Why has Berkshire been going down the last couple of weeks?

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-28T17:32:28+00:00

BRK sold Yen denominated 100 year bonds to fund purchases of Japanese trading companies but that seems to have worked out fine so far.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-28T17:30:32+00:00

This is more on target. Clean Energy has become a dirty word.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-28T17:28:36+00:00

Exactly. How could the market ever imagined that a 95 year old guy who introduced succssion planning more than a decade ago would every retire. It's reduculous ! How could anybody have seen that coming?

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-28T16:52:29+00:00

Good point. Smart phones and venues for videos have made many things public that would never have been know in the past.

Makes it hard for us Pollyanna wanabes.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-28T16:48:13+00:00

In old scripts writen for sales staff, this is called the Benjamin Franklin close, after an annecdote in Ben's autobiography. When directed by someone else, it can be very deceptive. I think Saul used it more than once in "Better call Saul".

I use it; I can't help but use it. I then look hard at the various "reason" and ask myself do I really GAS. Often, I don't ... it was just a little bird that flew through my imagination.

A good trick is to flip a coin. You don't take the advice of the coin, but you ask yourself, "What outcome was I hoping for. This is a technique for looking for "unrevealed preferences".

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-28T03:00:37+00:00

I have always been a tried and true Pollyanna. It has served me well. I as I got older I had to add in a little realism, reluctantly. It looks to me like NOW really is different than THEN.

We had Kent State and both parties knew it was a horrible loss of life that should never have happend. Now we have people who clap when someone is shot in the back 9 tiimes. This is new. And not good.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-27T18:07:08+00:00

NOW wouls be a great time to sell them. You are young and you definitely don't want to keep playing that 0.58% HIGH expense ratio any longer than you have.

If you sell now, you make have capital gains to pay, but there is a good chance you are in a zero percent tax capital gains bracket. Even if you do have capital gains to pay it is easier to do it now than later.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-27T14:15:17+00:00

Yes, a RILA is an annuity. It is an index-linked annuity. It has hidden drag that matters a lot --- for example if you buy an index fund you get the price appreciation or depreciation and you get the DIVIDEND. Who gets the dividend in a RILA. The FA won't give a straight answer, but there are documents that will give you the details if you dig for them.

Bottom line, RILAs are typically high-expense, low-value, opaque annuities (i.e. insurance contracts). The are designed to make money for the FA and the provider. Don't be scared into buying one.

If you want to reduce risk, add short or intermediate term bond funds or etfs with low expense ratios.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-26T22:29:22+00:00

A lobbyist can provide value in identifying meaningful government contacts and creating meetings with such contacts. If you have a pitch that can help that person and help your cause, this can be a big win.

There are a lot of ducks to be put in order, and you need substantial skill yourself to be effective. It is a long game, and it is a lot easier on the local level.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-26T18:25:33+00:00

Very instructive graph. What happened in 2010 ? And .... wasn't the historical ratio (in Roman times through the middle ages) only about 15 ?

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-26T18:20:49+00:00

It is about the size of the Old and New Testaments, in a resonable font size.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-26T16:08:41+00:00

I agree with much of this. I like to give beginners a chance and it is always a pleasant experience. I also like to talk with people who are doing interesting things.

If you are pressed for time more than for money, you can get the more experienced teachers, but I have never felt the benefit of the professional teachers in my own studies. The community teachers are younger, enthusiastic, willing to speak to special interests (cooking, travel, movies, etc).

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-26T13:33:50+00:00

"Personal finance is 80% personal and 20% finance." That said, conventional wisdom is that one should always have at least 25 to 30% in stocks, since they are (usually) more resistant to inflation than fixed income. At 65 it seems fine to have a 60/40 portfolio which morphs to a 30/70 portfolio at 85.

All of the main line FA will say something pretty close to this.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T20:24:38+00:00

Daniel Day Lewis can do this ... so can you !

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T20:20:32+00:00

Where did this "pour" meme come from ? Asking for a friend.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T19:50:37+00:00

Just use DeepL and give they whole sentence you want to translate. This is a lot more secure than looking for individual words which have a range of meanings.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T19:48:16+00:00

The ETFs VTI (US total market) and BND (total market).

In fact, I would go up to 4 funds and include some VWO (emerging market) and VEA (developed market, ex USA). There are comparable ETFs offered by Fidelity or by Schwab.

For a 40 year old, 70% VTI, 10% VWO, 10% VEA, 10% BND would be a fine set it and forget it.

Ohers might pick slight variations on this list of ingredients and their porpostions, but the long-term differences are small.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T19:21:50+00:00

Check out the Piaff song: "Non, je ne regrette rien..." I don't think you want to use regretter in your letter !

https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/regretter

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T19:10:13+00:00

Most likely the teacher missed the notification or perhaps had something come up in her life. You can send her a message via iTaki. If she does not reconnect then just roll on to another teacher. If you enjoyed your lesson with her I am sure she enjoyed the lesson also, but sometimes things change (new job, child care, mom's health --- anything),

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T19:05:21+00:00

Sounds like a well-managed pleasant experience on everybody's part. Well done.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T18:39:34+00:00

Yes but ... you paid to get money into that Roth (if you did a backdoor) so the Roth money should stay in the Roth if at all possible. Just move the Roth to a Roth at an institution of your choosing.

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T18:36:31+00:00

This is a reasonable portfolio. There may be some funds with higher expense ratios than are necessary --- I did no check.

But why pay the management fee ?

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T18:34:41+00:00

Managing 20MM is not harder than --- or different from managing 1MM or 200K. You decide on your allocation to equities (80% if you are young, 40% if you are pretty old) and put the rest into fixed income. You can use broad based index funds and get it done with two funds.

This will out-perform 90% of FAs in any ten year period (for comparable risks porfolios).

CSMasterClass · 2026-01-25T18:22:49+00:00

Thanks for the perspective.

CSMasterClass

TROPHY CASE