LC

Good question and I am not entirely sure. IMO marlboro is a premium positioned cigarette product (in USA). My impression is the social stigma of smoking is less severe in other countries.

That is my fear and the reason I shifted to PM. The volume drops are quite severe at MO - and while I know that the big urban centers can afford $10+ packs of cigarettes, I am less confident about the rest of the country.

@ Investor20: On Japan: https://www.tokyoreview.net/2020/05/time-to-give-japan-credit-for-its-covid-19-response/ Sounds to me like (1) Japan was better prepared by having a more resilient healthcare system and (2) they took the situation much more seriously at the nascent stages. I know you'd like to copy Japan's response, but this would seem to require instituting a more socialized healthcare system, increase funding to federal disease groups (and staffing them with competent leaders), and go back in time to February to have Trump's original stance on coronavirus do a complete 180.

Nah, Willard is simply a true failure of a CEO - the worst example of the executive class. He should be ashamed of himself TBH. The BoD should've taken him out back and put him out of his misery.

This is interesting. Is this due to widespread testing or the virus spreading? Need to take measures of global testing capacity into account, but interesting nonetheless.

Yes particularly as the company grows (and investors start foaming at the mouth) the IR & Marketing decks go into overdrive bullshit mode. Need to find the nerds on stackexchange, ycombinator, etc. eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19367119 I'm looking at Akamai as well.

You need to update your signature with your updated holdings :) Done! But I warn you keeping track of my holdings is a depressing activity :D Cloudflare is one of those companies that I used myself a few times. Industry-opinion is good, product is good, I have heard it described as "there is fast becoming no real good alternative". So great product but economics-wise, I mean you can see the financials for yourself. But I think they have a decent shot at sustainable organic growth or as an acquisition target. I think unlike a lot of the tech-bro stocks out there, in my very humble opinion they actually deliver value. Right now I am just nibbling at it as I do more research and understand the business and competitive landscape more. And need to see how the economics play out over a bit. Livenation is a bit more well-understood so not much additional to say there. IMHO a good business, just temporarily depressed due to COVID of course.

What keeps you invested in MO vs PM? Just curious.

@ dpetrescu Thanks for posting - I used to work with architects / PMs/ code consultants in another life...I own a little SST but need to look closer at the software and digitization that you mention. Re SST - custom printed fasteners are a near-zero probability. For 1) simpson products are proven and 2) most large builders use predefined plans which are centered around existing materials and material designs. Large scale builders will not be customizing homes to the extent that special ties are needed. Re digitization - our expediters back in the day digitized most of NYC from the project side. And I'm pretty sure we worked with the DOB to digitize their systems such that builders could electronically submit documentation. However this is kind of a one-time deal, right? Are you aware of anyone who is paid by the local government to manage these systems? I am not but I think that would be an excellent business.

Bought some more Cloudflare

I've followed the thread lightly over the years and yes valuation methodology has been discussed in the past, was wondering if your perspective has changed in the recent year or so.

Purple state problems: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/waffle-house-shooter-was-told-wear-mask-colorado-police-say-n1210951

You'll have to create another topic for it then. 8) Create a new... TOPICUS 8) :-X Incredible how a history of years of quality contribution....can be evaporated in one comment. ;D More to the point. I want to own CSU. How do you suggest thinking about valuation? Obviously it is very acquisition heavy. Do we have a sense of how acquired companies are performing over time? I think the software roll up biz is a good one. Also one other item is, how do you think about Leonard's age in terms of key man risk?

Florida allegedly manipulating COVID data. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/19/florida-covid-19-coronavirus-data-researcher-out-state-reopens/5218897002/

It’s about the content. Mitt Romney has been critical of Trump’s COVID response - rightly so IMO.

Cheers buddy, enjoy the new gig! Hopefully the compliance requirements are not too burdensome. ;D

No, it's Trump's job to keep the virus from spreading in the USA. Considering he failed in that regards, is he going to write a similar letter to himself? Actually I would argue the only one's brains turning to mush are those who cannot support their position with fact and consistent logic. And to characterize valid criticism with "you just hate the guy and it's turning your brain to mush" is similarly asinine. For example, both Trump and the WHO failed in their respective roles, and for largely the same reasons. Yet Trump wants it both ways: to criticize the WHO and not be criticized himself. This is logically inconsistent, and if one refuses to acknowledge this, well then they can refer to your comment on brain mush.

To echo and perhaps expand on winjitsu's point: This is the key point, isn't it? A couple of questions: 1) For most moat-y businesses, do they have to pay their customers to choose their business? 2) For the ones which do, in fact, pay their customers (perhaps just initially) - what do those businesses look like? In my opinion, for (1) most moat-y businesses do not need to be acquired. You are offering something so special that competition is limited. Either you have some special process to offer sustainably lower costs (i.e. best commodity producer) or you are so differentiated that you are offering a special product (brands, etc.) Now, yes there are some businesses where you pay to acquire. The question then becomes, which are successful, and why? I would argue therefore the response to (2) is that you are building yourself into long-term customer processes, with high switching costs/specialized service, and a high natural relationship length. It becomes uneconomical to pay for customers if they can just hop to a competitor (low switching costs) in a month (low relationship length). My problem with the VC world (and perhaps I am wrong) is that they over-estimate their competitive advantages. I am sorry, but food delivery is not a competitive advantage. And access to capital is almost never a competitive advantage. Real competitive advantages come from high skilled activities at least in most cases.

The President who didn't fill the US seat at the WHO, and who now claims the US has less influence than China at the WHO? The one who loudly praised the Chinese handling of the virus on Twitter in late January? Who ignored US Intelligence warnings about the virus? And now blames the WHO as part of a CYA compaign that includes blaming the governors for the US's stay-at-home response? Right... nice to see all of that. Didn't Trump and his administration make many of the mistakes he is criticizing WHO for? Reminds me of this Canadian classic:

From what little I've gathered, Youtube's policy is best described, "Anything you post that causes us a headache will get deleted and we'll make up the reason afterwards"

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262316/doordash-pizza-profits-venture-capital-the-margins-ranjan-roy

Spek, I agree particularly with the 2nd paragraph. We are seeing tragic recklessness from our politicians. Partly I think they get around and groupthink, “well printing money worked in 2009/10, it should work now too!” Without analyzing the differences in scenarios. That’s my 2 cents at least.

This needs to be overlaid with reported cases (particularly now that testing is more available) to be truly useful.

I think you're being generous. What exactly is the value added here? Predicting the weather so the freight tanker with your shipment can sprout wings and fly around the storm? Is MSFT going to monitor police radio frequencies in real time to divert Fedex trucks away from roving stagecoach bandits? Will delays at the super-hub in Memphis cause Fedex re-route your package from LA to NY through Bangalore? I am being a bit facetious, but I agree it reads like normal corporate-synergy snake oil nonsense.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/18/softbank-ceo-calls-wework-investment-foolish-valuation-falls-to-2point9-billion.html Need to remove the "5" from this thread's title ;D