Jurgis

Just cross validation during bull market years? I've played around with it a bit but never been comfortable enough with the algo [even worst with NNs]. I'm very scared of blowing up with these over-fitted models that have only seen rising markets... I think the main criticism against these "paper" strategies is you have 1000s of academics looking for signals and the winners publish a paper. The signals they find basically are the result of survivor bias. Do you guys have slack? Maybe its time we start a CoBF slack group So I spent a bunch of time reimplementing what these guys presumably implemented. I do not get their results. My results are pretty much at level of random guessing. It's quite possible I am not doing something the same way they did. As I said before, I'll link to their paper once it's publicly available and someone else might be able to replicate their results ... or not. I may also post or send my implementation to anyone interested after the paper is publicly available so people can shoot holes in what I did... Although I don't promise to clean up the code hugely... Right now it's a prototype-level mess. 8)

What would be your comparison of WBA vs. CVS?

::)

The hard part of healthcare is that everybody knows there is not one solution. Its going to take many solutions from overtesting, to price differences in drug to a real discussion of our lifestyle and the outcomes that come from it. One of the strangest things that I have seen as I have gotten older is how much we spend on end of care and yet how many people don't get decent end of life care. I grew up near LaCrosse Wi and I remember everytime going to the doctor they always asked my Mom is she had her End of Life Directives done. It simply was a question right after can we see your ID and insurance card. It wasn't unique to me until I went to college, moved away and started my own family that I realized I didn't get those questions. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/03/05/286126451/living-wills-are-the-talk-of-the-town-in-la-crosse-wis Hopefully, having these conversations with not just your health care provider but also your family leads to less issues, less costs for society and a more peaceful process. I volunteer my time at a local Hospice facility. What has struck me is the the variance of how people and families deal with this. One of the things I do is I try to help some people get their financial records in order. I've been thanked numerous times by both the people and the families and its real. Great post. 8) I'd send you $20K, but I'm not Charlie Munger.

Live and learn. Live and learn. ;D

Me. 8)

Actually zero people on CoBF have posted their portfolios and (audited) returns. The annual return threads do not include portfolios and are mostly anonymous polls with very few people posting their returns explicitly connected to the poster. Even the ones who post their returns, don't post their portfolios. So your request is IMO out of line.

I expected better from longtime CoBF participants. Although I don't completely agree with alwaysdrawing's opinion, I am surprised about toxic and dismissive comments. You guys can be better... I hope. Peace

The dark side of trying to control overtest/overprescribe/overoperate via blunt instrument: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/well/the-strategic-lies-of-oncologists.html

I liked "The Cost Conundrum" article - though I did not send the author $20K check. 8) But based on the article I am not sure there are easy solutions. Yeah, change doctors' incentives, so they don't overtest/overprescribe/overoperate. Easier said than done. The right incentive would be "pay for great long term health results with low costs". But this is not trivial to measure and optimize for. You cannot pay the doctor 10 years after they saw the patient based on the outcome and tests/meds/operations prescribed or not prescribed. And once you try to adjust this to short term rules, either results or costs will likely suffer or there will be incentives to game the system. Yeah, someone will bring up Canada or Europe as counterexample. Maybe. I'm not sure incentives are great there. Perhaps some - most? - doctors do their best within the imperfect rules. Like he mentions Mayo Clinic culture, which is all nice and well. But it's something that's possible in couple locations driven by non-monetary incentives (culture), which is IMO almost impossible to spread across majority of doctors and hospitals. Especially doctors/hospitals that have previously run on monetary incentives of overtest/overprescribe/overoperate (sometimes somewhat subconsciously). I'm somewhat in the camp that there are not many low hanging fruit unless you socialize large swaths - which he cannot do and which would have its own issues. But maybe he has ideas that will work on large scale. Maybe he'll go for things that seem to work like Kaiser model. Good luck to him.

So many prejudices and biases in a single thread... ::)

Two cats. We feed dry and wet cat food. Dry food as LC. Wet food Friskies one 5.5oz/156g can for 2 cats per day... so $.50 or so for 2 cats per day, so $.25 per cat per day. (I think there usually are additional discounts).

I'd say crypto mining and AI. Although AMD may have benefited more from GPU shortage for mining. Is it sustainable? Who knows. I'd think crypto mining is not sustainable. It will either move to specialized solutions (and in fact for bitcoin + ??? other cryptos it has already) or die off (don't tell that to proof of work crypto weenies). AI as such is sustainable. The question though is whether NVDA will continue to have near-monopoly position in it and whether it won't move to specialized solutions too (although NVDA is trying to cover that somewhat). I'd say short term (couple years) there's not many alternatives. Longer time frame there's gonna be companies that try to get into this space. Consumer/gaming GPUs are still bread and butter. This will take a hit in recession or if business cycle turns. Any business cycle peaking would now be masked by crypto mining though... From what I've heard - here on CoBF too - the pricing on gaming GPUs has been crazy. I haven't looked at the trends recently. Maybe resident experts will chime in. 8) On the positive side, if - a big if - they can get their solutions into majority of upcoming (self-driving or not) cars, that would be a big market. If they cannot, the current market cap is discounting a lot. Disclosure: I hold tiny position in NVDA.

