Spekulatius

This whole thread has been "looking forward" and "disregarding the past" of this company. Why is this time different? No difference. You still have a 50% chance of being right, just as you always have. Whether you act on it or not, makes a market. SD In my opinion, the chance of being right is way less than 50%. Management has no credibility, since they haven’t been able to come even close to their forecasts for many years. Right now, it looks like they are spending ~$1.5 to get $1.0 . I know it’s steady state, but it never was. This is like Sears but in the oil and gas sector and they have a lot of company.

This is one of the things that scares me, no doubt. However, this will take time and will not be easy There are 125MM households in the U.S., at $1,500/passing that would be a total cost of $188B (or 4% of the 2018 federal budget) to build a nation wide FTTH network. Couldn't you see part of an infrastructure bill being a federal subsidy for municipal overbuilding? Federal government can give states grants for 50% of the cost of FTTH projects and it would barely make a dent in the federal budget but would create huge value. If something like that were to pass, don't you think CHTR would sell off? I don't think it's that far fetched, especially as part of a much larger infrastructure bill that has a good chance of happening, eventually... It was rumored earlier in the presidency that Trump wanted to nationalize a 5G network, and you can be damn sure Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to break up the cable monopolies. I actually do believe that this is a threat and is part of "gov't intervention" that I mentioned in an earlier post that scares me the most. Even though it's not dominating headlines and is a low probability in the short to medium term imo, this and some other interventions could really hurt the stock, and the business. Just the anticipation of investors based on various actions would introduce uncertainty and hurt the stock. But this is a different threat altogether and is not inconsistent with my earlier remarks. I have yet to find a business that didnt have some potential threat or risk of substantial impairment of value. It needs to be handicapped and I say that realizing it's just the type of risk thats very hard to evaluate..... small chance of happening but very high chance of substantial impairment if it does. A lot of things could happen, but most don’t. I am not aware of any country in Europe, America’s or Asia where the communication infrastructure was nationalized. I don’t think the US will be the first.

Thanks for posting. I wasn’t aware of the the man’s (Pessina) history driving the results, but it seems like a good guy betting on. it should be noted that they just acquired part of Rite Aid this year for $4.4B and cheaper than the original plan (even adjusted for the original scope). It is also clear that they are slowly following the Boots script and emphasize beauty over the convenience store nature of Walgreens stores.

BIAL (Bangalore airports) seems like a nice business. I wish there was a direct way to invest in it.

I am not sure, why owning a conglomerate saves you from having to analyzing the business. In a way, owning a conglomerate makes the problem worse, because you need to Analyse all the components of a conglomerate. I guess , the idea is just to own a good capital allocator and be done with it? I guess you could look at holding companies as well than conglomerates. There are quite a few to chose from in Europe and Asia. Investor AB, Exor NV, Groupe Brüssel Lambert /Pargesa , Schouw & Co, CK Hutchison and Jardine Matheson are some that come to my mind and are quite cheap and reasonably well managed.

In a way, one could regard 5G as a much more advanced wifi technology. The tech is diffident, but from a user perspective,it will look somewhat the same, except much better coverage and speed. I would agree that the tech at some point will force convergence between them wireless and broadband, to create an optimal product from a user perspective. i think for the Next 5 years, I like the cable business the best. Wireless has more competition , which is getting fiercer and you can get wireless at a reseller very cheap buying prepaid or via a reseller (MVNO) but no such thing exists with broadband. Beyond the next 5 years, it’s harder to tell, but I think competition will build slowly and one will have time to adjust accordingly.

FFO doesn’t mean much, if you need put in $1.5 to get $1.0 back. They are still advertising 40% IRR in their presentation, yet they are producing huge GAAP losses. They should throw away the key to their equipment and just run their wells until they are dry and sell of nonproducing land. We discussed in another thread that if something isn’t working you should stop digging first. somebody forget to tell this to drillers and miners.

You can often get a picture about the industry by stitching together info from public competitors. In this case, I would look at NLS.

Yes I think this hit the nail on the head. Segmentation causes the decline of major brands. I don’t know the bra business well (never been to a VC store either), but it’s analogous what happens with Main Street beer brands and craft beers etc. Declining exposure via their distribution channels (less Tv and print ads viewers and less mall traffic) don’t help either. Maybe they can stabilize it, but the business unlikely will go back to where it once was.

Carlsberg looks cheap. I love those business sector rankings.

