Wanted: Humble Investment Experts

Goldman Sachs back 8-10 years ago charged ahead with superior profits and assembled a super duper hedge fund team led by Mark Carhart. They called themselves the Global Alpha team, sounds so Fantastic Four like.  If you are Mark Cahart, you almost have it all your way for most of your life. Mark Carhart looks out over the packed New York conference back in 2005 and tells investors that Warren Buffett has it all wrong. Carhart, 40 then, co-head of the quantitative strategies group at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., uses his July speech to poke fun at Warren's penchant for investing in market-leading brands like Coca-Cola and Gillette. He cites...

Read More

Why Parents Shouldn't SMS

...

Read More

The Amount of Fraud in Ontario

The Auto Insurance Anti-Fraud Task Force delivered a Status Update to the government on July 23, 2012. I will be providing a review of the report on this blog. Today I will review the Task Force's efforts to estimate the amount of fraud in Ontario.At the time of the Interim Report the Task Force was not sufficiently informed to make a quantitative estimate of the extent of auto insurance fraud in Ontario. It did conclude that the figure of $1.3 billion that has been used to describe the cost of auto insurance fraud in Ontario for some time cannot be considered a verifiable measure of the current extent of fraud. Although not able to measure the extent of fraud, the Interim Report conceptually defined auto insurance fraud in three categories: Organized Fraud: several...

Read More

The Equaliser - Important Insights For Coffee Shop Talk

Casual conversations can sometimes elicit the roll of our eyes, and sometimes I have to stop myself wanting to explain an investing issue further among friends as it could drag on and on. However, when you can add logic and persuasion into an investing issue, we musn't be stingy. There are again two types of people in the world when it comes to knowledge and information dissemination. Group one are those who will try and get by by hoarding as much knowledge and information for their advantage (what the rest don't know would benefit me, I have leverage and the edge). Group one are also those who are likely to "lord...

Read More

How To Hire Well

Put about 100 bricks in some particular order in a closed room with an open window. Then send 2 or 3 candidates in the room and close the door. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours and then analyze the situation. If they are counting the bricks.Put them in the census taking department or the estimator for the number who turned out for Bersih.If they are recounting them.Put them as returning officers for election votes.If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks.Put them in MCA.If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order.Put them in Pemandu.If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put them in MIC.If they are sleeping. Put them in civil service.If they have broken the bricks into pieces. Put them in ETP Tender Committee. If they are sitting...

Read More

Proposed Regulatory Model For Healthcare and Assessment Facilities

The Auto Insurance Anti-Fraud Task Force delivered a status update today to the government. I will be providing a review of the report on this blog over the next week. Today I will review a proposed model for regulating healthcare and assessment facilities that operate in the Ontario auto insurance sector.I worked on the model on behalf of the Task Force and hope that readers of this blog take the time to review it and provide the Task Force with feedback.The proposed regulatory model is intended to: Create barriers for healthcare/assessment facilities that wish to practice in the Ontario auto insurance system based on a "fit and proper" test.Sanction participants for fraudulent acts including denying the ability to operate in the Ontario auto insurance sector.Evolve HCAI into a regulatory...

Read More

Remi Gaillard's Funny Videos

He is creative and funny. He uses real life situations and basically inserts his own wackiness into that situation. Good stuff.The first one sees him at a tennis exhibition match between Yannick Noah and Henri Leconte. He basically psyches himself up to go down to court and just wants to play a point or two with them. Great guts.Its to create the Tour de France dream for normal people, and on a normal Sunday, he spots casual riders on their own and creates a scenario as if these people are about to cross the finishing line of a major cycling event. Tons of extras.This is a brilliant spoof of Rocky, self explanatory. Sometimes we just need to not take things so seriously, have a laugh or two, life is hard enou...

Read More

Its Friday

...

Read More

Ontario Appeals Court upholds large non-economic loss award decision for young children who lost their mother

Ontario's top court has upheld a jury award of more than 100-thousand dollars to each of two young children for the loss of their mother in a car crash. The Appeal Court says the amounts may have been high but were still reasonable. The case involved the death of 30-year-old Michelle Vokes, who was killed when her minivan was demolished by a car driven by Randy Palmer six years ago in Owen Sound, Ontario. Palmer was driving as fast as 120 kilometres an hour in a 50 zone when he slammed into Vokes.The awards of $135,000 to the then-three-year-old daughter and $1117,000 to the then-five-year-old daughter $117,000 for the loss of care, guidance and companionship of their mother set new benchmarks. The previous high award to a child who lost a parent in Ontario, $65,000, was awarded...

Read More

An Excellent Health & Beauty Blog

It is so hard to start a blog, do you have something to share, will you be able to post regularly, will you run out of things to say after a few weeks? I think 90% of all blogs close within 6 months, most will just give up. It takes passion but also a desire to share something. If it is just an ego trip, you will also tire of it easily as it takes a couple of years to build traffic.I have know Fui Ping for a while. I know of her blog and have been reading it for some time. Its an excellent health and beauty blog. She takes care in research and uses the blog as a platform to sell some of the more effective products as well. This is obviously not...

Read More

Inconsiderate Malaysians

Thanks for all the comments on rude Malaysians. I do agree, we can rid of most of the problems if we have strict enforcement and no bribing, much like Singapore. That will certainly cure the bad behaviour but it does not change the very make up of the person. Malaysians are generally the nicest people when you go to their homes, they make you feel welcomed. They offer you drinks and food even though you have obviously just eaten. They are the most gracious hosts. If you come into my circle of intimacy or closeness, be they family, friends of my kids, friends of my family ... and I have been introduced to you - we certainly treat you much better.One of the issues lie with our neighbourliness. We sometimes rubbish some Western society for being overly friendly in striking up conversations...

Read More

Why We So Like Dat?

...

Read More

US Healthcare Index Breaching All Time Highs

This is an indication of how IHH is being viewed by global market players.Health Care is breaking out to new all-time highs. The S&P 500 Health Care Index is breaking out to new all-time highs above the December 2000 high near 445. Unlike the S&P 500, which is 14%-15% below its all-time high of 1576, Health Care is breaking through the upper end of its 11-to-12-year trading range and has the potential to establish a new secular bull market trend. Health Care joins Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples as the only three sectors to reach new all-time highs in 2012. Prior to that, Health Care broke above...

Read More

Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs Auto Insurance Hearings - Day 3

The following are summaries of presentations made on July 10, 2012.Ontario Trial Lawyers AssociationAndrew MurrayOn the issue of catastrophic impairment changes the perspective that I have to offer is from my review and summary of the freedom-of-information data.We’ve heard the superintendent and from Minister Duncan comment that it’s all about science and getting the medical science right. When you take a look at the minutes from the expert panel group and some of their weekly commentary, which is not information that was ever disclosed publicly—it’s clear that it’s much more vague than how it has been presented in terms of this being a consensus viewpoint, certainly in terms of this all just being about the science.Almost all of the panel members made comments, initially,...

Read More