Have We Hit The Top?

[WayWardCloud]

So definitely avoid Tesla (high PE, low margins), maybe avoid Amazon (low margins), and we're peachy

I don't understand what the big fuss is about concentration and even less about cash as a % of market cap.

Those are perhaps not cheap but reasonable valuations for some of the absolute best companies that have ever existed in the history of capitalism.

The last drop came from tech and that was only 3 years ago I don't think the next one will come from there.

 

Edited January 11 by WayWardCloud

[Red Lion]

7 hours ago, nsx5200 said:

would be a real shame to have an Einstein-caliber offspring born in a multi-generation wealth family in a system that actively shields that offspring from having to contribute to society.

Yet all the progressives are posting memes about musk inheriting an emerald mine so he’s really not so impressive, and by the way if anyone in the market for a used tesla? 
 

[John Hjorth]

1 hour ago, WayWardCloud said:

... Those are perhaps not cheap but reasonable valuations for some of the absolute best companies that have ever existed in the history of capitalism. ...

 

This rear-view way of looking at things is by fundamental process flawed, because it is just that : rear-view looking.

[Dalal.Holdings]

 

 

Gee, I hope all that capex generates good returns. Otherwise...

 

[brobro777]

16 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

 

Gee, I hope all that capex generates good returns. Otherwise...

 

 

Boy I hope these guys take it easy with some of the AI stuff

 

AI assistant in stuff like Adobe PDF is annoying, almost as bad as that Microsoft Paperclip thing from years ago

 

 

[gfp]

3 minutes ago, brobro777 said:

 

Boy I hope these guys take it easy with some of the AI stuff

 

AI assistant in stuff like Adobe PDF is annoying, almost as bad as that Microsoft Paperclip thing from years ago

 

 

 

@brobro777 you're alive!  I was starting to worry about you and the wildfires when I checked the price of eggs the other day

[brobro777]

Just now, gfp said:

 

@brobro777 you're alive!  I was starting to worry about you and the wildfires when I checked the price of eggs the other day

 

Oh yea man I'm fine, I'm a piker so I don't live in Malibu or nothing, I live in a poorer area

 

Eggs at Ralph's still $9 per dozen!

 

 

[nsx5200]

On 1/10/2025 at 2:39 PM, Castanza said:

Nature takes care of this naturally. I think intellectuals spend way to much time thinking about things like this. At the end of the day you have type A people and type B people. 

I find it amusingly ironic that the ones that advocate for the support of multi-generation wealth transfer would think of themselves as type B people.

[73 Reds]

21 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

I find it amusingly ironic that the ones that advocate for the support of multi-generation wealth transfer would think of themselves as type B people.

@nsx5200 Curious, where would you have have all the generational wealth go?  If you want to confiscate it, or effectively confiscate it in the form of ever-higher taxes, why would you trust government to effectively allocate it better than the person that created it?

Edited Monday at 05:59 PM by 73 Reds
word

[Castanza]

20 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

I find it amusingly ironic that the ones that advocate for the support of multi-generation wealth transfer would think of themselves as type B people.

 

I work from home, wear Birkenstocks 80% of the year, spend my time fly fishing, hunting, hiking, playing bball, cooking, gardening, reading a lot, volunteering, sipping whiskey and hanging with my family/friends. I have zero desire to be in some extensive leadership role form my current company or any company that would require me to work 60+ hours a week with much added stress. I work in tech because it's convenient NOT because Im passionate about it. I do take pride in my work and do it well, but "punching out" is important to me. I don't live to work, I work to live. My goal is to work less not more and finding ways to preserve/grow wealth for my family is always at the forefront of my mind. 

 

Type A has nothing to do with saving money or planning for the future. I want my descendants to be able to live more and work less or pursue things they are passionate about without added stress from finances. 

[Gregmal]

26 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

I work from home, wear Birkenstocks 80% of the year, spend my time fly fishing, hunting, hiking, playing bball, cooking, gardening, reading a lot, volunteering, sipping whiskey and hanging with my family/friends. I have zero desire to be in some extensive leadership role form my current company or any company that would require me to work 60+ hours a week with much added stress. I work in tech because it's convenient NOT because Im passionate about it. I do take pride in my work and do it well, but "punching out" is important to me. I don't live to work, I work to live. My goal is to work less not more and finding ways to preserve/grow wealth for my family is always at the forefront of my mind. 

