How to buy a glider affordably - redux

Hi John - How are you ? How come you weren't at the Hinckley
end-of season cook-out this evening ? I bet we can move this
thread to women and soaring if we keep at it...
See ya, Dave

PS: and of course you know about our Fair Value product...

BB wrote:
It's been a long and hard-fought battle, but the prize for wandering
off topic furthest and fastest in r.a.s. history can now be awarded!
Well done!

(And, since my office is next to the guy who invented the term
"efficient markets", I can't help but thank Andy for following up on
this one.)

John Cochrane

BB wrote:
It's been a long and hard-fought battle, but the prize for wandering
off topic furthest and fastest in r.a.s. history can now be awarded!
Well done!

Now just a moment here! The subject is "How to buy a glider affordably -
redux", and that's what we've been talking about. Maybe it should of
been "How to make enough money to buy a glider that isn't affordable",
but it wasn't. Frankly, it's the Original Poster who was off topic! Or
is that what you meant? Going off topic in one posting? You know, that
is exceptional...

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

"Transponders in Sailplanes" on the Soaring Safety Foundation website
www.soaringsafety.org/prevention/articles.html

"A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

In this part of the world most gliders (UK) are syndicated
(partnerships). In fact several people at our club
are in multiple syndicates. For example one person
has shares in a Bocian, K13 and a primary. Another
has a 1/10th of a Nimbus 3dt and 1/2 an asw20. Keeps
the cost down and the utilisation up.

If you find a partner with a different lifestyle it
helps. for example a 9-5 person and someone who works
shifts such as an airline pilot or retired.

Incidentally I was sat at a table outside our club
drinking tea today and noticed I was in company with
a junior world champion, 18m world champion, ex club
class world champion, the chairman of the BGA and two
ex british team members. How cool is that!
Nigel
Nigel

On Oct 29, 12:00 pm, Nigel Pocock
wrote:
In this part of the world most gliders (UK) are syndicated
(partnerships). In fact several people at our club
are in multiple syndicates. For example one person
has shares in a Bocian, K13 and a primary. Another
has a 1/10th of a Nimbus 3dt and 1/2 an asw20. Keeps
the cost down and the utilisation up.

If you find a partner with a different lifestyle it
helps. for example a 9-5 person and someone who works
shifts such as an airline pilot or retired.

Incidentally I was sat at a table outside our club
drinking tea today and noticed I was in company with
a junior world champion, 18m world champion, ex club
class world champion, the chairman of the BGA and two
ex british team members. How cool is that!
Nigel
Nigel

So cool you all have to sit around drinking tea instead of flying?

Mike



Incidentally I was sat at a table outside our club
drinking tea today and noticed I was in company with
a junior world champion, 18m world champion, ex club
class world champion, the chairman of the BGA and two
ex british team members. How cool is that!
Nigel
Nigel

At 08:18 29 October 2006, Tony wrote:
yea no kidding, the original post had nothing to do
with gliders. he
was trying to work some stock or money market system
or something.
most of those schreders are going for 3-4 times what
i payed for my
cherokee with an enclosed trailer. just remember,
if youve got enough
glider to make it back to the airport, you probably
could have gone at
least a third longer distance if you wouldve just kept
going downwind!

i bought my glider to avoid having to share gliders
with people (a'la
club) call me selfish but i like having my own ship
to go cross
country when and where i want. Ill keep a partner
in bed and that is
all.


You guys need to read more than the subject line...

My post referred back to a post a year ago where someone
asked if he had a new glider on order with a delivery
a year out what was the best thing to do with his money.

It ended up in a bet between a few of us and Tom Seim
who made a prediction about the performance of the
Fidelity ContraFund versus the broad market and Euro/$
exchange rates. His suggestion was to keep you money
in dollars and invest in the ContraFund. Turned out
to be bad advice. My post was to close the loop on
that bet.

BB is right - it went way off topic in the 2nd reply
and never came back. Unless you consider spouting about
anything vaguely related to the subject line as 'on
topic'. How it morphed into Cherokees and patnerships
and motorgliders is a testament to short attention
spans.

