#Invest Wisely

[pallavirajput74]

Preserve Your Wealth: Why Sovereign Gold Bonds Matter

[talabib]

Beat The Stock Market And Get Rich.

For most of us, the stock market is basically a no-fly zone: it’s too complicated, and too dangerous. Let the experts handle it, we say.

But that’s a shame, because there is a way that anyone can make money in stocks. It comes from a Warren Buffet: Find a wonderful business, determine its value, buy its stock for half that value, and repeat until rich.

This post teaches you the key indicators for that right, wonderful business that could change your life.

Contrary to popular myths, you don’t have to be an expert to be a great investor, and it is possible to beat the market.

It’s common knowledge that you'd be remiss to invest without consulting a financial expert, right? Well, the notion that managing money demands both time and expertise isn’t exactly accurate.

You don't actually need to have depth of knowledge and all the tricks of a professional financial adviser. You just need a few good tactics.

Fortunately, today the internet has the tools and knowledge you need, at minimal costs. Information and tools such as stocks’ histories and statistic calculators can make a lot of the work easier for you. For instance, websites such as MSN Money, Yahoo! Finance and CNN Money have data on thousands of stocks and the site www.ruleoneinvesting.com has several investment calculators.

Thanks to technology, these tools are actually far more accurate than anything experts had ten years ago.

Aside from these tools, you also need to know that you really can beat the market. To do so, you must sell stocks for far more or buy for far less than their real market value.

Yet, according to the prominent Efficient Market Theory (EMT) you can’t do this, as everything that can be known about a company is already figured into the price. Thus, stock prices can’t be too high or low.

But this is wrong. Many of us recall the bubble in the nineties, where, contrary to EMT assumptions, prices were far above their real market worth for some years, only to plummet dramatically afterwards. Additionally, Warren Buffett showed that at least 20 investors were able to beat the market for over 20 years.

So cast aside the myths of expert help and an unbeatable market because, thanks to the internet and the strategies in this post, you can make great investments yourself.

The popular strategy "diversify and hold" is not nearly as safe as it's cracked up to be.

You've heard the formula, “diversify and hold” a million times; it's supposedly the safest way to invest in the stock market. But it’s also problematic.

First, it would’ve failed for approximately more than half of the last century.

Let's examine how a long-term, diversified portfolio would have performed between 1905 and 2005: it would’ve had a zero rate of return between 1905 and 1942, 1965 and 1983 and from 2000 to 2005. That's 60 out of 100 years!

What you should do instead of ‘diversify and hold’ is improve your security by keeping track of all your stocks — which you might not do if your portfolio is diversified, as it would take a lot of time and effort to monitor how all your stocks are doing. Also, it's unlikely that you would thoroughly comprehend the dynamics of all the businesses you're investing in. This would result in you not being able to react as quickly to save your portfolio from losses, as you would if you only invested in fields you understood.

Say you’re a pharmacist, and you receive a Red-Hand letter warning you about a drug’s serious, unexpected side-effects. You’ll know this letter will result in considerable losses for a pharmaceutical company and therefore sell your shares immediately. Whereas if you were clueless about pharmaceutical companies, you wouldn’t know about the pending losses until it’s too late.

The truth is, if you diversify, whatever happens to the market will happen to you.

You should know that whenever a large amount of money is withdrawn from the market, mutual funds decline in value, investors withdraw even more money and values drop even faster. This could happen when all the baby boomers take out the money they invested for their retirement.

Only invest in a business you understand and you’d like to own.

If you were to buy a business, rather than stocks, would your criteria for doing so be any different? Shrewd investors only invest in a company they’d like to own in the long term, so thinking about buying stocks as if you were to buy the company will guide you towards investing carefully.

When you consider buying stocks, you probably think it’s easy to get out quickly if the company is doing poorly. You could therefore be tempted to opt for a risky business, pay too much attention to one promising growth-rate in an average business, or even lose money in a market bubble.

If you were to buy the whole company, however, you’d be far more cautious. You’d carefully weigh its performance, history and management against other companies and, in doing so, make far better decisions.

To make even better decisions on investments, it’s also wise to invest in a sector within your field of interest, as you’ll already be knowledgeable about it.

