Spekulatius

Check this one out. $490M cash tax refund due to provisions from the CARES act for UHAL, a $7.6B (roughly) Market cap company. Retroactive refunds for 2017, 2018, 2019 and forward for 2020. These looters you see on TV are dummies and are doing it wrong. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4350683-amerco-uhal-ceo-edward-shoen-on-q4-2020-results-earnings-call-transcript

Yes, thanks for taking the time to explain the Repo issue (again). This does make sense. It seems sort of surprising that Dimon doesn’t exactly know the red line in terms of reserves. One would think that the rule for clearing payments and the reserves are crystal clear, if that is the most important function of the Fed. Perhaps the Fed bureaucracy likes to keep things a bit muddies to keep everyone on their toes and make sure the Branka never cut ti too close. Seems to have backfired in that incidence. FWIW, we see the correlation of private sector saving and public deficit in this quarter when We saw the headline that the Private savings Rate went to 33%. I guess that happens when you throw of bundles of helicopter money to masses with many of them having no opportunity to spent it. And of course we have the public deficit to match the private savings.

^ Interesting. The repo issue also caused a mini hiccup in the equity markets in Sept 2019 that quickly reversed after the Fed stepped in. It seems like following what the Fed does is key to market movements rather than look at fundamentals (valuations ) or even macro economic indicators. The stock market performance during this crisis has shown this more than anything else. The problem seems to be that we need more and more of these sugar rushes to prevent meltdowns. Seems like treating a toddler prone to meltdowns with candy and Ice cream each time when a tantrum is due. I am not an economist, but I know that at least with kids, this method doesn’t really work in the long run and I think many have tried.

It’s cool to watch, but I watched Apollo launches as a small kid in front of a black and white TV. I really thought that at this point almost 50 years later, we would be cruising with ion drive powered space ships around Jupiter. Some where along the way, we dropped the ball on space exploration.

Interesting tidbit from Uhal CEO Schoen about the car/truck auction business where they auction of their trucks. Looks like this business is now totally virtual while before it was literally a marketplace full with people. It’s a tangent for Uhal, but nevertheless interesting. They also expect a miserable time for a lot of self storage business due to oversupply. Uhal’s CC are always interesting because they are very frank: Looks like COVID-19 totally changed the car auction industry perhaps permanently. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4350683-amerco-uhal-ceo-edward-shoen-on-q4-2020-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=10

Yes, I can understand BG2008 loves the shopping experience at WSM. My wife always gets stuck in their stores as well, it is a unique and differentiated shopping experience. As far as the stock is concerned, It worked because of Tax tailwinds and multiple expansion. That’s really the story of our stock markets he last few years, but WSM has done better than many peers (even though not great in absolute terms it seems) and that go rewarded. I am not really sure what I can learn from this.??

That’s going to show China. Soon they will be running the outfit. The US saves $550M or roughly $1.3 per head. Nature abhors a vacuum. That's what we learned the last time we tried isolationism. It doesn't seem to be going very well this time either. Isolation doesn’t real work with pandemics. It is one thing where an ounce of prevention saves you a pound of cure quite literally. The WHO and China needs to be held accountable and China’s influence on this organization needs to be diminished, such that we can minimize the risk of a repeat. The WHO has done great work and helped contain Ebola and SARS and perhaps other diseases. Saving $550M while we are spending 5 Trillion right now to help cope with the existing situation makes no sense if you think about risk rewards ratios.

That’s going to show China. Soon they will be running the outfit. The US saves $550M or roughly $1.3 per head.

Defense spending as a % of GDP has slowly been going down over time, however it also has become more high tech. So less boots on the ground (salaries to pay) and more expensive toys. The last few years have been great for defense Companies. I expect that Russia and China which both are modernizing their military are keeping us on our toes. You can’t really keep a reserve currency without projecting power, imo. It’s a necessity for us to remain the strongest and most capable military power.

Sure I like to live within an hour drive of a city (I'm about an hour drive from Boston), but do you go to the theater or the hospital everyday? Cities are nice places to visit, but I wouldn't want to live (or work) there. MF had a pretty good podcast about 18 hour cities and suburbs as an investment thesis for real estate. This was pre COVID. Makes a lot of sense to me, you live in an area where you get most stuff and drive to a city when you want to do something special. This makes even more sense if you can get equivalent pay without a commute or paying an arm and a leg for a shoebox Appartement. But then there are folks who just can’t live without the hustle of a large city. So each it’s own.

