Spekulatius

The real question is whether the equity is worth anything after accounting for the huge debt. The way the cash flows are shrinking, this is a fair question. I take solace in the fact that it is probably better for our society, if this piece of crap goes bankrupt.

I don't have an iPhone, but have experienced the same issue with my Samsung S4 Android phone. I tried various things, including buying new batteries, but in the end only a factory reset helped. I suspect the root cause is with faulty apps or maybe an operating system issue from various install that is causing battery drainage. I also suspect the seekingalpha app, which I used on my phone, to be an issue and decided not to reinstall that one.

I think the smart watch will eventually destroy the midprice conventional watch market, but it will do nothing to the high end mechanical watch market, because the latter are basically artisan/jewellery pices where functionality is secondary. I think some midprice segments like Tissot (Swatch) could feel the pressure. Fossil is strong in the midprice segment and should see a lot of pressure in their business. Maybe there is a certain "fast fashion" segment that they are going to be able to hold onto but besides that, I think Fossil has a huge structural problem and will become a cigar but.

I have done a few bond trades, mostly buys at the beginning of this year in the midstream sector for higher quality junk (BB+) that worked out very well. I also bought some ATW bonds at the same time (which were much higher yielding) and those tanked considerably more before going higher. If never really had a good feeling about these bonds, despite on what looked like great asset coverage on paper. I think some of these assets are probably worth no more than 25c on the dollar, based on some distressed buys that companies like DO have been doing. BRS is the same story, except they have better fundamentals and the bids trade higher accordingly. I bought them this summer when crude was going to $40/BRK and in retrospect it was no more than a derivative way of trading crude. Despite the higher crude prices, the fundamentals for the service sector have gone worse no this will continue to stay that way, since there is a considerable time lag (years) between a recovery in new crude and the fundamentals in the service sector. Overall, bonds re the right way to trade this at this point, since I think equity in this sector will go through dilution hell first.

I sold mine close to $80 (bought at $69 just a short while ago), plus got an interest payment. Too dicey to me with their market going comatose for a long time potential. Every time, management talks too much about how heir liquidity and unencumbered assets, I get scared.

My portfolio is a 100% spekulative. 8)

Looks like the stock is worth 15x earnings, tops. I am not sure the string of downwards revisions stops here either. They probably can do much more cost cutting, to keep profit margins up.

Anything specific that makes you say that? Nothing very specific. The cheap international roaming (free SMS, free - but slow - data) was key moat - nobody else in US offered that. So I don't even consider Verizon/Sprint/AT&T. But now Google Fi offers this too since they are on top of T-Mobile. So it's mostly just a feeling of having had good service in the past and loyalty due to that. I also have a minor complication with replacing the phone for work reasons, which makes me a bit extra lazy to switch to Google Fi. Edit: I don't use Binge On; I don't use cellular data much overall. T-mobile Tuesdays have been disappointment - but I did not expect much. Seems like a bunch of crappy coupons for unnecessary stuff. I don't even look anymore. Was there anything worthwhile recently? From what I heard, when they had free Domino's pizza, Domino's was swamped and ran out. I was with Tmobile prepaid for a good while, but had to switch to ATT for coverage. The issue has been coverage in Buildings - Tmobile owns mostly higher frequency bands that don't have great penetration through concrete or massive structures. ATT works fine in these locations. My wife was revolting that she could not reach me sometimes, so i had to kiss Tmobile bye bye. I would love the international roaming. Right now, I need to buy a dataplan (Passport) for foreign travel, which costs $60. I expense this on business travel, so there is that. I could go on prepaid with ATT for$40/month , but would have no way to get international data. I might give this Fi thing a try if the coverage works, it has been 2 years since I left and Tmobile has improved their network.

I personally never rely on multiple expansion for my investment thesis. An investment should work out without any multiple expansion at all from my point of view, although I love getting a higher valuation of course.

