Jurgis

I confess to never really understanding it. Here's the conclusion: (my bolding). Isn't it tautological that one should prefer "compelling" investments over cash? That's just what a compelling investment means. It's not completely tautological. Or at least not tautological for everyone. 8) E.g. I've held about 20% cash since 2009. Clearly through all this time there were compelling investments available. So I should have not held it, yes? OTOH if we consider that 20% a portion of portfolio dedicated to "fixed income" then perhaps I should have held it. Though perhaps I should have put it into better fixed income funds than "cash". (Which I partially did, but that's another story).

I read through "Know Your Graph" piece. I agree with the arguments there that the manager/investor should not be evaluated just based on their results. In fact, I mostly agree that evaluation based on graph would be better. I disagree that the graph is easy or even possible to create in most cases. In fact, even for a single investment - single stock - I have not seen anyone draw a graph distribution for expected outcomes. (OK, OK, I think Ed Thorp could have done the graph for some of his arbitrage investments. This is still an exception). I'd like to see someone present an investment with a graph of outcomes and argue for the distribution used. Or if someone is up for harder challenge, take any public portfolio (maybe something simpler than BRK... maybe top 5 positions of some investment manager) and draw a graph. IMHO, this is extremely hard and likely not possible at any useful accuracy. But maybe I'm too negative and someone can prove me wrong. ;) Thanks for the article. 8)

8% annual on stocks for next 10 years is likely optimistic. If it's 8%-above-inflation, then superoptimistic. I'd go with 3-6% annual for next 10 years on broad market. Maybe a bit more with international mix, since international has gone nowhere for a long time and is somewhat cheaper. I don't think they use 8% stock return a lot. They mostly focus on the bond side non-returns. But yeah, even with their assumptions, the portfolio likely needs to be quite bigger than most people expect.

Good paper.

Likely this. They were pretty much trying to push Hytera as high as possible, but Hytera managed not to get psyched out and raise the minimum possible. Now they are still trying to push up, but with way weaker hand.

What cherzeca said. 8)

Requoting this for people who claim that it's easy to find cheaper prices outside Amazon. :-\ OTOH, yeah, grocery prices on AMZN mostly suck. But then groceries on AMZN are mostly sold by 3rd parties, so it's no wonder Walmart.com can sell cereal or coffee at grocery store prices, while AMZN 3rd parties are 2x more expensive. Amazon Fresh, Amazon Now, Amazon Pantry are available in my area. I have not used any of them even with free $5-$10 coupons Amazon is giving me periodically. They all seem very limited so far.

Yeah, now it's just wait for either Privet increasing price or just tiny gain in eventual $11.50 distribution.

Bought Nikon B700 yesterday on Amazon. No legit sources cheaper than AMZN. Bunch of places - newegg, Walmart, Amazon marketplace - offering the camera through 3rd parties at $100 cheaper. No guarantees that these ain't grey market/international-cheapo-version/opened/refurb. At least one review on Walmart.com claims Indian version in open box... so... Amazon won this purchase from me after some hesitation.

YES! ... I meant "NO!" "NO, don't buy Whole Foods!" ;D

I don't see how this is great for AMZN, but WDIK. ??? Is AMZN good at integration of large brick-and-mortar acquired companies? Is it good at operating upscale grocery stores? Is the plan to be holding co and just let Mackey to operate the division (mostly) independently of mothership? Edit: IMHO, some level of integration would be beneficial, so a lot will depend on how well Bezos and Mackey jell. I guess we'll see.

I would guess this http://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Kramerica_Industries

Assuming no further bid, when does the transaction close? Selling today at $11.25 might be reasonable if no further bid and it takes 2+ quarters to close. Then the return is ~2% for half-year with some risk that deal does not close. Actually, I think that if there's no bid, the price will temporarily drop to $11 or even lower. So that's another reason to sell today at $11.25 - there might be opportunity to rebuy cheaper. Not saying these are high probability scenarios. Just giving some possible thought patterns.

OT: Good interview with Chanos.

Wait until oddballstocks comments in this thread or just PM him. 8) Then buy him a beer and you'll get all the scoop on the data sources. 8) This message was not paid for by oddballstocks or anyone else.

The problem is that humans and AI are judged using different standards. If human kills someone by accident it's OK'ish since you know it's human what can you do... If AI kills someone by accident, it's clearly broken, nefarious, and should be never used again. At least regulatory agencies subscribe to this fallacy less than regular people. Otherwise we would not have seen cruise control, autopilot or industrial robots at all. ::)

I would rather be immortal in co.co.co.co.co.co.co.co.co.co.co.

Uccmal, you clearly don't use a car... Cause you know: microprocessors for fuel injection, cruise control, getting to brakes too... a recipe for disaster according to you, no? 8) Take a big breath. Edit: And then I forgot about planes... don't even try to get into one of these bastards. Tons of electronics and code. And definitely mobile. ;) Edit 2: And BTW, US Navy... was running Windows... on ships... around 1998... what can go wrong... ;) Apparently nothing so far. ::) Software is in everything. And it's there to stay. So the apocalyptic scenarios of runaway lawnmowers... might happen... but then when was the last time Roomba killed anyone? Or your car's cruise control?

So CoBF devolved into a forum of FANG-hate and backslapping based on 2 days of market behavior. Can the last serious investor turn off the light please?

I got a mortgage in 2007. Refi couple times down to 3.5%. I'm sure that if I had paid cash instead, I'd be at least 1x that amount poorer (i.e. that cash invested probably has gone up 2x if not more).

Might work for easy yards, but IMHO this is still too limited. What if you have yard composed of multiple sections? What if you plant stuff - do you have to run wire again? I did not watch to the end, but I'd guess it might have issues if you have rocks accidentally thrown on grass or similar situations. Anyway, it's not bad, but shows why grasscutting is hard. Especially if you want to do it cheap.

BTW, with all respect to WP and NYT (and Bloomberg), they also have tons of clickbait nowadays. I don't read paper versions though. (I read paper version of Barron's ::) )

I fully support Alice Schroeder and everything she wrote in Snowball. Great book, great content.

Right, I understand what you are saying. I still don't think EMLC/EMB are good for the risky-higher-yield part of fixed income barbell. And equities (even high yielding ones) for me are in yet another part of "barbell" (except now it becomes more like a 3D barbell). Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

Recap from past threads: I read Barron's cover to cover. I think WSJ is mostly useless or at least hugely overrated. Every time I've read it (in airplane or hotel for free), I've never seen anything useful. I have subscribed to WP and NYT this year (yes, because of ... ). Might renew or not. I don't read them, but click articles referenced in CoBF/friends' FB postings/Google news.