Sunrider

yes, I guess the thing with Fairfax India which always put me off in the past was that it's hedge-fund comp masquerading as a public equity? Re SWBI - so then one should put the defence primes on the list, too? Maybe LDO in Europe, if they ever get European defence consolidation right, that could have a long run-way, too.

Not necessarily buy & hold for 18-20 years, though it would be nice if some of the stocks turn out to be worthy of that ...

Hi everyone I'm about to begin investing on my son's behalf both a lump sum upfront and then contributions monthly or annually. He's still very young, so a good 18 - 20 years before he'll get to use the funds (or hopefully rolls them forward at that time). I wondered which companies/investments others here consider worthy of such a portfolio which I would ideally run at very, very low turnover. Starting valuation is a consideration though not a driving one, given lesser importance of this over long time frames (though I just struggle buying things at 30x revenue). On my (perhaps eclectic) list currently: JOE, FRFHF, BRK, ALS.TO, TPL, BSM, ODFL, SODI, BUR.L. Other suggestions for me to look at? Thank you! C.

Is this a joke? Prices seem to say otherwise ... but then again Mnuchin was preparing for four years just to mislocate his Cohones when the time came ... so maybe it'll be another four years of the same stuff.

A general correction - ATH/APO are not looking at at insurance as 'float' as it is often understood. That float comes with a defined cost of funds - insurance investors typically assume that this COF should be negative. They are, however, looking at it as feedstock for the asset origination machine. For ATH it is accepted that the cost of funds is positive but what they do, compared to other insurers, is to take on existing books within a certain category of risks (check recent investor day - typically not taking mortality and morbidity risk), and then manage this to deliver a stable spread (so robust ALM is important, but a well-understood problem and can be managed). Second main success criterion is to find those 'high yield but sufficiently high quality' investments that deliver the return kicker needed when 90% of the portfolio has to be in IG government + corporates to back the liabilities you underwrite. As another poster made the point above, if your business is to originate such things to begin with, you're going to do better than hedge funds who typically just buy those things from the likes of APO who originate it. Other parts of the APO portfolio take different risks, but in the end it all comes back to acquiring liabilities/assets and delivering a spread with as much predictability as possible.

That argument has been made by some about other European places before … ca 1935 to 1938 took the world too long then to learn that appeasement does not work, Putin and his kleptocracy are unlikely to stop in Ukraine

The back of the troops? wasn’t he the guy who didn’t want to go stand in the rain in France to honour the fallen of ww2 because … well … he didn’t like rain and considered them ‘losers’? whether you’re left right centre or up or down I think it’s pretty obvious that djt only ever had and will only ever have one person’s back: his own. (And yes I did speak to people about this who served)

Let's start the other way around. Do we need all these ads? I just counted, when I opened the site, three ads on the first screen (ironically 2/3 were the same). Click on one topic, fullscreen ad I need to click away. Topic comes up, another two ads (top of page, overlay bottom of screen). Scroll through topic, ad in the middle. This is too much and feels not far off some of these click-bait-factory sites where you got ads left, right centre, front and back. It doesn't feel like the site is the product, but like I am. I am being monetised. And maybe that is what irks me so much. If the above is representative and my info on ad rates is correct, then I guess I'll contribute somewhere around 15 - 20c per day to the site. So call it $5 per month. Do I use it a lot? Not as much as some, so there will be a few who probably contribute a lot more. How much does it cost to run?

No, nobody has stopped me. I know you could've walked away from it a while ago but have not done so. I thank you for hat. I hope that you learned something from the failures in that business and that this will enable you to eventually turn it into a worthwhile investment (for you and for your investors) I do not know what it costs to run this site but no, it has not been free to use, there have been ads, which cost time and attention. I don't quite recall how many ads there were on the previous version, but I never noticed it so there were no friction costs for me then, but there are now. I don't know if it is a profit-making enterprise or not, and I admit my comment re supplementing was a cheap shot. I apologise. (I do know, however, that ads monetise at (allegedly) net $1.9 CPM. Since I see on average >2 ads on every screen. My usage of CoBF has declined somewhat and I guess I'm responsible for only three or four cents or so of revenue per day.) I feel that the discussion which took place after the switchover where you solicited feedback resulted in zero (am I wrong?) changes. This is what I find objectionable. Why pretend to care about the feedback if nothing changes? That's fundamentally at the same standard as the legend's marketing. I do not understand your comment as to why my criticism would be fair if I had not used it for free? What's the inverse? That I didn't use it at all before (so shouldn't complain because I didn't experience the prior version) or that I paid for it (and thus shouldn't complain then either ... because there would be no ads)? Would either of those scenarios change how much heavier the wasteful cognitive load is on this site is now and how much ad shit users have to go through? If not, then I'm not entirely sure what your point is? Whether I did or did not use the site before doesn't change the state it is now vis-a-vis the ads. We've gone a long way off the Wall Street legend. So let me bring it back to that. We both agree that the legend is legendary principally in his own mind, as to the ads: Is there not a better way? (cut out the ones which pop up fullscreen when switching screen which require clicking at least?)

No I'm just annoyed at the gall, should keep his own house in order first. And to be clear: I think WT is about as scammy a stock advice promoter salesman as you can get. I think he learned it at the Motley Fool.

Prasad - how about you get these friggin ads removed from the site before complaining about specific ads? It’s a bit rich having an issue with Tilson (or anyone else) if most of the exposure to this shitty ad stuff comes through CoBF (at least for me). The new site has near 40% of screen unusable and a screen-filling ad nearly every time you click a link. Maybe this is unfair, but the thought did cross my mind that you need to make money with the site after burning all that cash at Premier (including mine)? you had asked for feedback on the new site on the switchover - tons of people provided it. I saw no changes in response to the feedback … did I miss something? Thanks.

I’m not sure that they care much about Trump giving any sort of light … though I agree that at least he put on record that he would’ve acted in shareholder interests following that SC statement.

Trump style. However, given Cooper&Kirk's prompt tie-in to the Supreme Court language one has to wonder ... but then again, why did Mnuchin 'take a powder' rather than 'getting it done' (as was quoted here somewhere before)? Anyway, if anything it served as a prop to remind the court of what the SC said. If they are inclined to believe the orange-faced guy then it should also perfectly tick the box as to what the SC said was required ... the only thing standing in the way of this is the choice of language 'had the president' is past tense, and Trump pontificated after the fact, so I'm sure there will millions spent on lawyers just arguing this in front of a court ... and given that 'may' can mean whatever you want it to ... well, we'll see I guess. Plus ça change...

Well, what about the fiat currency needed to buy the crypto…? Remember every piece of base money created is held by someone at all times until it is retired. What adjusts are prices, I. This case btc et al. Just because that price went up doesn’t mean there’s any more base money, and so unless someone is willing to accept crypto in a ratio which after looking through to base money is different from just using base money itself, I would think there’s no difference. It’s the same as thinking in CAD vs USD, the basis changes, the purchasing power doesn’t.

Because that's what the statute says is probably the answer. You've been robbed of something which is worth X (par), and to compensate you for waiting you get interest as prescribed by the statute. Makes sense if you consider that you can get robbed of all sorts of different things and it would be a nightmare if each of these cases had to be evaluated separately for the rate to compensate you with. The prefs are only ever worth par by their nature, the dividend right is contingent.... avoids judicial complexity/simplifies litigation to have a statute crafted this way.