GoldFinger1969

On 1/5/2024 at 6:39 PM, VKurtB said:

Biggest lie EVER concerning slabbing coins. Slabs are gassier than an Oktoberfest attendee with a plateful of Brussels sprouts.

I mean handling, dropping, fingerprints, etc.

On 1/5/2024 at 11:18 AM, World Colonial said:

Pure rationalization.  This doesn't explain anything.  What you described (without admitting or maybe even knowing it) is psychological.

China's Shanghai index hit 1400 in 1992 when GDP (yes, probably not accurate) was about 2% to 3% of today's reported level.  The index is around 2900 now.  The "fundamentals" do not explain this performance.

It was a closed market manipulated by the CCP and riding the wave of the post-South Korean 1988 Olympics developing markets bubble.

You may not follow these items -- I did. 

On 1/5/2024 at 11:10 AM, World Colonial said:

Really, where is the evidence for this?

What is the obvious reason for China and Hong Kong?  Because it doesn't fit your claims?

Not at all -- it does.  You have to look AT the fundamentals and BEYOND them, too....at times.

Because the expectation was that China would adopt democratic liberalization measures that would aid U.S. and other business interests in China.  This followed the 2000 WTO/GATT acceptance of China.  Without that, China doesn't become the world's manufacturer the next 2 decades.  Chinese stocks SUCKED for about 5 years until 2005 and then soared like 6-fold in 2 years.

I don't need to know fundamentals to know that any market or item that goes up 6x in 2 years is probably overvalued and priced for perfection -- and perfection didn't happen the next 10-15 years for China.  Ergo, market-losing returns except in select stocks.

On 1/5/2024 at 11:08 AM, World Colonial said:

Belief in "fundamentals" is a form of EMH.  There is no evidence that stocks or any financial assets are valued from "fundamentals".  Everyone just assumes it.

Do you watch CNBC  or FoxBusiness or Bloomberg TV ?  They mention valuations and fundaamentals all day long, WC.  I get 25-30 research PDFs a day....that's all they talk about.

On 1/5/2024 at 11:06 AM, World Colonial said:

Look at the examples I gave you in my above post, especially the foreign markets.  I didn't include those examples to get an answer from you, because the "fundamentals" don't and can't explain this performance.  The purpose is to demonstrate that this belief is invalid.  If "fundamentals" actually explain prices, there is no possibility for these results.

Sure they can.  But fundamentals are only 1 leg in the 3-legged stool of stock analysis.  You also have to look at starting valuation and interest rates.  Sometimes political considerations (i.e., China vs. Hong Kong/South Korea/Japan) comes into play.

There are NO anomalies in your list.  Prices and performance vary over time, but it's easily explanable for the most part.

On 1/5/2024 at 10:51 AM, World Colonial said:

I absolutely can dispute this claim, because neither you nor anyone else can demonstrate otherwise. It's not incumbent upon me or anyone else to disprove this conventional belief.  You actually believe in a form of EMH without admitting it.  EMH is nonsense.  Academics never demonstrated EMH.  They just couldn't explain prices by supposed causal events, so they just made this theory up.[/

I explained to you the implied concensus agreement on the impact of psychology on various "bubble" stocks: serial money losers, "disruptors", "meme stocks", "unicorns".  So, am I supposed to believe these are valued on "fundamentals" too?  If not, based exactly on what?

How about CSCO?  How does its performance explain the stock price?  It's 35% lower today versus 2001 even as it's a much larger far more profitable company.  

Or how about these markets?  How do you explain this?  You're going to tell me that this price performance is explained by earnings and GDP?

Index               12/23                 COVID low      GFC peak       dot.com peak Other

S&P 500          4559                2191                1555                1553                442 (10/1994)

Stoxx600         459                  306                  400                  407                  125 (10/1994)

Switzerland     10879              9036                9548                7938                2675 (10/1994)

ASX 200          7040                5022                6851                3386                1857 (10/1994)

Shanghai         3040                2646                5560                1953                794 (10/1994)

Hong Kong      17559              22519              27254              18397              16820 (7/1997)

Singapore        3094                2381                3726                2528                Not available

Korea              2496                1439                2085                1066                1145 (10/1994)

Taiwan            17287              8523                9807                10393              10512 (1/1990)

Thailand          1397                1105                924                  499                  1695 (10/1993)

Dot.com peak = late 1999. early 2000           GFC peak = mid-2007 to mid-2008               

Stoxx600 is Europe’s S&P 500                      All indices in local currency

Source: CNBC.com

You're hung up on EMH.  Nobody buys or sells stocks based on textbook theories.  Forget about EMH -- unless they talk about it on CNBC. 