Buying last year's model was a great advice historically. But IMO this is not so clear cut now. There are a lot of changes coming with collision avoidance systems, sensors, and overall software in cars. It may still work, but be sure that you don't miss out on significant upgrades in software and hardware.

Your conversion or units are wrong. ;) US MA gas prices are aroundish $2.50-2.80 per gallon. Which is $2.50-2.80 / 3.78 ~= $.60-.80 per liter. Our grocery store gives out gas points. Sometimes we get gas $.50-.70 per galon under market (i.e. $2 or even lower). Of course, unlike Costco that depends on things we buy, how much we buy, etc. But that's also less than a mile away...

- Gasoline: 9 miles drive one way to Costco. Not worth it. Plus we get gas-discounts at local grocery shop that also has gas. - Travel/rental car: don't travel/rent much, likely not worth it. - Insurance: ... maybe. This is a tough one. I'd have to look and compare. Hate doing insurance compares anyway. So probably not. - Credit card: https://citicards.citi.com/usc/Costco/Dual/2018/Jan/PS/default.htm?m=XSMS111111W&cmp=KNC~01~110901~CRDACQXX~MSN&BT_TX=1&ProspectID=B4CD0934741349FABD7C9DDECF8AE103 Does not look like a great deal. 4% off gas at any place is somewhat attractive. The rest is meh IMO. I'm not sure I'd get it even if I had membership. I get 2% off any purchase, ~3% off gas with my current credit cards. Edit: I guess if you travel much, then 3% off travel vs 2% that I get would accumulate. Need $6K of travel to cover membership. - Someone else mentioned buying new car through Costco program. This might be worth $60. If I don't have to drive to Costco to do it... 8) ;D

I was on a saferi in Tanzania riding in a Land Rover up a steep hill. The road was entirely washboarded out. There was a crew of men on the side of the road filling in the drainage ditch beside the road with clay. I remarked to my wife at the time that they were going to make the road even worse, as now when it rained water would drain down the road instead of the ditch. The driver of the safari said it was likely a make work project. Now, I'm not sure what connections those people had or how much they were getting paid. But they were all working when I drove by (as opposed to the stereotypical one working three watching), and looked like they were working hard. It was ~40 degrees C (105 F or so). I've often thought about that, because I think it's the perfect picture of being born in the right place. I don't have any political power and have never used a political connection, but I was born in Canada, got a degree, and earn my living sitting down in climate controlled comfort. Those folks were apparently connected enough to get a "good" government job, and do backbreaking work in the hot sun. I wouldn't want to trade. I also don't think I'd prefer to get a government contracts through influencing a corrupt regime in a third world country, even if it was more lucrative. Seems like it could be hazardous to ones health... Well, you did not see really cushy govt jobs. But I get your point. 8)

I think that my post won't contribute much, but what the heck... 8) I like Costco as a business. I've watched the documentary, I've read the thread, I understand the model. That said, I've never shopped there and very likely never will. Pretty much everything about the model does not work for me: huge sizes (small household), one product selection (idiosyncratic taste), lines (hate lines), membership fee (won't shop there enough to justify), etc. Yes, I'd probably buy toilet paper there if that was painless, so maybe I should look into what they have online and think whether online-only membership is worth it. Likely not. Investment wise, I've held it in the past. I don't have strong opinion about its attractiveness now or in the future. I am a bit afraid it's no longer "hold forever" which means that buy valuation matters even more. So likely I won't buy it and so won't spend much time delving into it. Have fun. 8)

Put it all on red SPY same month calls. YOLO! 8) Seriously, IRL I'd probably do nothing. Even with special situations, there is no guarantee they'd work out in a month and they likely won't be big enough to put in $1B. The best trade would be one where you are likely make a little, but have a tail risk of losing a lot. I think this can be structured by selling out of the money calls and puts simultaneously (forgot how this is called). The thinking is that even make a little percentagewise with a high likelihood is worth quite a bit with this huge sum and blowing up with $1B is somebody else’s problem. I know ScottHall agreed with you ... and it's all for fun anyway ... but I disagree with you guys. 8) IMO, under the conditions given you really do a binary YOLO trade. I really would like bet-on-red. I.e. 50% you double, 50% your $1B margin is gone - and as you said then it's someone else's problem. ;) But yeah you could decide what is an acceptable outcome for you and bet accordingly. E.g. if you are fine with getting $100M out of it, then bet on 90% chance you get 100M, 10% you lose $1B. The problem I have with strategies that generate $10M 99% time and blow up 1% time is that ... why bother? If you risk to blow up, at least risk it for obscene amount of money, not for some 10M. :P 8) ;D I am ignoring what JRM said that you might not be able to find 50/50 or 90/10 strategies because of the money involved. Although if you went for very liquid investments, you might. And to repeat once more: this is all for fun, in reality I would very very likely do nothing.

Put it all on red SPY same month calls. YOLO! 8) Seriously, IRL I'd probably do nothing. Even with special situations, there is no guarantee they'd work out in a month and they likely won't be big enough to put in $1B.

In corrupt countries you get cushy govt job through family connections and then do nothing. Or even better collect bribes. Though unless country is very corrupt or small, this won't get you into top 1% nowadays.

In Soviet Russia red notices you!

Great value investment though. You can buy the whole company for only ... $15M!

I may replace my current Roku with Fire TV Cube.

https://qz.com/1308730/modern-pandas-should-have-died-out-years-ago/