BRK.A

You shouldn't sell it.....because it's your biggest performer and scared money is dead money.

You can't roll a traditional IRA to a simple IRA. Only vice versa.

I don't think many care, but someone might find this useful. I can convert BRK.A to BRK.B. I'm going to do this after some additional research. I'm then going to start to sell covered calls on the B shares, unless I find out something unfavorable about the conversion. I'll probably also sell 1/2 the B shares when coverted and buy something else.

I had in my mind I couldn't sell covered calls. And you can't on the A shares. I didn't realize I had a conversion privilege, and B shares had options.

This way the lack of dividend won't bother me as much.

What was also enlightening to me was a lack of options to attempt to recreate the holdings of Berkshire. One MOAT fund, but not a exact replica. I then looked at going directly to a market maker in a basket trade on Interactive Brokers. And I might still do this. One trade buying shares of each of the Berkshire companies. But hrer were a bunch of tax things that came up, and in order to get that done, I would have needed to sell the A shares, which would be a sizable tax bill, and I frankly don't want this until I have some idea wher tax policy is going to go.

Anyway, I never really talked about BRK being a large holding of mine, but it is large. Close to the largest dollar amount of any single security I own. But I never bought it. When we sold farmland, years ago, I got shares as a minor, and I've always felt funny about it being mine, because it was never really earned by me.

Some other things involved as well. I'm 50, and I don't know how I could give away these shares under some sort of gift act. So that's another reason to covert to B shares.

But I'm seeking other advice, legal, tax etc before I do anything. But I think I solved the problem that has been bothering me for quite some time, the lack of dividends.

I really want to be in a poistion where dividends and real estte residual income in addition to social security is what I live on in retirement. The sale of my business also. I ove modestly outside of taking a lot of vacation. I paid less than $80K for my condo. I've never bought a new car. I like to deep sea fish, but I dn't wnat the hassle of boat ownership. I pretty much just want to golf, fish and go to college football games.

That's a lot. I had a 22 hour dirve back from Florida, so I had some time to think. Probably too much time to think.

IG, I do enjoy reading your posts and also learning about what you are thinking and so on. Have you thought about what you will do with the cash if/when those calls get called? You could play the game of just selling calls and selling puts. Yes it would take more effort than just putting it in a company and collecting dividends.

You could also look at a few of the well run MLP's and start collecting tax free dividends. I would look at EPD, that are continually raising their dividend and are a very well run company.

SLV is starting to look interesting. What trade did you make on oil? futures or uso, or just playing the companies?

Let's talk more about this Silver trade... What indicators(outside of actual SLV price) do you look at? It does not follow gold as much given that the GLD is at 120 and seems to have a nice bounce off of the 110 level.

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Let's talk more about this Silver trade... What indicators(outside of actual SLV price) do you look at? It does not follow gold as much given that the GLD is at 120 and seems to have a nice bounce off of the 110 level.

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First, my silver trades are almost always exclusively buying calls or puts. On either a future's contract, or on SLV. So I have a guaranteed maximum loss, and relatively a small capital outlay.

I look at two things, industrial demand, and make guesses about interest rate fluctuations. I watch JP Morgan Chase as well, and on my trades (which are different than my physical possession) I try to copy them as much as possible. The commitment of traders reports, and only their proprietary accounts. This is in arrears.

Those are my trades, but it also needs to be said I am a long term silver bull, and I own the physical commodity. Most of it at the $6 per oz price level. And this is based solely on industrial demand, and what I understand about science. Which is to say, science is nowhere near finding a replacement for silver's usage in industry. I also own it as a hedge.

I know very little about gold. I own maybe 15 oz of it. I don't watch the gold / silver ratio. I don't subscribe to auditing the US Gvt's gold holdings, I glance at Zero Hedge on occasion, but view this as entertainment etc. I view gold and silver 100% differently as a commodity, and why each is valued the way they are. A lot of other disagree with this. I don't think gold is bad to own, but I do believe gold is riskier (to own) than silver long term.

The SLV options trade is buried in the SLV thread in here somewhere. I don't recall if I posted about the options on the futures. But I'm in at anywhere between $13 and $20, and all the way out to 2021, which gets expensive.

My instinct right now is that silver has more downside. But that can change in a big hurry. All it takes is an airplane going into a building, or something similar. But that's on the trade isde, not really on the fundamental side, and probably more of a gold thing for gold bugs, than a silver things for a guy who wants to own it because of demand reasons.