watsa_is_a_randian_hero

I'm not sure what your beef is with them...you said 'f them' in the other thread and snowden was a hero without providing any rationale for how thats related to an investment decision first..i'm going on vacation tomorrow, so I won't see any response you put here, so advance warning this is more of a unilateral message than a conversation (sorry about that) ? But second, I would encourage you to have an open mind on pltr. PLTR has in certain crowds a bad rep which I believe is misunderstood. consider the following: if you're concerned about snowden and human rights violations, why would you invest in the other tech companies you listed that haven't stood up to china? pltr takes data privacy, controls, governance very seriously. Seriously enough that they are given the most credentialed approvals for government work in the US and in many allies abroad whatever your politics, even if you thought pltr has done evil through its involvement with the US government in things like ICE or counterterrorism, Karp has made a very good argument as to why american companies, citizens, and tech giants have a duty to not turn their backs on the government and assist in the governments missions (to the extent they are not blatantly immoral). Every other tech giant gets rich using american infrastructure and rule of law and doesn't complain about it, but then doesn't want to assist the government in protecting rule of law when it comes to it. if pltr didn't provide the service, someone else (like another company on your prospective investment list) would. whomever the winners are in AI, the US government will be a user of their services. It is illogical to say you wont invest in PLTR today because of their involvement with the US government today, but that you want to invest in basket of AI companies to find the eventual winners. The eventual winners, if not PLTR, will eventually provide whatever services of PLTR's that you are currently opposed to. pltr is moving beyond government work. their corporate work is the future and far bigger potential and more interesting why would you pass on a company 'on principle'. On what principle? the principle that you are closed minded and opposed to making a buck? PLTR in my base case will have a multi-hundred billion valuation in ~5-10 years (rivaling the size of other SaaS majors like CRM, ORCL, SAP). And it won't necessarily be from eating their lunch (the pie will grow), so those companies market caps will also increase in that time. What does this mean? Potential 10 bagger, even after doubling from listing price, and considering dilution in the coming years. I agree with you though owning a basket is best, as the risks are high to any given name. I also own data companies such as CRM, ORLC, NOW, AMZN and other techs as well (aapl, qcom, csco, wstg, tech mutual fund). PLTR seems to be the most exciting in terms of potential relative to price right now. I would strongly encourage you to take an open minded look rather than dismissing 'on principle'.

Admittedly its not cheap, but the best companies rarely are. Plugging 40%+ growth rate into the Gordon growth model doesn't exactly work either on this one d/[k-g] I was listening to an old Peter Thiel speech on his biggest mistakes. he said not investing in series B at facebook. He had led the series a for $500k at $5mm valuation, and less than a year later the B was implying $98mm (the company was still pre revenue). something he pointed out that I think is true, companies with high momentum will have these quantum leaps in growth are often the most undervalued because people have a hard time justifying their staggering valuation levels. My biggest mistakes in investing came when I as younger trying to view everything from the traditional valuation lens and avoiding tech companies simply because Buffett historically did.

also the voting tontine with control centered in the top 3 for the rest of their lives will keep this out of some institutional portfolios and indices. this will keep it out of the investable universe of many.

i dont know. I personally made my first purchase on the date of the direct listing 9/30 in the 10's. Nov 4 through Nov 25th is when it really had its breakout. I'm not sure why, as there wasn't really any news in that time. At the time of the direct listing, I debated taking a much bigger position on the company, like 10%. I was fairly certain the direct listing format would lead to gains over time (similar to others that have direct listed). However, as a value investor at heart, I chickened out based on the huge losses, risks of competition, risks of slow adoption due to switching costs and time to implement, and ultimately settled on less than 0.5% position. I've averaged up during this lockup expiry pullback as I've researched their products and saw q4 performance as I've kicked myself for not just buying more at the direct listing. still not a huge position, but a couple % in shares + some call spreads of varying dates.

I bought more premarket. this is becoming one of my largest holdings. my base case scenario is for this to become of similar size/scope to oracle/sap/saleforce, but i think it hasn't the potential to become much larger

100% agreed. also too many posts by small group of posters, who dominate this board and comment every 2 minutes on every topic. I have been part of this community since the MSN days, and a long while back made a suggestion that it have a reddit like function where you could upvote/downvote relevant threads, and a Dalio-like spirit where you could upvote/downvote posts from individuals, and some sort of algorithm that demotes posts that are either downvoted or from individuals with low scores on past posts. I also suggested individuals have a total post limit per month so this isn't filled with as much spam.

