Invest like Buffett?

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HappyMan
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Invest like Buffett?

Post by HappyMan » Mon May 20, 2019 6:26 am

What do people here think of Buffett's investing style? He goes after long-term and has performed relatively well. Currently, he is after AMZN.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by pmward » Mon May 20, 2019 7:31 am

HappyMan wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 6:26 am
What do people here think of Buffett's investing style? He goes after long-term and has performed relatively well. Currently, he is after AMZN.
Last I checked Buffet is doing quite badly compared to the S&P and as been doing quite badly in comparison for a number of years. Add that onto the fact that his style of investing requires the amount of time and research that is basically a full-time job in and of itself (especially since true "undervalued" hidden gems these days can only be found in the dark corners of the market in companies that are not included in the popular indexes), and I hardly find it to be worth it for the time involved to be honest.

Also, Buffet himself did not buy amazon and never personally would, one of his lieutenants did the purchase. Buffet is trying to trust his underlings more and let them do their own thing, so the business will survive without him.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by gaddyslapper007 » Mon May 20, 2019 11:23 am

He's not "normal" in many ways which gives him a HUGE edge as an investor....1. has a photographic memory, 2. reads like 80% of his waking hours (like earnings reports..yuck). I simply cannot compete with this....nor would want too

His overall playbook is rather simple though.....I use for the broad markets (not individual stocks) buy when others are fearful, be patient, and almost never sell.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by ppnewbie » Mon May 20, 2019 4:24 pm

gaddyslapper007 wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 11:23 am
He's not "normal" in many ways which gives him a HUGE edge as an investor....1. has a photographic memory, 2. reads like 80% of his waking hours (like earnings reports..yuck). I simply cannot compete with this....nor would want too

His overall playbook is rather simple though.....I use for the broad markets (not individual stocks) buy when others are fearful, be patient, and almost never sell.
I agree. Was a watching a documentary about the 2008 crash. Basically, he called Hank Paulson one day and told him exactly how to save the banks. Shortly after that Hank Paulson gathered all the major bank heads and implemented Warren Buffet's plan. The guy is the opposite of normal. It's actually a miracle he is tracking the S&P 500 with the cash horde he has, the size of his portfolio, and his investing style. At the current market valuations, he basically cannot invest a significant amount money safely.

When there is blood on the streets, if Warren is still around, brka and brkb are going to pop a few years after a crash.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by dualstow » Mon May 20, 2019 6:22 pm

HappyMan wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 6:26 am
What do people here think of Buffett's investing style? He goes after long-term and has performed relatively well. Currently, he is after AMZN.
I think he’s amazing. I would like to write like Shakespeare, grasp quantum physics like Jim Al-Khalili and invest like Buffett. Alas, in all three cases I’ll be doing my own less impressive version.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon May 20, 2019 8:54 pm

You know what the crazy thing is? Shakespeare is actually pretty good even nowadays. The motherfucker lives up to the hype.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon May 20, 2019 8:56 pm

About Buffett, I really like the fact that most of the time, he just reads stuff and sits there and does nothing. Then he eats McDonalds and plays some cards.That's a gameplan I can get behind.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by dualstow » Mon May 20, 2019 9:15 pm

Yeah, Buffett is something akin to a zen master.
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 8:54 pm
You know what the crazy thing is? Shakespeare is actually pretty good even nowadays. The motherfucker lives up to the hype.
Whenever someone asks what I’m reading and I answer Shakespeare — admittedly rare — the reply is invariably “why?” I guess the implication is “School’s over.” O0
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by boglerdude » Mon May 20, 2019 10:31 pm

Buffet's always had inside info starting with his father, a congressman. His companies sell unhealthy food (See's candy, coke, McDs) and he product places these in interviews. Not sure he's a God. But good on him for admitting taxes are too low
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by dualstow » Mon May 20, 2019 10:45 pm

boglerdude wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 10:31 pm
Buffet's always had inside info starting with his father, a congressman. His companies sell unhealthy food (See's candy, coke, McDs) and he product places these in interviews. Not sure he's a God. But good on him for admitting taxes are too low
His father must have imparted a lot of wisdom to young Warren, but he was quite dead before W.B. made many of his brilliant deals. Inside info? I was under the impression that he is just really good at evaluating non-tech companies. He did visit them, and he did often buy enough shares to have an influence— something few of us can pull off— but there is clearly a great mind at work here.

