Money and Finance
- Links
Kyle Bass on Wall Street Week (video) (LINK) Mutual Fund Observer, January 2016 (LINK) Hussman Weekly Market Comment: The Next Big Short: The Third Crest of a Rolling Tsunami (LINK) Over the holiday, we went with a group of friends to see The...
- Links
Bill Gates: 50 Years of Warren’s Wisdom (LINK) University Of Auckland Investment Club Q&A With Mohnish Pabrai (LINK) Latticework of Mental Models: Mean Reversion (LINK) The Brooklyn Investor comments on Berkshire Hathaway and the annual meeting...
- Warren Buffett On Cnbc
Links to videos: Berkshire Hathaway celebrates 50 years Who will succeed Warren Buffett? #Ask Warren: Charlie Munger No surprises at IBM: Buffett Deere's long term attraction: Buffett #Ask Warren: Glenn Close What's inside Berkshire Hathaway?...
- Little Logic To Bond World Amid Current Risk Phobias - By Jim Grant
"There are no bad bonds, only bad prices," the traders used to say. They should say it again, only louder. In the spring of 1984, long-dated Treasuries went begging at yields of nearly 14 per cent in the context of an inflation rate of just 4 per cent....
- 8 Key Takeaways From Berkshire Hathaway's 2015 Shareholder Letter
Over the weekend Berkshire Hathaway released their 2015 Annual Report and the most sought after Letter to the Shareholders from Warren Buffett. Buffett's investment and business track record is truly amazing with 19.2% annualized gains in book...
Money and Finance
No Safety in Numbers - By Roger Lowenstein
Is there such a thing left as a safe investment? Stocks have been massacred, real estate all but wiped out. Each was promoted in its day — as was gold — as safe and secure, appropriate for widows and orphans.
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If there is a truly last bastion of safety, it would be, of course, the U.S. Treasury bond, that venerable instrument with the full faith and credit of the United States behind it. Perhaps it is esteemed so highly because we think of it not as an “investment” per se but as an article of faith in Washington and, by extension, the entire country. It is our tax dollars, after all, that stand behind it — the accumulated output of our citizens. And ever since the Wall Street meltdown, as investors have fled from any security carrying a whiff of danger, Treasuries have been in hot demand.
If there is a truly last bastion of safety, it would be, of course, the U.S. Treasury bond, that venerable instrument with the full faith and credit of the United States behind it. Perhaps it is esteemed so highly because we think of it not as an “investment” per se but as an article of faith in Washington and, by extension, the entire country. It is our tax dollars, after all, that stand behind it — the accumulated output of our citizens. And ever since the Wall Street meltdown, as investors have fled from any security carrying a whiff of danger, Treasuries have been in hot demand.
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So it is an eye-opener, and rather depressing, to report that even Treasuries bear risk, in particular, the risk that flows from crowd psychology. Last month, in his annual letter to shareholders (of which I am one), Warren Buffett wrote: “When the financial history of this decade is written, it will surely speak of the Internet bubble of the late 1990s and the housing bubble of the early 2000s. But the U.S. Treasury bond bubble of late 2008 may be regarded as almost equally extraordinary.”
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Related link: Warren Buffett's 2008 Letter to the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
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- Links
Kyle Bass on Wall Street Week (video) (LINK) Mutual Fund Observer, January 2016 (LINK) Hussman Weekly Market Comment: The Next Big Short: The Third Crest of a Rolling Tsunami (LINK) Over the holiday, we went with a group of friends to see The...
- Links
Bill Gates: 50 Years of Warren’s Wisdom (LINK) University Of Auckland Investment Club Q&A With Mohnish Pabrai (LINK) Latticework of Mental Models: Mean Reversion (LINK) The Brooklyn Investor comments on Berkshire Hathaway and the annual meeting...
- Warren Buffett On Cnbc
Links to videos: Berkshire Hathaway celebrates 50 years Who will succeed Warren Buffett? #Ask Warren: Charlie Munger No surprises at IBM: Buffett Deere's long term attraction: Buffett #Ask Warren: Glenn Close What's inside Berkshire Hathaway?...
- Little Logic To Bond World Amid Current Risk Phobias - By Jim Grant
"There are no bad bonds, only bad prices," the traders used to say. They should say it again, only louder. In the spring of 1984, long-dated Treasuries went begging at yields of nearly 14 per cent in the context of an inflation rate of just 4 per cent....
- 8 Key Takeaways From Berkshire Hathaway's 2015 Shareholder Letter
Over the weekend Berkshire Hathaway released their 2015 Annual Report and the most sought after Letter to the Shareholders from Warren Buffett. Buffett's investment and business track record is truly amazing with 19.2% annualized gains in book...