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Charlie Munger has died

berkshirehathaway.com

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Re: Charlie Munger has died

#401

Post by edgyquant »

jesterson wrote: post #360
apexalpha wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but mr Munger and Buffet have also held steady course in an increasingly hype driven financial world. And they've stayed course since the 60s! For that alone they've become (cult) legends among small time investors. As a small time investor myself born in the 90s it is insane the amount of bullsh*t social media will push onto you regarding finance. Their annual meetings where they answer questions are some of…

That's all great, but does it qualify for a hero? They did't do anything with the cash except piling it up and multiplying. By all means they could do that - don't get me wrong again, but that doesn't make them heroes, does it? Their videos are by far _not only_ sane advice out there. They are good, but any decent book on the subject value much more.

Jesus you sound insufferable. People can have heroes you don’t agree with, it isn’t that complicated.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#402

Post by eru »

jesterson wrote: post #360
apexalpha wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but mr Munger and Buffet have also held steady course in an increasingly hype driven financial world. And they've stayed course since the 60s! For that alone they've become (cult) legends among small time investors. As a small time investor myself born in the 90s it is insane the amount of bullsh*t social media will push onto you regarding finance. Their annual meetings where they answer questions are some of…

That's all great, but does it qualify for a hero? They did't do anything with the cash except piling it up and multiplying. By all means they could do that - don't get me wrong again, but that doesn't make them heroes, does it? Their videos are by far _not only_ sane advice out there. They are good, but any decent book on the subject value much more.

> They did't do anything with the cash except piling it up and multiplying. By all means they could do that - don't get me wrong again, but that doesn't make them heroes, does it?

They gave a lot of the cash to effective charities, thereby saving tens of thousands of lives. (I'd need to look up the exact number.)

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#403

Post by eru »

DennisP wrote: post #146
paxys wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value investing is a strategy. Index funds are a vehicle. The two can and do coexist, even more so than any other such pair because their risk profile (conservative) and time horizon (long term) are so well aligned.

Exactly. What makes it index investing is low fees and simple, objective stock selection without human judgement. There are various well-studied criteria for value stocks. An S&P500 index does stock selection too, it's just picking large-cap stocks instead of value stocks.

> [...] objective stock selection without human judgement.

That's not completely true. The indices can involve plenty of human judgement, the S&P500 does, for example.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#404

Post by eru »

corethree wrote: post #295
truculent wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value investing is “an investment paradigm that involves investing in stocks that are overlooked by the market and are being traded below their true worth”. Correct me if wrong, but I don’t think index funds come under that paradigm.

This doesn't happen any more. Back then you could find companies with a cap that was LESS than the money they had in the bank. Those were no brainer deals. This strategy was actually pioneered by buffets mentor Benjamín graham. By just blindly following a formula you would do value investing by calculating NAV vs market cap. Buffet took it one step further. He calculates another type of value called intrinsic value a…

> This doesn't happen any more. Back then you could find companies with a cap that was LESS than the money they had in the bank. Those were no brainer deals.

For a while, Yahoo was famously worth less than its stake in Alibaba. But it was also not clear whether shareholders could get management out of the way to stop destroying value.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#405

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #205
sokoloff wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how the index is constructed. A market cap index cannot be value investing. A market sector index is almost surely not value investing (unless that entire sector is undervalued). An index constructed specifically using value measures as the criteria for inclusion can be (at least arguably so). Click on "value indexes" here: https://www.crsp.org/indexes/ to see some underlying value indexes, and funds li…

XBRL filings have the information needed to screen with value investing criteria. GFinance's old stock screener's UI was great. https://github.com/openlink/Virtuoso-RDFIzer-Mapper-Scripts/... /? query XBRL https://www.google.com/search?q=query+xbrl https://github.com/topics/xbrl But then also a fund or an index fund or an Index ETF wouldn't be complete without ethical review for the sustainable competitive advantage…

- [ ] ENH: pandas_datareader: add XBRL support from one or more APIs

https://pandas-datareader.readthedocs.io/en/latest/remote_da...

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#406

Post by KerryJones »

jesterson wrote: post #336
KerryJones wrote: post #19

Charlie Munger is one of the closest things to a "hero" I've ever had. Others have named them, but Poor Charlie's Alamanack or his Psychology of Human Misjudgement are both incredible. I've made a point of seeing him at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting every last few years. He had many trials in his life but lived it well. His wit and wisdom will be missed.

Would you mind to explain why? Arguably the guy did nothing worthy of admiration. Sure he managed to multiply cashflow, but on my books that doesn't stand nearly to definition of hero. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy his books and interviews perhaps like everyone else. He was incredibly smart character, no doubt about that. But hero? Not trolling, genuinely curious.

