prev <-> next
[2018-01-05 10:41:15] - a: Yeah, last time I tried to teach money to my daughters, they still didn't quite get it. Doesn't help that sometimes the smaller coin is worth more (stupid dime). Maybe it's time to try again... -Paul
[2018-01-05 10:15:57] - paul: yah. ~a
[2018-01-05 10:15:37] - would you rather have 2,000 ripple tokens or would you rather have 400,000 bits?
it reminds me of conversations that i had with my 4-yo sister. would you trade me your one dime for four pennies? ~a[2018-01-05 10:12:38] - a: Getting more and more convinced that there is a bubble in cryptocurrencies in general, at least. Who the heck would buy Dogecoins ($1B market cap!) otherwise? -Paul
[2018-01-05 10:09:39] - paul: ugh is right. it's simple psychology though. it's why stocks have splits. it's why i often push people to denominate things in "bits". ~a
[2018-01-05 10:09:06] - paul: hmm. yes, maybe. i'm not sure if that makes it a reserve currency. it just makes it (currently) one of the two or three crypto-currencies heavily traded with usd/eur/krw/jpy/etc. ~a
[2018-01-05 09:49:47] - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/cryptocurrency-dogecoin-now-has-a-market-value-of-more-than-1-billion.html "A buyer, he explained, would feel better knowing they own 2,000 ripple tokens, which would cost a little over $6,000, rather than owning less than half of a bitcoin at the same price." Ugh... -Paul
[2018-01-05 00:10:56] - a: Just so I understand, your points about USD back up what I am saying, right? People want to do USD to BTC first and then BTC to other currencies... -Paul
[2018-01-05 00:10:18] - a: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/how-a-maryland-bank-is-quietly-solving-the-marijuana-industrys-cash-problem/2018/01/02/a6317088-e0ec-11e7-bbd0- Surprised you didn't pick this one.
-Paul[2018-01-04 16:51:34] - paul: and by that i actually mean: with usd it's very easy to have things reversed. ~a
[2018-01-04 16:50:31] - paul: nah, (i'm not joking, i'm serious) it's very hard to trade in usd. so very few people trade in usd directly. ~a
[2018-01-04 16:25:25] - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/another-tiny-digital-coin-leaps-into-the-top-10-cryptocurrencies.html "Much of the buying in the smaller cryptocurrencies is coming from bitcoin holders. About 79 percent of tron trading volume was in bitcoin, and 19 percent in ethereum, according to CryptoCompare." Thought that was interesting. Bitcoin as a kind of reserve cryptocurrency. -Paul
[2018-01-04 13:06:59] - paul: yeah, i'm not a huge fan. i haven't found anything with the data of yahoo and the usability of those 4 bitcoin links yet. ~a
[2018-01-04 13:05:35] -
yeah, i've been meaning to reinstall since i've done such crazy things to my computer. i didn't realize everything was *that* different though. ~a[2018-01-04 13:02:47] - a: i installed ubuntu 17 and it looked "normal", with the vertical launcher and menu stuff at the top. i shut down my computer and came in one morning and it looked like windows, with one horizontal menu bar at the bottom. i like it now, more screen real-estate, but it was a crazy change to just wake up to one morning - aaron
[2018-01-04 13:02:21] - a: Ah, I see now. Okay, that might be better. Thanks. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:59:14] - paul: it definitely lets you set date ranges if you use "full screen" mode. ~a
[2018-01-04 12:58:25] - aaron: yeah, wow your os looks very different from mine. i'm aware i have a weird setup (i installed many many years ago and have been upgrading through unity to gnome etc etc), but i wasn't aware that it was that weird. ~a
[2018-01-04 12:55:06] - a: Yeah, but how do you set date ranges? -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:53:17] - a: https://imgur.com/a/vsbmC hmm there is nothing named "search" in the launcher menu. i've installed the numix theme and papirus icons so this maybe looks a little different than yours. also ubuntu 17.10 i guess regressed to something called cinnamon, i don't know if you're using cinnamon. - aaron
[2018-01-04 12:50:59] - paul: that seems worse than yahoo's charts. are you sure you didn't try the "full screen" link? ~a
[2018-01-04 12:47:47] - Daniel: Oof. Sorry to hear. I saw Andrea's Facebook post. Hope everybody is feeling better. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:47:00] - a: http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com I'm playing around with this now. It's admittedly not very pretty, but I like the functionality... -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:44:56] - i just linked to "don't let daniel see that" hah. ~a
[2018-01-04 12:44:03] - daniel: if you want to catch up
~a[2018-01-04 12:42:20] - paul: Sorry I didn't jump in earlier. I'm recovering from basically having the flu. -Daniel
[2018-01-04 12:33:02] - paul: link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4 ~a
[2018-01-04 12:32:11] - paul: they are subpar, but they're also the best i've found so far (i use yahoo lots). one of the coolest graphs i saw recently was on tmf's website about acbff. i like how you can compare to S&P500, *but* in such a way that S&P500 is kept as a flat horizontal line, and the stock (acbff in my case) is relative to that. that's some sweet-ass graphing. honestly, the bitcoin charts are way better than the stock charts i've seen. ~a
[2018-01-04 12:32:06] - a: And some people will likely get really wealthy off of it. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:31:56] - a: So, yeah, I think MMM can be right that people are recklessly speculating on something they shouldn't be and their logic is all wrong, but it can also be the case that there is a good chance one of these currencies (or blockchain in general) will revolutionize the banking industry (or other parts of the world)... -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:30:28] - a: I really like the .dot bubble analogy. Some world-changing companies came out of it (Amazon, Google, etc), but at the same time there were a ton of worthless companies that people were just madly speculating on because it seemed like the hot new thing. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:29:23] - a: I think of it like why I keep saying that bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general) feel like a bit of a bubble. Because two things can be right at the same time: (1) That blockchain is a useful technology and cryptocurrencies can serve a useful purpose and (2) People are going insane speculating on them. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:26:59] - Anybody here have any suggestions for a good website if I want some good looking charts for certain stocks/indexes over certain time periods? For example, if I wanted to see the S&P500 from 2007 to 2009 or Netflix vs the S&P500 from 2001 to 2017? I find google and yahoo finance subpar for this. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:26:19] - paul: that is right. i'm actually surprised it took until 2018 for sessions to do something drastic like this. ~a