COST is not 35% lower -- it's HIGHER.  Better get a new data supplier, WC !!  

There are MANY moving parts to a stock's price.  It's NOT just earnings or GDP or cash flow.  If earnings go up but the stock was too expensive -- P/E too high -- you can have a profitable company whose stock SUCKS for years -- think CSCO after 2000.

Every single market you cited is HIGHER today than years earlier -- except Hong Kong/China for obvious reasons.  All that is telling me is that stocks do great over long periods of times...earnings tend to go up (about 7% a year for the U.S.)....GDP growth is important which we and Asia have and Europe does not....and starting valuations matter.

Again, I don't know if you own ANY stocks at all but if not, when did you ?  Because the nirvana you want to get the ALL-CLEAR to buy probably hasn't been around except in late-March 2020....November 2008/March 2009...October 2002....January 1991....October 1987...and August 1982.

And I am not sure you would have bought at those great buying spots, so if not those, when ? 

On 1/4/2024 at 7:02 PM, Revenant said:

We need to bring in a newer generation, and I respect the attempt, but I don't think this is the way to do it.

I thought about this while thinking about the cesspool that Harvard has become.  If we went back to talking about this country's great history....and maybe focused on the minutae, like the coins and currency....you stimulate interest and learn about America, too.

There is so much information contained in the history of our coinage and currency it's unreal.  Even me, a guy interested in finance and economics, had to stumble upon it by acccident.

On 1/4/2024 at 7:24 PM, VKurtB said:

Hint: there never has been a bullion strike ASE that has ever made sense being in a slab   

As a gift or present....preservation....ease of handling.

Had there been TPGs when I was young, I think looking at the holder with the information might have stimulated my interest many years sooner.  That and/or some of the books I now have which I think I would have enjoyed reading in the 1970's. 

On 1/4/2024 at 10:12 PM, VKurtB said:

So what I hear you saying is that capital appreciation is somehow bogus? I have to sell it to spend it? Like coins, huh?

Different strokes, I say. 

Nothing wrong with being a growth investor, probably is better going forward than a value investor.  But if you aren't wealthy and/or want to sleep at night, lower but more predictable returns might be the ticket.

On 1/4/2024 at 9:47 PM, zadok said:

...try paying ur electric bill with all of those examples except for dividends n u will be looking at ur coins by candlelight....

I like dividends but I've had 2 stocks cut dividends.  It happens.....

Dividend GROWERS are often better than higher-yielding dividend stocks.  MSFT yielding 2% in 2010 was a great investment. 

On 1/4/2024 at 6:00 PM, World Colonial said:

Yes, you keep telling me this, because you keep on claiming that the P/E multiple demonstrates it.  And you do this because you continue to believe in false causality, that prices are determined from supposed "fundamentals"    It's also evident you believe numerous other fallacies promoted by Wall Street too.

These aren't fallacies promoted by "Wall Street" -- even folks who disagree with WS marketing agree that numbers are numbers.  You can quibble with the numbers but you can't say they aren't representative of the fundamentals.

On 1/4/2024 at 6:00 PM, World Colonial said:

The P/E ratio is one of the least reliable valuation metrics.  It’s been a lagging indicator at major turning points during the 21st century mania, both tops and bottoms.  The ratio was higher at the 2002 low versus the 2000 peak and higher at the March 2009 low versus the October 2007 peak, the opposite of any actually useful indicator. This happens because the economy never leads stock prices (usually lagging) and earnings also lag economic performance somewhat.

Yes, but that doesn't mean the P/E is irrelevant.  You need to know if earnings have collapsed.  Clearly, they haven't.  So the P/E ratio IS useful right now.  If we enter a recession, I agree:  best to buy at 25x EPS instead of 16x EPS (although the trend in recent years has been for the multiple to collapse MORE than earnings).

MULTIPLE compression is often WORSE than the earnings decline.

On 1/4/2024 at 6:00 PM, World Colonial said:

Earnings are only relevant to "investors" to the extent they receive it as a dividend.  The dividend yield is barely above the all-time low from the 2000 dot.com bubble, and this is even with all the economic distortions since at least 2008 which you also completely ignore.

No. 

Markets and the public change and so do stocks.  MSFT went public in 1986 and didn't pay a dividend until about 20 years later but it went up 100-fold in that time.  AMZN has never paid a dividend and her stock is up 1000-fold.  WMT never paid a public dividend until after 30 years as a public company and returned 34% a year.

