Jurgis

Disclaimer: I have not attended previous MicroCap conferences. I have some loose connections to some of the organizers and presenters. On the positive side, I think this is a good opportunity to meet some people from CoBF and blogosphere. I guess oddballstocks will be attending and others mentioned by Fred. Also on positive side, if you are getting into micro(nano)cap stock investing, it might be an easy opportunity to listen/talk to managements and start growing the 5th sense of whether they are bulshitting or if they are straight shooters. ;) On the negative side, some of the companies will be not interesting, over promotional, not-really-value investments, etc. Don't expect every company to be a great management, great capital allocation, great business or at least cigar butt at great valuation. I'm not sure if the list of companies from previous conferences is still available. If it is, you might look through it and see if there's at least couple companies that interest you. I think there were couple that interested me a bit, though I never followed up. :-\ All the best to organizer and attendees. I think I won't attend and instead buy couple shares of nanocap XXXXX from the money saved on flights and hotel. Sorry. ;) Have a great conference. ;)

Of course there is zero guarantee that Trump will appoint die-hard conservatives into Supreme Court. Once he's POTUS, he may appoint whoever he wants. But if judges are the killer issue, then, yes, republicans have no choice but to vote for Trump and hope that he does more "good" for republicans than damage. And expect continued temper-tantrums and blackmail on any policy issue where Trump clashes with Republican held (??) congress and (?? ?? ??) senate. I fully expect that if Trump wins (looking unlikelier every day, but who knows), he will say "F**K you GOP, you did not support my campaign, now I hit you basterds. Putin for Supreme Court haha". If it wasn't for racist, nationalist and misogynist rhetoric + risk of unstable narcissistic guy at the helm of US, I'd like to see Trump as a president just to see republicans squirm when he does things that are completely Trumpian and not the GOP-party-line. Oh wait, they are already squirming. Perhaps that's enough of the show and we can skip the part where they squirm even more.

Out of curiosity: has anyone held a stock that converted to liquidating trust in IRA? What happens then? Does Fido (or whoever your broker is) keep the nontrading liquidating trust stock and your account still receives all the remissions from the trust directly? Or is it more complicated?

Haha! Ok, that last post made it too obvious. ;D Shit Scott, I believe you had a few doubting your sanity for a second. Good job. 8) The problem is that there are people who will watch Scott's video and become even more convinced to vote for Trump. :-\

It's a troll question. I voted "No" though. If Trump is certifiably unfit, this should be resolved via legal measures (impeachment? or other ways to remove certifiably insane president) and not by imposing martial law. Edit: Chance Gardener for President! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/ Let America grow! You heard it here first.

I think Bruce's investments are a bit YOLO, but if Fannie/Freddie work out, he'd get about 4x (or more?) on 20% position, so ~80% return. That would be enough to recompense for underperformance in 1, 3, 5, 10 year windows. Not that I advice to invest in his funds, do your own DD and all that.

+1 good post Parsad.

Adesigar, I understand somewhat why average voters may vote for a populist, nationalist, racist candidate with simple "solutions" that are not implementable and don't solve anything. I've seen this firsthand in other places. I think the results for average voters if Trump wins will be just as disappointing as they've been in other places that elect such populist candidates. In (best?) neutral case, this leads to disenchantment with the populist hero and possible jump to another one next election. In the worst case, it leads to breakdown of democracy and installation of totalitarian regimes. Let's hope we don't get there. Unfortunately, I don't know a good solution how to persuade such voters that their choice is wrong. Yes, usually they are disenchanted by mainstream politics and politicians and they think that changing to populist outsider is a simple solution. Persuading them otherwise requires both extensive education and positive results from mainstream political machine. Some kind of economic upturn also usually works - people usually attribute that to government somewhat and tend to less likely vote for extreme candidates. I don't change my opinion about CoBF Trump proponents though. They are knowledgeable and educated. They should know better. If they decide to support a candidate whose only competence is relentless self promotion and who bases his campaign on nationalist and racist demagoguery, it's shame on them. Edit: Aside: I wonder if Koch brothers will propose any workable plans for dealing with income inequality and if they can make their Republican candidates accept these plans and platforms. I don't hold my breath, but if they did, this might be a good direction for congress/senate, government and country.

There. Fixed that for you.

ROFLMAO. ;D ;D ;D ;D Oh wait. This is actually sad. There are people out there who think that Trump is competent. And these people are on CoBF. And they are managing someone's money. :-\ :'(

Not all of us hate Hillary. And we can still hope that Trump resoundingly loses.

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/effn-effnetplattformen/ Let us know if you visit them and any info.

I don't know if this helps your thinking at all but i think it's related. Basically I have mostly given up trying to reason with people that support Trump. If they still support him after all he's done and said and promised I don't think there's anything that he can do or anything I or anyone can say that'll change their minds. Let alone facts and figures. Sadly, Trump is right. He really can go and shoot people on 5th avenue. +1. My ignore list is getting longer by hour. The contortions of some "respected" CoBF posters on this thread are completely disgusting. At least Koch brothers are showing some rationality.

If I understand correctly, to buy Canadian prefs you have to open brokerage account in Canada. It doesn't matter that Fido/IBKR allow you to buy Canadian stocks trading on TSX and Canadian prefs also trade like stocks on TSX. You still can't buy these prefs from USA Fido/IBKR accounts. You have to have Canada-based account.