I bow to your knowledge. I love Asterix - has been a long time but my in a couple of years my son will be the right age and I can't wait to revisit. What an underutilized franchise Asterix is. It’s very hard to get the spirit of the comic books right in films and none of the films I have seen quite gets it. Imagine to create a theme park more geared towards adults. There is one in France, but it’s just another one of the rollercoaster parks. You could do a real thing going back in time and drink the “Zaubertrank” and beat each other up in mock fights etc. Endless possibilities. The comic books are a great way to teach some Latin. For many, the phrases in the book there are all that stuck.

Probably shouldn’t trust a source that doesn’t know what “data” means. 0.4% is lower than the estimates I have seen (~0.75%), but it still would mean 800k death if we go all the way to herd immunity and get 200M Americans infected Ted. This would mean that we are about 1/8 through with this epidemic. Just saying. The numbers from Quebec vs. other Canadian provinces looks interesting, due to the huge difference in outcome compared to other provinces. It’s clear that relatively small differences in starting points lead to vastly different results in outcome. Perhaps not so surprising, considering the math behind epidemics and the nature of logistics function.

We talk about thr VOVID-19 in the US a lot, but what is going on in Canada? It seems they the quebecois have a high affinity to the virus or is this a NE thing? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107066/covid19-confirmed-cases-by-province-territory-canada/

Why have cities always been desired? When travel and communication was more difficult and time consuming cities brought people and ideas together in one spot. Population density was a necessity for ideas to spread and serendipitous meetings to take place. Also it allowed an economy of scale for businesses. All of that still happens in cities, but, I don't know if that is still entirely necessary. People now meet and talk online just as easily as off, and with modern shipping the whole country is your marketplace. Very well said. Still impossible to replicate human interaction, but virtual is good enough for much of day-to-day life, and when compared against cost and livability of cities, will be very interesting to see future trends. Cities may become virtual cities. We know have online community where members can have strong bonds . That wasn’t possible historically.

Correlation does not mean causation. I do agree they in the long run, lower interest rates than the current low level is probably going to hurt growth more than it helps. The point about increasing future liabilities (retirement, pension ) is true as well leading to more saving. The deflationary aspect comes from companies offering services at it below cost. They can do this as long as market forces supply them with almost unlimited funding. Uber/Lyft Are examples of this, but also Amazon in a way.

Put option on the market (SP500) or short the market (SPY) is how it would do it if I worry about market risking stock specific risk. It is not a Perfect Hedge, but should work OK in a market meltdown scenario and is liquid. Since put options are still pricy ( high VIX) I would just short the market right now most likely.

What? Finance and law are probably some that for practical reasons are very hard to do remotely. For those that think it's easy, let me paint this scenario for you. Meet John. John is bight law associate working for Skadden Arps. John works from home under Skadden's new "Fuck the landlord" policy. John jumps on a zoom meeting for a live deal he's working on. 10 ft away in their 600 sqft NYC apartment is his roommate Andrew. Andrew is an ambitious 2nd year M&A associate at Morgan Stanley. He's working from home under MS's new "why should we pay rent policy". John and Andrew don't want to move to Toledo where they can each afford their own place cause in Toledo the chicks are fat and in NYC the chicks are keeping it tight. With a NYC salary in Toledo, John and Andrew each buy a new house and have their pick of the top 5% of chicks there. They don’t care that 80% of the chicks in Toledo are fat. Anyways, jokes aside, I think any shift might be more driven by the companies than the employees. If the companies get the idea they only need some trophy RE to show off and scuttle 60% of their footprint after their digitized and virtualized their company, they might go head and just do that. While they are st it, why not benefit from a much larger labor pool, much of it in low cost areas and get people to work for less, adjusting for the lower cost of living. And once there, why not hire employees from another country for much cheaper doing the same thing. All this could’ve done before, but once most business process are virtual, and location truly doesn’t matter, it’s a logical next step. Seems pretty bearish for white collar salaries to me. Some enterprising remote workers pay it back by having two remote jobs at once and their bosses never find out.

