Mike Lister

No! https://www.fool.com/investing/how-to-invest/stocks/how-to-invest-in-berkshire-hathaway-stock/

Our Gerben's not the brightest star in the sky, said Gerbens mum.

Do you realise how stupid that comment is? Have you ever sat down and read about the development and growth of Berkshire Hathaway and the people who run it? Do you realise how many ordinary people have profited handsomely from the company? You would do well to not comment on subjects you nothing about. otherwise you confirm what people suspect.

Which was my initial point in all of this. A younger person has time to do that, for a retiree aged 70 or 75, buy hold and wait is inherently high risk.

Agreed. Which is why following the herd and buying into a popular fund that has out performed, is risky.

Thats funny! When you look at past performance of a fund, you're not really assessing the things that a fund invests in, all your doing is looking at how much money the fund made and when you know that, you don't know how it was made or why. The fund could have made money for any number of reasons, perhaps because it owned one stellar company that did uniquely well but it also owned ten dogs that lost money! When you consider the P/E ratio of the companies within the fund, then you begin to get an idea of the things that made the company attractive to the Fund Manager. Is P/E ratio performance data? Yes of of course, but only on the basis that every bit of data pertaining to a company is performance data! It's a question of granularity, how detailed do you want to view your investment, at the highest level (the bottom line only) of all companies in total or do you want to dig deeper to understand what why and how. Fund volatility is worth looking at, at the fund level, that's the extent to which a funds price surges and falls beyond the average which is a good measure of risk. Personally, I want to see what I'm investing in and to do that, I need to get inside the fund and look at the detail, that way you can get a look inside the FM's head and see what he saw that made him buy what he did. When you buy a house, you don't just buy it because it looks nice from the outside, you go inside and check out each of the rooms. And you don't just buy it because the one next door made money, you look at the one you're buying to see if you want to live in it for a while. The difference between us is that you say you're graphs guy, whereas I prefer the underlying numbers and the numbers that underpin them. Do you remember Poseidon shares in 1969, you're probably too young. They were penny stocks of an Australian mining company that found nickel deposits at a time when nickel was in demand because of the Vietnam war. UK brokers put out graphs showing how the price would soar to 383.o and everyone piled in. It was pure speculation, there was no proof, the graphs were pretty and impressive but if any buyer would have checked things out they would have quickly seen that there was nothing to underpin that valuation. A lot of people lost a lot of money.

I think the story going forward remains valuations, do we really think the collective P/E can keep pushing higher without consequence, it's all so fragile. I shall not increase my equities holdings and will remain at 47%. A global investment grade bond index looks increasingly useful and may work. This is not a bad year end summary with a peak into 2024, it shows the extent of the division between the major players. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-closed-2023-near-record-highs-heres-what-wall-street-thinks-is-coming-in-2024-124134109.html

You appear to pick individual stocks based on emotion and funds based on past performance, is that really smart? I confess I also used to use past performance as a major guide until I started to pay attention to the metrics and other factors. Today, I have several gates that any fund must pass through before I considering buying. Volatility must be below 16 fund P/E must be below 16 also, I look for Beta's less than 1.0, 1.5 at absolute max and Alpha's of 3.0 or more. Every fund must operate in more than one geographic region with no more than 60% in the US. Fund Size is also an indicator I look at closely, funds can be too small and at risk of closure but also too big which means they are not capable of being nimble. A P/B with a max of 3.0 and a P/S of with a max of 2.0. Giant and large caps around 75%, medium caps of 16% and small caps of 8% is about right in these uncertain times. As far as style is concerned, I try to stick with blends rather than trying to time growth and value, I reckon that's the FM's job, another good reason to go with a managed fund. Lastly, I try not to hold more than 10% in any one fund or fund house, unless its short term money market fund and even then it's usually giants like Fidelity of Vanguard. Once I've done all those things, I check my entire portfolio for the extent of overlap. Some duplication across funds is inevitable and even desirable to some degree but too much defeats the purpose of holding multiple funds. My best fund currently is Royal London Global Select which I bought into early, the fund is now closed to new buyers. It's returned over 27% this year and has an alpha of 14.5! Happy days.

Fund Managers beat the benchmark and the Index on a regular basis, it happens all the time. The problem is, they can't do it consistently over many years.

I have held JPM Global Equity for some time, it was interesting to watch earlier this year in July as the fund went into cash by over 25%. Ordinarily you'd squeal if a FM held that much cash but the reason why became clear in July as the S&P fell by 10% and the fund maintained value. I've watched a number of similar events and at 10% it's not a big deal. But what if it were 30% of more! Food for thought.

If an active fund is invested across a number of different markets, the FM has the ability to switch out of one market and into another or go into cash, if things start to go South. The FM doesn’t have time his re-entry, he just has to exit and avoid the loss that a falling market will cause to a tracker in order to be ahead of the game. Significant market crashes since 1950 are as high as 60%. The time to recovery can be as long as 15 years (in the case of the 1929 crash). August 1957 (21%) April 1960 (14%) December 1969 (36%) November 1973 (48%) January 1980 (17%) July 1981 (27%) July 1990 (20%) March 2001 (37%) December 2007 (57%) February 2020 (34%) Average (31%) https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/how-long-will-it-take-market-recover Again, if you’re 25 or 30 years old, a 15 year recovery is manageable, if you’re 70 or 75, it probably isn’t.