 

Type A has nothing to do with saving money or planning for the future. I want my descendants to be able to live more and work less or pursue things they are passionate about without added stress from finances. 

lol true that. I wear sweatpants 75% of the year and all I want is to upgrade that to board shorts. Drink Natty and Bud light. Seek to play 10-15 hours of Nintendo a week with the kids which will soon be replaced by golf and tennis. Who needs more?

[Castanza]

34 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

lol true that. I wear sweatpants 75% of the year and all I want is to upgrade that to board shorts. Drink Natty and Bud light. Seek to play 10-15 hours of Nintendo a week with the kids which will soon be replaced by golf and tennis. Who needs more?

 

Hell yeah!

 

People spend their lives working 60 hours a week, chasing praise from bosses for pizza parties and company branded merch LOL I'll never understand that mindset but to each their own! 

[Milu]

52 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

Hell yeah!

 

People spend their lives working 60 hours a week, chasing praise from bosses for pizza parties and company branded merch LOL I'll never understand that mindset but to each their own! 

Fellow ‘lazy dude’ checking in. I’ve always optimised my life around doing the least amount of work I can for the highest amount of money. For my day job this means going as far as I can as an individual contributor, avoiding any management roles even though I’ve been asked multiple times to go that track, just do good work from 9-5 and don’t bother with anything outside of that. Investing is my main hobby so while I do spend a decent amount of time researching companies, I generally have just settled on quality 8-10 positions that I expect to hold for decades. Might make a couple of trades per year around the edges. The need to always put money to work is a big flaw of the type a personality. I’ve thankfully never had the urge to ‘do something’ when there is nothing to do. Currently have a 25% cash position that would be nice to put to work but will wait for the universe to present me with a no-brainer like it inevitably does. (Apple in 2016, Berkshire in 2020, Meta in 2022). Always another one around the corner if not in a rush.

[brobro777]

Yea I've worked with people who regularly send work emails at 2AM and I always thought

 

better you than me, baby, better you than me

[Paarslaars]

2 hours ago, Castanza said:

 

I work from home, wear Birkenstocks 80% of the year, spend my time fly fishing, hunting, hiking, playing bball, cooking, gardening, reading a lot, volunteering, sipping whiskey and hanging with my family/friends. I have zero desire to be in some extensive leadership role form my current company or any company that would require me to work 60+ hours a week with much added stress. I work in tech because it's convenient NOT because Im passionate about it. I do take pride in my work and do it well, but "punching out" is important to me. I don't live to work, I work to live. My goal is to work less not more and finding ways to preserve/grow wealth for my family is always at the forefront of my mind. 

 

Type A has nothing to do with saving money or planning for the future. I want my descendants to be able to live more and work less or pursue things they are passionate about without added stress from finances. 

 

Not working from home here, I really need to be around people.

 

That said, I work 30h weeks, my wife works 24h weeks.

Our jobs support our lifestyle, the investment returns are the savings.

We are fortunate enough that the portfolio returns provide more savings than we realistically would have by working more anyway...

I had an OK year in '24 and still earned more on the investment side than our salaries combined.

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, brobro777 said:

Yea I've worked with people who regularly send work emails at 2AM and I always thought

 

better you than me, baby, better you than me

Some of those are scheduled to be sent at these inordinate times. There is a lot of pretend work going on.

[Castanza]

2 hours ago, Paarslaars said:

 

Not working from home here, I really need to be around people.

 

That said, I work 30h weeks, my wife works 24h weeks.

Our jobs support our lifestyle, the investment returns are the savings.

We are fortunate enough that the portfolio returns provide more savings than we realistically would have by working more anyway...

I had an OK year in '24 and still earned more on the investment side than our salaries combined.

Eh I’ve always had a strict policy of no work friends outside of work. I’m of the mindset that if all your friends are work friends, then all you’ll do is talk about work. It’s not to say I’m not friends with anyone at my work. I certainly am. But a lot of people view work as a place to find friends. For me it’s the complete opposite. If that’s what works for someone else though then that’s great. 
 

I find I’m around more than enough people working from home. It was a transition at first but it’s been since Covid now and haven’t looked back. I have to go into the office once or twice a year and my lord is it soul sucking going back into that environment. “Great weather today”, “How’s the family?”, “hey there are leftovers in the break room” 

 

No thanks lol but that’s just me! 
 

There are too many benefits that wfh brings. I took my son to the park or on walks during my lunch break. Can’t put a price on that! 

