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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
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Author: tedthedog   😊 😞
Number: of 21937 
Subject: Re: Boomer Candy
Date: 06/28/24 5:09 PM
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Oh, and to add to the interest: one of the earlier issuers of such 'buffer funds' is FirstTrust/Vest.
VEST is actually a marketing arm of CBOE to commercialize some of the various "mechanical option strategies" for which CBOE publishes backtests (they call these backtests 'indices")
https://www.cboe.com/us/indices/indicesproducts/

Ever want to know how a well-specified "butterfly" options strategy did back to 1993 (or whenever it was)?
A published backtest, by a trusted source, of a mechanical option strategy is in fact sort of nice, it scratches the itch.

But the backstory is that CBOE makes money via VEST by licensing (I assume it's licensing, I don't know that) a CBOE strategy to another firm like FirstTrust, who then bundles it into an ETF and sells it to you (with presumably some percentage back to CBOE, because altruism tends to get arb-ed out in finance). All the funds that I've looked at use FLEX options. FLEX options are bespoke options that are issued by CBOE after a firm like FirstTrust negotiates with them.

I'm not suggesting that these funds are bad things, but when things get fairly complicated it's good to get extremely careful.
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This community has written 21,448 posts about Berkshire Hathaway. The article-length ones it recommended most:
BRK: Why Not XOM? · 62 recs · 2024
Second quarter comments · 60 recs · 2023
Berkshire's Profit Contributors · 57 recs · 2023
Summary of 2Q 2026 · 54 recs · 2026
3Q Summary · 53 recs · 2024
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