Gregmal

Anyone follow this? Thinking this is a solid Irma play. There's been some work done by Bozza and I believe Tilson on this company and how they are a 0 waiting to happen in the event of a major FL natural disaster. Looking at ways to structure a potential trade, curious if others have this one on the radar as a hedge or outright short. http://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-bozza-presentation-on-universal-insurance-holdings-2015-11

The retail investor does not really have a fair way to get into stuff like this. If you do, it will be through murky private placements where you're being giving indirect ownership and paying incredibly high mark ups and sales fees. Or at least this is the case 95% of the time.

Rockets apparently just sold for 2.2B

I don't know if he is out of context, but the idea of throwing 90% heck even 50% of ones assets in an index fund at any one given point in time is asinine. At least, I would say to dollar cost average it in there over a span of 5-10 years if its a large sum of money. If you're a 25 year old kid, sure, throw your $10,000 in starter money there. But any sort of meaningful savings being chucked into anything, let alone an index fund in one shot, is incredibly risky. If the next big crash is right around the corner, you are f***ed.

For some of them, you need to go to HQ with a ski mask and a gun. All kidding aside, typically I've had success buying a few shares, then in direct order depending on results, email, call, send certified mail asking for information on company financials and the date of the AGM.

+1. We get the message, you are super into the early retirement lifestyle and it makes you happy. LOL shit, so am I. But isn't also part of investing and part of the framework necessary to retire early being wise about your time and money? By nature being skeptical of frauds, scams, and schemes? So yea, I see some fantastic story about this chick who went to Harvard retiring at 28, or a couple who retired at 35 but after briefly glancing at the details see the numbers don't add up and that I'm encouraged to click to link to their blog, I decide my time is better spent doing other things.

Wow. Except that MMM and that woman both retired before creating their blog, and that MMM was a software engineer who came from a low-middle class Canadian family and didn't make anywhere close to wall street money. Neither did I, btw, and I don't have a blog, and I've met tons of people who did the same thing and most are pretty regular folks. But anyway, keep inventing scenarios in your head if it makes you feel better. I'd wasn't referring specifically to MMM. For every one of those, there are a billion others who leave out the part about 500k salaries, parents leaving an inheritance, stock options going bananas, etc; all things that arent attainable to the average Joe. The woman who retired and then started a blog at 28 has little business preaching about what the model is for retiring early unless she's speaking at Ivy Leagues. "Hey Joe the Plumber, when you graduate from Yale, get an IB job at DB, then leverage than into an analyst job at Pershing Square, and voila, you can retire by 30!"... I also don't really understand the "inventing scenarios" part of your remark. What's being invented? Blogs about retiring early/getting rich quick are like the diet pills you see on TV. Everyone claims theirs works but the only consistent theme is the person is selling a product and needs YOU to get paid for it. I don't know why you are being so sensitive about this.

The bottom line is these type of stories, almost always associated with a blog or newsletter, have been around forever. Everyone wants to retire comfortably as early as possible that's why "pitching the dream" is an easy sell. Like the 28 year old Harvard grad pulling in 600k a year, everyone I know who did this has more or less the same story. Silver spoon fed, made lots of money early, then did some feel good job to justify their purpose. I've said it before but since I've gotten into the financial world, I've been floored by how many "hedge fund/portfolio managers" I've encountered who's story goes something like this. Parents gave them everything on a silver platter, paid for their 4 year school, family and friends chip in so Jr. can now keep busy playing hedge fund manager, even though Jr. is completely unqualified, never worked a real job in his life, and probably better off getting some real world experience. Jr. "makes" money charging fees to mom, dad and the cool uncle and considers himself a hot shot because he has a better lifestyle than most other people. Just like how I'd never take Jr. seriously if I was seeking out advice on how to run an investment fund, I'd also never take seriously these paid per click bloggers who leave out the most important half of their story; that they came from situations not attainable to the average guy. Retiring early because you live sensibly and invest wisely isn't rocket science. It's actually pretty basic math and some common sense.

TPL.

So I assume you watch your weight, exercise 1 hour every day, don't eat junk and don't smoke. sometimes, once in a while, sometimes, and sometimes, You only live once, everyone should have balance.

If we're talking about current 2017 investments that have performed the best, NVTR. Although I hate talking about things like performance on the internet because not only is it unverifiable, but its completely useless to me going forward. Telling someone I made x%, or someone telling me they did the same does nothing for anyone. I'd almost prefer hearing from people with losses cuz at least you know they are being honest. Future ideas, which are much more productive discussions, I'd say GEOS and MSGN are things I like. MSGN just because they have one of a kind assets and a motivated seller. Not huge upside, maybe 30%, but I think it's dirt cheap with limited downside. GEOS I think is at an inflection point and with a slight uptick in the sentiment around oil markets, ready to double, at least.

Yea one of the things I get from reading all that is all the guys who wanted to go but were scared shitless because of what they've heard. Perception of other places is often largley skewed. Not saying NK is some quasi Disneyland like place, but the perceptions are largely defined by cultural and media biases. Look at the difference between how places like Dubai or Turkey are viewed in Europe vs the US.

The question I have is: Is the market seriously underestimating the threat or is the US media overestimating how suicidal and crazy Kim Jong-un really is? Probably somewhere in between. It's not a coincidence that outside the US, everyone we aren't cozy with is portrayed by the media as unstable lunatics at the political level. Kim seems to have the same temper Trump does when it comes to his ego and displays of macho-ism. That's my concern. The who's dick is bigger contest won't end with these two and outside of words, which have already been exchanged, there's not much else left outside of bombs because these guys are so darn extreme.

This is a one of a kind, large margin of safety investment. Owned it for years and any 5-10% dip is a great buying opportunity.