There's "Income taxes, principally deferred" liability of 63B that is not attached to any segment. Assigning 20B of that to Railroad, Utilities and Energy segment would reduce its equity to ~72B and raise your ROE to 8.8%. Assigning more, would increase ROE even more. I don't know what is the right amount of this liability for Railroad, Utilities and Energy segment.

Hah, AMZN is almost 10 bagger since the peak before the Great Recession. That 50% drop during? Just icing on the cakez. 8) Nope, did not buy. The only justification: I got other ~10 baggers then. More risky ones though. And learned bad habits. ;)

Got shares in IPO, sold on the first day when it breached IPO price, patted myself on the back when it went below IPO price, never bought. Oh well. Still, I'd rank this one as one of my smaller sins of omission. ::) 8)

He should merge with Wohl Capital asap. Think of the opportunities.

Well, I mostly like Amazon's "Subscribe and Save", though it has some annoyances. :)

Amazon's "Subscribe and Save" feature may be the least annoying of the monthly clubs, since you can shift the orders forward/back without penalty and you can easily cancel. A lot of monthly clubs rely on difficult cancellation to keep subscribers (even in this Internetz age). OTOH Amazon gets back at you with floating prices - your subscription is not fixed price and prices may vary +/-20% in practice. I use Amazon's "Subscribe and Save" for some items.

I really wonder if there will be success for monthly wipe club. Isn't toilet paper already efficiently priced at shops with all qualities and price points covered unlike the razors? Sure, maybe it's still cheaper to order online, Amazon b-ass-ics ;D brand via Amazon Dash button in your bathroom, but do you really need to join a wipe club? :o ::) :-X I'll go on a limb here and say that the similarity with shaving is misleading and that this area might be much more shitty ;D business than Dollar Shave Club was. But then it's now Unilever's problem, isn't it. :-X Edit: BTW, "Monthly X club" is not a modern Internetz-age invention at all. There have been monthly CD, video, panty, pantyhose, coffee, tea, cosmetics, etc. clubs for ages. With various levels of success. Mostly success is in persuading consumers that they will spend less money (they usually won't) for better quality (or same quality) merchandise (sometimes true, sometimes not) while making less effort (mostly true). Been there, seen that, and all I got is a pile of lousy VHS tapes. ::) ;D

You don't trust me, take a look at BUFF ( http://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BUFF ). They did it. Perhaps now it's too late, though I know at least couple more companies that are on success track with this recipe. Not saying it's trivial, but it has been somewhat easy way to riches. (I don't advise buying their stocks once they go public - IMO most money is made before going public or by going public). :) LOL. I wonder what they are comparing. For cat food Amazon is cheaper for most same-brand comparison vs PetCo or grocery store or so. Though Amazon is still crappily stocked for some human food brands and sometimes 3rd party prices for such are indeed 3x the price in the shop... so perhaps the author of the comment chanced on one of such brands.

Wife just got Google Fi phone and account. I'm gonna see how she likes the experience and maybe switch my T-Mobile to Google Fi too. Though buying Fi phone means that it takes ~10 months for savings to pay back - that's the drawback of Fi. A friend who's Mr. Money Mustache has H2O ( http://www.h2owirelessnow.com/ ) on Blu phone and is happy with that. We prefer Fi/T-Mobile, since we travel internationally and Fi/T-Mobile gives you free data/SMS through the globe + rather cheap calls too.

On one hand I don't watch TV, so for me TV-Industrial Complex is gone long time ago. For some things I buy noname cheapest stuff without even thinking. On another hand, quality matters and that's where brands still live. Maybe less so than in the past, but they still do. My wife would never buy cheapo shampoo or toothpaste. It's not that she watched Colgate ads on the screen, it's that she doesn't like the quality of cheapo toothpaste. I can use pretty much any toothpaste, but I agree with her on shampoos: there's a lot of crap and some of it branded too. Cat food? No way store brand. Yeah, the quality differs. BTW, fastest way to make $millions? Create pet food brand. Advertise that it's all natural spring water, wild river salmon, home grown potatoes, molecular vitamins, etc. Outsource the manufacturing. Sell like crazy. $$$ profit $$$. Well, maybe parts of the story should be true... ;) Whoever said Trader Joe's sells no name brands - LOL. Trader Joe's is a brand. Unlike some (most?) cheapo stores where shop brand is the ugly cousin, TJ's products are mostly geared to push TJ's brand message. It's a brand that has good quality and is not available elsewhere. Double ka ching. I don't go to TJ's for price - well maybe a little - I go there for good quality products I can't get elsewhere. Sure they also have some fungibles, but I wouldn't go there if they only had fungibles. In general, it's not a single night revolution. Things are changing, but they've been changing for the last 15+ years. Brands will still be there but possibly in a way different than "TV-Industrial Complex". Moats may not be insurmountable as people thought, but they are likely deeper than people think. And BTW, Amazon rules a lot of this. It's not clear how much they understand and use their power (yet). On previous Dollar Shave Club thread someone mentioned "The Art of Shaving". I went to their website, got interested in pre-shave oil, went to Amazon, picked oil (not "The Art of Shaving" brand - heh lost sale for these guys) that seemed to have OK reviews and OK price, bought it. IMO, Amazon could make huge $$$s if they managed to earn extra money through brand placing, low impedance advertising, etc. I think they are doing it a bit, but IMO there's way more that they can do, they just have to be careful not to annoy and push away their customers.

A number of Liberty As are trading below Ks right now. It's mostly irrational, though some people try to explain it as a liquidity premium. I flip flop A's to K's couple times a year. Stopped posting it on CoBF since nobody seems to care.