Give him a little credit. O0 And give him two t’s.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by boglerdude » Mon May 20, 2019 11:11 pm

I dont have enough info to know, if he'd still be a billionaire had he been born in the ghetto. Not that it matters, its just interesting how people want to believe that Buffett's so much smarter than they are
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by jhogue » Tue May 21, 2019 7:02 am

boglerdude wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 10:31 pm
Buffet's always had inside info starting with his father, a congressman. His companies sell unhealthy food (See's candy, coke, McDs) and he product places these in interviews. Not sure he's a God. But good on him for admitting taxes are too low
Don't forget Dairy Queen and Karmelkorn.
“Groucho Marx wrote:
A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Xan » Tue May 21, 2019 9:03 am

boglerdude wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 10:31 pm
Buffet's always had inside info starting with his father, a congressman. His companies sell unhealthy food (See's candy, coke, McDs) and he product places these in interviews. Not sure he's a God. But good on him for admitting taxes are too low
It makes my blood boil when he says that about taxes. He is welcome to contribute however much he wants to the federal government. Does he believe that's the best use of his money? No! Or else he would be doing it! So he's a) a hypocrite and b) he's advocating for the government to come and take more of MY money. What a jerk.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by dualstow » Tue May 21, 2019 2:35 pm

boglerdude wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 11:11 pm
I dont have enough info to know, if he'd still be a billionaire had he been born in the ghetto. Not that it matters, its just interesting how people want to believe that Buffett's so much smarter than they are
Well, you may be right. Everyone loves a success story, especially when the succeeder is such a decent person. I wanted to believe that about Alan Greenspan, because it was comforting. Now I can't bear to listen to him, even though he may be very smart.

Still, W.B. has an amazing and long track record. The latest decade may be lackluster, but that's just the latest decade. Plenty of investors look good early on and then make massive mistakes. W.B. hasn't really had any disastrous ones. Bill Gates and others had incredible advantages -- it's all detailed in the Malcolm Gladwell book. But, not everyone given the same advantages and conditions would have also succeeded to such an extent for so long.

There's no shortage of sour grapes on Buffett over at B'heads. Oh well.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by boglerdude » Tue May 21, 2019 11:27 pm

> What do you think is fair?

Were it up to me Id triple taxes and throw it all at cancer research.

I suppose the questions are, at what point do taxes destroy wealth, and when do we throw the poor to the wolves. Is there enough wealth in the world to give everyone a minimum standard of living? Seems like there is enough land, and enough food production capacity...
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Wed May 22, 2019 7:38 am

boglerdude wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 11:27 pm
Is there enough wealth in the world to give everyone a minimum standard of living?
I don't know about the WORLD, but I think the US does about as good as is possible right now with it. It depends on how you define the terms.
Seems like there is enough land
Well... I'd say "kind of." You can buy land or a house for about a week's wages (2016 median personal wage in the US was about $600/wk or $31,000/yr) in undesirable places like the New Mexican desert and the ghettos of Detroit & St. Louis. Bump your price range up to $10,000 and you open up a lot more places if you're also willing to put in some sweat equity.

But in some places, I don't think you could ethically/practically "give" (guarantee) someone minimally acceptable housing at a price they could/would pay.
and enough food production capacity...
Personally, I think our food production situation is pretty precarious.

BUT

Yes, currently food is hilariously cheap in the US. And if we're talking a minimum standard of living, that's like $60 a month for 2000 cal/day of beans and rice, plus a touch of milk and some vegetables. If someone were to opt for the "minimum standard" housing option in, say, Ohio, you could even grow food (search "half farmer half x").
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by dualstow » Wed May 22, 2019 7:54 am

McDouble is 'cheapest and most nutritious food in human history'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrin ... story.html
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Wed May 22, 2019 8:52 am

I once looked into how a Big Mac and equivalent macronutrients coming from "clean" bodybuilder foods like peanut butter, oats, and chicken compared. IIRC (!) the Big Mac had either the same or more micronutrients.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by jhogue » Thu May 30, 2019 3:33 pm

Warren Buffett has become a plutocrat, plain and simple. Once upon a time, he made a fortune by shrewd value investing. More recently, his methods have changed.

