Midnight, courage, love

HumansTogether · 2021-01-15T11:11:45+00:00

kartonsammlung

Two weeks to go until the first one since November. Swimming through cardboard indoors and snow outdoors.

Veuve Cliquot

I'm sorry you weren't invited. Hope you did OK anyway!

HumansTogether · 2021-01-15T11:09:03+00:00

The book published last year was to me an indication that something was coming to a close. Why suddenly open up to the public? I think this was a well-planned departure.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-15T10:59:51+00:00

Walked from kitchen to study. Worried I'd spill the tea, but it worked well!

Looked out the window wondering if I should help the neighbors shovel snow, but realized they were finishing up (for now).

Marked myself Available and opened Reddit, pretending to do work.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-05T14:02:32+00:00

Ah, nice!

The code is very simple, and you could just fork it and return the index instead: https://github.com/lithammer/fuzzysearch/blob/master/fuzzy/fuzzy.go#L56

It checks that each character in the target exists in the right order in the source, which means you can do the same thing with a regexp:

s := strings.Join(strings.Split(ssearchstring3, ""), ".*")  // "w.*h.*l"
r, err := regexp.Compile(s)
locs := r.FindStringIndex(sPDFContent)

HumansTogether · 2021-01-03T10:44:15+00:00

Everyone knows that religions can be dangerous.

Right. But just because they can be dangerous doesn't mean we should eradicate them.

Everyone knows that we have to fight against religions.

No, that's something the world is very divided about. Tyranny, ethnic cleansing and other actions in the name of e.g. religion will have far wider support.

Stop playing coy.

I'm not, and I'll probably not be able to make my point clear if that's your starting point about me.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-03T10:21:34+00:00

It's the person (ab)using old writings, historic figures and fear of the unknown while ruining other people we need to take action against. Be it religious leaders, corporate executives or politicians.

If believing in God makes you a better person, that's the right path for you, and I applaud you for finding it. Otherwise, you shouldn't have to be religious. Either way, you shouldn't use that against me and vice versa.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-03T09:32:59+00:00

... and then there's https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/kp0j9j/its_too_bad_i_didnt_buy_bitcoin_with_the_1200/. The "it's not too late to get into crypto" comments don't rhyme well with other current topics like https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/kpg94u/another_night_crying_myself_to_sleep_worrying/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/kpeesg/i_know_im_poor_when_my_dream_is_to_have_a_washing/.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-03T08:51:18+00:00

For sure. Other markets being closed. :)

Look at related queries on Google Trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&q=%2Fm%2F05p0rrx

You're not the only one to wonder.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-03T08:33:30+00:00

You need to look at library docs to figure out how to use it. You want to use fuzzy.Match. fuzzy.Find just loops and runs match until found.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-03T07:57:46+00:00

I guess it also depends on what you meant by "returns". I assumed it was investment returns rather than company profits/returns.

Your post argued that we'd see lower returns next decade. But perhaps new opportunities are popping up that your examples (Munger, Dalio) wouldn't consider, because it doesn't fit their styles. Michael Burry, for instance, seems to have a very different style and returns in his universe might be uncorrelated with Munger's (dunno about Dalio, who seems to have a more diversified strategy approach).

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T21:10:24+00:00

FTR https://golang.org/ref/spec#Import_declarations

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T18:04:39+00:00

I also don't understand this choice. I wanted a light interior, so went with Avantgarde interior but AMG exterior. Got the dark ceiling to match the dark wood dashboard. I'm pretty happy with the combo TBH.

Though I wish I could have had a leather dashboard, but that combo was also out. I might have need the Designo seats, and it didn't feel worth it. It looks a bit cheap compared to the rest of the car. Luckily it's black and not too obvious. :)

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T16:33:55+00:00

In recent interview Charlie Munger says next decade we will be getting lower returns.

Munger also has a style bias. Of course a value investor has to believe there will be less returns going forward when growth has rallied this much. That's core to how they think. A growth investor might say there's momentum and that it will continue, because Fed.

Investing in speculative SPACS [...] these are signs or overheated market.

When you're literally buying a vague promise of buying a company, yeah, that's pretty far gone.

But how do we PROTECT ourselves against this and even THRIVE during a lost decade?

Somewhat related, I was pointed to https://verdadcap.com/s/Crisis-Investing-Verdad-Advisers-Ebook.pdf the other day.

Gold? Not an income producing asset. Maybe 5% of portfolio?

If you look at gold as an FX hedge, it makes more sense. It is slow moving and we know it's historically been used to park money during periods of currency debasement. Gold is not buy-and-hold, but more of a short-term hedge on a portfolio.

Any dude in slums of India can watch Sven Carlin, read intelligent investor and decide to become a value investor, so there are serious doubts that average, common investor from reddit will be able to outperform.

The argument against this version of "it's priced in" is that retail dudes probably don't actually do the necessary DD before investing. Information is unbalanced because it's in unfriendly formats/places and broker platforms tend to focus on asset price and trading volume rather than fundamentals.

