Basic Guide To Successful Investing

by | Mar 19, 2018 | Investing, My Archives | , , , , ,

Part I

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4157375-basic-guide-successful-investing-part

  • Understanding Free Cash Flow and its importance.
  • Letting compound interest do much of the work for you.

Most investors jump into and out of stocks after a few years, or even months, and miss the true power of long-term investing. Sure, we take a beating here and there along the way, but quality always recovers and buying a stock in a high-quality company when it is priced as a bargain generally works out better than trading in and out. Remember, you are collecting those juicy dividends along the way. The annual dividend on 14,400 share in 2017 was $63,412.

So, sticking with quality companies and investing for the long term to allow the power of compound interest work for you are the first two key elements of successful investing. I will get into more about how I identify “quality companies” in practice as we move through the series.

Part II

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4157783-basic-guide-successful-investing-part-ii

  • The Myths of Wall Street exposed.
  • How does Warren Buffett Invest?
  • Do you really trust Wall Street to have your best interests at heart?
  • Interlude I – True story about an average woman who amassed $18 million on a salary of $15,000 per year.

If you want to be a millionaire you need to invest like one. The ultra-wealthy do not need all the income from their investments. And they certainly are not desperate to increase their income from investments every year. But it just happens anyway without their trying. How? I’m glad you asked.

You see, wealthy people can afford to wait for bargains.

There may be more skill, in terms of knowledge and experience, on Wall Street than most of us have. But we don’t really need that much skill. The thing we need the most is patience. Add a little skill and a solid plan to a lot of patience and you’ll do much better than relying on Wall Street.

Bitcoin: The New Gold

by | Mar 16, 2018 | Investing, My Archives |

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4153684-bitcoin-new-gold

  • Bitcoin is often compared to gold, and for good reason.
  • Gold and Bitcoin share many similar properties, but where gold lacks, Bitcoin seems to excel.
  • Wait, that’s not all, there’s more good news.
  • If Bitcoin becomes the “new gold” its price could go a lot higher.

But Wait, How Can Bitcoin be a “Store of Value”?

Many people have questioned Bitcoin’s ability to be considered a viable store of value due to its volatile price action. This is primarily because Bitcoin is still in the relatively early stages of its existence, and at this stage of the cycle Bitcoin is still more of a creator of value than a store of it, for now. Despite its sharp fall from recent all-time highs, Bitcoin is still up by roughly 1,000% over the past year. Moreover, it is up by an unprecedented 450,000,000% or so since its first two pizza “commercial” transactions was implemented in 2010, when Bitcoin was valued at just one quarter of just one cent. Once Bitcoin’s price stops ballooning and becomes more stable it will stop being a “creator of value” and can be viewed as a store of value instead, as well as a possible “more stable” form of a worldwide currency.

While the scenario I proposed may take several years to play out, various favorable developments may materialize as soon as the second half of this year. These factors could spark a significant rally in Bitcoin that may propel the digital asset’s prices considerably higher into year’s end. My end of year price target for Bitcoin is $35,000.

Apple: Tech Rally Exhausted, Time To Hedge

by | Mar 15, 2018 | Investing, My Archives | ,

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4156666-apple-tech-rally-exhausted-time-hedge

  • Seeking Alpha often focuses on bottom-up investing: company-specific data. Most of a stock’s return is related to both the market’s movement and the sector it is in.
  • Apple has rallied despite naysayers, alongside most of technology. Investors with limited technology exposure have suffered.
  • “The trend is your friend” is common guidance that many value investors ignore. Investors that have bought out of favor value have done awful in recent years.
  • Trends eventually break. Hedging technology firms like Apple is starting to make sense; selling covered calls is a time-honored approach to doing so.

The trend is your friend.

Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.

2018 Women of Distinction Award nominee – Mara St. Onge of Blingja Concepts

by | Mar 12, 2018 | News & Announcements | , , ,

Mara St. Onge, Blingja, Women of Disctinction Award nominee

Mara St. Onge, Women of Distinction Award nominee

Congratulations to Mara St. Onge of Blingja Concepts (and all the other nominees) on the 2018 YWCA Women of Distinction Award nomination in the category of Education, Training & Development.

Founder of Blingja Concepts, Mara recognized the increased need for social emotional learning (SEL) curriculums to address behavioural breakdowns in classrooms. Utilizing her background as an educator in the school system for more than 20 years, she developed Blingja (Bling Out Your Inner Ninja), an SEL curriculum focused on mindfulness, helping children self-regulate their emotions in difficult situations. Unlike traditional SEL curriculums, Blingja is visually-focused and designed to be delivered in easy steps. Mara has created a unique social enterprise dedicated to supporting the local community, employing adults with barriers to employment and developmental disabilities to craft the therapeutic sensory tools that are used in the Blingja curriculum. Mara’s vision is to support educators and students in regulating their own emotions powerfully in any situation.