All those companies GREW -- they were GROWTH stocks -- and their stock prices reflected those realities.  If you were advising Sam Walton, he would have paid a dividend in the early-1970's and never toppled Sears-Roebuck.  And if you were a stockbroker, you would not have recommended buying WMT in the depths of the 1974 bear market...because the S&P 500 sold for 6x EPS and WMT sold for 12x EPS, 2x the market.  You would have passed on the stock at $12...even though it would have been A BARGAIN AT $600/share !!! 

The market has returned a nice CAGR since 2000.  You can't stay in cash for 23 years.  Dividend yield is not something that is useful today as it was in the Old Days when the DJIA (the index followed then) was a buy at 6% and a sale at 3%.  It hasn't been at 6% since the 1980's -- you can't stay out of stocks for 40 years because some indicator says so.

Your Other Lengthy Posts:  Buybacks reduce share count and increase EPS if done at attractive prices and NOT offset by share dilution from bad M&A deals and/or compensation shares.  I lean towards dividends, but buybacks done effectively reward shareholders.  So does dividend reinvestment. 

The market ex-Mag 7 is pretty cheap.  It's not dirt cheap, but it's certainly not a "mania."  A mania was tech stocks in 2000....a mania is NFTs in 2021....a mania is gold in 1980....a mania was bonds in 2020 and 2021 with the 10-year Treasury yielding 1% or less.  The stock market at 21x is not a mania, though with cash paying 4% it now has competition.

No, the S&P 500 at 21x and the Small Cap 600 at 15x are not "manias."  MSFT and GOOG at 25-30X might be rich, but not a mania (you think anybody will knock them off like GM or EK ?).  AI might be extended and NVDA might be a bubble, but would you buy it at 22x EPS instead of 32x with the earnings RISING ?  I would.

Look, I tend to be a Value/GARP investor over Growth because of various circumstances.  But you can't say something is a mania or a bubble when the conditions that would alleviate it don't appear for decades.  In that case, the assumption of the mania or bubble is wrong, IMO.

I'd be curious to see at what level of the S&P 500 you would be a buyer. 

On 1/3/2024 at 5:19 PM, VKurtB said:

Be aware that if you get an RSV vaccine, that one gave me the worst injection site reaction I’ve ever had. I participated in a clinical trial, and for the study year, I never got so much as a sniffle. But, medical research does not swing on one participant’s experience. I found out, after the study, that I had indeed gotten the active “candidate” vaccine, not the placebo, but that the efficacy was not high enough for FDA to approve it. I got SOME protection from it, but statistically, not enough people did. I’ll do another if asked. But an “arm ouchie”? Oh yeah.

So you tried out an RSV vaccine, just not the one that is now available and got approved ?

On 1/2/2024 at 4:34 PM, USAuPzlBxBob said:

When he said he was leaving, I kept thinking of this, but couldn't remember who, what, where, and when… until now.

I LOVE "The Odd Couple" but don't see what the classic parking scene has to do with members here.  Maybe you can elaborate ? 

BTW, very interesting:  WLNY-55 (ch. 79 on my Optimum/Altice system here in NY) runs an "Odd Couple Marathon on New Year's Eve and into New Year's Day.  That's not unusual, but the length of the episodes is:  they are original, uncut which probably hasn't been the case since their original air dates.   25 1/2 minute each....3 segments of 90-second commercials.  When I saw most of these episodes in the 1980's and 1990's, they lasted maybe 22-23 minutes, tops.

On 1/2/2024 at 8:08 PM, VKurtB said:

By the way, on an unrelated topic, I have a nasty case of COVID-19, still positive after a course of oral anti-virals and still feeling like I've been hit by a truck. Therefore, I cannot expect to drive 720 miles to Orlando F.U.N.  My wife talked me into going to family holiday events. Never again. Those people throw around viral infections like candy canes.

I just got the new Covid Moderna shot yesterday.  Seemed to have a worse reaction this time.  My left shoulder is still very sore 20 hours after I got the shot.  

On 1/2/2024 at 3:21 PM, VKurtB said:

He told me that JUST IN LANCASTER COUNTY, PA, were 10-15 collections worth OVER $10 million each, NONE OF WHICH THE GENERAL HOBBY KNOWS ABOUT, INCLUDING Heritage or Stacks Bowers, and EVERY COIN IN THOSE COLLECTIONS IS RAW!

Wow, that's hard to believe.  I believe you...but...wow.  

