Jurgis

I seem to remember that some orders were in fact cancelled during/after flash crash. So this is in fact a risk.

Some of their arguments are pretty nice summary for nanocap investing that people like oddballstocks are doing. But I really don't see any of this translating into good results for FRMO. There's good talk, but I don't see good walk. Maybe it's all hidden behind Horizon Kinetics though: i.e. maybe HK is doing well, but that doesn't transfer to FRMO visibly. If they really like some nanocap stocks, why don't they buy them for FRMO directly? Is it because they want separation from HK and so they don't want to invest in public equities on FRMO side? Though it seems they do: there's WELX, for example... So then why not buy the really cheap "off-index" securities if they really believe they are cheap and mispriced? Bitcoin stuff - well, I know there are people here who love this, but I don't. IMO this is a waste of their time and not gonna contribute to their results. Yeah, I know "optionality" and all that. Same as grain exchange, options exchange, etc. None of these have been contributing much if anything to FRMO recently. And then a bunch of whining about indexes and zero interest rates. ::)

Anecdotally: I would bet that Model 3 will be delayed or rolled out slower than expected. There can be price raises as we've seen with Model S. IMO significant percentage of people will buy even with price raise and delay. I might not, but then I'm a cheapskate. 8) I'm also concerned about SCTY, but I'd rather not revisit this discussion since I don't have any new info or arguments. ;) I'll be very happy if Elon manages to navigate this successfully. I'd not advise anyone to invest in TSLA expecting great return.

Why? There's one person (no_free_lunch) invested in this based on some kind of fundamental analysis. There are couple people (myself included) who bought the stock to support Elon. If Tesla fails, I won't have to do any soul searching or examine my thought process. I know very well what I got into. I don't expect any return on the money I put in.

I really hope you are wrong.

You are right.

Seriously, he almost completely blew up. Maybe you could argue it's OK to invest with him for a lumpy 15% but not in mutual fund format. He could have been forced to close the shop.

Winter is coming! ... oh wait.

It's my understanding you can direct your broker/accountant of which to use. Some may even let you choose to customize at the position level instead of the account level. Just got to make sure it's all well documented and correct in the event you get audited. What TwoCitiesCapital said. I've done it @position level in the past. I'm not an accountant though and I haven't been audited so far, so FWIW and all that.

It's always black & white with you people. I enjoyed the Godfather & yet I wouldn't enjoy doing a hit. I enjoyed Band of Brothers & yet wouldn't want to go to war. You; on the other hand, deride me for being entertained by these films due to their violent content & yet you delight in picking virtual fights. Get the chip off your shoulder (I'll bet it's not there in face to face conversations...) The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.pdf

With current price (.3 of par), getting positive return requires over 40% chance of success and less than 4 years to achieve. (Or higher chance of success if it takes over 4 years to achieve it). Pre-runup, the numbers were ~20% of chance + over 4 years. Assuming 40% chance of success, gain to par, loss to zero, full Kelly's is 10% of portfolio, half Kelly's is 5%. FWIW.

Closing to 5% after current runup.

Well, I just had that kind of election in a country that now will remain nameless, since I really don't want to go into dirty linen with specifics. ~8 parties in total, ~5 major parties. All major parties have exactly the same platform. Yeah, they all gonna fight against corruption, bring back expats, lower taxes, support small businesses, support tech startups, support agriculture, support families, support education, and so on and so forth. If you would believe their platforms, they all are the same and they all will do great job. In reality... oh well. And after 4 years of corruption and scandals of party A, people elect party B as an "agent of change" forgetting all the corruption and scandals of party B did 8 or 12 years ago... And so we rotate A, B, C, then maybe A again, then maybe D created by people from A and B and renamed for fun... So... same crap. Might work differently in US maybe...

@SnarkyPuppy: OK. :)

I am sure you have great intentions. I am also pretty sure that your proposal if-adopted would be used to suppress votes from marginalized groups including based on race. But since this has pretty much no chance of being adopted, we won't know whether your positive expectations or my negative ones are closer to reality. BTW, I think that demonstrating basic proficiency won't change the results of elections much if at all. I base this on smaller countries that have close to 100% literacy and where most people know the people standing for election. But again - we won't know what this would do in US. Take care. Edit: I think I skipped over the part of your proposal where you suggest voting for candidates without knowing their names just the positions. This is somewhat interesting, but it is somewhat like voting for parties (in various countries). And it's very unlikely to be adopted in US. I don't know if it would be positive or negative.

The system is not "fine" if by "fine" you mean "ideal", but there are no simple solutions that Internetz forum chat will magically deliver. Restricting votes to X will never pass since it's not what democracy is. And if it passes, it's very likely to be for the worst not for the best - i.e. back to some form of fascism rather than to enlightened "rule by smart dedicated altruistic etc. superhumans" utopia. Things may change when humans get the Musk/Kurzweil brain implants that allow them instant access to cloud intelligence and thinking/education becomes less of a chore. Maybe. I'm not superconfident. Things will also likely change a lot when we get non-human superhuman intelligence.

Not bad suggestion, but there are exceptions. E.g. cancer. You still can find places that may treat you, but you'd have to live there and they may nor may not have as good/latest drugs and proficiency. And if they have latest/greatest, the country may not be cheap. (I have some 3rd hand experience in this through family members.)

/bow great teacher! 8) I might work at least until there is demand for my skills and I have some fun and sense of contributing to our society's progress. ;)

But most individual investors have a significant fraction of their portfolio in a 401k with limited investment options. 30% of my portfolio is in a 401k that limits me to Total Stock Market Index, Total International Stock Index, Total Bond Market Index, and Target Retirement funds, for example. As a value investor, I'm forced to consider macro when allocating this fraction. I don't think you are. What's wrong with just an allocation based on your risk tolerance, age, something along those lines? +1. Of course, you can shift like Graham suggested between 75% stocks/25% bonds and 25% stocks/75% bonds. But it's likely you won't outperform 50/50 (or 60/40) much if at all.

Yeah, that's the concern. OTOH, the valuations are lower than they were in 1999. But yeah, probably 4-6% per year from here for 17 years. And that might be optimistic.

Stoned again Scott? It's legal now in CA 8)

OK, I probably should shut up, but: I believe that MMM and similar early retirees have not enough allocation for medical/long term care in the old age. MMM will be fine since he's now blog-rich. But in general don't retire in 30-40s expecting great health forever.

I Bing'ed it and got this: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/04/21/no-retirement-savings/26070017/ Last two lines of the article talk about retirees. It doesn't give average (which would be mostly meaningless anyway, you really would want median I'd think). It is bad. Very very few have 500K, forget about 2M. Assuming they own a house, they may be able to survive on social security + medicare... (medicaid might not apply if you have a house, not sure).

Yeah man, I time traveled back in time to 1902 and bought some of that Standard Oil. Now I could retire if I could just persuade idiots at JP Morgan that the safe deposit box with stock certificates is really mine. Not planning to sell anytime soon in the next couple hundred years. We'll need oil to go to the stars I'm sure.

Right. BTW, I used 3% since that's conservative estimate for "never go to zero". Some studies have shown 4% to be a bit risky especially if downturn strikes in the beginning. But anyone can make their own assumptions. I'm being (very) conservative.