→ https://ywcavan.org

→ http://blingja.com

Warren Buffett Once Told a 14-Year-Old Kid the Secret to Success in 1 Simple Sentence

by | Mar 11, 2018 | Investing, My Archives |

https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/warren-buffett-says-hanging-out-with-this-kind-of-person-will-make-you-more-successful.html

Buffett wasn’t merely telling a teenager to stay away from bullies or the kid smoking pot in the back of the school. He’s teaching a life lesson for all of us about absorbing the very qualities and traits of successful people further down the path than you — the ones whom have demonstrated the people skills and character traits that will elevate us and make us better as leaders, workers, and human beings.

In growing your influence as a leader, business owner, or professional so others will gravitate to your inner circle, there are four things that you want to look for in people better than you, so you can “drift in that direction.”

…

  1. Hang out with people that have integrity.
  2. Hang out with intentionally focused people that know when to say ‘no.’
  3. Hang out with people that feed their minds by reading.
  4. Hang out with people that are legitimately loved by others.

Netflix: ‘The New Content King’ Is Seemingly Unstoppable

by | Mar 8, 2018 | Investing, My Archives |

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4154445-netflix-the-new-content-king-seemingly-unstoppable

  • Netflix is seemingly unstoppable; in addition to being the best performing stock of the last decade, Netflix has already gained 65% in 2018 alone.
  • With around 120 million subscribers and nearly 50% of total streaming time in the U.S., it’s difficult to debate Netflix’s status as the king of streaming.
  • But with an $8 billion content budget this year Netflix threatens to become “the new content king” as well.
  • The Disney “threat” appears to be significantly overrated.
  • What to expect from the new content king going forward.

To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

by | Mar 6, 2018 | Investing, My Archives | ,

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

The Annual Meeting (2017)

The annual meeting falls on May 5th and will again be webcast by Yahoo!, whose web address is https://finance.yahoo.com/brklivestream. The webcast will go live at 8:45 a.m. Central Daylight Time. Yahoo! will interview directors, managers, stockholders and celebrities before the meeting and during the lunch break. Both the interviews and meeting will be translated simultaneously into Mandarin.

Our partnership with Yahoo! began in 2016 and shareholders have responded enthusiastically. Last year, real-time viewership increased 72% to about 3.1 million and replays of short segments totaled 17.1 million.

For those attending the meeting in person, the doors at the CenturyLink will open at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday to facilitate shopping prior to our shareholder movie, which begins at 8:30. The question-and-answer period will start at 9:15 and run until 3:30, with a one-hour lunch break at noon. Finally, at 3:45 we will begin the formal shareholder meeting, which usually runs from 15 to 45 minutes. Shopping will end at 4:30.

On Friday, May 4th, our Berkshire exhibitors at CenturyLink will be open from noon until 5 p.m. We added that extra shopping time in 2015, and serious shoppers love it. Last year about 12,000 people came through the doors in the five hours we were open on Friday.

……

Come to Omaha – the cradle of capitalism – on May 5th and meet the Berkshire Bunch. All of us look forward to your visit.

February 24, 2018 Warren E. Buffett
Chairman of the Board

Is This Still ‘Just’ A Correction, Or Is It The Start Of Something Much Worse?

by | Mar 5, 2018 | Investing, My Archives | ,

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4153142-still-just-correction-start-something-much-worse

Despite the worsening macro image, tarnished by Fed-induced tightening, higher rates, rising inflation, and the prospect of increased trade tariffs, the broader economy appears to still be largely insulated from these threats.

Moreover, GOP tax cuts, increased infrastructure spending, record corporate profits, GDP expansion, robust but still relatively stable inflation, positive sentiment, and increased overall economic activity should continue to serve as a catalyst to propel stocks higher in the short to intermediate term. Therefore, these fundamental elements coupled with a relatively constructive technical setup suggest that this correction is likely nearing an end, rather than transitioning into a bear market.

Longer term, the inflationary pressures coupled with rising rates, and other constricting elements are likely to cause a significant slowdown in the U.S. economy, which will likely lead to a recession coupled with a severe bear market. However, I do not expect this scenario to materialize until 2019/2020.

How seeing Earth from space changes you

by | Mar 5, 2018 | Books, My Archives | ,

The Earth Gazershttps://www.salon.com/2018/03/04/how-seeing-earth-from-space-changes-you/

I also wonder about scientists, generally, who had a broad view of the universe and how that affected their perspectives. Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Jane Goodall and Stephen Jay Gould all seem to have derived various sorts of humanism from their work, although none ever viewed Earth from space. Do you think this is similar to the inspirational effect of viewing Earth from space, as you describe it? 

It’s true, I do show ways in which seeing the Earth from space inspired scientists. The microbiologist René Dubos, who popularized the expression “think globally, act locally,” said that seeing Earthrise made him realize that “the Earth is a living organism.” James Lovelock, who was then employed by NASA, was inspired by Earthrise to come up with his Gaia theory. We are lucky that scientists are largely also humanists but that isn’t always true. There is a very dark side of science. Darwinism was, soon after Darwin’s time, perverted into Social Darwinism, out of which arose eugenics (at one time a respectable science), a direct route to the concentration camps.