What about Mary Barra do you consider world class? It is my opinion that Barra did a phenomenal job handling the recall fiasco. Additionally, she has been proactive in regards to investments, such as Lyft+Cruze. She has internally promoted and encouraged innovation, and has been very shareholder friendly in terms of dividends and buybacks. The shares have not rewarded anyone, but she's doing one hell of a job. I think the re-emergence of Buick and current turnaround at Cadillac are further testament to that. I'll agree on the recall. Being proactive with investments I think is open for debate. They needed activists to pressure the company to do the buybacks. And my personal favorite is refusing to even talk with Fiat about a merger that would create huge value because GM is "still merging with itself." I own the stock FYI, but I don't own it because of the CEO. I've thought about the Fiat deal and am on the fence. I applaud her for focusing on GM though and not getting caught up in the circus going on at Fiat with Machionne. There probably is a deal there that benefits both companies, however GM doesn't really need it and Fiat most definitely does. Instead of letting it be a distraction, she's instead focused on improving margins, brand quality, and retail sales. All of which are currently looking better than ever. "GM doesn't really need it" is horrible logic, but I think exactly what Barra has suggested. The CEOs job is to maximize shareholder value. What does "need" mean? If it creates shareholder value, it creates shareholder value, that's all there is to it. Sergio has said there could be $10 billion per year in synergies and the market cap of Fiat is $9 billion. Even if he's way off, the synergies are so significant relative to the purchase price that you have to be a total idiot to not at least spend a few days engaging in conversation. If after talks the price is too high then that's a legit excuse, but saying a 100 year old company is "busy merging with ourselves" is just plain dumb. Putting the synergies aside, a "world class CEO" would be able to think a couple steps ahead and realize that a 15 million car / year producer would be at such a competitive advantage that other OEMs would have to start looking for deals to stay competitive. It could create a wave of consolidations that makes the auto OEMs look like the airlines, much more consolidated and rational which could lead to higher multiples on substantially higher earnings. Synergy numbers are always questionable, especially outlandishly high numbers like a $10B number that Sergio is throwing out. GM is large enough - a merger would raise substantial antitrust issues in the US, as well as political slashback, so I am not sure it is time spent for management to go through that exercise. I'd rather have them concentrate on running the ongoing business, which is enough to do. As far as VW is concerned, they better forget about a merger in the near term, fix their issues and the probably should forget about the US market as well. They are strong in many markets all over the world and have enough scale as is.

In my book, Obama did OK, as far as the economy is concerned. While we give a president credit for the stock market performance during his presidency, the stock market certainly did more than OK. Moreover, I had a real concern in late 2008 and early 2009, that we would go into a 1930 style meltdown. I think Obama and Bernanke did a good job reinstating confidence again in the financial institutions (remember Bernanke's "fireside: chat in front of his parents home in North Caroline?), steering the bailouts for GM (despite the gripes about pensioners getting better treatment than debtholders), slowly getting the economy moving again. I think the slow growth after a big meltdown should not surprise anyone, especially some of the laissez faire Republican's. It is well known, that after a debt binge, often a period of slower growth follows. Could some things have been done better? Yes, certainly but I personally think that just avoiding an economic meltdown itself is a huge victory that give Obama, to some extend the late Bush and Bernanke some credit for.

do they call out same store traffic numbers? or only sales? because i don't think sales are indicative of much atm. they've pretty much been giving food away to anyone who will take it. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1058090/000105809016000086/cmg-20161025xex99_1.htm There is a chart of sales comp and traffic comp. Why do you think traffic tracks the real situation better? If they gave away food, traffic will increase too to pick up the food, right? The most important metric always has a $ in front of it, imo.

I wonder when AMZN is going to get hit by lawsuits for counterfeit goods that are being sold on their website with impunity. I got aware of this when looking for genuine replacement batteries for my Samsung S4. It seems that based on users comments and other reports, 95% of all the "genuine" batteries sold are knockoffs. I don't think a major retailer like AMZN can get away with enabling some vendor to simply sell their counterfeits on Amazon, possibly even under the "prime" label. Same is true for many luxury goods (handbags, watches). At some point, this is going to be blow up big time in their face, as it will be apparent that AMZN enables those vendors. Just imagine what happens, if one of those products turns out to be unsafe and starts to hurt people. The lawsuits will go after the company with the money, not the shady vendor in Hongkong or who knows where. Once investigations start, it will be clear that AMZN knew about this and did nothing about it apparently. I don't know what and when it will happen, but I think it is a tail risk that AMZN investors should be aware of. I like AMZN prime, but I have started to switch purchases of some goods to websites, where I think I will get genuine goods, not knowoffs.