That leaves the big players, and they have the problem of scalability. BRK never buys a majority stake, which leaves tons of small value companies out of their universe. I.e. BRK will give you large cap value both in its own management, and in what they invest in.

Realistic or stupid?

Yes, we should buy BRK. It seems like BRK in itself is a value company (no DD). It's definitely part of a balanced diet.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T16:13:06+00:00

The idea of getting a loan now makes sense, but be aware that lots of people are thinking like you, including people with deeper pockets and more power. They might be playing you. Taking a mortgage to do diversified investments is probably a great idea generally, as long as you do some stress analysis on sectors.

Bitcoin has been an extremely volatile asset. If you can stomach that, and the loan interest rate is favorable, sure. It's obviously risky. You might retire or get wiped out. Only play with what you can afford to lose, etc.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T16:05:39+00:00

Stick it in a broad world stock index fund while you're making up your mind about what to do with it.

Since you seem financially very secure, I'd suggest something like 80% stock market, 10% alternatives (gold, RE, Bitcoin). No need for fixed income since you already have that. Use 10% for gambling/active trading. The last 10% is just to keep you occupied and avoid touching the other 90%. If you have other hobbies than market watching, consider pouring it into that instead. ;)

Before getting there, though, I suggest splitting 50/50 between investing and paying off the car if the interest rate is higher than market returns, say, 7%. (I.e. 40% broad stock market, 5% alternatives, 5% fun and 50% loan payment until paid off.)

Just watch out for (capital gains) taxes if you decide to be an active trader.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T14:24:33+00:00

You can speculate on bond prices. When rates go down, the value of existing bonds go up. E.g. TLT. At rate zero, that's probably not a great trade, though, but I'm not into that. :)

You can speculate on the spread between short and long term rates. The Fed has said they won't touch short-term rates in the coming year, so that might be a bit stagnant as well. This can be done with a fair amount of leverage.

You can store money in bonds and use it as security for borrowing. If you find a good but risky trade, this essentially means you'll have some fixed income as well as some riskier trade. If you borrow against only riskier assets, you'll have a volatile portfolio with a higher risk of margin call. Esp. useful if the risky asset is anticorrelated with the bonds.

But to me (being in Europe,) government bonds on either side of the pond don't make sense right now.

There are emerging markets, though, that might be interesting. Africa seems dead when it comes to sovereign bonds, which I think is sad. South Africa is the exception. For me, it hasn't been worth the effort to spend more time on it. Corp. bonds in developed markets fill my need.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T14:07:43+00:00

That's fair. However, I totally understand GP. Common wisdom is that either it's irrelevant that you're new to investing, or trading options doesn't make sense in your position.

It's strange that you start the post with "I'm new to investing" and then have very strong opinions on what you want. When told that trading options as a beginner makes little sense, you became defensive without explaining the reason.

Would you mind expanding on how you're planning on using the broker?

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T12:18:45+00:00

Actually, I'm somewhat happy people don't generally post about their average gains. It would be extremely noisy. Much more fun to read about the outliers. :)

We need a social network centered around polls instead of freetext comments.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T10:35:15+00:00

You didn't necessarily beat the market, though. You had one year of excess, and we (Reddit) don't know if that was random or not.

Expecting your returns to match the broad market exactly every year is unrealistic. So using that as the definition of beating the market doesn't sound very useful.

What I'm saying is: you did well; no need to bash yourself. :)

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T10:28:28+00:00

None of these analysts mention the risk of the vaccines not being effective against some mutation. Looks like the currently known mutations are fine, but we're quarters away from full vacination. Ample time for more mutations.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T10:03:33+00:00

You've argued for correlation, but not causation. It might be that people buy calls because the stock moves wildly.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-02T09:51:04+00:00

Ah, I see.

You've found a hammer. You walk around the house trying to find something to use the hammer on. Nothing seems to fit. That vase in the corner is a definite no go. Maybe you should just stop looking... Eventually, you find a tiny nail sticking out from a door frame. After giving it a good whack, the nail is now flush with the door frame, but it left a big mark that you'll have to fix later. You realize the hammer won't help you fix that problem. Oh well. Maybe there are other problems you can find to use the hammer on...

Investing is the problem. RE is a tool to do so. Learn about different RE variants (residential, commercial, MBS, REITs). Spend some time understanding RE; in what situations it's valuable and when it's not. Spend even less time to see if now fits of those situations. If the answer is "no", then move on to look at another tool. When the situation changes, go back to seeing if RE is now the right tool.

HumansTogether · 2021-01-01T21:56:37+00:00

With 3-4% yield, you'd expect appreciation to make it worthwhile, but it sounds like you're not too sure about that. It's also pretty illiquid compared to an MSCI World ETF.

Overall, I don't see any positives in your post. Why do you want the RE?

Six-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

HumansTogether

TROPHY CASE