If you work in IT, for example, you’re in a far better position to invest there than someone who doesn’t. You’ll know about the different providers, their strategies, the quality of their products and so forth.

Also remember that investing in a business means you’re essentially voting for it to continue with its work.

Say you’re researching some highly profitable stocks to fund your child’s education. Would you purchase those stocks if the company is making a chunk of its profits by exploiting children in Bangladesh? probably not.

Know that your investment will have an impact, and you’re making a statement of where you choose to invest.

There are good criteria for a company's ability to stand its ground.

Like moats around a castle, certain assets protect a company against competition and inflation. When investing, it’s a good bet to choose companies with one or more of these “moats.”

So what exactly do moats do? A moat enables a company to dominate a market, increase its prices to keep up with inflation and produce enough profit to expand.

There are many different kinds of moats.

Some moats may be intangible competitive advantages, like a patent or a trade secret that makes direct competition really tough, or even illegal. For instance, Pfizer had a patent for its hugely successful Viagra, therefore other companies weren’t permitted to copy the product. As a result, Pfizer faced no real competition for sexual enhancers.

Another kind of moat could be a strong brand that customers identify with or are extremely loyal to. Coca Cola, for example is an incredibly stable and powerful brand and its customers will often choose its soft drinks over others.

A moat can also mean having products that are cheaper or easier to buy. For instance, Walmart is so immense that it’s in a powerful position to bargain with its suppliers. In doing so, it can sell goods at very competitive prices.

Another moat could be when the product itself isn’t really affordable, but switching to another is a real hassle. Take Windows, for example. Many people use it even though they hate Microsoft. But it’s easier to stick with it because so much software is exclusive to Windows and if they changed to another operating system, they’d have to change all their software, too.

Lastly, some companies’ moats entail exclusive governance over a market due to a legal privilege. For example, the utility PG&E has a legal monopoly to provide power in its area.

Steady businesses have competitive advantages.

We’ve now seen what moats are and how they can help businesses become extremely successful. But how can you know if a company has one? Well, you can be sure that a company has a moat if they score well on five specific indicators for a minimum of ten years.

The best indicator of a wide moat is return on investment capital (ROIC) over at least a ten year period. ROIC is the rate of return a company makes from the money it invests in itself in a year. For example, say you invested $20 in stamps and then later sold them for $30. Your profit would be $10. The ROIC is the profit divided by the total you invested, which in this case would be 50 percent.

Be aware that a company that generates high returns could draw so many competitors that a good position in the same market becomes difficult to secure and therefore none are able to make decent returns. Unless, however, the company has a wide moat.

Therefore, if a company can hold onto a ROIC of at least 10 percent for ten years, it’s likely beaten out its competitors, which now means it has an advantage.

Another good way to gauge a wide moat is by the growth of a company’s equity. Equity is the amount of money that would remain if a company sold all of its assets and cleared all of its debts.

If a company’s equity increases by 10 or more percent for at least ten years, it’s an indicator that it has enough money to invest into its expansion, which also puts the company in a solid, competitive position.

Some competitive advantages are easy to spot.

Let’s turn to three other ways to tell if a company has a moat, all of which are straightforward calculations.

The first calculation is figuring out if they’ve had at least a 10 percent increase in earnings per share (EPS) for approximately ten years.

Say three friends start a restaurant. Their EPS would be the restaurant’s net income divided by three. So if the store makes $60,000 net income, the EPS would be $20,000.

Then let’s say in 10 years, the EPS rises from $20,000 to $160,000.  

To calculate the restaurant’s EPS growth rate, first calculate how many times 20 needs to double in order to reach 160. So, 20 doubles to 40, then to 80 then to 160. So it doubles three times over the ten years, averaging around three years to double each time.

Now apply the Rule of 72. Divide 72 by the average number of years over which the figure doubles once. The restaurant’s ten-year-EPS growth rate would be 72 divided by three, which equals 24. Twenty-four percent would be the restaurant’s moat, and thus its competitive advantage.

You can also calculate when a sales growth rate consistently increases over ten percent.

For example, Garmin’s sales rose from $100 million to approximately $800 million from 1995 to 2004, meaning it doubled three times over nine years, or once every three years. If we apply the rule of 72, we see that 72 divided by three equals a 24 percent sales growth rate. Clearly, Garmin had a wide moat.