Unfortunately that's true, every do has its day in the sun and then it starts to rain. I also learned that lesson about index funds and trackers beating the market/benchmark consistently. Index Funds and Trackers are great, except in a down market, when they fall, you have nowhere to go and you have to take the ride down. At least with a managed fund there's a Fund Manager who can take the fund into different things or at least mitigate the effect of the fall, with trackers you don't have that. That's not a problem if you're young enough to have the time for loss recovery but if you're a pensioner you may not hence there is a real risk of permanent loss.

Thread number 26 on the same subject, can it be closed please?

74.

How old are you FFS?

It was a diversionary discussion. It was not a debate about tax, it was a debate about the powers and reach of a central bank.

I've held several different managed funds that have performed well over the years, Lindsell Train Global Royal London Select, Fundsmith, JPM EM etc. I finally realised that every fund has a shelf life at the top, the trick is to buy into it before it begins that life. Buying in once it's up there, rarely works well for me. As they say in all the blurb in the UK, past performance is no guide to future returns.

Exactly, hood ornaments and zebra crossing work in tandem, like bombsights.

I've set out the things that I have, based on my experience of working for banks, and EFTPOS in the past. That's not to say that experience is still 100% relevant and that parts of the processes haven't changed in some way based on the many variables. If you want me to prove all of these things, we move from being a debate and an explanation, into a research project which I'm not about to to engage in. You have a choice, you can either accept my explanation or you can challenge it with an alternative but asking me to prove my explanation and relieve you or anyone else of any research work or effort, aint going to happen. :) I know from previous debates here over many years that there is zero upside to me spending a lot of time and effort proving facts and supplying sufficient links to meet everyone's satisfaction levels, what happens is, everyone goes quiet. But regarding your question about Visa Thailand vs Visa International: the transaction initially rests with visa Thailand because that's where the transaction took place and it's Visa Thailand that is approved by BOT to operate within Thailand's boundaries. I have no doubt that Visa Thailand hands off authentication to Visa International networks but that is likely to be seamless. One thing is certain and that is there will be no direct relationship between the POS terminal in the HI and Visa International, without an intermediary in the middle, even if that intermediary is seamless. Every central bank has its operating boundaries and controls what goes on within those boundaries, to different degrees. The Thai Baht is a restricted currency, no international entity is able to transact on the Baht, without a Thai bank or central bank approval. Thai banks act as agents of BOT, Visa Thailand will be the same.

Again, yes. I do know that Visa/Mastercard provides BOT and indirectly, the The National Office of Statistics, with card usage data but I don't know at what level.

Yes, if DCC is used though the process is very similar. John from Idaho settles his bill at the Holiday Inn (HI) Bangkok using his Chase Manhattan Visa card, the bill is 35,000 baht but John chooses to pay using USD because that’s the home currency of his card (the effect of using DCC will be exactly the same). John presents his card to the front desk who enters it into the machine and the transaction is approved and logged by Visa Thailand who issues a credit to the Hotel bank and a debit to Johns visa account for billing purposes. The transaction is also logged on the HI reservations and accounting system. A foreign currency exchange transaction has been performed so the HI bank must report this to BOT. At end of day settlement, Visa nets all the transactions and pays or deducts from the various banks using the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) who credits the BOT account who in turn credits the HI bank account. Visa will also report the foreign currency exchange in its reporting. (BOT needs to know how much currency has been traded for Baht and visa versa plus the FOREX needs this information also to adjust the value of the Baht). In summary, details of Johns name and card number and his issuing bank, and all the data regarding his transaction, are known by the merchant, HI, by the HI’s bank and by BOT (if it wants to know).

Sure, see my subsequent post on this.

Of course, BOT only has jurisdiction over Thai banks. Before going any further, this mini-debit is about the powers a central bank like BOT has and their capability to obtain/demand data and reports regarding financial transactions that take place within Thailand. Once again, financial transactions inside Thailand. A major part of BOT's remit is to manage the Baht, in that respect they will see and indeed need to see, details of all foreign currency exchange transactions involving the baht, just like any central bank sees all transaction, related to their own currency. Every card transaction involves, an Issuer, an issuer currency, a merchant, a merchant bank and a merchant currency and a settlement..... and of course a card owner. BOT will have the ability to see data on of all transactions conducted and settled within its borders and indeed, this information will be reported to BOT by the member banks and by the Visa/Mastercard networks when reporting usage statistics. At what level it is reported to BOT is another issue, monthly, quarterly, who knows, the point is, the data is available as is the reporting mechanism on ALL transactions and ALL cards. So when John Doe from Idaho, holidays in Bangkok and pays his hotel bill using a US bank issued card, that transaction is settled using the merchant in Bangkok, the merchants (Thai) bank, the card company network in Thailand and the Thai central bank when bank settlement is made (as well as the US bank etc)

https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/why-weve-downgraded-fidelity-contrafund This is why other successful managed funds such as Royal London Global Select have closed the fund to new purchase in order to limit its size.

Laugh all you want but here's a partial list of some of the reports that BOT requires the banks to submit. https://www.bot.or.th/content/dam/bot/fipcs/documents/FPG/2561/EngPDF/25610096.pdf