Spekulatius

^ I my opinion, talking about the market impact of COVID-19 is fair game. After all, this is the reason this thread got traction initially. No need to excuse either if you are wrong, we can all learn from predictions and particularly the reasoning behind it.

The financial community has been yearning for Wells Fargo ETF’s for a long time. Soon, we won’t know how to do without them any more.

More educated? I seriously doubt that. You have to be a baby boomer to have experienced inflation and we all know that baby boomers suck. Reading a textbook doesn’t really give you the same experience, that’s for sure. My grandparents were small kids during the Weimar inflation in 1922 and told me stories about people rushing to the stores to buy what they can immediately on payday because next morning, things were way more expensive. They were playing with small money notes that were several orders or magnitude devalued (a couple of weeks old at the peak) and people were moving money in wheelbarrows. I remember the 70’s and hard assets and gold later were all the rage. There was the 1979 Hunt brothers silver boom and bust. Easy money leads to a lot of misallocation of Capital but inflation does so as well. Hagstroms book “Warren Buffet way” discusses how WEB was investing in inflationary setting (buy business with pricing power and low reinvestment needs) and may be worth a re-read.

PR around “our liquidity is strong” is almost always BS, because in most cases, solvency is the issue, not near term liquidity. The way RR business is structured (depending on LT contracts and viability), they can’t afford to have junk credit, as they need the trust of their customers and access to capital markets. It is what it is, the capital raise will take place regardless of price. That’s one of the issues with rights issues - they can take a long time and the stock can get into a death spiral in the meantime. This happened with the Brit banks too post GFC.

^ My simple thinking at this point (based on wabuffo’s point and Cullen Roche seem to think along the same lines ) regarding inflation is to forget about the Fed and just look at what the treasury does in terms of borrowing.on that end, it doesn’t look good right now. Business with power and or inflation protection bought at sensible prices should do at least OK going forward in any scenario.

I agree the smokers looked pretty good here. BTI would be my favorite here. I owned it before many moons ago and did fairly well. I probably should just buy some here, it goes well with my Defense and booze stocks.

I saw that at the recommendation of a friend. I thought it had some flashes of a really good movie, some really good scenes and characters, but that overall it didn't quite gel together and wasn't entirely satisfying. I just watched this today and love it. It gels really well for me, the acting, characters, storyline and the soundtrack. I think it’s one of the best movies I watched lately.

NOC’ earnings were Good (guidance raised) and LHX were solid (guidance confirmed ). It was good to see that LHX is basically going to generate the same margins that Harris had (~19% EBIT vs ~11.5% for L3) with the combined entity. I also went through RTX release and while commercial is suffering, they should be able power through and continue paying their dividend and invest until commercial rebounds. I agree that P&W and Collins are great business. I can’t help but bought a few starter shares.

This is a good podcast along Wabuffo’s lines (Interview with Cullen Roche) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-study-billionaires-the-investors-podcast-network/id928933489?i=1000486090490

Thank you. What does below MM 30 mean? What do you do outdoor in Utan, Montana, Wyoming? Shortly after Miami, I-95 turns into US-1. At the top of the Keys you're at around 100 and the end is Key West which is MM0. 100-75MM is basically tourists and fishing heavy, especially the 80's. 75-30MM is pretty much locals. A little blue collar and hick-ish. 30-0MM is probably one of the few candidates for a utopian community in the US, at least that I am aware of. Something for everyone, from culture, to food, to historical stuff. Fishing, diving, partying. People of all shapes, sizing, colors, and orientations coexist and everyone just gets along and wants to live life. Awesome place. I looked at this briefly and you are looking at ~500k for a fairly crummy Appartement and who knows how much for a house. RIP if you get a hit by a hurricane. I wonder what the insurance is for a house there? Also, for Muscleman, it would be a bit far from Seattle.

Is Flagstaff actually a place to live? I've been there couple times while going to Grand Canyon and IMO it's basically a deserted gateway town with couple hotels for cheap people who don't want to pay up to stay next to Grand Canyon. Pretty zero attractions. Yeah, you can drive to Grand Canyon and Sedona, but ... ::) I know you hate Phoenix, but Phoenix is actually big enough (actually maybe too big right now) to have restaurants, culture, activities, etc. Flagstaff IMO is dead. Though maybe it has changed in the last 10-15 years since I stayed there. ::) Well, I went there only once about 10 years on a trip to the mountain states (NM, AZ, CO, UT) and there at least a few good breweries and mexican restaurants there, so there that. Phoenix as a city is actually OK, as there are nice areas, but the climate just brutal. We went there in fall and the Thermometer of our showed close to 120F, so it’s basically a hellhole (urban hotspot). Las Vegas is the same. I have complimentary things of Tuscan and the temperature there are much more moderate, but still quite hot. Personally, my favorite from the mountain states is CO.