The last calculation is the free cash flow growth rate. If this is consistently over 10 percent, this means profits turn into cash.

Free cash flow is operations cash minus capital expenditure, or the money that can be invested into expanding the company.

Garmin’s free cash flow grew from $40 million to $130 million in seven years, meaning it doubled just less than twice in seven years, or once every three and a half to four years. If you divide 72 by four, which equals an 18 percent sales rate, we see that Garmin was highly profitable.

A company is only promising if the CEO is driven and owner-oriented.

When you’re considering which company to invest in, you can always refer to those Big Five criteria in the charts. But there’s something else that’s worth noting; how effective is the CEO you want to entrust your money to?

You need to opt for an owner-oriented CEO. They’ll make smart long-term decisions and inform the shareholders on what they need to know.

As a shareholder, you’ll need to know if there are any problems or you won’t be able to respond appropriately.

A good owner-orientated CEO will announce if it’s been a very bad year, and try to give a reasonable explanation. Likewise, an owner-oriented CEO will refrain from actions that temporarily increase the stock price but do harm to the company in the long term.

Picture an executive who owns a lot of shares trying to make the stock price rise so he can cash out. That executive doesn’t care about the business down the line, or about your shares.

You should also look for a CEO who is driven, as he’ll put in a lot of effort to ensure the company remains profitable. CEOs like this aim for big goals and they’ll remind their employees of those goals. A company with such a manager is well set to generate more and more company value, which is ideal for your investment.

For instance, when Darwin Smith bought out Kimberly-Clark, it was a mediocre company. But he pictured it as the best paper-products business in the world. He worked for 20 years toward this lofty goal, transforming and expanding the company. Twenty-five years after Smith took over, Kimberly-Clark was the world's number-one paper-based consumer-products company and had brands like Kleenex under its wing.

Knowing if a CEO is driven and honest equips you to make a sound estimate of a company's value.

Demand a big margin of safety.

Remember when we said that the Effective Market Theory is wrong?

Here’s why: contrary to the theory, price and value aren’t the same thing, and the key is to buy when the difference gives you an advantage. A stock’s price is what you pay, whereas its value is based on the money a business generates over time.

Stock value can be a little tricky to gauge, as it’s based on a business’s future EPS and price/earnings ratio. However, there are tools and places to assess value online, such as Sticker Price Calculators.

Markets are inaccurate in the short term. For instance, at the close of the nineties, prices for gold, silver and copper dropped dramatically. Yet, the real value of metals wasn’t diminished; we’d need them eventually, so some savvy investors bought shares cheaply. Then, in the early 2000s, demand rose again, which increased share prices and those smart investors made a fortune.

What you should do is demand a large margin of safety. A margin of safety (MOS) is the value, minus the price.

A good margin of safety should be half the value of an investment. For example, in 2000, Dell’s value was estimated at $40/share, and so was its market price. That’s a fair price with no margin of safety. its price would need to be no higher than 50 percent of its real value, or $20, before you decide to buy.

Only a year later, Dell’s price fell to $20/share, while the stock’s value increased, so its MOS reached 50 percent. That would have been the right time to buy.

The MOS rule will provide you with great returns, and if there’s a bubble, it will prevent you from losing all your money.  

A good MOS is not to be overlooked; in 2000, every NASDAQ stock that crashed had a stock price which was higher than its value.

Thanks to the internet, you don’t need to be an expert to invest your money smartly; all the necessary tools and stock data are online. By using these tools, some specific calculations and knowing how to spot a successful, profitable company, you will be in a prime position to make the right investment choices and steadily build your wealth.

Action Plan: Be smart about checking the stock market.

Don’t work up a nervous sweat checking the market numerous times a day. The best time to check the market is when it’s closed, and, even better, at the same time each night. Doing so will give you the most consistent data.

[anantaru]

LET PEOPLE WRITE WHAT THEY WANT AND FOR WHO THEY WANT !!!!!