[2018-01-04 12:25:50] - yeah i'm not too big of a fan of ripple. i even have a hard time disagreeing with this logic. except the fingernail clippings part, that's just dumb. it's like he fails to recognize the inherent use of online settlement / payments / transactions! all that shit about speculation is spot on though. it's why i mostly stay away from gold/silver. ~a
[2018-01-04 12:18:32] - a: Yeah, while cultural forces seem to be helping acbff, this is not a friendly administration for it. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:17:50] - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/ripple-co-founder-is-now-richer-than-the-google-founders-on-paper.html Yowza. That seems a little crazy. -Paul
[2018-01-04 12:13:20] - paul: i guess maybe this is why acbff backed off today ~a
[2018-01-04 11:42:05] - nah i'm on 17.10 too. try searching for "search". click on that. see if "files" is enabled or not. ~a
[2018-01-04 11:36:50] - a: hmm, i created a /home/piepera/myfile.txt but it doesn't show up in the launcher. i'm running ubuntu 17.10 so maybe it's something that only works in other linux distros but not this one - aaron
[2018-01-04 11:31:06] - aaron: (bash's control-r + "resu" would often open up the file i wanted to open) ~a
[2018-01-04 11:30:12] - aaron: (i should say that when i was a heavy windows user i didn't do this. i popped up cygwin and kept it up all day. i'd use my alias s=cygstart to open files in the ui). ~a
[2018-01-04 11:28:24] - aaron: if it's in your home directory (like not any levels down, directly in your home directory), it'll show up. i'm not sure how to configure that to go deeper. (there's also an extension that does this called "Search Recently Used Files" that's supposed to add that behavior it didn't work for me. go ahead and give that a try i guess). ~a
[2018-01-04 10:44:42] - a: in Windows I can type something like "resume" into the launcher and it'll pop up "resume.doc" and i can hit enter to open it. this is really nice for files that i open all the time. what's the best way to enable this kind of behavior in ubuntu 17? (which uses gnome?) - aaron
[2018-01-04 10:09:18] - a: Yeah, I don't read much into his actual selling, even if it's somehow shown that he did it because he knew about the flaw. At the same time, I'm not buying INTC right now.
-Paul[2018-01-04 10:07:48] - paul: good point. i'm pretty mixed about the whole thing. to confuse things further, i wonder if he didn't have plans to sell on that date anyways. it really could be unrelated, who knows. ~a
[2018-01-04 09:51:54] - a: I feel like I'm getting conflicting info from you. You said this chip flaw was relatively public knowledge for awhile now, right? So shouldn't it be fine for him to have sold when he did? Or are you saying his sell is implying it's a bigger problem than people think? -Paul
[2018-01-04 09:50:34] - a: Well, for Americans, life expediencies I think actually went down this past year, right? I thought that was mostly due to opioid use, though. So avoid those and you have a better chance. -Paul
[2018-01-04 09:02:10] - paul: yeah, i had wondered about that. exercising 39m in options and immediately selling in november is pretty telling. why keep that major secret for so long? i'm glad i wasn't an intel owner for once and i'm sure as hell not going to buy now. i think the market is under-reacting to this problem. ~a
[2018-01-04 08:42:53] - xpovos: that would be nice.
i don't think life expectancies are increasing quickly enough. they also seem to be flattening out. ~a[2018-01-04 07:06:11] - a: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/intel-ceo-reportedly-sold-shares-after-the-company-already-knew-about-massive-security-flaws.html Yeah, the financial media is treating this chip flaw as if it's some insider information it sounds like. -Paul
[2018-01-04 07:01:37] - a: 10 years is a long time, but not really when it comes to investing. -Paul
[2018-01-04 07:00:34] - a: I still 100% believe that index funds are better than the (vast?) majority of actively managed funds, but I think that point is worth considering. Would the results have looked different if we had two or three down years sprinkled in there (which, historically, on average, we should expect)? -Paul
[2018-01-04 06:59:15] - a: Okay, gotcha. I don't think that's relevant to the point he is making, though. It's more about how for the past nine years we've basically only seen the market go up with no corrections, and in theory, mutual funds perform better during down years (which supposedly happened during Buffett's bet in 2008). -Paul
[2018-01-03 19:51:18] - DJIA 1,000,000 before I die! 1900:<100 ;; 2000: ~10,000 ;; 2100: >1,000,000 (I'll live to 2100, right?) -- Xpovos
[2018-01-03 16:47:17] - looking at the last 80 years, (24717/120.85)**(1/(2018-1938)) = averages out to ~7% (dividends ignored). the last 10 years, (24717/13264.77)**(1/10) = averages out to ~6% (dividends ignored). actually, it's closer than i thought, but still. it's hard to call it the "largest bull market" when it's also below average. ~a
[2018-01-03 16:46:47] - yep. ~a
[2018-01-03 16:20:27] - a: "a below-average market return for 2008-2018" I don't quite understand that statement. What had a below-average market return during that decade? Are you saying the market had a below average return relative to historical averages? -Paul
[2018-01-03 16:15:49] - paul: from your link. "In fairness, Buffett was helped tremendously by the fact that during most of the bet, one of the longest bull markets in history had been playing out" this sentence is dubious. this "longest bull market" included a below-average market return for 2008-2018. ~a
[2018-01-03 16:14:08] - a: How is TMF too fair to hedge funds? -Paul
[2018-01-03 16:13:37] - a: Sure, I don't disagree. I wasn't trying to say that Warren Buffett recommends investing in individual stocks, only suggesting that there is a difference between thinking index funds are the best option and that it's a better option than actively managed funds. -Paul
