Vish_ram

RIP. The last decade is a tough one for high profile value investors. Not many can escape with a pivot to compounders, cinches, finches and 100 baggers.

Growing pies (i own growth too, even while practicing value investing) Discounted pies (crappy position, but cheap) Heavily Discounted pies (very crappy position, but cheap) Compounders Hidden moats (only I understand the moat) Growth engine 4-5X in 5 years. (don't bail out on me) 8-10x in 6-8 years (please don't bail out on me)

Increase in money supply should be viewed in relation to velocity of money. The velocity has been dramatically decreasing. Given the backdrop of dramatic productivity gains due to technology, decreasing population growth, greater consumption of services compared to goods, dramatic capacity expansion in commodity production (during first decade of this century), we are having lower real rates, lower fed funds rate, lower inflation, lower velocity & increasing money supply. The gold bulls have totally misread the situation and are purely engaged in mental masturbation. The so called money printing hasn't increased inflation. It has only gone to support existing Treasury's mandatory spending. Think of a couple with several kids (school tuition, books, clothing spending), supporting their parents (social security, medicare).. Now if wife is unemployed & husband works part time, then their rich uncle (Fed) uses his credit card to loan some money to this couple. The couple is not splurging on anything, just maintaining their usual spending without missing a beat.

The way people react to this reveals a lot about the content of their character, ethics and their moral compass. Most investors hold Munger & Buffett in high esteem. What is revolting to me is to see someone use these two as props and make $ off of it. That too by selling an inferior product While marketing it as superior. What if Prem Watsa sold stock and raised money for his firm by showing smoke & mirrors returns and constantly posting pics of Munger? Does it cross the ethical line? Absolutely yes. How do you hide 17 years of massive S&P underperformance yet issue a statement in your report that “Our long term performance is intact”? Mr Chou Has underperformed S&P. Is anyone here questioning about Chou’s moral compass? I’ve never seen Chou promise any returns, doesn’t sugar coat past returns. So no one in this forum bothers to question him. Where is the money for all that philanthropy coming from? Is it earned in the right way? I’m sure Madoff was generous in his gift giving. This is my last post about this topic. I’m done. God bless his heart.

The market is way ahead in pricing some of the optionality. 1) Once FSD becomes stable, you can just "Turo" your car. It'll drive by itself to the potential customers location, work and then come back home to park itself. 2) You can have endless number of subscription offerings a) connectivity b) media bundle (why not bundle music/video streaming and sell at a discount a la ROKU) c) Add a solar panel to roof and sides and get free charge from sun. Finance the whole setup from Tesla and pay a monthly fee that might turn out to be cheaper than charging from home. or even produce excess energy, charge your wall charger that in turn is used in the home. .... 3) Market is pricing in considerable value to data that Tesla gathers from FSD. The AI war is won by the company that has amassed the largest data. Who has collected the most? Which CEO has the tech background to make sense of it? 4) Software is a winner take all game. What if buyers pick Tesla purely for the UI & software?

I bought the Model Y and absolutely love it. The difference is like Blackberry Vs iPhone. You truly realize how much the traditional car companies have dropped the ball in terms of catching up with technology. The movie "who killed the electric car" really shows the disdain for cannibalizing their line up and offering what customers want. Neither long nor short (but have traded it a few times). As long as the revenue growth shows sustained positive momentum, the shorts will lose.

Just found an amazing video on how to beat the indices. Watch & learn.

Fat chance admitting to poor returns. If you analyze it closely, you'll see that an extraordinary amount of thought and action has been put to this. For existing investors who have seen tons of losses and suffering from loss aversion, there is this psychological support (don't look here, look there effect - quarterly/annual reports talk about how NAV is fraction of intrinsic value, wait for 5 bagger, a 10 bagger that I'm about to enter etc etc), for new investors there is talk about free ride (you don't pay anything until everyone's losses are recouped), carefully cultivated image with pics of famous investors that people hold in high esteem (gives legitimacy), probably paid coterie of twitter followers who post his investing wisdom frequently (I once found two such same posts with same wordings & pics from two different people around exact same time , not the retweets), philanthropy funded from the scheme (generate good will amongst rich Indian diaspora), books rehashing Buffett/Munger principles (prices artificially inflated to gain attention), umpteen college talking circuits (putting oratorial skills to full use and be in the news adding more legitimacy), periodic puff pieces in forbes magazine (probably paid)..... The explanation in annual meeting to account for variance of perf to indices is truly a masterpiece. You've to see to believe it. The audacity is breathtaking.

