Viva Vietnam

Just doing some research in Vietnam, will be back at the end of March

Berkshire Hath No Outperformance

Any time period >8 years, Berkshire Hathaway outperforms the SPY. But this chart is from 8 years, with the blue line BRKA and the green line SPY. 

SPY is paying a dividend along the way, and Berkshire not. To my dying day I do not know why Buffett bought IBM. 

I'm still a buyer at 1.1 times book value or less. 

Interesting Thought Of The Day

Some flunky from the Vampire Squid was jibber jabbering on Bloomberg just now, but he had an interesting point. 

The volatility of a commodity is related to the ability to store it. 

Viz. Wholesale electricity can't be stored, so when supply and demand break, the price changes radically

After electricity is natural gas and oil. 

Last of all is precious metals, which have very flexible storage options. 

It means supply and demand equilibrium will be resolved in oil & gas relatively quickly and it will take years to sort out precious metals.  

DJW WTF

Djerriwarrh is an LIC I once owned for many years. It's now trading at a 25% premium to net tangible assets, and has been about that level for a while. 

I simply don't get how this can be possible. They buy and hold blue chip ASX companies and sell calls on their holdings which generates income. Nice model, but even a 5% premium over NTA is grounds to sell.

Down Goes Ozforex

Here is another company I would have invested in, when I was investing in individual companies. I use the service and I like what they do. They provide a cheap, reliable product. 

But after an IPO only 3 years ago priced at $2.60, down they go. Once again it pays to invest only in broad based ETFs. You never know when you will get a kick in the nuts like this. 

Productivity Shtum

"Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything."  Paul Krugman, The Age of Diminishing Expectations (1994)

I agree with this, but all of the jibber jabber has been overtaken by debt since 2008. We don't hear much about productivity any more. 

Trend On Copper Breaks

Down Goes Ansell

What an astonishing chart

Down Goes Programmed Maintenance Services

They floated in 1999 at about $1.80, went up to $6 in 2007, briefly touched $1.20 in 2010, back to $3.40 in 2013 and now here we are. What a round trip.

Not Efficient

ASX200 down 2.4% today. Why? What information has come out which would cause an efficient market to drop by 2.4%? None. 

I heard Robert Shiller in an interview say he was doing some research on the 1987 stock market crash. He surveyed traders on why they sold so heavily. The common answer was "Because everyone else was selling". 

VIX (Yawn)

There has been a lot of talk recently about the high volatility of markets. Looking back to 1997-2002, we're only returning to normal levels.