[2018-01-03 16:12:31] - what's more, tmf seems to being a little too fair to hedge funds in the "to be fair" section. if anything, this 10-year span has been worse than average since it included 2008. i updated this graph
.svg){kind=link}
~a[2018-01-03 15:26:27] - that seems like a convenient point for tmf to make. i read a little bit of a bias. doesn't the tmf have vested interest in individual stock trading? unless i'm mistaken, i don't think buffet has said anything about individual stocks. otoh, buffet (and also tmf to be honest) rail against day-trading. ~a
[2018-01-03 15:11:31] - Daniel: https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/01/03/warren-buffett-just-officially-won-his-million-dol.aspx I thought this was an interesting point that the article made: "Buffett's issue isn't with individual stocks. Rather, it's with actively managed funds, particularly those that charge high fees, like hedge funds." -Paul
[2018-01-03 14:37:42] - whether the button works or not, that's at least a double entendre. but damn, that's some blue comedy. ~a
[2018-01-03 14:33:24] - paul: . . . why the hell would a "bigger" button be a good thing? this isn't even a double entendre. ~a
[2018-01-03 14:32:13] - paul:
saw this *nsfw* image today (which is apparently not new) ~a
[2018-01-03 14:25:48] - a: Still doesn't trump (get it?) the not at all subtle dick reference with regards to the size and power of nuclear buttons. -Paul
[2018-01-03 14:19:36] - man so apparently steve bannon has been in the news all day? bannon says mueller investigation will target kushner . . . bannon says mueller investigation will target don jr . . . trump says "steve bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind." wow. ~a
[2018-01-03 13:30:00] - a: Yeah, I agree Google is wrong since I looked it up elsewhere and the numbers agree with you. Another reason why Google Finance is surprisingly junky. -Paul
[2018-01-03 13:25:55] - paul: it's possible that they're looking at the multiple classes of stock. i.e. a goog + googl type thing. or brk/a vs brk/b. ~a
[2018-01-03 13:24:04] - paul: i think google is wrong. nasdaq, morningstar, yahoo, msn, and (surprisingly) even google finance's own api (see our challenge spreadsheet) say 1b. ~a
[2018-01-03 12:05:17] - a: My guess is that link is wrong somehow, because Google Finance has been wrong sometimes with it's numbers, which is a little concerning. -Paul
[2018-01-03 12:04:39] - a: https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&tbm=fin&ei=Ew1NWr_GJMfQmAH15aXIDw&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgecRozi3w8sc9YSm9SWtOXmPU4OIKzsgvd80rySypFJLiYoOyBKT4uHj00_UNswyM0 -Paul
[2018-01-03 11:13:05] - paul: i agree that you're probably right, but you didn't have to do much digging to find this information out. it's super public. i was reading lots of articles about it yesterday mid-day (well before the markets had closed). i haven't tried to dig for any mainstream publications of this news, but seriously, the linux kernel mailing list is very publicly read, and i see timestamps in early december. ~a
[2018-01-03 11:11:02] - paul: weird, i'm also using google finance. do you have a link? yahoo finance also shows 1b. ~a
[2018-01-03 10:30:27] - a: I guess this is the first that the professional investors have heard of it? -Paul
[2018-01-03 10:30:00] - a: I was mostly kidding, but MZOR is listed as 4.5B on Google Finance... -Paul
[2018-01-03 10:24:58] - paul: yeah what's weird is that this flaw was being discussed openly in december (and even discussed some in november i believe). why did it wait until january for the markets to react? i was looking at the intc price yesterday, and was like wtf? ~a
[2018-01-03 10:23:25] - s/m/b/. ~a
[2018-01-03 10:22:41] - penny stocks? i hope you're joking. gbtc=4m. acbff=4m. those are both mid-cap! they make mzor and bofi look tiny (which each qualify as borderline small-cap). ~a
[2018-01-03 10:16:06] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-03/amd-soars-after-rival-intel-said-to-reveal-processor-flaw -Paul
[2018-01-03 10:12:48] - a: The lesson I am learning from your picks is to go after penny stocks.
-Paul[2018-01-03 10:07:22] - yeah haha i was just thinking that. "paul is going to hate acbff". and much like gbtc, the real gains happened before the beginning of the challenge. ~a
[2018-01-03 09:56:19] - a: First GBTC and now ABCFF? Getting tired of you and your huge gainers.
-Paul[2018-01-02 14:19:06] - a: Well, I bet Daniel would say 1% was high.
-Paul[2018-01-02 13:20:04] - yeah, wow. 2-1 (33%) seems very high to me. i bet daniel would agree.
~a[2018-01-02 13:13:37] - a: Also not counting any of Gurkie's stuff, which I think is almost entirely mutual funds or index funds (excepting her Red Hat stock). -Paul
[2018-01-02 13:13:05] - a: I think I'm still 2-1 index funds to individual stocks, assuming you don't count cryptocurrencies or TMF stock (which, as a private company doesn't seem quite the same as a normal public sector company's stock). -Paul
[2018-01-02 13:10:01] - "I diverted a small portion of my 401(k) contributions to a brokerage where I can buy individual stocks" aww man, don't let daniel see that. i'm still at ~5% individual stocks (not counting bits). ~a
[2018-01-02 13:04:07] - Also, it's worth noting that I diverted a small portion of my 401(k) contributions to a brokerage where I can buy individual stocks, so my Roth no longer accounts for 100% of my individual stock purchases, which muddies the water a bit... -Paul
[2018-01-02 13:03:13] - Although I suppose if you wanted to count bitcoin as an individual stock... the story might be different.
-Paul[2018-01-02 13:02:02] - For 2017, here are the returns: S&P: 19.53%(!) Vanguard: 25.38% Roth: 33.68% (Boo Yeah!). Total Returns since I started tracking in mid-2015? S&P: 39.32% Vanguard: 43.1% Roth: 39.02%. So my hand-picked stocks are still decimal points behind the S&P500 and more than that behind Vanguard so far... -Paul
[2018-01-02 12:59:34] - New year, time for an update on my retirement funds that I don't know if anybody cares about! For Q4, the S&P was up 6.24%(!), my Vanguard Index funds (weighted towards foreign exposure) was only up 3.76% and my Roth IRA (my hand-picked stocks) was only up 4.20%. -Paul
[2018-01-02 11:28:04] - paul: though to be clear, considering where you're employed, and what you're making, though, i don't think python is a bad choice. ~a
[2018-01-02 11:27:52] - a: While I would love for my project to become large, I don't anticipate it happening.
