Spekulatius

https://investoralmanac.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/SWMC_ThoughtPiece_August-Case-for-Europe.pdf

TFSL- the thrift. They did raise the dividend as valuedontile thought they would. it’s yielding 6.4% now dividend

^ Ben, thanks. I am familiar with the IB option Tools (webinar), but I rarely do options and haven’t really used TWS for the last 12 month as I find my iPad more convenient. It would be a learning curve for me. I did dabble into SPY puts, as I think they are underpriced relative to risk (low VIC, high stock prices, volatile political environment , trade wars). It’s easier for me to understand and the option are quite liquid. TSLA is just too much shorted for my taste, but I would probably short the stock into a melt up at this point.

I would venture the guess that an autopilot that works 99% of the time is way more dangerous than no autopilot at all.

I also think that ENB is very cheap here , with a 6% dividend, growing by 10% and a derisked balance sheet ( due to asset sales).

GE‘s Business as a whole isn’t in decline- it’s just that GE‘s Balance sheet, accounting and management are problematic.

I saw that too. Deepak is the guy that someone recently said was meant to be resigning right before it implodes to keep the bankruptcy off of his resume. So which is it? Spek misspoke about the C level exec he meant. The CAO (not CFO) resigned after one month on the job walking - away from $10m in equity. CFO (deepak) is still there. Thanks for the correction. You are correct. It’s still a bad sign since the same logic applies.

Not quite. Siemens lacks an incredibly good aviation division. I know . they don’t have an aviation unit, but they do have. power unit (struggling too), a health care unit (partly spun off) and a very good automation and software business with annuity like attributes. While the engine aviation is a good business, it does have a significant drawback of undergoing multiyear ebbs and flows in FCF, which right for GE is inconviently is in an ebb cycle.

Sad, but true GEmisntneven cheap after losing so much of its market cap. You can buy a fairly comparable company SIEGY for basically the same valuation, but without any of the headaches.

FWIW and not totally unrelated, puts on the SPY are very very cheap right now. Nothing wrong with buying a bit insurance. I did so today. If I had to pick a country to Ben efit from the trade war it would probably be Mexico.

Just keep in mind that the CFO resigned on 9/7. CFO typically don’t like a bankruptcy on their resume. It’s a major red flag for a company in financial trouble.

The problem is that nobody knows what to do, because Trump starts a trade war with the rest of the world basically. So reconfiguring the supply chain to a different country ( which might take years) is a very high risk proposition, as you could end up with the same tariffs anyways. I think insourcing to the US will occur, but in a very limited way. For one thing, the labor force to do this just isn’t available, because there is no slack any more. The best I can come up with a robotics companies, but most of those are foreign too ( Fanuc, Kuka). Those may get hit by tariffs as well.

FSCR looks optically cheaper than it is. I get ~$39.2M EV (including pensions) and $7.7M ENITDA or roughly 5x EBITDA. There are quite a few major car supplier trading at similar multiples and those are better business ( Lear, Delphi etc). Anyone has any idea why they are spending almost 10% of their revenue for Capex, yet revenues revenue not growing? That’s twice as much than their depreciation.

Very interesting and timely. Thanks for posting!

I just wish the puts were cheaper - $8.75 for December 21 $200 Strike puts is sort off pricy. Tesla looks really bad as a long, but will it fall apart as quickly than the bears think it does? I am not an option expert, but betting on Tesla‘s demise looks expensive to me.

Looks like too much boozing is a bad idea altogether , see Kavanaugh, Lui.... who would have thought?

I own all four of these... do we know each other? ;) BLX in particular very interesting here. BLX intrigues me. I don't see a thread on the company. What's your 30-second elevator pitch? :) Or can you point me to a decent writeup somewhere? I don’t do elevator pitches :-). There is a good write up in VIC from 2014. The stock is significantly cheaper now in termsmof P/B. The ROA improvements that the author eluded to never worked out. I have owned this several times in the the past and bought it below tangible book sndmit always worked out. https://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/idea/BANCO_LATINOAMERICANO_DE_COM/117860

Possibly a stupid question, but why would a private company issue shares at 0.005 CAD? It seems that for a private company would to divide their equity into less shares that are actually worth something? It’s a bit like being a billionaire in Venezuela nowadays. They probably should cut a few zeros from the sharecount like Venezuela did for their currency?