Take his $5 billion investment in Bank of America in the depths of the Great Recession: Buffett did not simply buy common shares in the open market, where the stock price at the time reflected fallout from the bank’s poor investments in a failing California mortgage company and an ailing Merrill Lynch brokerage firm. Instead, BofA’s CEO Brian Moynihan created new classes of 10 year/10% p.a. preferred shares and stock warrants in exchange for the sage of Omaha’s very public stamp of approval. Heads he wins/ Tails he wins. Because of his frequent conversations with financial industry insiders like Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Buffett had unique actionable intelligence on TARP bailouts, the state of health of TBTF banks like BofA , and the plans of federal officials who regulate the banks. Don’t kid yourself, Buffett’s money is not at risk in the same way yours and mine is.

Note too that while Buffett likes to portray himself as a champion of stock investing, he actually keeps a $100 billion pile of Cash (mostly T-bills) and a similar position in Treasury bonds through his insurance company, GEICO. While Buffett repeatedly talks down Gold in comments for public consumption, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like hard assets. He has enormous positions in hard assets like real estate through his railroad, BNSF, and indirectly in the form of mortgages held by his largest bank position, Wells Fargo.

I don’t begrudge Buffett his fortune, but I don’t believe he is entirely honest about how he is making money these days.
“Groucho Marx wrote:
A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Kbg » Thu May 30, 2019 11:53 pm

BKH was/is well positioned to take advantage of others' (BoA's) misfortune because A) they know how to manage risk given how large a component insurance is to their business and B) they had/have a ton of cash with very deep pockets.

It was a head or tails I win deal; however, BKH did take risk. If BoA would have gone under then that investment would have been a loss. Of note, WB offered a similar life line to Bear Stearns and their CEO was too stupid to take it. (Small technical point: Buying existing stock on the open market does exactly nothing to help a company fix a hemorrhaging balance sheet...so I have no idea what your point is.)

Do we blame the well run company or the poorly run company?

Messrs. Buffett and Munger have always been pretty clear/consistent on their investing philosophy when it comes to asset class preferences...it has to provide a return stream. I'm pretty sure in their mind if they could sell off the right of ways under BNSF and just keep the track and trains they would be cool with that. (unless the land was providing rental income).

With regard to performance...BKH is huge now and has been for quite a while. Even Buffett says going forward is going to be tough to beat a large cap index. Most people who are BKH fans assess the company is still extremely well run and pretty cheap right now. Additionally, because they never pay a dividend the theory is that BKH can probably match the SP500, at less risk and at far less of a tax hit over a LT hold. (I'm not a BKH shareholder...just follow a board on TMF that is all about BKH)
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Xan » Fri May 31, 2019 9:42 am

MangoMan wrote:
Fri May 31, 2019 8:01 am
just follow a board on TMF that is all about BKH
TMF?
Motley Fool?
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Kbg » Fri May 31, 2019 10:48 am

Yes, the Motley Fool BKH board.

One of my favorite posters anywhere is a guy who frequents that board - Mungofitch. I’ve learned a TON from him over the years.
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by dualstow » Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:07 pm

Xan wrote:
Fri May 31, 2019 9:42 am
MangoMan wrote:
Fri May 31, 2019 8:01 am
just follow a board on TMF that is all about BKH
TMF?
Motley Fool?
I guess not, because kbg recently wrote that “tmf is up huge.”
Meanwhile, Berkshire is BRK — BKH is something else — and I still don’t know what TMF is. Something something fund?

Edit: oh, it’s a proper ticker: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TMF?p=TMF

Edit #2: I guess it means different things in different posts. :-X
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by Kbg » Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:38 pm

LOL!
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Re: Invest like Buffett?

Post by dualstow » Tue Jun 04, 2019 6:04 pm

O0
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