NO DooDahs

http://www.billakanodoodahs.com

185 Comments

    • Hedge Funds Are Getting Their Butts Kicked Too [view article]
      Ah yes, that fine editorial "value added" that I enjoyed so much back in the day. My apologies.

      I hope some readers clicked on their ads because of the title.

      Did YOU get any clickthru from it?       Sep 06 09:32 PM
    • Hedge Funds Are Getting Their Butts Kicked Too [view article]
      It's curious that your definition of "butts kicked" includes only ONE - out of eleven negative performances - that is below the broader market index.

      "The average hedge fund is -3.43% ytd compared to -12.65% in the S&P500 ..."

      Sounds to me like the average hedge fund was a better buy than the S&P 500.

      "... and +1.05% in the Lehman Bros Bond Index."

      Do you think bonds have much upside from here, compared to the average hedge fund?

      I think either your perspective is so skewed as to be functionally useless, or you're writing about "hedge funds getting their butt kicked" out of sheer sensationalism - which makes your writing functionally useless.       Sep 06 12:58 PM
    • Yet Another Reason Not To Sell Your Berkshire Hathaway Shares [view article]
      Bad print bullshit and somebody acting like they "know something" and tumbling about it.

      There's no evidence of the trade in any intraday data source I've got available. I've also seen enough bad prints intraday in illiquid stocks and ETFs on my watchlist to know that the data providers will correct those mistakes after the close.

      The shame is that so many people picked up on this "BRK-BS" and spread it around.       Jun 05 08:01 PM
    • Investing Into the End of the Hydrocarbon Age [view article]
      Oh, puh-leeeze!

      The stone age didn't end for a lack of stones. Neither will the hydrocarbon age.

      BTW, those electrons are so nice and neat and clean powering those cars ... except for the fact that the electrons were generated by burning hydrocarbons somewhere else.       Jun 05 07:53 PM
    • Toll Brothers' Earnings Prove There's No Case for Homebuilders [view article]
      The market doesn't care about earnings or write downs in isolation, the important metric is results as compared to expectations. Book values could continue to fall, but if they fall less (or less quickly) than expected, the stock prices will prop up.

      None of the information you provide is new. Given that TOL is trading above clear support in the $19-20 range, there's a good chance that market has already discounted everything you've written.       Jun 04 08:44 PM
    • Consumer Sentiment as a Contrarian Predictor [view article]
      You'd probably enjoy my post from May 29th:
      www.billakanodoodahs.c.../

      I was all over the contrarian indication of fallen consumer confidence, LAST WEEK.

      Welcome to the party, since you're late to it, you should have brought a nice gift.

      :)       Jun 04 08:33 PM
    • Debating 'Fundamental Weighting' and Indexing [view article]
      "Fundamental Indexing" is just a bassackwards way of saying they're running a large, slow-trading, mechanical quantitative equity fund.

      Not that there's anything wrong with that style of trading! It's great, especially for a fund seeking relative outperformance, to be holding stocks with fundamental or valuation "anomalies," but let's call a spade a spade, it's *mechanical trading.*

      I object only to the marketing aspect of its name.       May 22 12:22 PM
    • Diving Into the Water ETF [view article]
      Nice article. I examined the PHO about a year ago, and came to same conclusions:
      www.billakanodoodahs.c.../

      It may be a "water" index and a "water" ETF, but very few of the companies are pure plays on water and very little of the net revenue of the portfolio represented by the ETF comes from water.

      To the commenters: Hey, if you want to trade it technically, go right ahead! It's been a good trade several times! Just don't jerk your own chain and pretend you're really "invested in water" by owning the PHO, because you'll only be fooling yourself.       May 20 04:58 PM
    • Choosing Your Portfolio Risk Tolerance [view article]
      Nice elaboration on two of the seven risks I wrote about last week:
      www.billakanodoodahs.c.../

      Personally I believe that your "risk class 2," what I described as "Risk is Not Achieving My Benchmark," is the primary risk that we need to be concerned with when assembling a portfolio or designing an active strategy.

      Of the regular contributors to SA, your work is probably THE most helpful to the sophisticated retail trader. Thanks.       May 20 03:26 PM
    • Do Momentum Strategies Still Work? [view article]
      Do momentum strategies still work? YES. May 17 05:33 PM
    • Learning From Bill Miller's Recent Underperformance [view article]
      Funny, I never see articles like this about Hussy, er, Johnny Hussman, here on Seeking Alpha.

      This despite his "recent" five-year underperformance vs. the market.

      Hussy can only outperform in BEAR markets, which is the flip side of what archman82011 believes about Miller.

      Matter of fact, from Jan 2003 through Jan 2008, Miller's fund outperformed Hussman's.

      From Jan 2003 through TODAY, both Miller and Hussman have underperformed buy and hold the SPY.

      Perhaps both men are given TOO much credit for the lousy jobs they're doing ...       May 16 09:47 AM
    • A Simpler Explanation For Bill Miller's Losing Streak [view article]
      Someone should probably tell DC Housing Bear that home prices in the Maryland-Virginia area move in a "random walk" and trying to predict where they'll go next is "delusional."...

      Muhuhahahaha!       May 14 03:01 PM
    • A Simpler Explanation For Bill Miller's Losing Streak [view article]
      A long time ago, I thought that Harry Chapin and Cat Stevens were the only musicians worth listening to. A few years back, I thought that "value investing" was the only course towards success in the markets. I grew out of both phases. Maybe David will one day realize that even though value is an effective technique and David's technique of choice, it isn't the be-all and end-all of market navigation.

      I'm not a Bill Miller fan, but it would be nice to see some of the assertions made here backed up, like BM's alleged "style drift," when it occurred, and performance before and after (relative the benchmark index, since that rules for the institutional players that would invest with BM).

      This is one of the sloppiest pieces I've seen from David in some time.       May 14 08:01 AM
    • Keeping Score of Global Stock Markets' Returns and Valuations [view article]
      The U.S. and U.K. market results are only "surprising" if you assume the economy and the speculative markets are joined at the hip and move in lock step ~ obviously they are not and don't. May 09 10:41 AM
    • The Humble Arithmetic of Portfolio Management [view article]
      @ The Bear:

      When diversified into a variety of asset classes, such as bonds, commodities, foreign developed, emerging markets, and possibly even frontier markets (all but this last one can do with ETFs), the whole idea of "timing THE market" becomes moot.

      There still exists the possibility of trying to time EACH market, or overlay a timing component on one or several of the individual classes, such as timing the SPY portion of the portfolio. Taking that as an example case ...

      There are two methods of avoiding the timing trap. They both involve admitting that the timing trap is emotional and the result of the "timer" lacking a scientific method.

      First is to NOT time the market. This is the easiest to do conceptually but harder to do emotionally, especially if one is a frequent reader of Seeking Alpha, and is besieged daily by a miasma of contradictory information designed to encourage your "activity."

      Second, harder to do conceptually but very emotionally satisfying (at least to me), is to confine your timing activity to simple, slow-moving mechanical ideas that have been thoroughly backtested over decades of data. Using single-moving average and moving-average cross ideas involving "slow trading" and moving from the S&P 500 to cash, and back, it's literally child's play to find risk-adjusted returns that beat the market and absolute returns that are very close to market. If one adds other information (volatility, money flow, etc.), one can improve on that timing somewhat.
      May 09 10:39 AM
Loading...
Symbols:
Authors:
Quick Links:
Contribute an Article Become a Seeking Alpha Contributor

Transcripts

More Transcripts»