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karoshiman

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Posts posted by karoshiman

  8. Posted

    I agree with what you're saying about the institutional/retail dichotomy. In fact, as far as HFT is concerned, even being 'institutional' is far from sufficient - the HFT firms basically make money by milking the liquidity provided by other institutions.

     

    However, Buffet may be almost uniquely imitable amongst investors . . .

     

    All institutions are required by the SEC to report long equity positions within 45 days of the end of each quarter using the 13F form. So shortly after Buffet/Berkshire buys shares in a company you can do the same. This wouldn't work for tracking a fund with shorter holding periods - they might already have closed out the position before the end of the reporting window. But Buffet's holding periods are famously "forever".

     

    You can retrieve any fund's holdings by visiting the EDGAR database here:

     

    Filings & Forms

     

    BlueHorseshoe

     

     

    You are right about that. But doing that won't make you a billionaire within the next 40-50 years (he will be gone soon anyway and nobody knows whether his successor(s) can maintain the returns he was able to generate), i.e. his returns were much higher at the beginning of his career than they are now. Not saying that it does not make sense to copy his positions, though.

  10. Posted

    So what does everyone think? Do scalpers collect enough pennies throughout the day? Or do the swing traders make more compounding their position?

     

    MMS

     

     

    Maybe the questions should be more specific. Are we talking about retail traders or specialized firms?

     

    E.g., retail traders cannot copy the trading techniques of HFT firms, but at least they have a fighting chance to copy swing trading or "certain" investing techniques.

     

    Note: I say "certain" in the latter sentence, as the investing techniques of Buffett - to which the poll relates - are not that easily to copy... the various books describing his "value investing" style do not reveal in detail how he developed the foundations of his huge fortune. I've read once an interview with someone who followed his paths for many many years (forgot who it was) and this person said that Buffett made his fortune mainly by taking controlling interests in companies and influencing the way the businesses are run, which is basically the private equity model of investing; hence, difficult to copy by retail investors (yes, he must have been successful before in order to be able to buy controlling interests). Maybe there is even more to it, but what I'm saying is that there is more to it than just 'buy what you understand' and 'buy cheap' (I'm simplifying here) and you'll get rich... Not saying though, that this is a bad idea to invest like that, but many authors writing about Buffett's style sell it like everybody can do it... this sells the books much easier than telling everyone that it's "slightly" more complicated than that...

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