[thegreatyin]

giggling kicking my feet blushing madly

[transphilza]

“some stuff was said about me online” thats how ur gonna refer to it?? good lord man

[total-drama-brainrot]

do you think that somewhere, deep deep down inside heather, shes kinda into p!noah? (apologies, i’ve just seen the alejandro connection with p!noah and i was trying to stuff alenoaheather in with it)

anyway, ur b pfp messed me up when i was looking for u through who i follow and i was kinda just chanting ophe until i found it TT-TT

I think, deep deep down inside, Heather has a lot of introspective re-evaluation to do before she can even consider admitting to herself that she likes someone. And she's iconic for that. That doesn't stop her from forming crushes on people, mind you.

As for liking p!Noah? Well, (as a Noaheather Enjoyer myself) a lot of Heather's potential romance partners, in my mind at least, stem from the connections she can/does make with them. She's slow to open herself up to people, and really prickly, so for her to have positive feelings for someone else is a novelty. (*cough*gray-aro Heather real*cough*)

If Heather was able to foster some sort of rapport between herself and p!Noah, let's say by offering him something akin to an alliance (since it's only strategic to have a wildcard like Noah's turned out to be on her side- keep your enemies close and all), and see behind the many layers of crazy and deceit? She'd probably have a sense of begrudging respect for him, at least. It takes smarts and dedication to keep up a ruse like his for so long- Heather herself couldn't keep up the "nice girl" act for more than a few episodes- and she knows that Noah's deceptively smart.

Maybe that begrudging respect could blossom into more? Who's to say.

Maybe p!Noah also respects Heather's ruthlessness and cunning, since she was able to scheme and sabotage her way into the final three on Island. She's interesting, and Noah appreciates people who are interesting.

The main drawback of liking someone as eccentric as p!Noah is, as we saw with Izzy and Owen in canon, Heather would need to be able to keep up with him.

Obviously, Noah's not nearly as hyper and fickle as Izzy is, but he's just as impulsive and detached from reality. Heather can appreciate his cleverness and craftiness all she wants- if she can't deal with his callous madness, she'd have very little luck in trying to romance him.

The B pfp was an impulsive choice on my part but I'm not sorry for it because B deserves more recognition for literally carrying his whole team for the first few episodes. I do apologise for any confusion though!

[art-from-the-juice-box]

annnnnnnnd qsmp mostly purgatory cause i was doodiling through every charlie slimecicle vod for those as i caught up lmao

[savage-rhi]

Magenta.

[einsatzzz]

art time-lapse of this piece that i posted in IG b4 to try out doing reels. i really like how this turned out overall plus "yasashii suisei" (link for eng tl) really fit the vibes so im queueing this here too

[lightthewaybackhome]

This resonated with me so strongly. It's not that we are chained to home, is that we see the value of our investment there, even if we're not actually in our four walls all the time. We see the value of the love we're pouring into our people.

[bitchthefuck1]

In case anyone else has the brain worm that makes them want exact details anytime people talk numbers, in Too Much Birthday the offer to buy Kendall out says that he has 12,904,663 shares of Waystar (worth ~2bil at $156/share), so assuming he didn't sell any stock after that and also that Shiv and Roman all had an equal stake, which the show implies, that means that when they sell the company at $192/share in the finale, each of the siblings gets just under $2.5 billion, half of it in Gojo stock, not counting whatever they inherit from Logan.

[talabib]

Warren Buffett’s Investment Tips

Have you ever thought, “You know, life is pretty good except I have all this extra money lying around”? Probably not. If there’s one thing people have in common, it’s that we want to have the maximum amount of money with the minimum amount of effort. And people like Warren Buffett, currently the fourth-richest person in the world, have made getting rich on the stock market look easy. The general idea certainly seems simple enough: buy low and sell high.

But unsurprisingly, getting rich off the stock market isn’t as easy as it looks. Luckily, Buffett has left us some clues. When he founded Buffett Partnership, Ltd. in 1956, he began writing reports to his partner. He would give insight into his views on the market, predictions for the future, and his investment ethos. Playing the market still isn’t easy. But Buffett’s wisdom, compiled in 14 years worth of his accessible and humorously written letters, is all you need to start a career in the stocks. And who knows – if you’re lucky, and more importantly, consistent, you might even get rich. 

Be patient. Careful investment, rather than frenetic speculation, is more likely to create value. 

There’s a basic rule Wall Street types don't want us to know. It’s a secret that has helped Warren Buffett amass an $88.9 billion fortune. Are you ready for it?