-Paul[2018-01-02 11:27:29] - a: Fair, and it seems like Python is (and was) top 5, so that's good. I'm mostly just making sure I'm not trying to fit a square hole in a round peg, like... uh... I dunno, using VI to write a novel.
-Paul[2018-01-02 11:27:00] - paul: for large projects, i'm partial to languages that treat types explicitly. so python and javascript are out (unless you count flow or typescript). ~a
[2018-01-02 11:24:28] - paul: i dunno. picking a programming language is something that should be done delicately. it's like picking a stock that you have to hold for 10 years. also you have to invest at least a third of your portfolio in it.
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ . . . scroll down to the graph. this lists "popularity" (and if nothing else you can see that popularity changes quickly). ~a[2018-01-02 11:18:15] - a: Eventually, I was thinking (if it was cheap enough) of trying to host it on AWS. -Paul
[2018-01-02 11:18:01] - a: Quick question, based on our discussion on Python before. If I was thinking about writing a fairly simple web-based application and also hoping to learn a skill that could be useful at work (where Python seems to be fairly common), do you think Python would be the correct language to use? Or should I aim for something else? -Paul
[2018-01-02 11:11:41] -
hell a poopy fart was in second place for a bit. ~a[2018-01-02 11:07:58] - Even A Poopy Fart is beating it! -Paul
[2018-01-02 11:07:25] - Xpovos: Nope! I think we can safely say, based on Daniel being in 6th place at this moment, that passive investing is a scam for suckers.
-Paul[2018-01-02 10:36:56] - a: By the time I saw this, you'd swung to first and I had second. Not that a single day is meaningful at all, let alone a single hour. -- Xpovos
[2018-01-02 10:27:50] - Oof, 6th place. That hurts. Hopefully the next 364 days go better than today so far...
-Paul[2018-01-02 10:09:07] - a: Ah, gotcha. Thanks. I thought I saw it go from 0% to 1% this morning... -Paul
[2018-01-02 10:05:31] - paul: to change things up, we (i) decided to put daniel down for etfs this year. exchange traded funds will update with the market. hence the "exchange traded" part
~a[2018-01-02 10:04:18] - a: Was the market open yesterday? I thought Daniel's indexes didn't update until the close of trading? -Paul
[2018-01-02 09:43:07] - xpovos: you've taken first place out of the gate. nice! ~a
[2017-12-30 15:20:38] - a: Right now, I was just playing around with getting some JSON data from an API. I think I finally got it to work. -Paul
[2017-12-30 15:19:54] - a: That's the annoying thing. At the time, the thing I was trying to do was dirt simple. I was using like two or three libraries, so it was frustrating that like all of them changed between Python 2 and Python 3. -Paul
[2017-12-29 22:55:53] - paul: did you have a specific problem you were solving? you mentioned urllib2 and python3. this link discusses how urllib2 needs to change when upgrading to python3. ~a
[2017-12-29 22:47:35] - paul: yeah. keep up the good work, i'm sure it's just rust! python is pretty old though. i think you have a misconception of when it was invented . . . we were in elementary school when it came out. i agree with your general sentiment. i'm by no means a python evangelist. ~a
[2017-12-29 21:52:43] - a: And I thought Python was supposed to be the easy to learn and use language. -Paul
[2017-12-29 21:52:29] - a: I've been having more problems with stupid things like simply finding the right library or getting my code to work on multiple different machines (different versions of Python) than I ever remember having with other languages. -Paul
[2017-12-29 21:50:46] - a: I don't disagree with any of your specifics. Maybe it's nostalgia or maybe's it's rust, but it just feels like a programming language that should be 20 years superior (Python over C++) is bizarrely more difficult to use. -Paul
[2017-12-29 16:42:39] - paul: "in the past, I had some code (written under Python 2.whatever) that stopped working when I upgraded to Python 3 because... reasons" well assuming your code that worked under python2 will work under python3 was your mistake. (i guess maybe you weren't aware that python2->python3 was a huge jump). but things will continue to work when you upgrade anything n% of the time. ~a
[2017-12-29 16:41:17] - paul: the python2 -> python3 upgrade changed a shit-ton of stuff at the api level. "bad planning, not having legacy support for old code". oof i couldn't disagree more. eternal legacy for old code will lead to an unmaintainable mess of an api. apis changing is just a fact of life and the java way of taking care of that (having an api that only gets bigger) is a shitty solution to that problem too. ~a
[2017-12-29 16:04:55] - a: And that seemed like bad planning, not having legacy support for old code. -Paul
[2017-12-29 16:04:20] - a: So I guess urllib comes as part of the package. But in the past, I had some code (written under Python 2.whatever) that stopped working when I upgraded to Python 3 because... reasons. -Paul
[2017-12-29 16:03:45] - a: Well, my specific problem today is that I was trying to figure out how to connect to an API using python, so I searched and tried to use some code I found. It suggested using urllib2. I tried, it wasn't installed. So I tried to pip install it, and it couldn't be found. Why? Because I have 3.5.2 installed... -Paul
[2017-12-29 16:02:00] - paul: "packages and functions changing names . . . if anything it should've gotten better and not worse" disagree. we've gotten better at doing more difficult things in less time, but problems that you describe (api incompatibilities) will always be an issue. two main things that short short-circuit your problems: 1. are you using python2 or python3 everywhere (this matters)? 2. are you using pip with the correct versions of things? ~a
[2017-12-29 16:01:57] - paul: i'm not a python evangelist (any language that is shitty about types is shitty in my opinion; as an example: if you're using javascript i'd suggest typescript or flow). but i've used python a bunch, so i might be able to help. ~a
[2017-12-29 15:53:35] - I know I haven't really been programming in... a long time, but it feels like it was less of an issue a decade ago and if anything it should've gotten better and not worse. -Paul
[2017-12-29 15:52:53] - So, is anybody here a python (programming language) evangelist? It seems popular here at the Fool, but every time I try to do anything with it, I run into what feels like really stupid issues with packages and functions changing names between different version of Python and weird problems running on different operating systems... -Paul
[2017-12-29 15:40:10] - a: Oof. If I had to choose, I would say below 20k. Too many alternative currencies that could end up being "the one".... or the entire cryptocurrency market could crash. -Paul
[2017-12-29 15:10:12] - paul: below 20k or above 100k. ~a
[2017-12-29 13:47:13] - a: There's still time.
