“I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were always efficient.” WEB

An important difference between trading and roulette is that in roulette the odds are stacked in the houses favour, in trading the odds are stacked in our favour.

Any news tips?

If EMH is true, trading is a game of chance not much better than roulette.

I believe it is the general view that the market is mostly efficient, but not fully efficient. A subtle but significant difference, as Buffett/Munger have stated on numerous occasions.

Volatility is risk if you have a limited time horizon for conversion of capital. Value investors often side steps this issue by lengthening their investment horizon, and in Buffett’s case, the horizon is supposed to be infinity.

Really scary action on Elders today. It’s been one of the more fascinating companies on my watchlist. I’ll continue to watch. The current story sounds bad, but when a company with their distribution network manages to survive, their cost structure can be so low that the bounce in profits is staggering.

I see no point in having a punt on anything, unless one enjoys gambling. The only reason I have a small position in something is to force me to focus on it. One day I hope to be able to do without those starter positions.

Whatever gives you a profitable investment strategy is what is important.

Interesting, if somewhat scary action on ELD. Might be worth a punt for a very small amount somewhere after the funds bail out. Maybe a $50 punt? The problem I find with these highly speculative ones is that I’m just not comfortable with having a significant position, so what’s the point?

With volatility, it’s not the same as risk to me. As a mainly index investor I look at high volatility as good thing (with other factors also). The best investments I can remember for me have been when the VIX was high.

I guess this may not apply as much for individual stocks? But maybe not even there. TLS has low volatility but I found it riskier than RIO because it’s like a big rock landing on your foot. It doesn’t bounce much.