I took off my pants and placed Model 3 reservation today. Pictures on request. 8) I think buying a Tesla car is a better value than buying Tesla stock, but what do I know. I prefer a Pic with you and your new car to a pic of you with your pants down.

so what's next instead? VR? I think Apple is constantly looking at various thing and they'll keep working on cars and have probably been working on VR for a while. When they decided that they have something good enough to ship in either area is another question. Creating something isn't a linear process, and when they were making the iPhone they actually had two teams in the early stages, one taking the approach that ended up winning, and the other trying to build a phone based on the iPod platform (which didn't end up shipping). I heard the (unverified) story that Apple went through 7 iterations, which took roughly 7 years, before they (Jobs?) decided the product is good enough to be launched. I expect that the car project, which is way more complex, to go through a similar process. The product needs to be impressive from the get go, imo.

A lot of folks here enjoy swimming naked. 8)

I disagree on management being "shysters". They are running their RE business suboptimal, that is true, but they are running it the same way they always have, no better no better or worse. The investors (hedge funds etc) have been betting on change, but that did and will not happen. Management controls this and outside investors are just along for the ride.

I don't think the average investor understands these vehicles. The complex ownership structure (with an operating LLC), the variable nature of the earnings and distributions and the multiple operating metrics (GAAP earnings, operating earnings , distributable cash flow) are making them hard to understand. I have been loosely following OAK for example and I am really not sure how to fully value this business and what the normalized earnings or distributsble cash flow may look like.For investing in yield vehicle, I have generally invested in pipeline MLPs, which ai found much easier to understand. I do think that these alternative asset manager have hit the wall on growth as well and fees seem to be under pressure.

That would be a bad idea. Their biggest asset is that they own the network and the cards, and their service. If you have a problem, you can call them and they take of it. With Visa or MC, that may not be the case, depending on the issuer.

A closer comp would be Senea. National Beef is quite different and their earnings are more volatile. I think I feel more excitement watching the grass grow in my backyard than owning the stock.

People won't do the pitchfork in the US (this would be different in France, where they have a history for revolutions and would do it), but they might elect somebody who does the work with the pitchfork for them. If you have a large percentage of people who have little to lose from their POV and don't give a damn, a lot of bad things can happen.

GS trades around book value too, pays a dividend and is more profitable than Jeffries. I think it is a better buy than LUK. why buy a second rate investment bank, when you can buy the real thing for an equal or better price?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ratings-fumble-for-nfl-surprises-networks-advertisers-1475764108 I watched an NFL game the other day, and it was painful how much advertising I was forced to watch, to the extent that I won't watch another game until possibly playoffs. I'm only one anecdotal data point--and are therefore meaningless--but I wonder whether Netflix and streaming are reducing people's tolerance for advertising, particularly kids who grow up almost never seeing a TV ad? If that's the case, even if the NFL product is as good as it ever was, fewer people might watch because the advertising is now intolerable to them. I don't watch NFL, but I just record sports events on my DVR and watch them with a ~30min time lag and fast forward over the advertisement blocks. I agree that these ads are unbearable, if you get attuned to streaming services.

There is also the chance that higher rates will reduce low growth and that some creditors get into trouble and loan provisions need to be made at a normalized rate. The tide (of falling interest rates) has been rising for a long time, so I am pretty sure that if the tides recedes, there are quite a few folks who find themselves without a bathing suit. Picasso is correct that the steepness of the interest rate curve is more important than absolute rates. The steepness of the curve has flattened over time (with lower interest rates) and that has hurt banks NIM, but it is not necessarily a given that the steepness increases when nominal short term interest rates rise again.

Most of these unpaid bills stem from Trump firms/properties that went into bankruptcy. It's a bit ironic for me to think that Trump who had several of his firms go into bankruptcy is qualified to fix the US deficit. If I had a choice to make business with Hillary or with Trump, I would chose the former - at least I would be reasonably sure to get paid. I do think I would take a close look at the fine print with both.