This obituary might add some information for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValueInvesting/comments/1867de5/obi...

Specifically, this paragraph is the general way I was thinking about: "Munger’s hero was Benjamin Franklin, whom he admired for his curiosity, ingenuity and wit. Munger’s own common sense, biting humor, pathological bluntness and disdain for conventional wisdom made him a celebrity among investors"

For me, personally, it was the way that he lived his life, was extraordinary brilliant, a polymath, and changed multiple fields of study (investing and arguably behavioral psychology.) He has not only directly created jobs, as others have stated, of millions, but has also indirectly altered the lives of millions for the better. He is one of the greatest minds in investing and he freely educated millions on his methods.

At the same time, he had some incredibly rough times and bore it with grace. For me, setting this type of example is also noteworthy. There are also the small things -- people who have been around him, he's incredibly respectful on an individual basis, always showed up early, and in general, lived in a way that I aspire to living.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#407

Post by joenot443 »

jesterson wrote: post #383
reedf1 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is a defacto investment hero. Berkshire Hathaway is reality in sea of insanity. They defined the strategy of finding companies with a good structure, good fundamentals, and a good product and capitalising them. If you are looking for positive externalities to qualify "hero", he probably played a part in creating a large number of the companies you have ever heard of, employing millions and large part of the succes…

> He is a defacto investment hero. Would you kindly clarify what “defacto investment hero” means? Hopefully not in cult-like definitions. To be clear, i am not looking for any positive externalities, just wondering what he did to warrant being called a hero. That’s it.

You’re overplaying your hand a bit here with the cult comparison. It’s becoming pretty obvious that you’re interested in making a case as to why Munger doesn’t deserve to be called someone’s hero, not that you’re here to learn. People have answered your repeated question pretty earnestly but you continue asking it again.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#408

Post by parthianshotgun »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #180
x86x87 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What does this dude have to do with Hacker News?

Every now and then the mask fully slips and you see how many users here really think. Munger was famously anti modern tech and even called the internet a "net negative" for capitalism at one point in 2000, but it doesn't matter because he was rich. Also he made so much money that all the comments where he praised a brutal dictatorship are apparently no big deal, for example for cracking down on Jack Ma who dared to m…

Interesting observation. I agree, seems like people, especially so called "hackers", don't want to follow the threads and externalities of these people as far down the causal chain as they would with say, I don't know, starfish reproduction or some other curio. To me, it seems like the most fertile ground for the awareness that billionaires aren't in a vacuum, that fundamentally greedy decisions make our planet worse off..reality has a complexity bias, and it doesn't take much to realize how much harm these people have caused.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#409

Post by parthianshotgun »

monero-xmr wrote: post #289
gumballindie wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I never knew all this about Charlie Munger, thanks for sharing. It’s rare gems like him that give me confidence that sometimes against all odds one can succeed. Also I appreciate his love for his family. That’s by far the most valuable asset one posses - if not the only.

Family first, followed by friends. It is sad to me that so many young people are voluntarily choosing not to have children. They are the ultimate - the reason we exist, the mechanism for leaving a legacy, the most beautiful thing on earth. Family is everything

Low resolution take. Not bad, nothing new, genuinely I think you're missing so many facets of the human experience.

People commit the worst atrocities and embody a dog eat dog mentality, all 'for their lineage' or 'family'. Borges said that procreation is a mirror, I agree. To me, it only serves to multiply and if you're not careful, ie, you think you'll finally have 'meaning', you'll probably be eaten alive.

But of course, if you aren't thinking about it, and those questions are never broached and the 'genie' isn't out of the bottle. Well, I wish I was like you then haha

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#410

Post by iwontberude »

KerryJones wrote: post #406
jesterson wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind to explain why? Arguably the guy did nothing worthy of admiration. Sure he managed to multiply cashflow, but on my books that doesn't stand nearly to definition of hero. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy his books and interviews perhaps like everyone else. He was incredibly smart character, no doubt about that. But hero? Not trolling, genuinely curious.

This obituary might add some information for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValueInvesting/comments/1867de5/obi... Specifically, this paragraph is the general way I was thinking about: "Munger’s hero was Benjamin Franklin, whom he admired for his curiosity, ingenuity and wit. Munger’s own common sense, biting humor, pathological bluntness and disdain for conventional wisdom made him a celebrity among investors" For me…

The unfortunate aspect of what you are positing is that we cannot capture the opportunity cost of Munger’s actions, and so therefore your argument cannot be disproved. As a corollary, I also wonder if Bill Gates’ shepherding of his personal charities is actually any better than the alternatives. Lionizing ultra-capitalists represents an opportunity lost for a more wholistic and democratic economic system. Glad you found someone to motivate you to work smarter.
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