9B

Andy Blackburn wrote:
At 08:18 29 October 2006, Tony wrote:
yea no kidding, the original post had nothing to do
with gliders. he
was trying to work some stock or money market system
or something.
most of those schreders are going for 3-4 times what
i payed for my
cherokee with an enclosed trailer. just remember,
if youve got enough
glider to make it back to the airport, you probably
could have gone at
least a third longer distance if you wouldve just kept
going downwind!

i bought my glider to avoid having to share gliders
with people (a'la
club) call me selfish but i like having my own ship
to go cross
country when and where i want. Ill keep a partner
in bed and that is
all.


You guys need to read more than the subject line...

My post referred back to a post a year ago where someone
asked if he had a new glider on order with a delivery
a year out what was the best thing to do with his money.

It ended up in a bet between a few of us and Tom Seim
who made a prediction about the performance of the
Fidelity ContraFund versus the broad market and Euro/$
exchange rates. His suggestion was to keep you money
in dollars and invest in the ContraFund. Turned out
to be bad advice. My post was to close the loop on
that bet.

Andy,

You better go back and reread your post yourself. There was never any
mention of a "bet". Quite the contrary, I commented on your complete
lack of any recommendations whatsoever. The only thing you recommended
was to (maybe) order the glider and take a currency hedge position,
which will be useless to your average investor. Mainly, you criticized
mutual fund newsletters, but offered up no alternative.

Go back to Nov 15, 2004 and reread my ORIGINAL post:

Yes, invest your money and wait. For instance, if you put your money
in a high quality mutual fund you will begin accumulating principal.
Take your $70,000 and put in a Morningstar 5-star fund (i.e. Fidelity
Contrafund). If you average 15% return the numbers a
Year Amount
0 $70000
1 80500
2 92575
3 106461
4 122430
5 140795
6 161914
etc.

At some point the price of the glider, converted from euros, is going
to be less than your investment. BUY THE GLIDER! This is, simply, the
power of compounded interest.


Don't agree with my numbers? Then put your damn money into a mattress
and see what happens!

--------------

Since then (Nov 2004) the ContraFund has gained 35% vs 22% for the S&P
500. This is a compound rate of return over 16%. Personally, I am VERY
pleased with that performance. If you left it in 3 month Tresury bills
(the present day version of the matress) you might have gottern 8%.
The Euro has dropped from 1.2933 to 1.273 in the same period (despite
one prediction on RAS that it would go to 1.35!). So the advice was
excellent by any reasonable measure. Picking apart performance
differences over a short time period (6 months) demonstrates an
appalling lack of understanding on how markets work. This is, indeed,
very bad advice.

Tom

At 18:36 31 October 2006, wrote:

Andy,

You better go back and reread your post yourself. There
was never any
mention of a 'bet'. Quite the contrary, I commented
on your complete
lack of any recommendations whatsoever. The only thing
you recommended
was to (maybe) order the glider and take a currency
hedge position,
which will be useless to your average investor. Mainly,
you criticized
mutual fund newsletters, but offered up no alternative.

Go back to Nov 15, 2004 and reread my ORIGINAL post:

Yes, invest your money and wait. For instance, if you
put your money
in a high quality mutual fund you will begin accumulating
principal.
Take your $70,000 and put in a Morningstar 5-star fund
(i.e. Fidelity
Contrafund). If you average 15% return the numbers
a
Year Amount
0 $70000
1 80500
2 92575
3 106461
4 122430
5 140795
6 161914
etc.

At some point the price of the glider, converted from
euros, is going
to be less than your investment. BUY THE GLIDER! This
is, simply, the
power of compounded interest.


Don't agree with my numbers? Then put your damn money
into a mattress
and see what happens!

--------------

Since then (Nov 2004) the ContraFund has gained 35%
vs 22% for the S&P
500. This is a compound rate of return over 16%. Personally,
I am VERY
pleased with that performance. If you left it in 3
month Tresury bills
(the present day version of the matress) you might
have gottern 8%.
The Euro has dropped from 1.2933 to 1.273 in the same
period (despite
one prediction on RAS that it would go to 1.35!). So
the advice was
excellent by any reasonable measure. Picking apart
performance
differences over a short time period (6 months) demonstrates
an
appalling lack of understanding on how markets work.
This is, indeed,
very bad advice.

