Jurgis

Possibly OT: One area where I disagree with a lot of posters on this thread and with Wizard Schools link I posted is the benefit of the great schools. It seems that people believe that if we had great schools, everyone would be Elon Musk and we'd be living in paradise. IMHO the benefit of great schools is much lower than what people expect. In fact if we discard poor and broken schools (like Detroit examples in US) and discard the economics and mentality of parents and kids, IMO the results of best schools would not be that much different from results of average/OK/not-that-great schools. The best schools might make children happier and more excited to attend them, but the results are not necessarily gonna be much better. To give some evidence to my viewpoint, take Soviet and Chinese school systems. Both of them are definitely not that good. I'd guess most here would say they are bad. And yet by a number of metrics kids who graduated from them did comparably well to US/European kids who went to good/better/private/etc schools. Of course, I am hand waving a bit here. And I'm all for improving the schools as much as possible. I just don't think this would change things as much as people expect.

They all just read CoBF and buy the CoBF-motel stocks.

Sorry. I sometimes forget that the government can solve all problems. Please continue. Nobody said that. But apparently some people believe that any government involvement is evil.

And there goes another thread.

Non quantitative thoughts. Disclosure: I hold STRZA, DISCA on content side. In the past I have shifted STRZA to DISCA to improve "quality". As I said on other threads - and I think this is somewhat common thought - it seems we have overcapacity in content, especially with Netflix, Amazon, etc. piling into the area too. Consolidation might help, however we haven't seen much so far. STRZA was supposed to be acquired 2 years ago - no progress. We might get LGF/STRZA merger, which would be positive a bit, but what next? Is that enough for long term performance? A bunch of content stocks are cheap and getting cheaper. I wonder if what Picasso wrote about other CoBF-motel stocks could apply to content companies too. I.e. they are cheap for a reason and might not do as well as people expect. Even after the drops so far.

Google ratcheted Youtube ads a lot in the last year. My guess from user's POW it probably went 200-1000% up compared to beginning of 2015. On the positive side for shareholders, these are harder to block and there's very little substitute for Youtube. It sucks for users of course (anyone has a good solution for blocking?). On the negative side for shareholders, I wonder how much of that is one time uptick and how saturated this is now. In other words, this might not decline, but the huge uptick is behind.

Ouch on this and LGF. Will be thinking whether to add.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/07/wizard-school.html (I disagree with this, but yet another POW) and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0964587/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Or in other words, if it's good enough for Elon Musk, it should be good enough for anyone. :P On a serious note, I don't know what Sportgamma's goal is for this thread. Rational, experiment-evidence-based approach to education might work well. But in reality changing the education system wholesale is huge and pretty impossible task compounded by the fact that a lot of issues are societal/financial rather than the system itself. In other words, in a lot of cases you would produce much more results by changing mentality and economical situation of parents and kids rather than changing the school system. You are welcome to try though. Regarding gamification and anecdotal stories of very bright kids who frequent this forum and think that their experience is applicable to 99% people out there - I don't think that's the case. Of course, bright kids could have their special schools/systems - and in some places they already do.

The original Hedge Fund Buffet!!! :P

Those are fighting words man. 8)

Like Internet for example. Oh, wait...

Click on the link next to my picture. Will update for January over the weekend, but hasn't changed much.

RhubarbXIV, fair enough, your opinion is well thought out, although I think I disagree with some of what you wrote. Good luck to you. :)

As I said somewhere, I think this might not be the best time to start indexing. If majority of value investors have underperformed in last X years, then I get a "get out of jail free" card too, no? ;). If a lot of people are saying "hold on, this is gonna turn to value", then perhaps I should hold on? ;) Anyway, these arguments are semiserious only. Right now, I don't plan to switch to indexing. However, I am seriously evaluating all possibilities and considering various approaches, so I may change my mind at any time. Regarding "not making much sense" - you can add :D ;D 8) :P to my posts above at least. However, if some of my serious posts don't make sense you are welcome to ask what I meant. Only if you care of course. Best.

I guess I did not realize how bad the numbers are across the board (not only BRK) especially after 2015. Who'd think that the year SP500 was flat would be nail into a lot of value coffins. I guess I understand why people want to say "wait, this is like 2000, it's gonna turn soon". I am not sure if it will even though my portfolio is positioned towards the turn (BRK, FFH and similar). More sole searching ahead.

Done.

Good luck getting Buffett to retire. ::) Yeah, I guess 2015 book value might get him there... :'( Edit: BTW, I found a loophole for Buffett. He's now running a company and not an investment vehicle. Company leaders don't have to close the shop if they underperform... wait but why? :P

RhubarbXIV, great comments. Still I'm gonna go for "Mr. Popularity" title here 8) and say that anyone who underperforms for 5 years+, should just close the shop and stop selling themselves as great investor. Though of course it's free country and free markets and everyone is free to underperform for any time period they want. Peace and bear hugs

Please don't slap me while I'll continue - week by week - going forward, in small drips, one by one - to buy what I consider quality stuff, in the aim of getting [still] a lot of cash to work. I knew there was someone raising prices on the stuff I wanted to buy.

So for how long does XXX has to underperform to be able to shit on it without being judged as harsh? "This guy is a really great investor! He has underperformed for 20 years only! Wait a bit, he's gonna show you!"

Just sell everything guys and go full short. I know you want to do it.

This is the part that 'concerns' me. The alternative is really alternative (we are in a couple of private RE deals together.) all private some self done, some 'sponsored'. (We both belong to a group that has a ton of real estate deals coming through, small 10-25 million dollar deals with 20 to 100k chunks.) The investors in the group have averaged about 15 to 18% a year in these deals, including the great recession. Hmm, if the returns are so good, why does it concern you? Because you think they are not sustainable? Anyway, this is not an area I can advise in. I guess I have similar question as others: if he has high wealth/income, why switch? why try to outperform at all? For fun and activity? If he's high wealth, but not-high-current-income (as in salary), then I think 25% cash makes sense. Otherwise it depends on his wealth/income ratio. But still 25% cash IMO makes sense (so I guess I disagree with Travis on this). Other than that, I think it's not a bad allocation. But really almost any "normal" portfolio would work.

Putin!

I agree with comments above. Couple thoughts from me: I am not sure I buy the "mechanically invested value" approach. QVAL performance was atrocious last year. But we discussed it elsewhere and I think you don't want to revisit this. Even if I went with mechanical value, why not get PRF and be done with it? I think "alternative" is a bunch of newish faddish crap. I've seen this in various more complicated passive portfolios and I never understood the attraction. Especially since people put this into things that are not really alternative. I.e. REIT is not the same as real estate. OTOH if you put money into real RE, you have to have someone manage it, take care of it, etc. Do you really want the trouble? 25% cash or bonds is reasonable based on Graham, so +1 on that. Picking stocks: what others above said.

So who apart of Todd&Ted you think understand this and are good at this?