LC

Thoughts on competition from cheaper producers (mostly foreign e.g. tp-link)? Ubiquiti makes great products. And I think from an investment perspective they are attractive in certain lights (crackdown on Chinese networking gear, for example). But ultimately how do you get comfortable paying 35-40x earnings for a networking hardware producer? That is what is keeping me from dipping toes in.

Lot of reduction in financials. And interestingly, bought barrick gold.

401ks are all SP500

Good help is hard to find. A tale as old as time.

The big difference is selling for competitive reasons (his BOA stake) vs selling for impairment reasons. We will likely never know the answer. Everything else is conjecture. The best we can do (IMO) is judge the bank on its merits and ignore WB's activity.

It is on my mind as well, Omm I think he sold out. As to the reasons why, I have no answers. For clarity, WFC is a 3-4% position for me, BRK is a 10% position.

Welcome to the club of 5 folks here invested in tobacco. We're always craving the next dividend hit and afraid of cancerous price movement.

Oh they're absolutely lower - for sure. And hopefully every other state in the USA stays well below NY's peak. Texas, Florida etc. all have the benefit of (1) three months of preparedness vs NY, and (2) much, much lower population densities. What is despairing is that despite these two significant advantages, Texas still suffered a brutal July. I attribute this to a portion of Texans simply not giving a damn, which is tragic.

That's quite the claim. For something so obvious, I'm sure you'll have no trouble providing us with the evidence. Perhaps, but at what cost? Texans have been travelling to neighboring states over those weeks to escape such onerous requirements. Somewhere between 5-10k Texans died from COVID in the past few weeks. I guess these are necessary sacrifices to the COVID-god, so the rest of Texas can drink in air-conditioned bars without wearing a face mask. There have been 8K TOTAL covid related deaths in TX since this whole thing started. That is simply not true. What was the "law" that it requires more effort to refute bullshit than it is to generate it? Here is what I said: Somewhere between 5-10k Texans died from COVID in the past few weeks Here is the data: Note: As of today, the most recent weekly excess mortality report for Texas is dated July 25. WE 7/25: 1316 excess deaths (this week's reporting is still in progress i.e. the number here is under-reported) WE 7/18: 2274 excess deaths WE 7/11: 1948 excess deaths WE 7/4: 1227 excess deaths Total for July is about 7k COVID deaths.

That's quite the claim. For something so obvious, I'm sure you'll have no trouble providing us with the evidence. Perhaps, but at what cost? Texans have been travelling to neighboring states over those weeks to escape such onerous requirements. Somewhere between 5-10k Texans died from COVID in the past few weeks. I guess these are necessary sacrifices to the COVID-god, so the rest of Texas can drink in air-conditioned bars without wearing a face mask.

Not in the past few weeks! Otherwise, you'll get no argument from me about how bad New Jersey is. In fact as a New Yorker, I'd be happy to contribute a few lines if you'd like...shall we start with the smell? ;D

How right you are! 10,000 or so (I just eyeballed it) people died from COVID in Az & Tx over the past few weeks. Morgue capacity is probably more necessary at this point.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/losing-money-is-a-winning-pandemic-tax-strategy-for-some-companies-11596879000?mod=hp_lead_pos5 There’s a simple rule for corporate tax planning in 2020: If you’re going to lose money, lose a lot of money. That’s because companies can now use losses incurred before and during the pandemic to offset up to five years of past profits. What makes this moment particularly attractive: Congress is letting companies get refunds of taxes they paid at the 35% corporate rate that existed before 2018 rather than at today’s 21% rate. Companies can generate big losses now by packing deductions into 2020 and pushing income into the future. Nearly two dozen large publicly traded companies are already reporting more than $2 billion in combined tax benefits using this rate arbitrage, according to a review of securities filings. Tax advisers and experts expect more soon.

A novel use of sewage testing to track coronavirus density:

Just FYI - all contributions to your Roth IRAs can be withdrawn at any time, free of charge. Assuming you need $150k for the 20% down pmt: 5 years of roth contributions (12k/year) = 60k Non-retirement savings = 20k Now you only need to come up with 70k. I assume the current funds in your Roths are part contributions/part investment gains So you can withdraw all your Roth contributions; any excess you can take a loan out against your first home. Also, you can defer less and still contribute to the Roths - i.e. backdoor Roth contribution (contribute to a regular IRA, then "convert" this to a Roth by paying taxes on the contributions). This gets around the income limits for the Roth.

Yeah this is very surprising given how much he was talking about the Great Depression. He talks to Gates frequently. Gates initially thought 5 years of doom. Now Gates has changed his mind about it and thinks rich countries will be done with virus issue by the end of 2021. Range of outcome has become narrower. I am just speculating here. I agree with this

Curious where you've seen 'severity falling?' Awesome news if so. I'd read that it was unlikely for this virus to mutate/change too quickly (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7) I meant "severity is falling" in regards to Portugal, as corroborated by this post: https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/coronavirus/msg425878/#msg425878 No comment on the virus's severity, I am certainly not qualified to opine on that.

Congratulations, you have exhibited exactly why one needs to use data to inform and derive knowledge, rather than blindly follow.

Sure but that trend continues until it doesn't, or at least that is my view of the market's perception. Why else are yields so high on these companies? I don't think regulatory risk can account for such wide discounts to the market. As for 18x earnings, I'd attribute that to the market's rosy perception of smokeless products which at the time were the new hype. Obviously that is now muted, at least in the US. Do we have a chart of the average trading P/E range over the past 10,15 years? I think that would be interesting to look at. But I think the main point is investors don't require multiple expansion here. I could understand these companies trading at a constant discount-to-market due to constant threat of losing their pricing power coupled with continued volume declines. But, even in that case you are still doing OK because of the dividend. Heads I win, Tails I don't lose, is how I think of it. And in that case I want to own the company in the industry with the slowest volume declines/premium product.

The cigarette companies all look attractive (esp. relative to this market) on earnings, FCF, etc. yields. Some more than others, but when the average SP500 company is trading at 20x, 25x earnings, I'd rather buy higher quality @ 11x earnings vs. lower quality @ 9x earnings. It's another way of saying that the market's expectations of future volume declines is (IMO) the biggest reason these appear so cheap.

As a Portuguese I can say there was a huge heat wave last month and even though I drank more water than ever I still was dehidrated. Old people tend to dye a lot in this circumpstances. Also the lockdown delayed other diseases management, so we will also have increased mortality for that reason. COVID is under Control except for some places in lisbon and even there it has been falling. We do have mandatory masks in indoor places...until recently there were no covid patients in our local ICU for over 2 months. Interesting, thank you for providing the context. I would imagine dehydration/weather-related items are (partially) controlled for when computing baseline weekly death rates - but as you mention if there are other medical emergencies which were delayed due to COVID, that would not be controlled for. Actually, I was going to ask, "If there is a boardmember in Portugal or Spain..." but I mistakenly assumed there was not. Thank you for correcting my misconception! ;D

Looks like there was some abnormal excess mortality in Portugal & Spain, based on Euromomo. However these statistics lag by aprox 2 weeks. Recent reports indicate COVID severity is falling: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-portugal/portugal-reports-no-coronavirus-deaths-for-first-time-since-march-idUSKCN24Z1VB

https://investors.ironmountain.com/news-and-events/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/Iron-Mountain-Reports-Second-Quarter-2020-Results/default.aspx Q2 2020 results Storage revenue 1% increase Service revenue 21% decrease

Who is selling I wonder

Oh buddy, if you know the instapot moves... :)