Some places have 2 seasons and are desirable in summer and winter. I am a big fan of the mountain states and I think the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe and Flagstaff are great locations (albeit not cheap). If you don’t mind the Mormons and weak beer, then Utah has great areas too. If using it as a second home, you need to consider airport connectivity too - Flagstaff via PHX works great.

^ Wabuffo, thanks for the illustrative example. I think we slowly come around the fact that buying treasuries will lead to more bank reserves, which isn’t really good news for banks at all (since they have a larger and larger percentage of low yielding and risk free assets on their balance sheet). It would become a disaster (for banks) if we get negative interest rates, also the Fed officials so far vehemently refuted negative interest rates so far.

Bronte is also Open. Looks like it is open for US investors as well. It is one of the few long short funds worth considering (imo) and John Hampton always makes a lot of sense to me. https://www.brontecapital.com/partners-letters

Margins calls get executed the same day, but it takes time to wind down a fund. Could you tell me where you heard these rumors? If he did not lever up, then he would have survived the COVID crash and be fine right now. But if he had levered up, it would be strange for him to say in his letters that he will dissolve the fund in 6-9 months, because with margin calls, he does not have 6-9 months to dissolve.

AAII probably surveys their own members and those have very little overlap with the crowd from Sherwood Forest.

It‘s 2020, so we don’t have to rationalize anything. We even have a Kodak moment. I never thought I would live to see this again.

The individuals are definitely fucking this up. Trump has just been encouraging them from a position of authority and a wide reaching audience. Also, Trump being president is in a position to make decisions that positively or negatively impact tens of millions (if not hundreds). Any decision made by an individual is likely limited to directly impacting a handful of people. So individuals are making poor decisions that impact tens of people and Trump has been making terrible decision that impact tens of million of people. A baseball player(or any athlete) breaks protocol to go to a strip club(already happened). Then gets the virus. Forget even the whole "exponential growth" thing that many have continuously brought up. This immediately effects way more than "tens of people". Multiple players and personnel get it. It gets so bad, the season has to be cancelled. How many lives and dollars does this "one person" effect? What about the fringe prospect who's 28 and is at a make or break point in their career only to have the season get canceled? How about normal people, someone with symptoms who still goes to a supermarket? Teenager going to a beach party and then coming home to the family? There are indeed big ripple effects. There is a lot that is in ones control, and a lot that isn't. What is easier for YOU to control? Again, I totally agree about a lot of Trumps actions, or lack there of. But you also now are seeing the result of the people who have spent years crying wolf. They used up all their credibility complaining about Russia, the election, Ukraine, Ivanka's tweets, etc... I don’t think anyone blames Trump for the above directly. There is clearly an individual who failed to be responsible here at fault. But then you can ask the question? Why are strip clubs even open at this point with infection rates that high? Can you even keep a sports league open when infection are high? Base rate matter. People are going to do some dump stuff, if you allow them too, but that probably works out Ok with very few exceptionalities if infection rates rates low. In most states in the US, you are pretty sure to get the virus, if you some risky stuff, like holding a party with a Lot of friends at your house or going to bike classes at the gym, or having drinks in a bar.

I'm telling you, young people in 30 years will call me a murder for eating meat This could very well be correct and is all the more reason to eat all you can right now. Going to a BBQ place tonite, so I am doing my part.

Google has become very fat. Just look at their employee count YOY. Their revenue/ employee hasn’t looked great for quite some time. Some people call it investment, but considering how much employees count still increase within their very mature search business, I think it is mostly bloat.

That makes no sense. WTF. It makes all the sense in the world and would be a huge plus MSFT. They could really give FB a run for the money.

I wish you and your family the best. I hope your daughter and your dad and your family are OK. It’s very difficult to contain COVID-19 when someone in the family has it. Also, thank your patience going through the study results. Brandolini‘s law is very real issue here.

where in NYC? I live in Burlington, VT. I remember the days when people (myself included) would line up for an hour or more to get it. Now, it's available at every supermarket, gas station, corner store, etc. here. I still grab some every once in a while, but there are so many other amazing IPAs here in VT. CT/ Burlington has some good stuff to drink. We recently stopped by at von Trapp in Stowe and Vermont Artisan Coffee and I loved Citizen Cider in Burlington when we visited a few month ago. Would be nice to meet for a cold one when this pandemics crab blows over. The sweet sound of music. They also make really good cheese if your interested. https://www.jasperhillfarm.com/von-trapp-farmstead I am a big Cheesehead so I will give it a try. We are again in this area again ( Conway, NH this time). Tonite, We are going to the Moat Mountain brewpub.

I agree that rights offerings are more shareholder friendly. One issue though is that often foreign shareholders can’t participate due to legal or technical barriers. I think ADR holders won’t be able to participate for example.