spartansaver

You've decided that you think a company, options, real estate, etc. are worth investing in. What are some heuristics that you use in different situations to figure out how to go about making your purchase (i.e. all at once, average in, etc.)?

Yes, it was a fun and brisk read. Good stories on Nick Sleep and Greenblatt made the book worth it. Not much of a time investment and gets the investment juices going.

Ectm is a similar idea although it was much more interesting at 30 cents. Should distribute around 12 cents this year using the futures natural gas strip and a 50 cent hub discount. If natural gas prices go to 4 or more, it gets very levered to the upside. It’s my largest position, partly because of the run, and partly because at 30 cents I felt my downside was pretty limited. I would have posted sooner about this idea, but I was trying to buy as many shares as possible and it’s reasonably illiquid.

I remember when Bruce Berkowitz used a very similar chart over and over for Sears...

If you go to the book section and filter by number of replies, that will get you a decent representation of the most popular books. If I knew nothing about investing, I would start with a few accounting books (not the most sexy advice), that way you can understand the language that many investing books speak in. Then I would maybe go on to Margin of Safety. It's a simpler and more enjoyable version of the Intelligent Investor, and you will gain a basic framework for investing. Perhaps read a bio about Buffett (my favorite is Making of an American Capitalist), and go from there. Just my opinion and someone else probably has a better way.

You should watch the China Hustle, being mindful that it's made in Hollywood. I still think it drives home important points about investing in China.

https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/episodes/common-sense-investing-w-joel-greenblatt/ Does anyone know the company that Greenblatt is referring to at the 35:03 mark?

I'm not sure 50 years is a long enough time period on a macroeconomic level to draw too many conclusions about a single piece of the macro framework. Fiscal policy does not exist in a vacuum. An infinite number of macroeconomic combinations have played out over the past 50 years that contributed to our current situation. I'm a poor historian, so perhaps there are some cases in history where this lasted for several hundred years instead of 50, then touche.

I would say that bond investors are using close to the 10-year in computing intrinsic value.

WSJ calls out FB. https://www.wsj.com/articles/fact-checking-facebooks-fact-checkers-11614987375?mod=mhp

Looks like it earned close to around 40% ROTIC for the few years leading up to it getting acquired. Earnings could get cut in half and it'd still be generation solid returns on net tangible assets.

"In 1999 and 2000, Buffett spoke of the market environment and the minimal returns investors could expect going forward." That was my exact takeaway from this year's letter. He was pretty clear on bond's being insanely overpriced, and you can deduce what you would like from that in relation to the level of the stock market. My issue was that we have a pandemic going on and I expected some commentary around that. The only commentary around that was that NFM was closed for six weeks.

Likewise, couldn't disagree more with the notion that Warren should focus his communications on excogitations about the future. Those who want discussions of Snowflake and explorations of the future development of Berkshire are in the wrong place. Read through the 50-plus letters and it is apparent what Warren tries to do/likes to do with these letters and with his Berkshire-specific communications in general. There are people who would like him to do quarterly conference calls, to discuss current investments with more depth (why did you investor in this?). I mean the most glaring omission would be the dearth of Apple discussion right? They have $120 billion in the company but he did not even review basic thoughts of the business, its moat, its value, etc. Essentially the only substantive discussion of Apple was an empirical description of its buybacks. So it may be reasonable to expect a discussion, at least a minimal one, of this $120 billion investment....BUT that is not the kind of thing he generally does. That is as a part of Berkshire as much as GEICO. Also the nature of annual report documents and letters is to review the past. That is their essential function - they are concerned with what has happened to get to this point. I do believe Warren is addressing the future though by addressing the past. These letters and Warren's Berkshire-specific communications shape and cement the culture and character that he intends to endure at Berkshire into the future. Reading through 50-plus years of Berkshire letters and the way he discusses the companies they've purchased, how those companies were built, the way the Buffett Partnership became Berkshire - and how that indelibly shaped the present, and he hopes future-Berkshire, is a powerful message to Greg, Ted, Todd and their successors. The communication has been so clear and the transmission of values through these communications so powerful, for instance, that if Greg immediately started quarterly conference calls after he takes over - then every single long-time Berkshire shareholder that I know of would revolt. That is because of Warren's clear communication in these letters. In 1999 and 2000, Buffett spoke of the market environment and the minimal returns investors could expect going forward. In 2008, Buffett discussed the financial crisis in the midst of it. Today we are in a pandemic and not a word is mentioned. I had expectations that Buffett would to some degree talk about the past year and his thoughts around it. I don't think it was that crazy of an expectation and I was let down. Perhaps I should have listened to Charlie and gone in with no expectations. I was disappointed and thought it was one of the most generic letters he's written.

Muscleman, Thank you for bringing the Covid crisis to our attention early on. I managed to hold onto our positions but bought a lot of out-of-the money puts to hedge against our portfolio. We winded being up over 20% thanks to you. More importantly, the risk management tactic was a very nice "surprise" to my investors during March/April. Coming out of the crisis, we have gained more of their trust. If I can offer you a piece of advice is that if you see Vix trade to 80, just buy and hold your nose. It only happened once before during 08/09 in my short 15 year career. So if Vix spikes to over 80, it is just a blaring signal to buy. I hope you can benefit from this piece of advice in the future. Frankly, you can say the same for Vix of 40, or 60. But 80 is definitely a no brainer. I'll echo these same thoughts. Had a very good year because of your insight, it is much appreciated.

Is AT exposed at all to the natural gas price swings that happened recently? AT has this in their annual... Wondering what the impact could be if they were paying $1k/MMBTU for natural gas. "We do not typically hedge the entire exposure of our operations against commodity price volatility. To the extent we do not hedge against commodity price volatility, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be improved or diminished based upon movement in commodity prices."