Investing isn’t rocket science, but there’s a catch. People frequently confuse speculation for investment. But there’s a difference. Speculators obsessively follow unpredictable market fluctuations to buy and sell stocks hoping to get rich quick. Investors, on the other hand, buy businesses based on careful assessment of their inherent value. And then they wait.

The well-known billionaire, Warren Buffett, is an investor. He attended business school in New York, but he hails from the Midwest, and his methodical, straight-talking approach characterizes his letters and overall investment philosophy. 

Inspired by his mentor Ben Graham, Buffett figured that the prices of most financial assets, like stocks, eventually fell in line with their intrinsic values. 

When buying a stock, you’re buying a tiny fraction of a business. Over time, a stock’s price changes to reflect how the business is doing. If profits are good, the business’s value grows, and the share price increases. But, if their business loses value – for example, there’s a big scandal or something  – the share price falls. 

Sometimes, the stock price doesn’t accurately reflect the value of a business. Investors who buy shares in undervalued companies, then patiently wait for the market to correct itself, can’t help but make money. 

The key, though, is to focus on what the market should do, not when it should do it. If you trust that the market price will eventually reflect the actual value of a business, you can expect to eventually make a profit. This will help you to avoid selling just because the market dips. 

And this patience rewards you with compound interest, which is the key driver of value over long-term investments. Compound interest is the process of continuously reinvesting gains so that every new cent begins earning its own returns. Einstein himself called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world, remarking that “people who understand it earn it, and people who don’t understand it pay it.”

 Buffett’s favorite story illustrating the power of compound interest involves the French government’s purchase of the Mona Lisa. King Francis I paid the equivalent of $20,000 for the painting in 1540. If he had instead invested the money at a 6 percent compound interest rate, France would have had $1 quadrillion by 1964. 

Successful investors all have one thing in common – they compulsively measure. 

Warren Buffett has always been a supremely confident investor. Even when he was a relatively inexperienced young fund manager, he saw his main competition as the Dow Jones Industrial Average – the famous New York stock index. His one job was to grow his fund at a faster rate than the market. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

We all know the stress of checking your bank balance after a big weekend or stepping on the scale when trying to lose weight. For a lot of people, the anxiety of failure might be too much to handle. But to be a successful investor in the mold of Warren Buffett, you’re going to have to get over those anxieties. Careful measurement, clear-eyed analysis, and a steady hand – even when you’re down – are the only ways to succeed as an investor. 

OK, time for some more Buffett-style straight talk. The difficult truth is that most people aren’t shrewd enough investors to beat the market. It was huge for Buffett to deliver returns greater than 7 percent annually. But the miracle of compound interest means that you only have to do a little better than the market to create the potential for serious financial gains.

Knowing what to measure – and then doing it properly – is the only way to know if you’re on the right track. So how do you compulsively measure? You need to monitor your investments every day, keep track of how they’re doing relative to past performance, and be patient when your chips are down. It takes energy, commitment, and honesty. In short, you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.

You’re not just measuring your results against past performance, though. Each year’s results should also be measured against the market. This means if the market is down, and you’re slightly less down, this still counts as a win. 

There’s good news, too. When Buffett was a young investor, doing better than the market was a lot harder than it is now. It’s easier today thanks to index funds. Pioneered in 1975, index funds combine slices of many different companies on a given stock exchange. This means their returns broadly match the gains and losses of the overall market. 

Buffett advises those who don’t have the time or energy to devote to their investments to buy the index. Otherwise, compulsive measuring is the only way to determine how you’re doing.

Young investors should focus on buying shares in undervalued companies, which Buffett calls Generals. 

Once you’ve got the measuring part down, you can start developing your personal investing style. Remember, each investor is a unique snowflake. Your investing style should reflect your personality, goals, funds, and especially, your competence set. So, if you’re an alpaca rancher, you shouldn’t try to get rich off computer chips.  

Here’s more good news. If you’re a new investor with less money, you actually have an advantage over investors managing huge funds. This is because you can invest in small companies not listed on the stock exchange, making big percentage gains. Once you’re managing more money, you need much bigger deals to move the needle on your overall results. 

When Warren Buffett started his fund in 1956, he had just over $100,000 to play with. By 1960, his fund had ballooned to $1,900,000. He attributed this incredible rate of return to his focus on small, relatively unimpressive investments.