On 1/2/2024 at 2:48 PM, DeplorableDan said:

You’re still taking it way too literally.  You can’t extrapolate his methodology from a 15 year old interview. When a CEO is interviewed for TV, the content is softened and modified for public digestion.  What was he supposed to say, that there’s a ton of coins that suck for the grade and PCGS/NGC is not good at their job? Maybe some of those C coins might be “ok” for the grade in their holder, but JA certainly wasn’t standing behind those coins financially, and now that they opened their own grading company we now get to see exactly what he really thought of those coins. Forget about that interview, 15 years was a a long time in the past and there have been several cycles of inconsistent grading since then. Who knows how he would have answered those questions in 2021. 

I found a 38-page thread over at CACForum that must be what you and others are saying is the Holy Bible on CAC and CACG. It might take me a few weeks, but I'll try and read all the posts. 

On 1/2/2024 at 2:12 PM, VKurtB said:

8% based on MY purchase price, not the current one. 

That's not relevant, the capital could be deployed into other vehicles that yield more than on "your purchase price" -- an opportunity cost -- so you have to compare apples to apples current yields at market values.

Can the Smithsonian sell coins they "own" ?  Have they done it in the past ?

Maybe where they have duplicates of the same coin, year, mint ?

I believe the CT Museum/Historical Society sold a few Saints over the decades.

On 12/31/2023 at 10:25 AM, robec1347 said:

I hope you aren’t really leaving. I honestly enjoy your posts. 

If we all were the same personality and we all agreed with one another 100% of the time and we all had the same knowledge level of coins....who the hell would want to be here ?   

On 1/2/2024 at 11:15 AM, DeplorableDan said:

They are not intentionally holdering a 65 "C" as a 64+, it just means that the range of other tpg's 65 "C" actually encompasses coins that he would grade as a 64 "A".

OK, I go back to that interview with Maurice Rosen from 2008 because it's JA's own words...he's specific...and CAC had just started.  

He said that (at that time) 85% or so of the coins were "A" and "B" and all/virtually all of these coins were getting the CAC sticker.  They were avoiding the "C" coins which were NOT worthy of a sticker but he said definitely:  they are OK for the grade (i.e., MS-65).  As for so-called "D" and "F" coins...these were clearly OVERGRADED but outliers and not a concern here.

Now it's possible that SOME of those "C" coins weren't OK for the grade but the bulk had to be (JA's own words).  Now...he's saying that they do NOT belong in a CACG MS-65 holder though it's possible the same coin was looked at by the CAC sticker people and they said not worthy of a CAC sticker but yeah, it's OK for this PCGS or NGC MS-65 holder. 

See what I am saying ?  I'm just repeating what JA said. 

Maybe I am too literal, I dunno.

The interview also had JA saying that lots of quality coins for the grade were being "hoarded" by investors and collectors and the MS-65's (to use an example) that the dealers had for sale to the public or newcomers like me were largely the "C" coins.

And maybe that's where the problem was ?  They start to pay "A" or "B" prices for "C" coins and then what are the "A" or "B" coins worth ?  A premium if not $$$ from 1 grade higher and this is how you get the intersection of market grading and gradeflation.

I think. 

Good posts, Dan....and welcome to these Forums. 

On 1/2/2024 at 7:07 AM, J P M said:

There is a quiet side to numismatics most collectors do not see. 

Oh I don't doubt that.....it's just a question of HOW BIG is it relative to the visible, certified, public stuff we see ?

Is it a niche of 1-5% ?  10%, a noticeable amount ?  Or a hidden black market size of 20-35% or the like ?

I have no idea. 

On 1/1/2024 at 1:17 PM, zadok said:

...u keep plucking the wrong turkey, also trees dont have feathers usually, CAC did not do foreign nor ancients n as we have discussed numerous times, certified coins r only a minority % of the coins out there...many of the high hanging fruit will never be certified nor CAC'd for obvious reasons...additionally, crossovers between NGC n PCGS has territorial issues, also as discussed, crossovers to CACG is TBD....

But if there are so many high-end and trophy coins that are still raw....how come we never see them trade or change hands ?  

I think the Bass Proof Liberty Double Eagle is the only one that really sticks out in recent years.  I admit I don't track this closely, but who expects to maximize price nowadays without a TPG holder ? 

On 1/1/2024 at 11:04 AM, DeplorableDan said:

The "L" (Legacy) signifies any previously stickered coin, PCGS or NGC, that was crossed directly from its previous holder to CACG. Since most have not submitted many PCGS/CAC coins for crossover, many assume the early legacy coins will be predominantly NGC crossovers. The purpose of the designation was more or less a safeguard against gradeflation.

Does CAC maintain a registry of previously submitted coins to CAC; the bar codes for PCGS and NGC ?

On 12/31/2023 at 11:31 PM, Coinbuf said:

CACG does grade moderns.

Now I'm not surprised at that, learning they have outside investors to please.  Thanks for the update.