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LewisBraham
Hi Hank,
Your satire came across very well. Don't worry about the user name.
Best,
Lewis
What’s strange is the GOP’s wholesale embrace of election tampering by a hostile foreign power. What happened to patriotism and loyalty? The Nixon era GOP would have recognized this and put country first.
First, it seems doubtful that Sanders even if he gets elected will be able to achieve most of his campaign promises with today’s Congress. Kochs et al will immediately go into high gear to take back the House and block him at every turn. So we’ll ha…
The question is is the fine enough? The limited liability nature of companies which translates every crime into a financial penalty for the company while often appearing to let the individuals responsible for the crimes off the hook doesn’t seem to …
It’s impossible to democratize the stock market because democracy functions on a system of one person one vote while corporate governance is one share one vote. Those with the most shares, ie., wealth control the company. That is literally the de…
This "don't talk about politics" refrain which usually comes from people who don't like the persuasion of the politics being discussed reminds me of an old joke in which two prudish ladies buttonhole Noah Webster and say, "Mr. Webster, why did you p…
In theory half the funds are above the index and half are below.
Before fees, it might be 50-50. After deducting fees, it's not even close and the longer you have that fee drag on an active fund compared to a benchmark the more likely it is it will …
For Republicans, the mantra is always “personal responsibility.” Where was the personal responsibility for the executives of the banks during the 2008 and 2009 financial crisis? They point to the consumers of alcohol, opioids and cigarettes but not …
Now that Vanguard is selling advice, this is like saying Coca Cola finds soda is good for you. The analysis ignores pre- and post-advice returns and ignores post-advisory-fee returns. Moreover, it criticizes self-directed investors for having a “hom…
The thing is companies don't operate in demographic silos generally, at least not multi-national blue chip companies, which sell their products worldwide. And U.S. stocks are invested in worldwide too.
It wouldn’t surprise me if China is lying about the death toll. It wouldn’t be the first country to do so. One reason the Spanish flu epidemic was called Spanish is Spain was the first country to admit there was a problem even though other European …
@royal4 The GOP and some Dems too have long liked socialism for the rich and parts of the country with certain, i.e., Caucasian demographics —bank bailouts, farm subsidies and overpriced military contracts. It’s only “socialism” to them if a liberal…
Haven’t analyzed the company, but it’s pretty common for companies to fall below their IPO price not long after their IPO as executives/founders/Vc folk looking to cash out of their erstwhile illiquid shares sell them in the open market. It would ha…
No tricosan I know in Purell, but that does not mean all of this hand sanitizer can't help start a superbug: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hospital-superbug-may-be-developing-tolerance-hand-sanitizers-180969890/
My impression is that r…
Regarding hand sanitizer, sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease:
https://fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/5-things-know-about-triclosan
https://health.harvard.edu/blog/are-antibacterial-products-with-triclosan-fueling-bacterial-resis…
Poverty isn’t driving one million species to extinction and killing the plankton and rainforests that produce much of our breathable air. It also isn’t producing famine, floods and climate refugees. Climate change creates poverty in emerging countri…
Is Zero Hedge's creator/operative really a Russian asset working for Putin trying to destroy America and our democracy?
https://newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/is-the-alt-right-for-real
@Mark. I agree the saying's funny and worth quoting, but I find the proliferation of fake quotes online disturbing, meant to give a veneer of authority or trustworthiness to ideas that aren't always well thought out, especially in the case of the fo…
@Mark Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.” - Mark Twain
There are a lot of fake Twain and founding father quotes online. I doubt this one is real: https://marktwainstudies.com/the-apocryphal-twain-politicians-a…
@kings53man From the way the article is written it seems the opposite is the case--these companies can have data identifying specific patients: The notes haven’t been stripped of personally identifiable information, according to Providence....allows…
An average for an entire period is not every year in that period. You both were stating you were waiting 20 to 40 years for international and emerging markets to outperform. Some of those years in the last 20 to 40 you would’ve strongly outperformed…
There is only one metric that is contractual, predictable and repeatable again and again and that's fees. And this is why we have SPIVA scorecards for active funds versus passive indexes like this for the past 15 years of returns from 7/1/2004 - 6/3…
No question Dodge & Cox suffered badly in 2008 mainly because their value strategy can emphasize cheap but sometimes more financially risky companies. Then again, most value managers suffered in 2008 unless they had a serious quality tilt too. I…
@davidrmoran Pretty much what I said. It's not a short-term prognostication tool, but a long-term indicator that I think is worth knowing:
The thing is, Robert Shiller is aware that CAPE does a terrible job of telling traders when to buy and sell st…
I would leave the forecasting ability of the metric out of this and simply say that low is good and high is bad. Sven's post of the growth in earnings or the E part of the P/E only sets the bar higher for companies to match or exceed their previous…
The issue I have with ZEOIX is it isn't on NTF transaction free platforms at brokers. My understanding is this is by design as the managers don't want hot money or to pay to be on those "free" platforms. The problem is this is a low returning cash-l…
@David_Snowball Is this a useful focus? How might I improve it?
I think it's worth adding international exposure even if it didn't hold up as well in the last crash for the full cycle. The thing is, to improve results one must always be thinking for…