Along with his patient temperament, Buffett’s best asset as an investor is his skill at determining the value of a company. In the early years, he favored buying Generals, which he defined as “fair businesses at wonderful prices.” This means that the companies were of middling quality, but, for some reason, priced under market value. Once again, Buffett’s patience paid off. Most of the Generals he bought stayed in his portfolio for years.

Buffett also liked buying shares in companies that were worth more dead, that is in liquidation, than they were alive. That way, if the business started failing, he could liquidate it and not lose money. This type of business is called a net-net.

Ultra-cheap stocks and net-nets are not glamorous. In fact, Buffett referred to them as his “cigar butts.” But 12 years into his career as an investor, Buffett looked back and determined that this category of investment had done the best in terms of average returns. 

As his success grew, Buffett’s definition of value changed. He began looking beyond cheap stock prices, toward the quality of a business and whether its earnings could be sustainable. As his experience as an investor grew, he transitioned from buying fair businesses at wonderful prices, to buying wonderful businesses at fair prices. 

Once you have more experience as an investor, you might want to get involved in the management of one of your investments. Go right ahead, Buffett might say, but you’ll need some further guidelines.

Assuming more risk in markets you know well can yield even more reward potential. 

As a kid, Warren Buffett would buy a 25-cent six-pack of Coca Cola from his grandfather’s store. He would then sell individual bottles on to his pals for a nickel each. There was certainly a risk involved: if the neighborhood kids weren’t thirsty that day, he’d have extra bottles on his hands that he couldn’t move. But if he had a good day, he would earn 20 percent on every six-pack. 

Buffett didn’t know it, but with the 25-cent Coca Cola deal, he’d done his first arbitrage. He was capitalizing on the price difference for one product – his Coca Cola – in two different markets – the store, and the neighborhood kids.

Arbitrage is a way to bet on what you think a company will be worth in the near future. Returns on arbitrage bets can be very attractive. But to get it right, you have to know the businesses, and their respective markets, intimately. 

When that product is a piece of a company, this is called merger arbitrage. “Merger arbs” were one of Buffett’s specialties during his years as an early investor. He would buy stock in a company at one price, betting that it would be worth more once it merged with another company. 

Returns on merger arbs may be enticing, but the risk can be great. That’s why arbitrage is usually tricky for the average investor. Unless the deal is in your specialized field and you’ve studied it inside and out, it’s probably best to leave it alone. 

But experienced investors who don’t want to mess with merger arbs can also get their control fix with what Buffett aptly referred to as Controls. That’s when you buy a large enough piece of a company listed on the public stock exchange that you have the right to influence how it’s run. 

As you might imagine, this type of deal can lead to stressful confrontations between company owners and new board members who may demand drastic operational changes. Buffett was vilified for these deals early in his career; he thought he was saving a company by removing the inefficiencies.

But as he matured, Buffett stopped getting involved in Controls, which could turn out to be messy and uncomfortable with layoffs or firings. His core investment principles have never changed, though.

Your methods may change with the market, but your core principles should stay the same.

Following the crowd can be an effective strategy. If everyone’s running away from something you can’t see, it’s probably a good idea to join them. But when it comes to investing, it can be problematic. By definition, the majority can’t do better than the average. So to be a successful investor, you have to train yourself to go against the crowd.

Warren Buffett’s investment style reveals that there’s only one instance in which you should put your money on the line: when you totally understand the whole picture and the best course of action. In all other cases, you should pass. Even if everyone else is making money.

Buffett has always been a cautious investor. When he began his career as a professional investor in 1956, the stock market was generally considered to be too high. But instead of correcting itself, stocks continued to creep up. Buffett not only stayed true to his strategy, but he also doubled down on his ultra-conservative investing approach. He knew a correction was coming, he just didn’t know when. 

Meanwhile, other hotshot investors were making big money. In New York, Jerry Tsai had invented a new kind of investment, which took advantage of the general public’s new appetite for speculation. Tsai’s approach was the opposite of Buffett’s. He’d jump in and out of stocks at the drop of a hat. 

Tsai’s approach worked, for a while. He earned fabulous sums for his firm, even as his fund lost and gained wildly with market swings. But Buffett remained convinced that it wouldn’t last. 