How about another reckless prediction? End of 2018, is bitcoin above or below $20k? -Paul[2017-12-29 13:11:28] - paul: (2017-11-28, price=10k) "a: Reckless prediction time. January 1, 2018: Is bitcoin higher or lower than $10k? -Paul" "i predict [higher]. and ironically, at the same time i'll still be selling. ~a". looks like i (probably) predicted correctly. ~a
[2017-12-29 12:43:29] - well . . . we told andrew and aaron, but i was referring to 2019, not 2018. i think we have a little time to figure the details to that one out.
~a[2017-12-29 12:13:02] - a: I'm fine with "I told you so" working both ways. I say we stick with 5 for simplicity's sake. That's the number from the first time, that's what we told Andrew and Aaron, we might actually only want 3 stocks next time.... -Paul
[2017-12-29 11:39:31] - paul: but wait, i'm also torn on things (tsla vs apti AND acbff vs mjx). so "i told you so" better work both ways. maybe we should increase the "5" number for 2019? ~a
[2017-12-29 11:11:42] - a: Okay, I guess I will stick with what I've got, but for the record, I was really torn on NVDA, TSLA and ATVI, so if any of those do really well, I get to at least say, "I told you so".
-Paul[2017-12-29 10:40:00] - paul: changes are locked-in at 16:00 eastern time (nyse&nasdaq market-close today). that's when the prices are picked. ~a
[2017-12-29 10:14:25] - Ugh... still having a hard time deciding on my last two stocks. -Paul
[2017-12-29 07:22:49] - a: I'm fine with winner take 100%. I guess I need to double check if I want to change any of mine today or tomorrow. I'm playing for $60 now! (Not quite 0.02 btc, but still not chump change). -Paul
[2017-12-29 07:21:03] - a: ETFs should be fine, although they somewhat defeat the purpose of the challenge in how I am playing it.
-Paul[2017-12-29 07:20:27] - Aaron: At least you are 1-1 in games I've played with you. I'm 0-2 including losing to Gurkie (who I squashed in our 1v1 game). -Paul
[2017-12-29 07:19:58] - Aaron: I've definitely noticed the problem with limited military actions with Republic. I still go for it 90% of the time, but I try to pair things like those blue tech cards that give military actions with it to compensate. -Paul
[2017-12-29 07:19:05] - aaron: I don't think so. I just assumed it doesn't because I thought it would remind me instead of doing it automatically. I'll have to check next time. I'll feel better if it does... -Paul
[2017-12-28 15:22:36] - xpovos: the biggest mistake i've seen you make so far is not accepting my trade agreement
- aaron[2017-12-28 15:00:23] - aaron: (bottom of the spreadsheet, sorry) ~a
[2017-12-28 14:59:51] - aaron: all you have to do is remove yourself from the excepted part of the top of the spreadsheet. paul, are you ok with 1st place wins 100%? i'm fine with that and i'll add it to the terms if you concur. ~a
[2017-12-28 14:58:36] - aaron: i was looking that up this morning too! (if we look at an object that is effectively two-dimensional (such as writing) and then turn it towards a mirror, the object turns through an angle of 180º and we see a left-right reversal in the mirror) wikipedia. basically my description was the same. mirrors don't flip things left-right or top-bottom, we do. ~a
[2017-12-28 14:30:13] - I feel like I'm making a ton of mistakes in our game of Through the Ages, but they're still too subtle for me to pick up on. But practice against you guys is bound to improve my game. -- Xpovos
[2017-12-28 14:19:47] - a: also, boo on the subtitle for reminding me about that horrible mirror question - aaron
[2017-12-28 14:17:40] - a: i want to put up my $20 so I can win the stock market challenge! who do i pay? - aaron
[2017-12-28 13:13:27] - paul: are etfs allowed (for me)? i'm seriously considering changing acbff to mjx (nyse) since acbff has been up so much the past week. ~a
[2017-12-28 11:21:23] - paul: calendar facts ~a
[2017-12-28 11:10:56] - paul: alas, turns out you can definitely lose with +35 production (but, it's still a very fun way to lose) - aaron
[2017-12-28 11:10:22] - paul: and tuesday over the holidays i had a funny AI loss where early on in age 3 i had three oil mines (+15 production) and had just pillaged an enemy AI so i had tons of leftover ore. and i was like... "i have no urban buildings to invest into, i could spend 3 actions to pick up movies to research two turns from now... or i could just build four more oil mines for insane production and win that way." - aaron
[2017-12-28 11:07:25] - paul: but i'm still learning from every loss. i think i lost to you and gurkie because i tried to go for an age 3 military victory with "republic" government and no warfare techs. there were several turns where if i had just one or two more military actions i could have had a huge war on culture, but i picked the wrong government. i no0 longer think republic is OP
- aaron[2017-12-28 11:06:06] - paul: also geez good job on coming that close to beating the three hard AIs. i've still got about a 60%-70% winning rate when i play against two medium AIs, and a 0% winning rate when i up one of them to a hard AI. i've tried that top AI challenge a few times but haven't come close - aaron
[2017-12-28 11:03:58] - paul: i really thought the app automatically gave you the three culture for winston churchill! it doesn't? hmmmm - aaron
[2017-12-27 21:49:59] - a: I know that there's pretty strong evidence that daylight saving time causes an increase in deaths (mainly due to car accidents). -Paul
[2017-12-27 11:52:46] - did you know that the harvest moon happens earlier every year because of time zone legislation in arizona? apparently it causes a predictable increase in car accidents. ~a
[2017-12-26 13:50:59] - paul: no kidding. and 2016 close was $2/share. ~a
[2017-12-26 12:56:21] - a: People are dreaming of a green Christmas I guess. -Paul
[2017-12-26 12:32:18] - 10%. jesus. ~a
[2017-12-26 11:06:09] - a: Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on mine as well. Don't anticipate changing anything, but if one should pop or drop.... -Paul
[2017-12-26 10:23:09] - paul: one of my picks is +5% today. man why couldn't they wait until january.
