Spekulatius

I am not a steel expert either, but I am getting concerned when managements statements and income statement don’t tell the same story. Stelco Details the impact of the steel tariffs (~13M) and it doesn’t even come close to explaining the loss in profits from slower realized prices and lower volumes. The volumes for Stelco in particular are all over the map and vary a lot from quarter to quarter and 2018 seems to have been a particular outlier and my concern would be that it’s not likely to be repeated. Nucor for example sees changes in pricing and profits too, but the volume variation are far lower than what we see with Stelco. One logical explanation for this would be that Stelco is a marginal swing producer that can only make profits when product prices are high. Perhaps there are other explanations - it could be that the tariffs caused a disruption in the market more so than the stated impact in Stelcos income statement, but then again, why didn’t Stelco earning release explain this better? In those cases, I tend to take what management says at face value.

As far as Stelco is concerned, how do you reconcile their claim being a loc cost producer with the fact they were barely profitable in Q2, which was by no means a crisis environment. Nucor, a known low cost producer was solidly profitable during the same quarter, although their price was down YoY. In my opinion, Stelco’s claim of being a low cost producer makes no sense. I like what they did with their real estate purchase, but any earnings from this sector will be swamped by changes in their main business.

It’s similar in Germany, corporate taxes aren’t much higher there than in the US. Also, health care isn’t free either, it’s paid for in taxes, which is a capped tax of 15.5%, 8.2% paid by the insured and 7.3% is paid by the employer. It’s not free by any means.

I agree with respect to Europe. It would certainly be helpful to actually have lived and worked or at least travelled there before coming to a conclusion. The mean (statistically) Joe in Germany is better of than the mean Joe in the US, that’s for sure. The averages are heavily tilted by the top 5% and those are better of in the US, than Germany or France, I give you that.

What is your take on deep OTM index puts vs deep OTM individual security puts. I won't mention names, because that could redirect the focus to specific company talk, but wouldn't it perhaps make a better setup to cherry pick the most endangered of species? We can all use our(relatively speaking) more sophisticated investing insights to basketize(I might have just made up a new word) the same general hedge trade, no? An index will never go to 0, but select securities can. I've been doing the OTM put stuff now for the past few months with pretty decent success(not to lose sight of the fact that you and others Ive noticed have been doing the same but with the index and VIX), so Im just trying to see where the greatest risk/reward setup is. Would a subjectively selected Warren basket outperform the broader index which would also include names that benefit, IE healthcare? I prefer Index puts to be on market movements (both up and down ) for two of reasons 1) index outs are cheaper and more liquid 2) in a sharp downturn, everything tends to get correlated and so the cheaper puts give you more bang for the buck and allow for better trading

You guys just need to by deep out of the money index puts. I think it’s probably a good idea at the right time. The economy is slowing down, manufacturing even in the US is already in a contraction and yet stocks are at record level, seemingly unconcerned about this and the political risk. Or perhaps buy some gold as a cash alternative in case central banks go even more bonkers than they do already.

My wife is RN. She got her degree at a community college 6 years ago as a second career. It was a pretty demanding study. At the time she was on school, there were news about nursing students from private schools getting stranded because the private schools went out of business. Admission wasn’t too bad, although there was a short waiting list because after the recession (when she started) a lot people started nursing because there were jobs available. However, the waiting list depends on the school and location. Then she had to take course to meet the requirements (Math, science etc) that many applicants did not have and struggled to obtain. The tuition itself at that community college wasn’t expensive (maybe <$1500/ semester all in including books). There were practical parts like anatomy or work with patient that can’t be done online and I wonder how online universities deal with this. Also, graduation rate is the wrong metric, the important one is accreditation rate, as an graduate needs to pass the NCLEX test in order to practition. Some private colleges were infamous for their student passing graduation , but failing NCLEX.

I bet you can, but most honest people wouldn't do that. Keep in mind though that you're effectively charging back Air BNB. Just because you charge it back doesn't mean that you don't owe money anymore. I would request a refund in a heart beat in this situation. I use Amex for most purchases where I don’t know the vendor well and they are very good about getting you your money back; a simple phone call will do. If AirBnb would throw me out so be it. My wife can sign up for a new account if I really think I need it, or I go to VRBO.

It’s probably by design. In their Q3 predetermining release, they mention 6 price cuts and a 44% reduction in storage costs this year. I presume they want to drive usage.

Oil and gas has underperformed in the US just as much as they did in Canada. Have you looked at the shale stocks in the US? I almost think if Warren would ban fracking (or try to because I only think the respective states could do so and they wouldnt) the E&P stocks would go up, because at least NG would shot up in price. It’s almost like the gun industry and Obama, which did much better under Obama than Trump. Anyways, Canada has a huge resource industry representation in the stock market and lacks high tech and that why the market has underperformed, not because of the Government in place. We probably should get back on topic and discuss bubbles or lack there off.