When the market reached a new high in 1966, Buffett finally acted. He announced that he wouldn’t be accepting new partners and halved his performance goal. Miraculously, his fund continued to do very well: 1968 was its best year with a 58.8 percent return. But Buffett knew when to fold his hand. He was done risking his fortune on a market that was bound to crash.

Tsai’s end was imminent, and he ultimately saw it coming too. He sold his fund at just the right moment in 1968. In the early 1970s, the Dow experienced its most spectacular crash since the Great Depression. Buffett’s net worth was unaffected, because he had taken all his money off the market. Tsai barely dodged defeat, but his investors lost 90 percent of their portfolio assets.

Buffett’s courage of conviction is a worthy goal for all investors, if not people more generally. Figure out what you believe in, and when the right opportunity comes along, bet big. You almost can’t lose. 

It’s not impossible to make money on the stock market. In fact, anyone can do it. But it’s not something that will happen overnight, and it won’t happen if you don’t take it seriously. With Buffett’s tips on careful measurement, consistency, and most importantly, patience, you too can become a successful investor.

[shi0n]

白雪 - Eve

[jamethinks]

My unnamed Twiyor fic is about twilight buying Yor a house in preparation for the termination of the operation (ie ensuring she’s in a good position for when he abandons her) and he decides to buy and old run down house and let her renovate it to her hearts desire. The dilemma I have (because I’m deranged) is trying to figure out what style of house they should get. Initially I considered a doing a French townhouse possibly with 4 storeys, basement, main floor, chamber floor and then an attic floor where Loid would be. It would also have a servant stair that would be concealed as an alternative escape route as well as a cellar under the house for extra extra security.

However, that style of houses aren’t very popular in Germany, the Tudor style is more common but I’m having a hard time finding a layout that fits their hypothetical needs. It needs to be big with a proper yard but also discreet and doesn’t stand out, also has to be detached or at least a corner lot, gotta in Berlint since that’s where they work and Anya goes to school there and only Loid drives. It obviously doesn’t need to be too large but Twilight wants to spoil his girls idk what to tell you

I personally hate apartments so I do want to move them out. It would style belong to Loid and eventually Anya. The original story had him and Anya living abroad and Yor in the townhouse with Bond. The house abroad was more of a slick modern mid century style house, buried deep in a forest in upstate New York. Obviously very spy inspired, like something James Bond would live in. As for Yor, I have her a pretty townhouse that was just seeet and pretty and full of life with again lots of secrets and hidden rooms to reflect her personality.

The second WIP would be where Anya returns to Ostania and lives in the old apartment so it doesn’t become useful again but I want it gone.

Also I just think twiyor working on a project together would a good way for them to talk and bond idk idk

[despairforme]

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Imagine the Tails Polycule in the death of the sonic the hedgehog game.

Oooh interesting

So, I'm going to interpret as if they (prime!polycule I assume) were inserted into the game to join the main cast, and I'll start with placement first

(Game spoilers ahead)

Shadow, Knuckles, and Sonic all start out being the only person in their respective cars (not including the conductor in this). Since we have 3 foxes to place, I think it's best to just spread them out among these 3 cars (the Saloon, the lounge car, and the conductor's car)

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My decided placements are as follows:

Sails – the Saloon car with Knuckles

Nine - the lounge car with Shadow

Mangey - the conductor's car with Sonic and the Conductor

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And with that, the following are their roles and brief backstories (to fit with the theme of the murder mystery party):

Sails – Bartender

He's a bartender at the Saloon the town sheriff (Knuckles) frequents. He doesn't particularly have the passion for bartending, but it’s due to his (now passed) elderly boss's getting him this job that saved him from a worse life, so he can't complain too much. His real passion lies in his contraption making, which only his coworkers and the Sheriff knows about. While he tries to be decent at his job and maintan a friendly exterior for the customers, you can occasionally spot him leaning over the bar counter with a bored look on his face. He also enjoys a good riddle.