~a[2017-12-25 23:01:19] - Aaron: At first I was outraged over his BS +9 points, but then I realized it was probably Bill Gates (or whoever gives you random points at the end of the game) and therefore was legit. Now I am just sad. -Paul
[2017-12-25 23:00:40] - aaron: It goes to the final scoreboard, with me still on top, and suddenly a random +9 appears for blue (the person right below me), and he leapfrogs me to win by... 1 point. -Paul
[2017-12-25 23:00:08] - aaron: Anyway, where was I? Yes, so I get to the end with a slim lead (5-10 points). Manage to hold my own through the six end of game scoring cards. After 6/6 has been tabulated, I have an 8 point lead over my nearest competitor. I won! -Paul
[2017-12-25 22:59:00] - a: Oh, whoops, this is all supposed to go to Aaron. Sorry.
-Paul[2017-12-25 22:58:36] - a: I had forgotten because I was deciding which ability to use and forgot to go back to it. Anyway, no big deal, I thought. Won't matter unless I lose by 3 or less... -Paul
[2017-12-25 22:58:05] - a: Just had a super annoying ending to a Through the Ages game. I was playing the challenge against 3 hard AIs. Got Winston Churchill in Age 3 and forgot once to use his ability to get 3 culture (really annoying that the app doesn't remind you). -Paul
[2017-12-24 16:36:33] - Computer crash, so I lost most of the stock work I was doing. Guess I'll just go at semi-random. -- Xpovos
[2017-12-22 15:02:22] - paul: I mean sure, those people will crow, but in the grand of scheme of things, I don't really consider it a bubble, at least barring any more fluctations downward. A volatile market correction for sure, but what keeps getting lost is bitcoin is still light years ahead of what its value was not too long ago. - mig
[2017-12-22 12:16:10] - google buzz, haha. i guess i never used that? maybe? after google wave, google buzz, and google plus, that's a lot of google social networks . . . ~a
[2017-12-22 11:51:49] - mig: Today is no doubt some pretty strong evidence for the "bitcoin is a bubble" people. I think most cryptocurrencies are down big. -Paul
[2017-12-22 11:32:49] - mig: I loved the Bloomberg morning shows when I was on my commute back in the day. Tom Keen and Ken Prewitt were such an amazing team. I was super-bummed when Ken died a few years back. -- Xpovos
[2017-12-22 11:29:56] - I think this was 2011 .... at least according to the archives on my account. - mig
[2017-12-22 11:29:09] - a: a long, long time ago on google buzz i think. and this was long before uber even existed. - mig
[2017-12-22 11:20:17] - mig: i couldn't find that conversation. but paul referenced it: "the position [pierce] took a few years ago on taxi medallions and how we totally needed them to keep taxis regulated since the taxi service around here sucks so much" (2014). i had mentioned that pierce liked uber. i guess the conversation was on facebook? ~a
[2017-12-22 11:01:20] - I should revisit that taxi medallion conversation I had eons ago with Pierce. - mig
[2017-12-22 10:58:30] - so I've been listening to Bloomberg radio on occasion in the morning. Most of the people there are not fans. Many derogatory mentions of tulips and baseball cards. - mig
[2017-12-22 10:45:43] - a: Heh, that's pretty good. I don't think you're pushing bitcoin at all. This is all my decision to make. -Paul
[2017-12-22 10:43:32] - link ~a
[2017-12-22 10:43:26] - "so the whitehouse finally seems to have admitted that trump was lying when he said that he wouldn't benefit from the republican tax cut bill. so just how much will the president benefit from bill his party passed and that he's about to sign? trump will pocket between $11m and $15m per year once the tax bill is enacted ... son in law $5m and $12m per year" ~a
[2017-12-22 10:33:09] - paul: here's a joke to lighten the mood. a boy asked his bitcoin-investing dad for 1 bitcoin for his birthday. dad: what? $15,554??? $14,354 is a lot of money! what do you need $16,782 for anyway? ~a
[2017-12-22 10:30:05] - paul: life is full of choices. i don't ever mean to push bitcoin though. just reminding you of the dozen times you said you wanted to buy on a dip. these dips sometimes last only a few hours. also, sometimes they last a few years. ~a
[2017-12-22 10:14:55] - a: Pre-fork had built in diversification. Now I have to choose and I honestly don't know how confident I am that bitcoin is the better bet over bitcoin cash... -Paul
[2017-12-22 10:14:26] - a: Okay, so I could buy 1 bitcoin for $13k (or whatever it is at) or bitcoin and bitcoin cash for $16k (again, or whatever)? I should've bought more pre-fork.
