Spekulatius

I think the investment is done now more in nonpublic startup companies or those just past the IPO hurdle than it used to be. Space X, Uber and other Unicorns all these biotech startups spent plenty and perhaps some what foolishly in come cases, but some work out and will mature into major companies. In the past we had Xerox Parc and ATT labs but those didn’t really benefit their parent companies all that much, although they created plenty of benefit for others. now it’s outsourced and institutionalized kn dedicated startups. Then the other fact is that companies have become way more capital light, and more profitable at the same time, which generates higher FCF and hence allows for more buybacks.

WMB (added in size) and a bit of Berry. WMB was funded from proceeds of ENB sales a while ago.

Looks like a buying opportunity is there - stock is down 5% on increased PPI claims: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lloyds-bank-hit-missold-ppi-082732437.html

Bought some CWGL. Hoping for $8 quickly:

I think I've read one of the ratings agencies expect the banks to be barely profitable in a no deal scenario, presumably for a year or more. Imo the UK govt and eu are fear mongering. There'll be disruption, but if the govt can get through the financial crisis, this won't be on anywhere near that scale imo. You can find the info about the the UK stress Test here, which of answers your question: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/financial-stability-report/2018/november-2018.pdf?la=en&hash=7239DE596DD5DB14BEB17E1141C2CDEB73A8623C#page=82 The short answer is that they passed, but had the cut the dividend to do so. The stress test scenario is comparable to the US scenario in terms of severity. I really have no idea whatevs going to happen, but I think the chance of a hard Brexit are pretty real. Boris is playing the Trump playbook and tried renegotiate a better deal, but I think the EU is the bigger stick on this case. Some stuff to watchlist for (besides a recession scenario for the UK): 1) Election - who going to win - Corbyn? 2) GBP weakening and causing inflation, which may force the British central bank to raise rates to defend the GBP and prevent inflation, regardless of economy 3) Scots asking for a referendum again and break loose from the UK (my take is that they prefer to stay in the EU, but I could be wrong). Interesting situation and may open up some great setups to buy stock really cheap. Or perhaps nothing severe happens and the whole thing is a lot of fuss for nothing.

$150M for a databreach affecting pot. $100M customers ( or only $1.5/ customer) seems low. I think the cost to resolve this will be much higher than that.

i believe that if the German government , it will only do so if they effectively control the bank. I can Detroit you that there is very little love for the Deutsche Bank in the populace and the government. That why I believe that rescuing them without controlling or even nationalizing them wouldn’t fly. This is not the US, balancing with state owned banks is common and not a stigma. I think most customers prefer to get the managers running place get kicked out.

What really strikes me as odd is that some work in progress was actually already 3 years old. That’s pretty uncommon and I have actually never seen this, although I work in a different industry (where insolence and aging tends to be less of an issue). Typically, inventory and even more so work in progress (unfinished goods) get purged after a certain period (perhaps 3-6 month for work in progress, maybe 2 years for finished goods) The fact that this did not happen at Solitron appears to indicate an insufficient inventory and production management system that needs to be addressed. It looks like this what is happening at Solitron. Then the gross margins need to go back again to the 30% level (probably the minimum for survival) and 40% for a decent profit.

DB will Never fail - it would be nationalized. It wouldn’t be the first one either.

Q2 results came out a couple of days ago. A decent, but not a great report. Subscriber and ARPU growth, but still somewhat impacted by the relatively bad economy in Mexico. http://inversionistas.megacable.com.mx/en/reportesEN_pdf/2Q19.pdf The debt is due to the annual dividend payment and should be eliminated in 2 quarters or so, because they are FCF positive. They are still at a point where they are extending their network to pass more homes.

I agree that Tobias Carlisle podcast production quality could be better. if I find myself in an episode where the quality is unacceptable for my ears, I just delete it and move on. The “ Meb Faber show”, “Compound Investing” and “Invest like the best” have excellent production quality.

Individual names are <> stock market indices, You can find quite a few good companies that are off 30% from their heights and probably valued lower than their LT averages. With respect to the overall stock market, I agree that Europe does not look that cheap and differences in quality account for much of the difference in PE ratio between Europe and the US (foremost the lower representation of faster growth tech companies in Europe vs US). Anyways, it is a good idea to keep an open mind for opportunities.I mentioned already 50p other GBP property companies. Another one are hidden champions in cyclical sectors, imo.

Yeah, but isn't that like Adjusted EBITDA returns? He would've done great except for all the losses and bad stuff that actually happened... He may be a decent stock picker, but it still doesn’t change the fact that he is a lousy investor , if he frittered away his gains with hedges or selling too early. In the end, only $$$ count.

Interesting! Any suggestions there? DJAN.L. Very clean balance sheets owning residential and commercial real estate in the UK and to a lesser extend in the US (East coast). They readily publish NAV. The stock has an interesting history and was initially a plantation (hence the name). It became a property stock after WW2. It is run more for wealth preservation than returns, controlled by an owner operator. I own a little. 3rd Avenue‘s real estate owns some U.K. property stocks as well. It’s worth checking out their letters and holdings.