^ A big thanks to the authorities (Viking and Cigarbutt) for going through the earnings release. It saves me quite a bit of time. As I mentioned in the “what did you buy today” thread, I reentered FFH in a small way for a trade. I think $480-500 are possible. The results are a post I’ve surprised to me, I expected a loss in book value and they gnerwtrd a small gain. I am a bit concerned about the increased leverage (at the holding level) which in conjunction with their substantial equity holdings (as a percentage of equity) makes this quite a leveraged bet, compared to for example BRK or an insurer like RE or TRV. (RE is more of a single line insurer with large catastrophe exposure, so they have a different kind of risk).

^ Yeah, I would be careful to assign customer lifetime values to something that can be cancelled and restarted at a moments notice. This isn’t some ERP software that running a companies transactional backbone or a LT contractual lock-in. And yes, Hulu and Roku are competitors.

I don’t own NFLX, but I am customer and think neither Disney + nor Peacock is real competition. The only real competition for NFLX right now is Amazon video. It would consider NFLX as a long of they were FCF positive, but they aren’t - they use $3B in cash annually right now. They do gain a lot of customer and it is sort of understandable , since they need to pay for content upfront, but I would rather stick with business models that generate FCF and can grow at the same time. NFLX right now can’t, but I don’t think it’s a great short either. You've mentioned your concerns on MSGN, but for the sake of some Friday night chat, you have any thoughts on SBGI or FOX? Im digging around in those and they look good so far. Recent piece on CNBC(I forget exactly when) basically stated sports and live TV would soon pivot to being a desired asset to streaming co's. Those two kind of own that space. I own FOX so I obviously like it. Great balance sheet and franchise and pure live content means that Netflix is not a competitor. And there are no issue with capitalizing content so FCF ~ earnings, unlike CBS for example. Switching the delivery to live streaming may actually be a positive for FOX in the long run. Ai have no opinion on SBGI, just haven’t looked at it closely.

The bubble may not within the equity market, it’s want in the equity markets either in 2007, when valuations were actually lower than they are now. The bubble is most likely related to some lending, could be European real estate (bubble due to low or non existent interest rates ) or the whole negative yielding bond markets which are trillions of Euro in size. One could argue that this is a bigger bubble than the subprime mortgages were in 2007.

I don’t own NFLX, but I am customer and think neither Disney + nor Peacock is real competition. The only real competition for NFLX right now is Amazon video. It would consider NFLX as a long of they were FCF positive, but they aren’t - they use $3B in cash annually right now. They do gain a lot of customer and it is sort of understandable , since they need to pay for content upfront, but I would rather stick with business models that generate FCF and can grow at the same time. NFLX right now can’t, but I don’t think it’s a great short either.

Looks like one will be able to acquire PINS around the IPO price today- premarket quotes are ~$19.75 today. Stock isn’t cheap, but the market seems to overreact to an earnings release that doesn’t looks pretty good to me? Anyone else interested. I think I will put in a “stinker bid”.

So we got roughly 5000 homes (equivalent) worth 100k each, thats $500M worth total plus some oils and gas thrown in for roughly $260M right now. The $500M in expected earnings needs to be discounted for present fair value. Seems somewhat cheap, but not egregiously so.

Wondering - thanks for brining this company to our attention, I have never heard about them before. Assuming even moderate growth, the stock seems somewhat cheap. Earnings have been flattish over the last few years but cash flows seems to have improved - working capital management? Seem like downside is very limited from current prices.

Yes, the psychological or technical impact on breaking the $10 issue price is huge with SPACS. It doesn’t really help that most buyers in SPACS probably haven’t done any fundamental analysis either.

Same here.

stupid comment. if you have single class shares and pick the right guy, he stays and we all make money. if you have a single class shares and you pick the wrong guy, you can fire him and stop losing money. either way dual class shares is stupid for shareholders. I totally agree. Right guy or wrong, guy, the dual class shares make no sense.

“Fear the Sphere!” Until he drops his vanity project, I am out.

If I am losing 50% On any investment, I am clearly wrong, there no if and when. If nothing else, the timing was wrong and timing, just as well as stock selection, is a critical part of any investment process.

Hard to judge whether you were right or wrong by examining the stock price move of less than a year. I agree with Decks that when in doubt, pick quality over valuation as a heuristic, unless it is a really unique situation (bottom of an economic cycle and huge valuation differential). As for ADS vs SYC, the huge divergence in performance during the last 12 month has clearly shown who is correct or not. Personally, my pick in this sector would be DFS and maybe I restart COF (more diversified and not a pure play CC company) again.

I owned this a few years ago and at that point the volume losses were 1-2% annually, which together with pricing power made the declines manageable - now they are not. As for consolidation, strong regional players like SAM or Sierra Nevada May be in a better shape to pick up craft beer competitors than TAP, and then there are the true powerhouses like Ambev, Heineken etc. TAP is caught in the middle and seems to have nowhere to go.