I don’t have data on how much s driven by new home sales, but I don’t think its the main driver. I believe the driver are home renovations and heating/ air conditioning replacements. I think that REZI‘s managment May have low balled the guidance , so they can make/ beat the numbers easily - they probably have incentives to do so. The strong last quarter was a good sign. The business was probably managed for cash and I think being a separate company will benefit them.

Spek, What's your thesis on Rezideo? I looked at both HON spins and couldn't get comfortable enough to take a chance. Any thoughts on how they are competing against upstarts in the smart home market? Rezi is competing against the smart thermostat upstarts, but they are also supplying them with sensors and components. So it’s an opportunity for them to participate in a growing market.

LOL, the table explains LBrands problem better than a lengthy writup could do.

Bought some REZI (Honeywell spin-off) today on weakness. I also added to WBA.

^ You can use your own multiple for fees to derive your own valuation. I personally don’t like the high debt load if the subs, especially the real estate BPY sub. I like infrastructure & hard assets but prefer to buy them directly and preferably those with much less leverage. I am not keen on real estate retail assets either, it will require a lot of work and capital to reposition them and the result is not certain, imo.

You know the photo is staged when she wears high heels on the factory floor. Was there any expectation that it wasn't staged? As in, a photographer sneaked in the high-security ITAR-compliant factory and just happened to catch in a candid moment the COO of SpaceX admiring some hardware on the factory floor? ;) Because I like nit pick: 1) High heels are not allowed on the factory floor typically, because they are considered a safety concern. 2) The fact that the COO wears high heels on the factory floor means that she either doesn’t care about safety violations and/or she is almost never on the factory floor (except for PR). Or perhaps nobody cares about safety violations 3) It’s not a big deal, but sometimes, these little things give you and insight into the company culture.

The FDA commissioner doesn’t set drug prices though. Also, if drug prices were the main concern, the Pharma stocks should be hit much harder, but that’s not the case. I can’t explain the selloff, at least not the extend at which is happening, but I couldn’t explain how GS got to $150/share either. It is disturbing is that we haven’t really seen a broad market selloff yet.

The analysis seems sound to me. Note that it comes essentially to the same conclusion, than the ychart P/B chart indicating that MKL trades at about its average valuation. I think the stock would be interesting at around $900 to me. That would be an about 10% discount to fair value. I think P/B still works well for MKL, because it is still basically an insurance company, unlike BRK, which generates the majority of its earnings from business other than insurance.

Agreed. It’s either a mindless selloff or everyone knows there is bad news and runs to the exit. WBA is cheaper now than it was in 2009. Also note that the whole sector is selling off - the distributors MCK (I bought some today), ABC, and CAH, dialysis provider DVA, CVS of course...

A lot of the volume comes from HF traders scalping for pennies and they have a direct plugin to the exchange and don’t trade through brokerage like we do. They also seem to have special rules that they can bid in smaller increments than the average investor, increasing their ability scalp. I do deal with low volume stocks where these shenanigans are more obvious. You put in an order for 100 shares of XXX and then you get 10 shares (To Name an example) of XXX and the bid and ask instantaneously moves. It’s not another human doing it, but a trading bot for sure. These things get really old. If there are other ways to get rid of these shenanigans I am all for it. The way I see it, the aggregate profits from all these HF traders come from investors pockets. Aas long as the sum of these taxes or fees paid is lower than the aggregate profits from HF traders, then it’s a net benefit for the investors. I think this all started when the e changes realized, that they can make more money serving the HF, than from serving their originally mission to facilitate trades amongst investors.

I totally agree. I also have been outbid by fractions of a penny. I think a small tax that introduces enough friction costs for them to go away would help some more.

I fully expected delays, but not by almost 10 month. I think the fair value reduction is estimated to be $1 and the stock is down $1.4. I also lightened up during the recent rally, but also a bit today. I would buy back when the stock hits $33 again.

I'm also not.a tax expert and not offering advice. If it trades over the counter you can buy a foreign stock with assets in an IIRA. I don't believe you're allowed to buy foreign shares on a foreign exchange.with proceeds from an IRA. I probably wasn’t clear. I just wanted to say that I am investing in an IRA.

Looks like an interesting playground to put some IRA money in. The discounts are large enough that even when a lot of things go wrong, one should do alright. I will look at some of these buggers and probably buy a basket opportunistically.

I am in favor of a small transaction tax. The main benefit for the small investor would be that it penalizes these HF trader leaches and hopefully puts them out of business. I believe that this would help the market transparency. I have no idea if the 0.1% transaction tax would do that , but I would support any tax that is just high enough to get rid of HF traders.