The women disagree with you that it was consensual, including the 13 yr old girl that Trump allegedly raped in Jeffery Epstein's apartment: The number of women who have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault is at least 12 https://www.mic.com/articles/156669/how-many-women-have-accused-donald-trump-of-rape-or-sexual-assault#.KujVwb2jl I could pay someone to accuse you of raping them when they were 12...that doesn't mean that it happened. Trump is not epstein or weinstein or cosby...there is nothing credible or convicted (or even prosecuted). Again, you can't say "____ brags about assaulting women" when assault is a crime he has never been convicted of (or even prosecuted for). He bragged about getting women because of fame and money - you have to be really ignorant to be oblivious to this. Anyone who says that just sounds jealous that he gets laid because he has fame and money (and you don't, so you feel some need to take him down). To really hammer the point home about how ludicrous the idea is, envision you are trump and have his personality. Think long and hard about it, and the ego. Do you really think someone like that would say they need to assault a women to get laid? This would be a total contradiction to the personality. Requiring assault to get laid is an admission you couldn't do it on your own...this is a total contradiction to Trumps talk-track...he would never "brag about assaulting women". He would brag about getting laid (consensually) because of who he is (fame/wealth/personality)...those who don't see this are failing an iq test or just simply blinded by jealousy.

They don't like the touching, but they are not saying it's sexual harassment. The quote from one of the accusers, Amy Lappos: “It wasn’t sexual". From another, Vail Kohnert-Yount, "Though she told the Post that she doesn’t believe Biden’s conduct constituted sexual misconduct" And from Reade herself: "Reade told the Union that she didn’t feel sexualized by the way she’d been treated". That's odd, because later she claims he slid his fingers up her skirt and inside her. Her story changes. You don't think he's a creep? I can admit that Trump is one. Not even in the same ballpark. Trump brags about assaulting women because, as he explains it, he can get away with it due to his being a celebrity -- grabs them by the pussy. It's in his own words on videotape. That's when he isn't paying off adult film stars to keep quiet about his extramarital affairs with them. Comparing Trump to Biden is absurd. Trump brags about doing things that are consensual. Trump has never bragged about assault. this is one of the things that has always bothered me about the way the media twists words. What is the definition of assault? When did trump brag about that? If you're talking about the Access Hollywood tape...the whole thing was a statement premised on his words "when you're famous, they let you do anything." If you think that fame and money doesnt helped a dude get laid consensually, you don't know how the world works.

this is capturing the sentiment of most out there...but is missing the point people were UNDER reacting in Jan. this is not "just the flu". there is no herd immunity from natural antibodies or vaccine, and its about 100x more lethal when you look at conditional probabilities. That said, the real point is, the market was extremely inflated, and now there are no buyers. The market had kept chugging along under momentum, but all value players had stopped being net buyers long ago. The only buyers were momentum. And all it took was something to change the direction of the momentum, and there are literally no buyers now. The market will continue falling until it reaches a level enticing rational buyers to step in, and there was previously a big gap between current market prices and rational prices. As of last Friday, the market was trading at top 2-3 percentile of dividend yields; now it has regressed to 51st percentile in 5 days. Is it unreasonable to think it could fall to 90th percentile (implying another 10% down from here)? 97th percentile (28% down from here)? With momentum traders now on the other side, this thing will keep falling until it is clear coronavirus is contained.

Yes - when Trump was elected and Obama's administration came to an end! ;D ;D ;D Something that I keep track of that I think is a better yardstick for measuring savings is if you took your net worth * the dividend yield on SPY, and compare that to my spending level. This provides a market-adjusted measurement of savings. To the extent the your net worth goes up 1:1 with the market, your earnings under this measure won't change. Your net worth is up this month with the market, but could fall back next month to the extent the market drops, and you have no control over this. This alternative measurement I'm describing will change (1) to the extent you outperform or underperform the market, (2) to the extent you increase your savings by adding to it, and (3) to the extent the absolute level of dividends issued increases.

where is the annual report? Its usually out by now, right?

I work in valuation, for the top provider of valuations globally to private equity firms and hedge funds. We have a disputes practice as well. PM me and I can give you our disputes contacts, as well as other firms in this space it might be worth talking to.

This is my perspective working for a midsize financial consulting firm with 70 offices globally, that takes in a lot of data from institutional investing clients, and sometimes takes in PII on engagements, and also has an investment banking arm: The new rules are so burdensome, that most people either aren't savvy enough to comply without tripping up on some small aspect and/or view it as too costly to fully comply in every way, so firms turn a blind eye to some aspects of compliance.

I'm with you Cardboard. There have always been a large difference in the lifestyles lived between the upper upper 0.01% (or put whatever cutoff point you want on) and everyone else...but I think social media and youtube has advertised the benefits of that lifestyle on a more widespread basis. Unless you get to the point where you are a billionaire, you will always have people significantly wealthier than you with significantly better "toys", homes, experiences, lifestyles, etc.