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LewisBraham

Hi Hank, Your satire came across very well. Don't worry about the user name. Best, Lewis

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  • @FD1000 What in your view do the last ten years of data have to do with the 1929 - 1954 period return? I already stated twice that dividends matter, although those numbers for large blend from the Depression are almost certainly wrong and subject t…
  • @FD1000 In other words, the numbers for the Dow from 1929 to 1954 in the articles were not "way off" as you claimed and you don't have a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, you are busy quoting stats for the Dow and S&P that have nothing to do with the…
  • @FD1000 If so, prove it using primary sources. Here's another article making the same claim regarding the price return: https://thebalance.com/stock-market-crash-of-1929-causes-effects-and-facts-3305891 If you have direct access to daily Dow Jones …
  • @Old_Skeet Thanks! Interesting nonetheless.
  • @PressmUp That's right, if only we could treat every employee as terribly as the private sector does. I wonder how you would feel if a benefit promised to you before you worked your entire career at an organization was suddenly taken away from you a…
  • @Old_Skeet That article factors deflation into the equation, which I also feel is cheating in certain respects, too. The assumption is well everything is cheaper, therefore it only took X for the market, which is also cheaper, to recover. But If you…
  • @FD1000 That "Large Cap Blend" category data is also wrong for that period of history because it can not include survivor bias of all the funds that went out of business that far back and there were many. Of the ones that did survive__ MFS Massachus…
  • @FD1000 You're right that doesn't include distributions which are important but VWELX is not an equity fund and has always included high quality bonds in its portfolio, so looking at its performance during the Depression is wrong as well. VWELX fell…
  • I am assuming by the tenor of the replies here most people believe the author of the initial article in Foreign Policy is wrong. Otherwise, why would one be in stocks at all? If this author is right regarding unemployment, GDP growth, etc., this wil…
  • A depressing as heck article. A few questions I have though are: The author discusses the real and expected unemployment numbers and compares them to the Great Depression, but he doesn’t ask about the duration of that unemployment or expected durati…
  • @davidrmoran I like some of Hulbert's articles and read them, but I am generally not a fan of historical market performance analysis without analyzing the fundamental root causes of that performance. If it rained yesterday and the day before, does t…
  • Am I the only one who finds this headline funny with an amusing double entendre? I guess the fall right after the first recovery in the double bottom is where one suffers incontinence.
  • Interestingly, the SPDR Tech ETF, XLK, leaves out Amazon because I imagine Standard & Poor's categorizes it, foolishly in my view, as a retail or consumer stock, yet the SPDR tech sector ETF still crushes the S&P 500 without it. One can imag…
  • @davidrmoran Not only what VOOG excludes but includes. Without doing too deep a dive, VOOG has a 32% weighting in tech stocks. VOO has a 21% weighting. Although I don't think VOOG breaks out sectors like the S&P 500, the tech sector isolated by…
  • @FD1000 The price is always right I don't think the price was always right when the market bid up Pets.com, Adelphia Communications, Enron, Worldcom, Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers, tulip bulbs, etc. throughout history in past manias. But there …
  • @Nick637 It has proven totally unethical and cruel in many other parts of the country: https://washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/homes-for-the-taking/?utm_term=.61cb93babcea https://citylab.com/equity/2015/06/how-the-black-tax-destroy…
  • @VintageFreak Of course, it can and often does lead to eviction: https://finance.zacks.com/can-evict-someone-own-pay-tax-lien-property-3784.html You're not doing a public service or saving us from the big banks by buying this. The banks wouldn't evi…
  • @VintageFreak Aside from the fact it's difficult to invest in liens well as the article you've linked explains, do you want to be the one who forces people to be evicted in the midst of an economic crisis to collect on your lien? I feel like it's on…
  • @VintageFreak What's the cash flow worth if you lose your principal during a market downturn? A collared strategy, write a call, buy a put, might be safer and more bond-like, for providing income, although you'll get less income as a result. A cove…
  • The problem for D&C has long been its high weightings in financial services, i.e., banks. That was a big mistake going into the 2008 crisis and they deserved to be criticized for it. Yet I am not so sure it is a mistake in 2020's crisis. Banks a…
  • Agreed. As the saying goes: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
  • @Mark To me it's naive to assume some sort of 100% purity test for politicians, and equally naive to think therefore if money is influencing them, they are all the same. There are substantial differences, despite money's and corporations' pernicious…
  • @rono My response to Aaron Sorkin via Jeff Daniels would be "OK, Boomer." I think the younger generation is actually well aware of America's many flaws, moreso actually than my own and certainly the boomers who are fundamentally the generation that …
  • @FD1000 The whole idea of the SP500 is the fact that the best companies get to the top and why this simple "stupid" cheap brilliant idea works Do the best companies always get to the top? That is the $10,000 question. Saying they do is basically an …
  • I do sometimes wonder when there are contentious posters who rarely comment on this board and then suddenly do to insult folks if some people don't have multiple identities here. I know it's happened before. D&C has a number of positive traits…
  • @rono My 'think like a mountain moment' was around the end of 1968 near Danang when I figured out that Washington was lying to all of us about the war. ...Washington hasn't been on your side for generations. Sr. Bush lied to us, so we elected Bubba,…
  • Do you think this guy missed the cutoff then? It seems the bill just went into effect: https://jacksonlewis.com/publication/new-employer-obligations-under-slightly-revised-families-first-coronavirus-act-hr-6201
  • @Mark I think JohnN is just pulling a Ted and trying to be provocative.
  • @MSF Interesting details, thanks. Do you know if other states are following suit? Also, I wonder if some insurers won't file lawsuits contesting this ruling down the road?
  • The problem is I don't think the government can waive bills if you have private health insurance and use a private healthcare provider. The only way the public sector could probably waive such bills is for the insurer/doctor/hospital to take those b…
  • It really is unbelievable there should be a charge to help stem the tide of a pandemic with a test. How many people will be discouraged from taking the test as a result? This is one of those areas where capitalism fails to do the job and government …
  • No, it isn't a currency problem I realize now because FMI recently launched an unhedged version of this fund-- FMIFX --and it's getting clobbered, too: https://morningstar.com/funds/xnas/fmifx/performance Perhaps it's exposure to oil companies like …
  • @VintageFreak For me that's too difficult to say at this juncture. Luck and skill are often hard to distinguish. One thing I think about it though is if one wants to make that specific play--long residential/short hotels--this one makes sense. In ot…
  • Look at the "Sector Allocation (% of Net Assets)" part of the "Fact Card." I can't link directly to it for some reason, but the Fact card link is near the upper right of the page for the fund.
  • I think in this case it is neutral regarding its total net exposure to real estate so that it is about 90% long and 90% short, but it is not neutral with regard to its individual industry exposures within real estate. So some industries like residen…
  • Since this fund hedges its currency exposure, it might be that the dollar has not exactly behaved as expected given that the virus is a serious threat to the U.S. I would check the return of the dollar versus the Euro for clues.
  • Without looking at its portfolio, my guess would be its long residential real estate and short lodging and commercial or some combination like that.....Yep, just checked its fact card. That seems to be the case: https://guggenheiminvestments.com/mut…
  • Have you been trading in and out of the fund rapidly? Sometimes fund companies will block short-term traders from buying.
  • Interesting fund I've followed for a while but haven't quite figured out yet is doing well in this environment: https://morningstar.com/funds/xnas/gumpx/performance
  • And yet the story underlying the support is also interesting: https://pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/ The numbers of evangelicals and Christians in general are shrinking. I think the younger generation…