Tom


Hey Tom,

Glad to see you haven't lost your fiestiness. ;-)

Ad hominem arguments notwithstanding...

Since the question was what should someone contemplating
a new glider purchase in November 2005 do, I find it
an interesting strategy to suggest that they go back
in time to invest their money. That is a classic symptom
of chasing past returns. Where do you keep your time
machine?

You are right, I did not mention a specific Euro hedging
strategy, but the most aggressive would be to buy all
Euros and invest in a local currency index like the
DAX. You could put any mix of dollars in an S&P 500
index and Euros in the DAX and it would have outperformed
a dollars/ContraFund strategy.

Most of us are long term buy and hold, so I don't know
where you get the idea that we are not. I have a mix
of index and actively managed accounts (mostly hedge
funds and internaltional markets for the latter). Looking
back 5+ years the ContraFund had done better that the
broad market - not a point in dispute. The question
is what will it do going forward? That is the question
confronting an investor today. Since our discussion
started a year ago, it defies reason to assume returns
from prior to November 2005.

I also agree that 12 months is short to judge the success
of an investment strategy - so maybe we should renew
the 'non-bet' for another year, 2-years? How long
would ContraFund need to underperform before it loses
its luster for you? Do you somehow think that its 5-year
history before 2006 guarantees that ContraFund will
out-perform a broad index (by more than its 1% load)?
Unless you have some insight into WHY a fund has outperformed
in the past and some evidence that that specific strategy
will continue to hold up, just picking top quartile
funds or managers over any period IS the definition
of chasing past returns - you can look it up. Oh, but
you don't read textbooks - that's for egghead professors
who don't understand real investing.

I admire your courage to keep shooting in the face
of mounting losses and I'm glad you haven't gone offline
- it would have spoiled the fun.

;-)

9B

Andy Blackburn wrote:
At 18:36 31 October 2006, wrote:

Andy,

You better go back and reread your post yourself. There
was never any
mention of a 'bet'. Quite the contrary, I commented
on your complete
lack of any recommendations whatsoever. The only thing
you recommended
was to (maybe) order the glider and take a currency
hedge position,
which will be useless to your average investor. Mainly,
you criticized
mutual fund newsletters, but offered up no alternative.

Go back to Nov 15, 2004 and reread my ORIGINAL post:

Yes, invest your money and wait. For instance, if you
put your money
in a high quality mutual fund you will begin accumulating
principal.
Take your $70,000 and put in a Morningstar 5-star fund
(i.e. Fidelity
Contrafund). If you average 15% return the numbers
a
Year Amount
0 $70000
1 80500
2 92575
3 106461
4 122430
5 140795
6 161914
etc.

At some point the price of the glider, converted from
euros, is going
to be less than your investment. BUY THE GLIDER! This
is, simply, the
power of compounded interest.


Don't agree with my numbers? Then put your damn money
into a mattress
and see what happens!

--------------

Since then (Nov 2004) the ContraFund has gained 35%
vs 22% for the S&P
500. This is a compound rate of return over 16%. Personally,
I am VERY
pleased with that performance. If you left it in 3
month Tresury bills
(the present day version of the matress) you might
have gottern 8%.
The Euro has dropped from 1.2933 to 1.273 in the same
period (despite
one prediction on RAS that it would go to 1.35!). So
the advice was
excellent by any reasonable measure. Picking apart
performance
differences over a short time period (6 months) demonstrates
an
appalling lack of understanding on how markets work.
This is, indeed,
very bad advice.

Tom


Hey Tom,

Glad to see you haven't lost your fiestiness. ;-)

Ad hominem arguments notwithstanding...

Since the question was what should someone contemplating
a new glider purchase in November 2005 do, I find it
an interesting strategy to suggest that they go back
in time to invest their money. That is a classic symptom
of chasing past returns. Where do you keep your time
machine?