Nine – Programmer

The programer is married to his job (developing new robots that exist to help vulnerable people). After he happened to win an all expenses paid vacation in the lottery, his boss forced him out of the office to take the vacation in question, and he reluctantly complied. He has a hard time sitting still and relaxing, which results in him often working on something when not on the clock. Because of this, he took his Bits with him on vacation to tinker with. He doesn't like it when his work is interrupted and can be a bit prickly, but he can't suppress his excitement or interest in machines or programs he's never seen. Coincidentally, the only person on the train he recognizes is the locksmith (Shadow), who he shares a bit of a bitter (or bittersweet?) past with.

Mangey – Co-captain

He met the captain (Sonic) in college and the two have been attached at the hip since. While easily mistaken as Captain and assistant (since the co-captain often runs errands for or assists the captain), in truth the co-captain functions both as backup and a support partner. Should the captain have complications, it's up to the co-captain to step into his role, and if the captain needs to make a hard decision or needs assistance with something difficult, the co-captain is who he asks first. They are partners who rely on each other, and good friends.

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Now, for the game itself, each of the main characters had a set of movements, other people they talked to, and things they did, so these three would be no different.

At this point I actually started plotting out the movements of each of our 3 additional characters and how they shift the story and add to it. However, once I'd done enough work I'd realized I'd come out of this ask with a full blown au rather than just passing thoughts. As such, so as not to spoil a bunch of major moments in an au I may seriously end up writing for and showing off, I've decided instead to finish off this ask with some notes and tidbits about the au.

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Misc Notes:

Nine's Bits are based upon these little guys from Archie Sonic from Silver's future (post sgw):

I couldn't think up a better name and "the bits" is still classic to me, so I made up a random lore reason why they'd be called that in this au. Answer? Professor Von Schlemmer exists in Silver's future in this au, and either Silver accidentally brought some bits back with him once or ended up showing Tails or Nine some of his work. So Nine ended up taking the basic idea from the professor's bits to create his own. Since this is a bit more of a careful situation and Nine isn’t in the business of passing others' ideas off as his own, until he comes up with another name and makes them sufficiently different, his bits are a semi-secret not so secret personal project. Idk it's kind of like how in Prime he used the Chaos Council's power core schematics to create the shatterdrive, if that makes any sense. He claims the title of inventing shatterdrive technology, but he does not hide where he drew inspiration or based his designs from

Nine (and his programmer role) have two bits. One is modeled after Chaos Sonic, and the other is modeled after Alpha Grim Sonic.

The purpose of Nine's bits are essentially to act either as extensions of Chaos Sonic and Alpha Grim Sonic or to be additional bodies the robots can upload themselves into. The former is largely useful for stuff like recon, and the latter is used in the event Nine needs to make his robots more portable for some reason (for example, in this case, he wanted to keep his robots with him during Amy's party, but didn't want them taking up space on the train)

Unless one has the proper tools, only Nine is able to access the memory of his bits (in regards to actually scrolling through their memory logs AND in accessing footage they record). Tails did not bring tools necessary for this on the train with him (especially since he takes his role as detective very seriously). This is important in case, say, the Detective and Barry end up getting ahold of one of the Bits and they happen to maybe have crucial evidence.

Fun fact! The Poet does manage to "finish the job" about the same way as he does in the original game. He is lucky that The Programmer is not in the lounge car during his arrival before and escape after the attempted murder. However, this doesn't mean The Programmer left the room completely empty and unsupervised...

Another fun fact! Rather than getting an interrogation like The Sheriff does in the Saloon Car, the Bartender withholds a special clue he found (that could possibly lead to the murderer). Tails and Barry just have to complete a task for him that involves the Super Monkey Ball arcade machine

The same way Sonic and Mangey's character cards and Sails and Knuckles' specifiy that they have a type of relationship to each other, so, too, do Shadow and Nine's cards.

Excluding Barry, The Co-Captain is the only character to suspect foul play when the Captain is "murdered" during the game. However, this is largely due to the fact that (with how the character movements are structured) the Captain and the Conductor suddenly disappear, leaving the Conductor's car in disarray. It's also a while before the Co-Captain reaches anyone who is aware that Sonic's character was murdered.

Final tidbit...! There are kisses involved. Even if they're ooc for the roles they're playing, with the prime polycule involved I had to work em in! 😂

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And with that, I'd love to thank you for the ask, anon! Although it may not have been your intention, I bamboozled myself into getting majorly invested in this little prime polycule au 🥰