-Paul[2017-12-22 10:13:40] - Daniel: Nearly all of the Fool services are beating their benchmark right now. Question for you: If we keep doing the stock market challenge for 10 more years, is there a success rate that I could put up that would make you admit that I can regularly beat your vanguard index funds? -Paul
[2017-12-22 10:12:38] - Daniel: Which is understandable, but I think is flawed reasoning. Mutual funds aren't just individuals trying to beat the market, they also have some built in handicaps in terms of regulations and how they function. I think it's telling that Warren Buffet is a big proponent of index funds... but he also is a wildly successful individual investor. -Paul
[2017-12-22 10:11:07] - Daniel: My point was mostly that I think people have taken the idea that actively managed mutual funds largely under-perform index funds (of which there is ample evidence) and incorrectly extrapolated that it means individuals can't beat the market. -Paul
[2017-12-22 10:10:31] - after the fork you specify explicitly what you want to buy. ~a
[2017-12-22 10:09:55] - Daniel: Your point about survivorship bias is spot on. Honestly, my point wasn't even that relevant since I wasn't trying to defend the performance of mutual funds. -Paul
[2017-12-22 10:00:58] - a: Yeah, might have to talk to you about it later today. Still interested in selling me some btc? I'm still a little unclear if I would get bitcoin cash and/or gold from you if I bought, though... -Paul
[2017-12-22 09:48:19] - paul: there's the dip you were looking for. and gbtc markup is down too. ~a
[2017-12-21 16:18:50] - yeah, i like that email. thanks, aaron. ~a
[2017-12-21 15:42:33] - a: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/lambda-dev/2013-March/008441.html apparently limiting lambdas to interfaces opens the door for VM optimizations which wouldn't be possible with some of the things abstract classes can do - aaron
[2017-12-21 15:14:08] - Daniel: But something that individual investors like you and me can avoid by simply not doing those things. -Paul
[2017-12-21 15:13:53] - Daniel: Unfortunately, most actual people don't seem to do that. They get excited about investing and jump into the market usually as it's reaching the top, and then panic and sell as it is falling. That kind of behavior is not ideal for investing and leads to poor returns. That's something that mutual funds have to deal with... -Paul
[2017-12-21 15:12:40] - Daniel: I don't know if "blame" is the right word. It's more about explaining how things work. I think we all agree that in an ideal world, you would invest equal amounts of money consistently year after year and not try to time the market. -Paul
[2017-12-21 14:32:10] - aaron: java8 question that google has failed me on. lambdas must be created for interfaces, not abstract classes. why not abstract classes? we allow anonymous classes that both implement interfaces and extend abstract classes. why not lambdas too? ~a
[2017-12-21 14:04:39] - Paul: Handicap #1 seems to just be blaming individual investors which seems like an odd tack for defending active management to me. -Daniel
[2017-12-21 14:04:04] - Paul: I'm unfamiliar with handicap #2. I know certain types of funds set out rules for themselves (eg we are a large cap growth fund or whatever) but those are self imposed. For more free form funds they still have limits on investing in rando small company? -Daniel
[2017-12-21 14:00:40] - Paul: re your 305 companies that lasted 20 years to beat the market - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/survivorshipbias.asp -Daniel
[2017-12-21 12:48:44] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardfinger/2013/04/15/five-reasons-your-mutual-fund-probably-underperforms-the-market/#6bcfec8e626c Item #3 on here talks about the cash on hand problem and human psychology and selling at the worst times. Mutual funds basically have to deal with people trying to time the market. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:46:43] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/trangho/2016/02/06/why-most-mutual-funds-underperform-and-how-to-find-ones-that-dont/#246ce2de7491 This talks a bit about the closet indexing thing and also about asset bloat. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:42:57] - Daniel: For the record, I think Peter Lynch and Jim Cramer and Warren Buffett have said similar things about how individual investors should have serious advantages over large institutional investors because they can invest in smaller companies and can control when they buy and sell. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:41:47] - So, yes, that's still not a great record (107 out of 305 is less than half), but it's better than some of those recent studies showing like 90% under-performing. More importantly, it shows the importance of long term horizons (which I think we all agree on here). -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:40:28] - "Interestingly, of these 107 funds, the majority underperformed during 10 of the 16 rolling 5 year periods over that 20 years. So time horizon matters, and it has to be huge." -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:40:25] - Here is a line from the article that I thought was also telling: "According to a recent Morningstar study, out of a universe of 305 large cap funds with 20 years of operating history, 107 beat their benchmark over that length of time, by as much a 4.6% per year (which, thanks to the power of compounding, really adds up!)." -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:39:11] - So it encourages not only groupthink (in a way), but sticking close to the indexes and discourages unconventional behavior. So essentially, a lot of these mutual finds are too much like index funds, but with higher fees. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:38:29] - ie, If your fund is down 20% because Facebook dropped 20% and everybody else owns Facebook, that's basically not a problem. But if your fund is down 20% because you owned... I dunno... some small biotech that went down 50% that nobody else owned... you might be out of a job. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:37:20] - Daniel: Institutional investors (who control a lot of money) also (somewhat paradoxically) like their mutual fund investments to show returns and volatility that are similar to their benchmarks, which incentivizes most funds to be similar to index funds. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:34:34] - Daniel: A big fund is normally restricted to dealing with large caps and can't really invest in small-caps because either they investment would completely overwhelm the market cap of the company or the investment would be so small as to be meaningless. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:33:05] - Daniel: Handicap #2: There are lots of restrictions (regulatory and practical) on what mutual funds can invest in. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:29:10] - Or they have to keep cash cushions around to provide those redemptions without having to sell their positions at distressed prices. Cash cushions are a weight on overall returns since those cushions return virtually nothing. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:28:16] - Daniel: And mutual fund managers have to deal with this. When the market crashes and the managers might want to be buying a lot... they paradoxically might instead have to be selling since the people in their funds might be trying to pull their money out. So either they have to sell low and buy high like their clients are... -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:26:58] - Daniel: I believe there are plenty of studies which show that individual investors tend to under-perform not just the market but also mutual funds most because of this behavior. -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:26:34] - paul: otherwise i see it as a zero-sum game. it has to be as daniel suggests . . . a zero-sum-game where many hedge funds with all of the information do lose to the market. they lose because of salaries in the form of fees. his logic is sound, but it won't stop me from trying (with my ~20%) though. because i think trying is actually what helps me keep educated on all things financial. ~a
[2017-12-21 12:26:29] - Daniel: Mutual fund handicap #1: Mutual funds have to deal with emotional investors. Most individual investors are kinda irrational in the sense that they tend to jump in and buy when the market is near all time highs and then freak out and panic and sell when it crashes (buy high and sell low). -Paul
[2017-12-21 12:25:04] - Daniel: I'll try to make the argument as succinctly as possible, since I actually DO have work to do today.
-Paul[2017-12-21 12:24:52] - paul: well can you boil it down for us? what are the handicaps that hedge fund managers have? ~a
[2017-12-21 12:21:23] - Daniel: https://www.fool.com/premium/one/coverage/1255/exclusives/2017/05/12/i-know-why-mutual-funds-fail-to-perform.aspx Finally found the article... but I think it's essentially behind a paywall.
