Buffett (S&P actually) trounces Hedge Funds

The bull market started in year 2 of Buffet's bet. A smart guy. But also misleads his shareholders. Like derivatives are evil, except the time he lost his shareholders money in short silver contracts. A lot of money. He explained the loss as hedging. He basically lied. LULZ.

I'm not sure if over a 50 year time period the basic assertion is, or is not accurate. It very well could be. And I'm not suggesting that Buffet is an idiot. I'm just suggesting between his misleading statements and shareholder reports, and the fact he loves dividend payers, but doesn't pay a dividend, he is not to be believed or followed 100%.

I think at some point in retirement most will need some sort of dividend income. His shares for some folks that own them won't necessarily be a stock to grow old with.

Anyway, I own his stock. And this is entirely my opinion. Some people pee themselves over anything he says without thinking it through. I don't. Not for him, or anyone. As you shouldn't with anyone either. Including me.

Indexed funds are just like flying in a plane on auto pilot. Things are going good when things are going good.. But when a storm hits you don't want that plane on auto pilot anymorw. Look at USO for example, it fell off its index while oil was crashing.

Most FA's and CFP's will certainly tell you we're not here to beat the market. We're here to manage emotions and achieve results. While you, Ole Skule, may be comfortable with 40% losses and double digits returns, most folks are not.

So to blanket recommend everyone be in an indexed fund is irresponsible and bad advice.

Also to combat your indexed fund analogy I can show you proposals that would prove a withdraw strategy through managed funds is a much more sensible option with higher growth returns vs an indexed portfolio. Which is the grand scheme of things is where it matters, not outliving your money. However, it's not worth my time to post such analogy here.

I never have liked mutual funds. I like individual stocks and typically do better than the S&P.

A good stock that has out performed the S&P is WRB. I measure performance in terms of $10000 invested in one investment vs another over a time. LINK

A coal stock? Interesting.

"Even though demand will not increase significantly"...

Demand for coal is decreasing at an increasing rate.

Coal usage and stocks.

LINK

Coal use was actually more in 2013 than 2012 and exports were very large. I expect the strong dollar will hurt exports but not much.

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Respectfully disagree but good luck. I don't have a dog in the fight.

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Ok with me. The point of the post relative to the OP is that I try my best to understand what I own. I can't do that with mutual funds and I much prefer individual stocks and have no particular desire for a lot of stock diversity.

The CLD story is simple to me. It is a company selling for a huge discount to book that has several very clear competitive advantages. It operates in a business that has supply shrinking faster than demand is shrinking and a very small price increase means a very nice increase in earnings for the company.----That is a very safe, very simple in my view reason to invest. I don't get that kind of simple, safe investment from mutual funds.