Anonymous Size of your Portfolio Poll

[moore_capital54]

I should have added that I do agree with Moore's performance argument, when dealing with very small sums. My comments were directed toward investing OPM.

 

Yeah I know a few guys who have $5-20mm+ TFSA's doing stuff similar to Eric but mostly on TSX V Juniors during the good years (1999-2010) I think what Eric has achieved is quite rare, it reminds me of what the guys at Cornwall capital did in Michael Lewi's book. Essentially taking huge asymmetric bets on LEAPS. I look forward to following Eric's performance with great interest over the coming years (hopefully you continue to be transparent) I believe that investors should have no qualms about sharing their performance and nominal dollar figures. I think being ambiguous about such things is a red flag.. especially given that we are all relatively anonymous here.

[berkshiremystery]

I should have added that I do agree with Moore's performance argument, when dealing with very small sums. My comments were directed toward investing OPM.

 

Yeah I know a few guys who have $5-20mm+ TFSA's doing stuff similar to Eric but mostly on TSX V Juniors during the good years (1999-2010) I think what Eric has achieved is quite rare, it reminds me of what the guys at Cornwall capital did in Michael Lewi's book. Essentially taking huge asymmetric bets on LEAPS. I look forward to following Eric's performance with great interest over the coming years (hopefully you continue to be transparent) I believe that investors should have no qualms about sharing their performance and nominal dollar figures. I think being ambiguous about such things is a red flag.. especially given that we are all relatively anonymous here.

 

Moore,...

 

Only this poll has some results that I had expected,... our board members portfolio size doesn't reflect the general public.

 

 

[kiwing100]

Ericopoly, what does HWIC mean?  Thank you.

[stahleyp]

Ericopoly, what does HWIC mean?  Thank you.

 

I'm not Eric (Unfortunately, for my brokerage account), but it's Hamlin Watsa Investment Counsel.

[stahleyp]

Ericopoly, one thing I don't understand -  you say you are not good at analyzing balance sheets, but  you compensate for this weakness by investing alongside great investors who are.  So you read Berkowitz' investment thesis for BAC, decide that you agree with him and buy the stock- only problem is, if I remember right Berkowitz only had about 5% or so of his fund in it, but you went all in.  I would think that if you weren't personally able to analyze it you wouldn't want to bet too much bigger than the person you are coattailing (no offense, I only use the term because you have used it before to describe yourself).

 

I could be totally wrong on this but I think Berkowitz mentioned that he couldn't buy more due to some type of regulation/rule/bylaw not allowing more than 5% of the fund to be invested in one bank at cost.

 

[ERICOPOLY]

I look forward to following Eric's performance with great interest over the coming years (hopefully you continue to be transparent) I believe that investors should have no qualms about sharing their performance and nominal dollar figures. I think being ambiguous about such things is a red flag.. especially given that we are all relatively anonymous here.

 

It's only somewhat anonymous.  I personally know two of the board members -- one of them is the brother of my best man.  It's also not in the culture of this board (or society in general) to discuss how rich you are with precision.  I prefer to just speak in % terms.

 

The performance might be good for a while until BAC works out fully, but then it's going to normalize.  We're going to transfer a large amount of the assets into things like Berkshire in separate account, and then I'm going to keep maybe 10-25% of the money in an account that I manage.  This will keep me with something fun to do, but even if there are high returns it will be heavily diluted when expressed as a % gain of net worth.

 

Think of the space missions.  You need a huge amount of energy to get out of the atmosphere, but it doesn't take much to remain in orbit forever. 

[writser]

Think of the space missions.  You need a huge amount of energy to get out of the atmosphere, but it doesn't take much to remain in orbit forever.

 

I like the analogy. It's also very risky to get out of the atmosphere, but some people desperately want to achieve it. Would you say the same for your investment strategy right now?

[ERICOPOLY]

Think of the space missions.  You need a huge amount of energy to get out of the atmosphere, but it doesn't take much to remain in orbit forever.

 

I like the analogy. It's also very risky to get out of the atmosphere, but some people desperately want to achieve it. Would you say the same for your investment strategy right now?

 

Think of all the people who save and invest in low yielding instruments, then get laid off and soon completely deplete their savings.  They have this massive vulnerability to the economic cycle, yet they think their approach is low risk because they invest in can't lose securities.

 

I took that risk off the table.

 

I personally don't find BAC to be all that risky but I've got that protection anyhow in case it goes sour.