stocks which are up max 3x since they were posted. GOOG is up by 3.65x ;)

[Spekulatius]

So ScottHall re-incarnated as LaforeverHall. Awesome tweet storm:

https://twitter.com/laforeverhall/status/1205981236960714754?s=21

[LC]

I'll tell ya Scott (or Liz) is an interesting character, wish she stuck around here...and I disagree with her on about half of those points (particularly on the reflexivity and related topics) but one thing I will take a recommendation from her on is aspects of copy-writing, advertising, etc.

 

And in general I'd say most of us are only really able to speak on one or two topics to the point we should be advising others, and it's usually what we do for our day jobs.  ;D

[Spekulatius]

I'll tell ya Scott (or Liz) is an interesting character, wish she stuck around here...and I disagree with her on about half of those points (particularly on the reflexivity and related topics) but one thing I will take a recommendation from her on is aspects of copy-writing, advertising, etc.

 

And in general I'd say most of us are only really able to speak on one or two topics to the point we should be advising others, and it's usually what we do for our day jobs.  ;D

 

He is definitely an out of the box thinker and he is a good investor. I hope he stops by here every once in a while. I feel we will hear more about him.

[Santayana]

The absence of Ericopoly from the top returns makes your data seem suspect.  Although I think it's just because of the timeframe you looked at.