You are right, I did not mention a specific Euro hedging
strategy, but the most aggressive would be to buy all
Euros and invest in a local currency index like the
DAX. You could put any mix of dollars in an S&P 500
index and Euros in the DAX and it would have outperformed
a dollars/ContraFund strategy.

Most of us are long term buy and hold, so I don't know
where you get the idea that we are not. I have a mix
of index and actively managed accounts (mostly hedge
funds and internaltional markets for the latter). Looking
back 5+ years the ContraFund had done better that the
broad market - not a point in dispute. The question
is what will it do going forward? That is the question
confronting an investor today. Since our discussion
started a year ago, it defies reason to assume returns
from prior to November 2005.

I also agree that 12 months is short to judge the success
of an investment strategy - so maybe we should renew
the 'non-bet' for another year, 2-years? How long
would ContraFund need to underperform before it loses
its luster for you? Do you somehow think that its 5-year
history before 2006 guarantees that ContraFund will
out-perform a broad index (by more than its 1% load)?
Unless you have some insight into WHY a fund has outperformed
in the past and some evidence that that specific strategy
will continue to hold up, just picking top quartile
funds or managers over any period IS the definition
of chasing past returns - you can look it up. Oh, but
you don't read textbooks - that's for egghead professors
who don't understand real investing.


The original Nov 2004 post was in response to "How do I buy a glider
affordably", not what the best investment strategy is. I pointed out
the option of investing and waiting. Judging that these were not
sophisticated investers I suggested top ranked funds such as the
ContraFund, which has an undeniable excellent long term track record.
After 2 years that strategy WORKED! The ContraFund is up 35% and you
could go ahead and buy your glider. You seem to be arguing with
success. What part of 35% don't you like?

Contrary to your continued accusal that I am "chasing returns", I
recommended a fund that ISN'T at the top of the return list, but has
CONSISTENT LONG TERM returns. If you pick funds based SOLEY on their
near-term performance you will inevitably get into funds that just get
lucky and have a single good quarter.

There is nothing wrong with investing in an index - I do it myself on
sector investing. The good thing about investing in a broad market
index is that you are guaranteed of getting the market performance.
This is not a bad thing since too many individual investors buy high
and sell low.

I admire your courage to keep shooting in the face
of mounting losses and I'm glad you haven't gone offline
- it would have spoiled the fun.

Mounting LOSSES? Where have I lost anything? Oh, you must think that
under performing an index is a loss! How NOVEL! Perhaps you should
reread my first post on this thread: I have trimmed my holdings in the
ContraFund, but still hold it. And, by the way, my TOTAL portfolio
return for the last 12 months is 18%, how are you doing?

The part about the text books. That is called an "ad hominem" attack.
Look it up on Google - it is an irrelevent personal attack that has
nothing to do with the issue at hand. How do you know what text books I
have read? The answer is you don't.

Tom

At 08:18 29 October 2006, Tony wrote:
yea no kidding, the original post had nothing to do
with gliders. he
was trying to work some stock or money market system
or something.
most of those schreders are going for 3-4 times what
i payed for my
cherokee with an enclosed trailer. just remember,
if youve got enough
glider to make it back to the airport, you probably
could have gone at
least a third longer distance if you wouldve just kept
going downwind!

i bought my glider to avoid having to share gliders
with people (a'la
club) call me selfish but i like having my own ship
to go cross
country when and where i want. Ill keep a partner
in bed and that is
all.


You guys need to read more than the subject line...

My post referred back to a post a year ago where someone
asked if he had a new glider on order with a delivery
a year out what was the best thing to do with his money.

It ended up in a bet between a few of us and Tom Seim
who made a prediction about the performance of the
Fidelity ContraFund versus the broad market and Euro/$
exchange rates. His suggestion was to keep you money
in dollars and invest in the ContraFund. Turned out
to be bad advice. My post was to close the loop on
that bet.

BB is right - it went way off topic in the 2nd reply
and never came back. Unless you consider spouting about
anything vaguely related to the subject line as 'on
topic'. How it morphed into Cherokees and patnerships
and motorgliders is a testament to short attention
spans.

9B