NVTR

AAL

Sounds like what you're suggesting is that women are more likely to pursue STEM careers under communist dictatorships where it is clear which fields will receive state support, and relatively less likely to pursue STEM careers when they live in freer societies. Likewise, women have pretty good STEM participation in places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. So clearly "pulling bias from the system" is hardly a necessary condition for increasing women in STEM, if that's the sole measure you're interested in attacking. The situation here is far more complex, and the "less stupid" version of that memo would have simply focused on how dangerous it is in complex and ambiguous systems to develop (and strongly moralize) a rigid orthodoxy about it, and not added the stand-up material about how bitches be neurotic. Up until a certain age children are forced to attend school. While they are forced to attend, it wouldn't hurt to make the most of these precious years. Instead we have myriad filler material and utterly useless classes. There is no reason kids in certain parts of the world can learn advanced math/sciences meanwhile here we need 5 years to teach addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. By high school most kids are learning Algebra when their future job competition is learning Calc, etc. Same for universities. Every one has general courses you take prior to your major studies. Why not beef these up with more useful material. What someone wants to major in is up to them(their freedom to choose). But it's hardly shocking white male dominated fields(or sub in any field dominated by a certain type) exist when the current system doesn't really encourage anyone to be "most efficient" and the only folks who end up in "white male dominated fields" are the white males whom have been told this is "the path they are supposed to take".

Yea, nobody's gonna pay you to synthesize a bridge from your unique life experiences. Yeah, my family's been there and done that. On to bigger and better things, and more profitable lines of business. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=37129&st=&st1= Yes but would you consider yourself an outlier or the norm? Lets look at a sample of 1000 people who dropped out in 4th grade. I would gander a very high majority are not models for what you want society to be. By and large, for society as a whole, knowledge is valuable. Its the difference between someone stocking shelves at $9/hour, and someone writing code at 150k/year. One is capable of producing more value than the other. To 95% of people, you only learn code through being educated on the subject. Sure there are Elon Musks who teach themselves, but they are hardly the model you should expect to work for people. And I say all this as someone who in did shitty for 90% of my pre-college school career and in aggregate probably missed(intentionally) over 100 days of class in high school simply because I was bored and found little value in the remedial teachings and memorization based learning. I remember getting a D in Physics because even though I missed almost 80 days of class, I got a 97 on the final exam so the teacher had to pass me. I knew I could do it, but it didn't challenge me so my time was better spent on other things. And like you I now do better than probably 95% of people I went to school with who got straight A's and spend all their time doing what the system told them. But I wouldn't recommend this path to the average child. Heck if my kid did this, I'd be furious. I don't think it's a terrible thing to emphasize teaching and learning more valuable subject matter. In fact I'm sure people would be amazed at the level of productivity that manifests from it. The number of women and minorities that flourish in jobs typically dominated by "the white male", or Eastern European/Asians. But we'll instead likely continue to see the gradual deterioration of society. After all, why would we bother changing the curriculum when most inner city public schools aren't even funded well enough to provide students textbooks written in the past 20 years.

Not for nothing, but all this tells me is that the bigger issue is cultural and as I've long thought, the American system is second rate and sets people up to fail. Requiring everyone to be educated is the biggest thing we can do, and yet, it's not done. Everyone should be taking STEM classes their entire way through school. Asian and Eastern European countries get this. If you have a certain knowledge base, which is immensely facilitated by knowing STEM subjects, you can be useful pretty much anywhere. If you can draw or sing, or write, well your options are fairly limited, in some places you are useless, and generally speaking, you dont have the same odds of prospering as others. So you are right in that it isnt necessarily a male/female thing. Maybe in certain areas those things come into play, but by and large its a societal issue that derives from living in this alternative American universe where everyone can be whoever/whatever they want to be. Thats just not how life works.

See this is the entire hypocritical problem. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The big social movement is about acceptance and allowing everyone to be themselves. Yet when one has an opinion or belief that isn't supported by mainstream liberal media, they are ostracized and villainized for it. They are labelled racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. An exercise that is naturally exclusive and goes against everything these people supposedly stand for on an ideological basis. It's a one way street.

The manifesto itself was probably a boneheaded move. Yes everyone is entitled to their opinions and we are protected by free speech. Unfortunately, when you work for someone else and rely on them for a paycheck, it's probably not a wise idea to do something that rubs them the wrong way or makes them look bad. The story here again, is the media and its horrendous slanting and publicity it gives to certain issues that fit the liberal agenda. I mean look at the uproar over "Trump didnt single out white extremist groups". Which is funny, because CNN, HuffPost, Vox, etc never once had any issues with Obama's refusal to call out Islamic extremism. Now some dude is being railed for not only having the curiosity on a certain subject to write about it, but now has likely had his career threatened because of the "alt right" branding being done in mainstream media. Rather amusing it all is.

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/08/08/1081799/0/en/Nuvectra-Reports-Second-Quarter-2017-Financial-Results.html This one looks to be moving along nicely. Sales roll out is so far happening fairly smoothly. Still have 2-3 quarters of cash to burn before a capital raise, and by then I wouldn't be shocked if the stock is north of $20.

Agreed. GLRE IMO benefits Einhorn more than Einhorn benefits GLRE.

I'd probably say the odds are greater that all of these things, and probably others that emerge, will collectively cause a 25% erosion over a moderate period of time. I think today's market is more-so a byproduct of a lot of conditions and none individually IMO are going to change so drastically that we have a huge and sudden rug pulled out from under us. What's more likely is they have a gradual and adverse impact on global economies and on many companies and as such we get some sort of EPS related correction over the course of a few quarters.

IMO there are specific things that are in a bubble, but the stock market as a whole is pretty fairly valued. Undervalued even if you use the yield based argument as touched on in the above chart.