Xmas reading, asset allocation, and how much gold?

Down in the bottom right hand corner of this blog, I keep a list of Interesting People.  Generally, what qualifies someone as sufficiently interesting to make the list is that they have published a collection of works that are worth reading.  Someone that I recently added to the list is Michael Mauboussin.  He has written some interesting articles in the investing game theory space, and a particularly relevant article on the importance of position sizing (asset allocation) in investing called Size Matters.

The point of that article is that, just because you have a strategy with a positive expectation value, doesn't mean that you should go all in on your first bet.  You might lose, and then you'd have nothing.  Clearly, this is not the best way to play a game that, in theory, gives you an edge and should allow you play profitably over the long term.

ASX Investor Hour with Jim Berg

Once a month, the ASX run lunch time investor hour seminars in each capital city in Australia, and occasionally, they are worth going to.  Today's was called "When you should reinvest and how you should do it" by Jim Berg, and it sounded interesting enough, so I went along.

Before hand though, I checked out his website, and this made me somewhat skeptical of the seminar.  Basically, I figured it was going to be a sales pitch, and sure enough, his book was on sale as I entered the foyer and for $30 a month I could subscribe to his newsletter.

Still, I took some notes, so here goes: