Smart-sounding reasons to sell as the market rose:

h/t @morganhousel

Charlie Munger has a net worth of $2.5 billion

He owns 50k shares of Daily Journal $DJCO, a 3.6% stake valued at $18M

Daily Journal has a portfolio worth $259M, which includes $72M worth of $BABA stock

If $BABA or $DJCO went to zero the total loss to Munger would be negligible

Successful investing comes down to how much investors make when they’re right and how much they lose when they’re wrong.

@GordonsGecko That's a good short candidate

Ben Graham managed to compound money at 20%/year for 20 years at his partnership following a value investing strategy

In 1948 he acquired 50% stake in GEICO. It had to be distributed to his investors

They almost didn't make the investment due to some accounting questions 1/

Ben Graham paid $712,500 for 50% of GEICO in 1948. He put 25% of his investment assets in GEICO.

This investment did so well that the price of its shares advanced to two hundred times or more than the price of the half-interest by 1971/1972 2/

Ironically, the aggregate of profits accruing from this single investment decision far exceeded the sum of all the others realized through 20 years of operations in the partners specialized fields, involving much investigation, endless pondering&countless individual decisions 3/

Are there morals to this story of value to the intelligent investor?

An obvious one is that there are several different ways to make and keep money on Wall Street 4/

Another, not so obvious, is that one lucky break, or one supremely shrewd decision may count for more than a lifetime of journeyman efforts.

But behind the luck, or the crucial decision, there must usually exist a background of preparation and disciplines capacity. 5/

@nicole_daruda yea...and their economy is still smaller than that of the US. So on a GDP Basis its even worse for the EU...

Predicting Inflation is Hard

"The main argument at the moment about inflation is whether it’s finally here to stay from all of the government spending or simply transitory from a quirky pandemic economy."

https://t.co/0CaOOQUYvU

by @awealthofcs

@evan_lorenz Exactly this.

Plus in a gold-based system, smaller entities (SMBs or sole proprietors) could presumably even self-custody to reduce the carrying cost of gold to zero.

This is not possible with bitcoin, in which one owns a share of a collective and equally distributed liability.

The hilarity of all this, to me, is that Bitcoin makes the most sense if viewed as a Marxist worker’s rebellion.

The central promise is UBI: buy tokens that increase in value forever, granting you wealth for doing nothing.

And the cost is the future.

The last time inflation was this high was Nov 1990

Then:

Inflation 6.3%
2 year treasury yields 7.8%

Now:

Inflation 6.2%
2 year treasury yields 0.4%

Which scenario is worse?

I guess it depends if you're a saver or a borrower?

QE, Liquidity Removal, and the Alchemy of Money

I’ve been watching @MetreSteven say stuff like “QE removes liquidity” on here for a while after which people sort of stare blankly or roll their eyes.

Let’s give it one more go, via a traditionally quirky explainer.
1/

At the heart of every monetary system is an act of alchemy.

Let us start by describing this act: the act of monetary creation.

At the center of alchemy lies the Philosopher's Stone - the prime reagent for money creation.

For a long time this was gold.
2/

For if you had gold, you could lend against it.

From the Philosopher's stone of gold, we could spawn two things:

1. Circulating money
2. Debt

Money and debt are twins, both born of the philosopher's stone and their fates forever linked.
3/

For you see, there are rules which govern alchemy.

An alchemist is only allowed to create a certain amount of money for each philosopher's stone.

And the Debt was greater than the Money (due to interest), making the system inherently deflationary.
4/

And this deflationary nature drove the people to want more money in circulation.

So the rules of alchemy were evolved to allow each stone to create more money (fractional reserve banking).
5/