Buffett didn't invest in tech because it was outside his "circle of competence". Here is his quote on Crypto:

Stay away. Bitcoin is a mirage. It's a method of transmitting money. It's a very effective way of transmitting money and you can do it anonymously and all that. A check is a way of transmitting money, too. Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money? Are money orders? You can transmit money by money orders. People do it. I hope bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it, but you can replicate it a bunch of different ways and it will be. The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view.

Aside, I can understand the case for a fundamental backing of crypto (even if I strongly disagree with it). What I can't get on board with is people using technical analysis indicators as reasons to buy or sell. I agree there is a broader market sentiment aspect in current prices, but just because someone has a big order at some price point lower than current price (or sell order at higher price) or because the price has tended to not go below/above some price in the last year/month/day/hour/minute does not make it a support or resistance point nor present a valid discussion for investing IMO. Everyone's a genius in a bull market.

Regarding illegal exchange of goods - admittedly I don't really know anything about BTC volumes - it was just a hunch. There was no option to buy my lunch with BTC today. In fact no places I regularly buy from accept any form of crypto. Due to the nature of typical transactions placed, cryptos are highly susceptible to regulation.

I looked into the possibility of accepting BTC orders for a website that convert straight to £. The cost (1%) was similar to accepting USD that convert straight to £. Uninspiring for someone that doesn't want to hold BTC (or USD).

The long term bull case for bitcoin seems to reside on people exchanging it for goods. In order for this to happen it needs to stabilise (vs fiat) to have similar characteristics to a currency. Can you imagine if the USD went up several hundred % in a year?

Right now bitcoins usage are almost exclusively trading the coins themselves and the exchange of illegal goods/services. People will point to the odd retailer here and there adopting it but these are a drop in the ocean as of yet.

Transactions are processed by people mining i.e. using CPU power. These people are rewarded on a diminishing basis - it is literally modelled after the gold rush. It will become less and less economical for people to mine bitcoins and so if volume grows transactions could take a considerable time to process.

I don't doubt that the technology is useful as a security tool, but until a practical application is created (a currency form isn't it - perhaps MA/V would be interested) I won't be investing.

That's my understanding.

http://alephblog.com/2017/09/05/where-money-goes-to-die/

https://valueandopportunity.com/2017/09/03/book-review-attack-of-the-50-foot-blockchain/

Here's how I understand it:

Players money is a liability owed by the company which according to the gaming license must be in a segregated account (cannot be used for expenses or invested). Basic protection implies payouts in a liquidation event would be in this order:
1) Debt holders: bond holders of corporate issued bonds, bank loans/overdrafts etc. Often debt has varying seniority. 888 has no debt. GVC (Party's parent company) has €390m or so of debt with 5-6 year maturity. It's a credit facility - essentially an overdraft - and was as part of the LBO of Party. Their debt coverage is actually pretty poor but I wouldn't be too worried if I had money on Party.
2) Any other liabilities: players funds, any money owed to suppliers (gaming licenses, software licenses, payment processors etc). I'd expect this to be done on a pro-rated basis.
3) Equity holders: If there's any money left (not too unusual but fairly unlikely here) then the shareholders get a few pennies on their shares back.

Medium protection basically suggests that you are almost 100% to get your money back in full.

investors are more likely to invest if it's 'basic' protection, with a higher chance of some return in the event of the company going into administration

This won't work. If a liquidating company has $100 in player deposits and owes no other money, you can't buy shares in the company and expect to get some of the $100. The $100 liability is paid out first.

The tech that needs to run on NHS clients can't be that complex, surprised they don't just modify a Linux build or something and put that on. Would be way easier and cheaper and could make it just as intuitive to use as a tablet or something. And it would be a lot easier to roll out in-house patches to security vulnerabilities. Also it should be scaleable (so somewhat future proof) and able to run on low spec PCs.

oh yeah, that is wrong because you can be open ended on the river. So it's 1/45 * 1/44 * 4 = 1/45 * 1/11 = 1/496? 1000/496 ~ 2, so just under 0.2%?

also saw that I didn't convert probability into % in last post

[and then]

I used to like doing these.... mind you, I used to like playing poker too.

Working it out from the perspective of the guy drawing...

On the flop, 45 cards are unknown, of which 3 cards keep your dream alive.  So you need to ping one of the 3 cards out of 45 and then the case card on the river out of 44.

so 1/15 * 1/44 = 1/660, or in odds-speak, 659/1.  With no calculator, I'm not turning that into a percentage.

I also need to add something in, if the 9 hits the turn, then there are 2 possible outs now on the river. ** will come back to that a bit later!

On the river, there is simply 1 card to hit out of a possible 44, so 43/1 shot.

________________________________________________________________

Ok, re-thinking the logic, I think the easiest way is to take the 4 possible runouts ... but surely there are 1980 possible combos??  Which would make 1/495, or 494/1.

Definitely past it, in every sense of the word

0.0015%? roughly 3/2 right?

Nutmeg isn't cheap. It's essentially a basket of tracker funds that charges 0.75% with a range of risk rated portfolio's.

Ah didn't know it was a fund of funds, I've only glossed over it. Not as good as I thought (still not completely awful though)

Meanwhile, share prices in London have been on a proper roll of late - 11 winning sessions on the bounce - a record in itself - & the last 9 have all been record closing highs.

Guess that means a correction is just around the corner.

Perhaps this was the correction?

Reading this thread always makes me want to invest a few quid but I find it a bit scary. Strange really when you consider I'll happily spew a few grand a year at roulette and blackjack without batting an eyelid.

I currently have a reasonable chunk in a pension fund that's just shouting at me to get invested somewhere but I never seem to have to balls to pull the trigger. I can see me just leaving it sat in a bank account earning a steady 1% or so (effectively devaluing I know).

Any advice for a newcomer who isn't going to study the markets but might want to dip their toes in the water?

http://www.nutmeg.com is pretty good as a low fee, well diversified portfolio that isn't an index.

I sold 1/3 of my BXP position at 61p as the spread has closed to 29% and the position was getting huge. I sold my LNKD position at $195.92 as well.

Alpha Vulture has another nice AIM idea which I may buy into: https://alphavulture.com/2017/01/09/tejoori-limited-liquidating-with-a-40-discount-to-nav/

Everyone left the job after 0-3 years. Looked like every single one of the businesses is still going and in contact with Sugar.

I was very impressed with how Courtney presented and very unimpressed with Alana's presentation. Thankfully the idea came through in the end. GG

Regards

RE

Booked!

I'll do another £50 on Alana with you LD, and Alex can have £50 as well if he wants it. Let me know.

RE