[Junior R]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Some of those are scheduled to be sent at these inordinate times. There is a lot of pretend work going on.

lol that is the truth and there is a lot of quite quitting

 

 

4 hours ago, brobro777 said:

Yea I've worked with people who regularly send work emails at 2AM and I always thought

 

better you than me, baby, better you than me

 

I think the problem is avg person follows the same old play book that worked during their parents age..Get A job..buy a house and let that build their wealth ..stay there until retirement collect a pension. but this really gets you no where unless your job is paying you millions a year to do minimal amount of work

 

the good thing now is there is a lot of wfh roles ...so pretty much you could just do bare minimum and invest and enjoy time on what you like to do... 

[Gregmal]

Yea I’m planning a bachelor party for my little bro and already running into “can’t get off work” for a few days from multiple people…can’t imagine living under those conditions. 

Edited Tuesday at 01:38 AM by Gregmal

[thepupil]

7 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Yea I’m planning a bachelor party for my little bro and already running into “can’t get off work” for a few days from multiple people…can’t imagine living under those conditions. 

 this is also that if your bros friends are in peak wedding season they may have 5-6 or more weddings a year 2-3 bachelor parties and it becomes incredibly expensive so it may be they can’t get off work,  it “can’t get off work” is also “I can afford to go to 2 weddings and 1 bachelor party this year” or “I technically

could take off but it’ll put me behind and stress me out”

 

i think one year we spent like $15k going to other people’s weddings. I spent $2-3k on a friends bachelor party (someone for whom money is not an object plans the events, sends bill to everyone at end).

 

Through genetic lottery and high earnings was able to do that stuff, but it consumes a ton of money and time.
 

Happy to be done with that now that all but a few stragglers are married. I don’t see how “normal” people afford the wedding and bachelor parties tha tha e become standard these days. Part of our wondrous societal excess.

[John Hjorth]

13 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Yea I’m planning a bachelor party for my little bro and already running into “can’t get off work” for a few days from multiple people…can’t imagine living under those conditions. 

 

Hamster wheel already, you know, @Gregmal.

[rkbabang]

2 minutes ago, thepupil said:

 

i think one year we spent like $15k going to other people’s weddings. I spent $2-3k on a friends bachelor party (someone for whom money is not an object plans the events, sends bill to everyone at end).

 

 

My god, I'm glad I'm old.  No more friends getting married.  My wife and I didn't spend $15K on our wedding (not even adjusted for inflation) we spent $6K in 1996 ($12K inflation adjusted) and we had >200 people attending.   I've never spent more than $100-$200 on someone else's wedding.  (My kids aren't married yet).

 

[Sweet]

On 1/12/2025 at 7:22 PM, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

 

Gee, I hope all that capex generates good returns. Otherwise...

 

Otherwise there is about 200bn in AI capex that shareholders could be in line for?  I don’t think this is the negative many think.  Yes - wasted money if no pay off.  However ka-ching?

 

Heads they win, tails they win.

 

Its truly amazing that we have big tech companies that can spend so much.

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 02:25 AM by Sweet

[Gregmal]

33 minutes ago, thepupil said:

 this is also that if your bros friends are in peak wedding season they may have 5-6 or more weddings a year 2-3 bachelor parties and it becomes incredibly expensive so it may be they can’t get off work,  it “can’t get off work” is also “I can afford to go to 2 weddings and 1 bachelor party this year” or “I technically

could take off but it’ll put me behind and stress me out”

 

i think one year we spent like $15k going to other people’s weddings. I spent $2-3k on a friends bachelor party (someone for whom money is not an object plans the events, sends bill to everyone at end).

 

Through genetic lottery and high earnings was able to do that stuff, but it consumes a ton of money and time.
 

Happy to be done with that now that all but a few stragglers are married. I don’t see how “normal” people afford the wedding and bachelor parties tha tha e become standard these days. Part of our wondrous societal excess.

Haha deep down I feel like you really know how to party. 
 

We re trying to do 4 nights in Montreal. Wanna see a Habs game. Wanna do some fishing. Wanna do some Ville-Marie things. I’ll probably fund most of it. Just asking these kids to take off a Thursday/Friday but they’re the late 20s top 5%ers who are glued to their careers and afraid to say I’m out for a few days. Doctor, Dentist, and a couple biomedical wizards. I’ll easily be the dumbest one there. 

[Spekulatius]

American weddings are just pompous experiences. I hate them. I have not been to many and a few times, I just said no (I have no problem doing so).
People just say they can’t make it because they really don’t want to go - I have heard that too many times.

 

I hope we hit the top on this marriage idiocy and I think Millenials and  Z’s seem to be wising up.

Edited Tuesday at 03:33 AM by Spekulatius