I agree here, Joel. Personally, I have to play this through BAM only, unfortunately, so far. Yes, could buy BPR right now, but BAM asset management income going forward makes the difference. I believe buying BAM is the right way to play this, based on the similarity of the GP/ LP structure with Limited partnerships. I stated this before, but BAM is the entities who gets the cream on top, assuming this goes well. If it doesn’t go well, neither BPY, BPR or BAM is a buy anyways.

I do think that the key man the ist here is real. A conviction of the CEO in the US would not be relevant, but I think the Chinese government will investigate on its own and the outcome of this might well be. Note that the accuser appears to be a chinese national and returned to China. I also think that if Liu indeed atttempted to rape, it would not have been the first time either and he has done similar things in China. So, the key is not what happens in the US, the key is what the Chinese government makes of this. They have put other prominent people in line before and they could do so with Richard. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/14/asia/fan-bingbing-china-celebrity-intl/index.html I really don’t know how to handicap this, but ther so can’t be ignored and needs to be discounted, which appears to be what Mr. Market is doing.

As far as stock being an anathema because a fugitive is a CEO...can't he'd just nominate a puppet/proxy, or even his wife to be the chairperson/CEO and still maintain defacto control of the company and execute his vision? I'm not saying him becoming a fugitive would be a good thing for the stock (in the short term)...but long term I don't understand how it would break JD's business or affect their future cash flows. The tailwinds propelling JD's business forward (GDP growth, rise of middle class, increasing demand for authentic products) are so obvious and inevitable. The average consumer is China that's about to order his camera is not going to change his/her behavior because the founder and former CEO is deemed a fugitive in foreign land. If Jeff Bezos was similarly accused in China or Russia would American consumers refuse to shop at Amazon? No, why would they? They just care about cheap prices, fast delivery and great customer service. So I'd like to focus just on the question that ultimately matters: How does this case at all affect JD's competitive positioning, or cash flows or its future success 3 years from now even if he IS deemed a fugitive? I don’t think that the average shopper in China cares about what the CEO of JD did or didn’t do. i a: pretty sure that Liu would need to give up control or delist from Nasdaq. I don’t know of any case, where a fugitive is the CEO of a publicity trades company in the US. Then there is also the heavy headed hand of the Chinese government. They have a way to get people back in the line, although it is unclear, if this would apply to Liu in this situation. it is something to consider however.

There is no Monopoly in wireless. Typically MVNO exist, because it is cost effective for a wireless network provider to rent out his network and increase the utilization. That is also where constraints come in - the customers of MVNO can get throttled if network constraints become an issue. MVNO cust9mers typically get throttled befor the native network customers get throttled. That’s something I learned in Howardsforums.

The people who bought houses at the peak with very little equity usually did Ok, when they just let it go. At least in CA, it was easy to live rent free for one year (if not longer) while waiting for the foreclosure to proceed. Since they put very little up to begin with, with the more than one year of rent saved, they actually broke even or almost even. I know this, because I had some acquaintances that just did that and I encouraged them to do so, after looking at their numbers.

The question is if the shareholders will do any better with the hedge fund activist investors in control. companies like Sears, JCP, VRX suggest otherwise. At least Elliot has a track record so far but many people there have not.

Where are you seeing this in the Best annual report? Under the Share Ownership footnotes the Best 20-F says Alibaba's stake is owned by Alibaba Investment Limited, which is wholly owned Alibaba Group Holding Limited, the ListCo... The stock is a shell co., most of the business is run through its VIE. https://www.qichacha.com/firm_ca73e5d4965cdf0c9c66938e38a3866c.html Isn't this the case for all Chinese listed technology companies? They all have the VIE structure, what's the difference? Alibaba the ListCo owns Alibaba Investment Limited which owns shares in BSTI on the Nasdaq which are worth $500MM, so are you saying the public shareholders in BSTI own absolutely nothing but are paying $2.3Bn for it? Welcome to Chinese ADR's you own an offshore shell company with contractual obligations not the actual Chinese operating assets. You can thank Enron for changing how VIE's are consolidated as well. Yes, but your original post implied BABA was trying to dupe the public markets through lack of disclosure that BABA owns 22% of Best Inc when really Jack Ma owns it. There's no lack of disclosure, every investor in Chinese ADRs knows there is a VIE structure... The VIE structure is obviously a risk-factor, but your particular example of difficulty to understand BABA seems off, since a) in a paragraph or two we've determined pretty easily that BABA does in fact own 22% of BSTI but the VIE is controlled by a Ma entity... tomorrow BABA could sell it's BSTI stock and have $500MM in cash though... and b) this is so immaterial to the value of BABA that it's irrelevant. (Note, I don't own BABA) It’s never irrelevant when you find a cockroach.