U.K. is a great Real Life Experiment on leaving the EU. They have elected Boris Johnson, who is going pursue the exit, either hard of soft by October this year. We can watch the show from the sidelines and take positions as we fit, as some volatility can be expected. There are quite a few cheap stocks in the UK, like property companies with very little leverage trading at ~50% of NAV. I think there is a setup for some great investment opportunities. I would caution on the banks, but if they fail, they will just be nationalized. Contrary to the US, thats not a big deal in Europe.

Hussman may be Smart, but he is a lousy investor. He got lucky in his in his career, but had been wrong ever since basically betting that the world goes to hell in a hurry. He is the financial snake oil salesman of the 21 century. It is obvious that investment process is flawed if cant capitalize on the GFC. Folks like Druckenmiller or Howard Marks who are certainly skeptical too, but are able to capitalize on opportunities as they see them are way better investors. The problem that goes like Hussman (and Mauldin) have is that their views are part of their “branding” and they probably would see very adverse reactions from their investors, if they would change. Those static opinions are a strong impediment to being a successful investor imo. People should avoid everyone who claims of implies they have hey can predict how the future unfolds, as it will very likely be hazardous for their health, even if those prophets are right.

Both line 3 and line 5 have issues and my main concern is that they do get shut down without any replacement ever turned on. FEIW, bought back some WMB today (which fell too, over concern with respect to NE G&P assets, I assume). while WMB has some hair too, I like the risk reward better than for ENB right now. I complete sold out of ENB a short while ago.

From my understanding it is the Board, with the general direction nudged by Dolan. The CEO departure was a little surprising, but if there is a company where the management team really isn't all that important to me, it is this one. Its never going to be an EPS darling. Operationally they never really make a ton of money. It's solely about one of a kind assets and being given by my estimates, at least a 30-50% discount. I've been a part of this basically since the spin from Cablevision. I still own MSGN and added to it recently. Thats the cash flow monster. I almost feel as if the split of MSG and MSGN was a stupid short term move done to appease the Wall Street jerk offs. Sperately, MSGN is a machine, but boring. MSG is exciting and unique but really doesnt make much money. As one they were kind of perfect IMO because they each balanced out the weaknesses of the other. I'd also mention, that for all the crap Dolan gets for being a whacko, the part about him being anti shareholder is a classic misconception. Take a peak at how you'd have done being invested in any of the Dolan companies or spin outs. The track record is pretty awesome. MSG is his baby. I know my comment to your post, but as a recent shareholder (with just a small starter position), I feel that the current structure of splitting MSG and MSGN makes now sense. The split certainly hasn’t created much shareholder value. MSG got a big cash dowry and the cash flow monster MSGN carries some debt, but this seems an inefficient structure. If the two were combined, there wouldn’t be much debt left and whatever is needed could be dealt with a cheap mortgage and the cash flow from MSGN could be used to reinvest in the business. This probably would result in a more tax efficient structure. Anyways I don’t own enough worry much about it, but it’s s Great asset and I hope Mr Market gives me and opportunity to acquire more shares some day.

Whats the reason for the switch? You see more upside with PayPal? Long term yes. Short term also capitulating to any bearish ideas. The original idea was to invest in some recession-resistant dividend paying companies with at least some pricing power. But growth has totally outperformed this idea. Mostly I think I need to move towards a more passive (indexing) option, at least for the near term (3-5 yrs I'd guess). Over the last year I haven't really had the time/energy/pleasure to actually do any investment research, and the results reflect it. Even worse, I haven't really cared... The reality is given my situation (age, net worth) my ROI is higher concentrating on my career than on my portfolio (ROI both in terms of amount and volatility of cash inflows). Something about whole-assing one thing vs. half-assing two things ;D ;D Staying out of the politics section saves a lot of time. Even watching shows on Netflix is more productive.

Agreed, GOOG at a bit more than $1000 seemed like an obvious value - almost $50 in real earnings run rate or 20x earnings for a 20% grower. I had some from the dips in 2018 and loaded up more, such that it became one of my largest positions on par with BRKB. I take this any day over these money loosing tech stocks that may not grow all that much faster and trade at mind boggling valuations with huge GAAP losses. Same with FB last year. Of course even these things can go wrong, but odds are pretty good they those bets work out.

I sold all my shares a few weeks ago around $35. I wish I had your optimism regarding line 3 and 5, the way things looks right now, there seems to be real risk they shut down those lines and will never get the replacement assets in operation.

Bought a starter in COST clone BJ, possibly just a trade.

The low Capex is surprising, given they are starting to build the Gigafactory in Shanghai while also starting to work on the Model Y (which apparently has many parts in common with model S, but still).

Overall commissions are trending down. From my experience, it is pretty easy to negotiate 4.5% full service commission down from about 5% a few years ago. Since the agents now do much of their own marketing (Zillow etc) it is likely they the agent gets a larger share of the total commission. Both combined mean a smaller take for the back office organization.

The reviews for P&G bug sprays aren't terrible: https://www.homedepot.com/s/zevo%2520pest%2520control?NCNI-5 Haven’t tried them myself, so no personal opinion.