Category: Investing

“A Single Family Home is a Great Investment”

This will be a short personal finance post. There is an odd series of claims made in the ongoing debate about the merit of home ownership in the personal finance community. Some very famous financial personalities/authors have said rather controversial things about buying a home. Among these takes are: “your house is not an asset,” “your house is a liability,” “renting will make you rich,” and “all debt is evil.”

A lot of these statements can probably be partially excused as attempts to have a “hot take” to shock readers into undertaking a critical examination of the conventional wisdom that owning a home, rather than renting, is a no brainer or “the best way to build wealth.” Similarly, the slogans in favor of buying homes are also probably attempts to shock people into the (huge) action of buying a home. So what is the right answer?

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The SPAC Daddy: Sir Martin Franklin

Martin Franklin is an interesting investor. He has a fantastic track record, including returns in Jarden, which has to be among the best performing investments of all time. I think he was probably a prime candidate for the next cut of the Outsiders (the one about capital allocation, not pony boy).

He also might be credited, at least partially, with popularizing the Special Acquisition Company (“SPAC”) structure. Basically, a SPAC is formed to acquire a business via a “blank check” and often will acquire private businesses, bringing them to the public markets via a sort of “reverse i.p.o.” This structure is hot right now with a lot of the S.V. set.

In my opinion, SPACs are usually not a great deal for investors because of the incentives paid to the promoters. They often have an incentive to get a deal done and they then recognize a big windfall. For example, a common structure results in the pormoters owning 20% of the post-SPAC enterprise (though the incentives may not be that much worse than a normal IPO, when you think about who is selling and why). Yet, the arrangement has worked pretty well for Franklin’s investors.

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Greg is Able

Is it too late to write down (type up?) some of my observations from the Berkshire annual meeting? It has only been about a week, but it seems like it has been analyzed to death (probably because of the lack of other usual distractions). Well I have a kid and real job, so I am just now getting to put together a (short) post on some of my observations, including the fact that Buffett pretty much laid out the Berkshire succession plan (for now) in about as much detail as I can recall.

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State of the Stash – April

Time for the monthly update to my savings/investment balances. Things bounced back a bit this month, as one might expect in the strongest monthly rally since ~1987.

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My Fun Fund and The Great Cessation

This is going to be a quick Fun Fund investment journal update to document my thoughts (and actions), so that I can hopefully reflect and improve over time (and, perhaps more likely, for our mutual future amusement).

I sold some stocks in my Fun Fund account last Friday, as a matter of portfolio management. If I am totally honest, however, I am also expressing a view about the overall market. The timing of “trimming” these positions was influenced by my view of the current risks and rewards on offer in the equity market.

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State of the Stash – March

Oooof! Time to take my medicine and update my investment balances. Click here to behold the raging chemical fire that my dirty financial laundry has become (just kidding it’s not THAT bad).

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