Subject: Re: Beating the SPX
Mark, I couldn't agree more. Fidelity is a great house to park my stuff, as well as at Schwab for my 401k, but every time I have that yearly checkup where he is required to make the call, I feel a bit uneasy. He usually begins by offering the casual compliment as to how well I've been doing vs the index with my tactical acquisitions of BRK over the last few decades (basically, I'm a buy and add, and buy and hold kinda guy). I call that seductive praise the Fidelity setup pitch'could either be a change-up, slider or curveball. Next comes the sneaky high cheese up and in the zone. That is, the conversations kinda goes like this: 'But Ray, I can turbocharge your return a bit more I think and put you in a few good dividend stocks with excellent yields which will hold their own for years to come. I'd like to also suggest reevaluating your over concentration in Berkshire. Warren is good but have you seriously considered successorship issues?' My first retort is, 'but I don't need the income on dividend stocks, nor do I want to add to an already high tax burden in retirement!' Then I ask him, as a proposed incentive, if he would be willing to pay off the millions of dollars in taxes from the embedded gains and the interest free loan I'm getting from the IRS, if I were to liquidate my Berkshire and turn over the proceeds to him?' That usually shuts him up. 'Thanks for calling, but I'll talk to you in another year when you're obligated to check in on my financial health again.' 😉 😂