-Paul[2017-12-21 12:09:23] - a: I played around with some choices in the sheet to test, but ended up taking all of them out. I didn't know what the lock-in was, etc. Also, I need to whittle the list down to the 5 I like best, I guess. -- Xpovos
[2017-12-21 11:46:14] - I'd disagree with the ranking (shocking I know). I think index funds still beat most people with lots of information. I think where you work is skewing your viewpoint Paul. How many other companies exist with actively managed funds that don't beat the market? Do you think they aren't trying? Can you explain why they aren't all able to beat the market then? -Daniel
[2017-12-21 11:36:08] - paul: yeah i left it intentionally vague, it could definitely be an obsessive day trader or someone who developed a neural network which monitors stock trends or someone who spends 5-10 hours a week dissecting forbes archives or whatever. you might be in that bucket but i'm definitely not - aaron
[2017-12-21 11:27:08] - aaron: I realize I am completely biased here considering where I work, but I do think that an interested individual who spends a few hours a week doing homework and who has the emotional temperament to not sell during market crashes can beat an index fund. -Paul
[2017-12-21 11:26:06] - aaron: Yeah, actually I think I mostly agree with your bucket ranking. I guess the only tweak I would make is that I don't think that third bucket (people with lots of information) necessarily has to be like a professional mutual fund manager who spends all day listening to earnings calls. -Paul
[2017-12-21 11:24:13] - aaron: well it sounds like, if we are to win this game, we need to find that illegal information. ~a
[2017-12-21 11:16:57] - paul: and i know i'm in the first bucket
- aaron[2017-12-21 11:16:50] - paul: point being, people who invest with their gut aren't investing alone; they're investing with 10,000 other people who invest with their gut and make stock tickers do silly things. index funds average all this silly stuff out but on average i think it goes, people with little information < index funds < people with lots of information < people with illegal information - aaron
[2017-12-21 11:15:09] - paul: i still think you are competing with execs with more info. naive people with no information will be christmas shopping online and think, "wow, amazon is going to be rich with all this christmas shopping!" and buy amazon stock. savvy people (or people working at amazon) see this pattern every year and know, okay, sell amazon in november because the price always surges after black friday - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:58:16] - aaron: So all you would really have to do to beat the market is be able to identify a handful of companies that you think are going to underperform (Sears, Riot Blockchain) or a handful that might overperform (Amazon, Alphabet) and be right more often than wrong. -Paul
[2017-12-21 10:56:18] - aaron: I think I see what you're saying, and I think I kinda agree when it comes to maybe options on one specific stock or something, but if we're comparing ourselves to index funds, we're not competing against evil execs with more info. We're competing with a dumb algorithm which can't differentiate between Sears and Amazon. -Paul
[2017-12-21 10:54:23] - xpovos: If you are solely going for the win, I think you're right that your best bet is going for high risk stocks. I also partially wanted to show that I could (or see if I could) beat the market, so I tried to avoid stocks that I thought had a high downside risk while still having some upside. -Paul
[2017-12-21 10:53:57] - paul: yeah not only hedge fund managers but like -- politicians, or higher-ups in a company. like why enron employees got their retirement funds fucked over while executives sold all of their stock. imho stuff like that happens every day just on a less newsworthy scale, and if you can't play the game at that level, you shouldn't try to outsmart the market - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:53:08] - aaron: "the stock market is like a reverse casino where the house always loses" yep, most people are trying to beat the market though. so "winning" = beating the market. that's more like a casino where the house takes 0%. also that "winning" is necessarily a zero sum game. i do make many small bets, as you say. but i'm happy that i'm beating the market. again, though, maybe just lucky. ~a
[2017-12-21 10:48:58] - aaron: Which is why hedge funds can have a hard time beating index funds. -Paul
[2017-12-21 10:48:24] - aaron: "stock picking is a hidden information game, and it's always going to be won by people with more information than you" I need to think on this more, but I think it's slightly more nuanced than that. There's a good article (that I can't find now) which talks about the handicaps that hedge fund managers have... -Paul
[2017-12-21 10:47:04] - a: to that end if i were playing the stock market game "for real" like, how i'd play it in real life -- i'd just buy a bunch of index funds. but daniel's already the index fund guy so i wanted to do something different - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:43:44] - a: well, you don't have to be that lucky. the stock market is like a reverse casino where the house always loses. i think the secret is just to bet small and make a lot of bets - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:36:04] - aaron: "it's always going to be won by people with more information than you" you're maybe right. i have like 80% of my funds going into standard boring shit (passive funds mostly) so i probably agree. i'm pretty happy with how my remaining 20% has been doing, but i guess maybe i've just been lucky. ~a
[2017-12-21 10:28:46] - aaron: yeah DOG was a "shorting" fund? i think they picked the name "dog" on purpose (since that has meaning in the investing world, etc). it's bound to go down in the long term. i think someone would buy it if they thought the market was going to tank. i bet it's really popular today. ~a
[2017-12-21 10:23:11] - a: it's like playing poker where you don't get to see any cards, make any decisions and you also don't get to play poker. but you just bet on which of the poker players you think is going to win at poker based on how good they are at poker - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:22:43] - a: stock picking is a hidden information game, and it's always going to be won by people with more information than you - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:21:00] - a: cat is now at 151.94 USD but dog is down to 14.90 USD. if i had invested $1,000 in 2006 i guess i would have about $1,260. that's not very good and i'm glad i invest my money through a brokerage instead of through funny stock words - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:18:44] - aaron: considering how much of a game stock picking really is (leveraging information and logic to win), i'm surprised it's something you don't excel at. ~a
[2017-12-21 10:17:54] - a: okay i've added my name to the spreadsheet. i don't want to be a part of the bet but i want to see if i make money - aaron
[2017-12-21 10:17:38] - aaron:
this sounds a lot like your CAT + DOG portfolio of 2006. "cat is at 66.11 and dog is at 66.60. if they are both up at the end of october then i am obviously a stock genius and i will invest in the stock market - aaron" link ~a[2017-12-21 10:09:21] - xpovos: i don't see your selection. ~a
[2017-12-21 10:06:19] - Also, I'm impressed by the built-in functionality with Sheets. I had a lot of fun playing around with that. -- Xpovos
[2017-12-21 10:05:49] - OK. I think I've got a decent selection. Obviously for something like this it's probably smarter to go higher risk, but that defeats the purpose of the game somewhat, so I've identified about a dozen smaller/high growth potential companies that are definitely higher risk, but not stupidly high risk. Should be fun. -- Xpovos
prev <-> next