The investing world is a strange one. Look at thousands of mutual funds who still charge 12b-1 fees and other fees and continually underperform their benchmarks. People still invest in them. There is a steady migration away from them though. Pabrai’s biz model depends on exploiting this blind spot. More power to him. You can call it knowledge/information arb. You’ll be surprised how very otherwise intelligent human beings who do well in business and make tens of millions can be so poor in understanding basic concepts like annualized returns and comparing it against benchmarks. Humans fall in love with good story tellers. Pabrai is one of the greatest of them all. You can just listen to him talk for an hour about peeling a banana. You will come out feeling enlightened. There will be full of anecdotes about Warren & Charlie. An equivalent in spiritual world is this indian guru Sadhguru. Most of his talks are mesmerizing and in reality you wouldn’t have learnt anything. His streak can continue for another 20-30 years. His reports & annual presentations are master pieces. Fast paced, mental gymnastics to highlight good and downplay bads. Will he have made $ for his clients in the long run? Most likely yes, he would cross the hurdle. Will he have outperformed S&P for majority of the clients in the long run? Most likely not. The lack of returns is more than compensated by great story telling, the ride.... The naive investors are just fair game. Is this behavior something Buffett/Munger would approve of? Absolutely not!

The one with rapid drop (#3 from top) had much higher force to start with, but didn't have sustained force after the initial one. Think of hedge funds who show rapid returns during early years (with tiny AUM) and then fail to show sustained momentum. The middle one has the right amount of early force and sustained momentum. To compound you need sustained returns until you get to the finish line. How does this relate to compound interest? I don’t see it.

Yes value investing beautifully works - for the owners of the value funds. Chou associates USD returned 0.9% compounded for last 15 years. Yet investors have $133MM in assets in this fund. The fund collected $1,345,763 in fees. Who are these dumb people? Quit being a value investor, become a owner of a value themed fund. That’s where the money is.

I already ran the numbers and compared it against SPY (total return) https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/mohnish-pabrai-blog/?action=dlattach;attach=8616

Money management is the classic “Heads I win, Tails you lose” business. You’ve to applaud managers who aren’t just index huggers, but try to find value and make an attempt to outperform.

The most important thing in meditation is having the right mind set. In our day to day life, we are ego-driven (ego is not used in a pejorative way, but a sense of self, esteem, sense of I). We attribute our success/failures to self. We get elated when we accomplish something and get upset if things dont go as we had planned. It all goes back to the sense of I/ego/self. In meditation mindset, the focus is on suspending this ego self. This is done by not activating the left brain. When you dont focus on past & future and just focus on the present (by observing breath, sensations etc), your activity is more on right brain. The default mode network is less active. So the mindset is all about “not having expectations”, “not expecting results”, etc. Expectations/results driven are classic attributes of ego/self. You work hard and want to get the rewards. This mindset is detrimental when it comes to meditation. The right mindset is about letting go. 1) you’ve to constantly bring attention to breath, just observe any sensations. If mind wanders, bring it back slowly. If still wanders, do conscious deep breathing 2) consistency is the key, you’ve to do it everyday for weeks to see good benefits Meditation is only something nice recently done. I did a 30-day guided meditation and now I have been doing 10 minutes a day off and on - but I don't really notice any difference between the days I do and don't meditate. I'm primarily focusing on my breathing and trying to get to the point where it's less focus and more second nature + empty relaxation of the mind, but am concerned I'm approaching it wrong if I'm not noticing a difference when I'm not doing it. Any advice for a newb?

I had a real hard time sitting for more than 15 mins before attending Vipasanna. Go to dhamma.org, book for a 10 day course. There you’ll be asked to do 11 hour meditation for 10 days. It is a good reset of your brain. They give you free food, accommodation etc. I wish I got this advice when I was in my 20’s. Any youtube video, books, tutorials?