Here is another interesting paper. It’s basically showing evidence that COVID-19 progresses from an respiratory to a cardio disease in its severe case. this manifests itself in blood vessel inflammation and clogging up small blood vessels causing oxygen deprivation. Ventilators don’t help much in this case any more this is a cardiovascular diseases at this point sind I know docs are treating this differently now (blood Thinners like Heparin etc.). Hopefully this will lead to better outcomes. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2015432 Now back to bashing Trump.

It can’t replicate by itself, it needs a host to replicate. On a different matter, outbreak in Church in Germany - 107 cases all at once! Ouch. All churches in the area have been closed again. https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/coronavirus-in-frankfurt-am-main-mehr-als-hundert-glaeubige-in-kirche-infiziert-a-a94cf16c-f765-4549-b49f-704f33568b00 (There is an escalation Rule in place that allows only 50 cases within 7 days /100k population that if exceeded lights to a re-tightening of distancing rules in the affected county area. This rule was triggered here in even more than one county) In another article it was mentioned that one of the main reason why mean processing plant workers are so susceptible to COVID-19 is because they are operating in relative crowded conditions, but also because the air temperature is typically low (4-7 Deg C) making the folks that stand there a long time more susceptible to respiratory infections. Dalal mentioned this - it applies to common cold, but COVID-19 likely as well. This might be one reason why southern states do relatively better but it also might mean a second wave isomorphic likely in fall/ early winter just like the Flu.

It can’t replicate by itself, it needs a host to replicate. On a different matter, outbreak in Church in Germany - 107 cases all at once! Ouch. All churches in the area have been closed again. https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/coronavirus-in-frankfurt-am-main-mehr-als-hundert-glaeubige-in-kirche-infiziert-a-a94cf16c-f765-4549-b49f-704f33568b00 (There is an escalation Rule in place that allows only 50 cases within 7 days /100k population that if exceeded lights to a re-tightening of distancing rules in the affected county area. This rule was triggered here in even more than one county)

Hasn’t gotten. Ich attention, but the Uk COVID-19 score card is now worse than Italy’s. Same death/pop number and since the UK is still adding new cases much more so than Italy, they are sure to overtake them. # Country death/1M population. 5 UK 542 6 Italy 542

Sounds like Trump considers himself eligible for the study and participates voluntary.

I think it scales if & when autonomous driving takes hold. You buy shares to pass on to your grandkids. edit: I meant re: Uber & Lyft. Why would Uber & Lyft want automated driving? If they have an automated driving fleet, they are going to have to buy automated cars. These cars are not going to be cheap. Then they are going to have to insure them. Then they are going to have to fuel them. Then they are going to to have to maintain them. Then they are going to have to replace them. This is going to cost billions of dollars, perhaps even tens of billions of dollars. Where is Uber going to get all that capital? They sure as $@#% going to do it out of retained earnings. That then leaves borrowing the money OR selling more stock. NOW, Uber's drivers do all of that for them. Uber's drivers are providing a LOT of capital by providing the vehicles. At current pricing, or anything near it, Uber's business model simply does not work. Well, if you believe in the “capital as a moat theory”, then the above is really a bull case and just requires to throw a few hundred billions at this problem. At the point in the future this occurs, we are likely used to these numbers.

4x isn't close**. It is a dangerous, BS narrative. CDC "best estimate" of Covid IFR-S = 0.4 CDC estimate of flu IFR-S last year (my calculations)* = 0.095 * 2018/2019 Estimated deaths / est. symptomatic illness = 34,000 / 35,000,000 = 0.095 Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html ** And the CDC estimate is low compared to other experts. For example, Dr. Fauci estimates 10x. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/top-federal-health-official-says-coronavirus-outbreak-is-going-to-get-worse-in-the-us.html I do not know where the CDC’s IFR rate comes from, it I think it is possible to get the IFR rate to 0.4% (my current ballpark numbers are roughly 2x that). other countries have shown IFR rates of 0.4% and Less than that, it might be as simple as protecting the elderly better. Still, if you go herd immunity - 0.4% with 200M infections are 800k death. That needs to be seem relative to the 2.5M people dying in the US naturally, but even though. In addition to the just binary dead or alive after infection discussion, I have some concerns about those that survive severe episodes as far as quality of life and LT morbidity is concerned.

Does ESPN benefit from being within Disney? I don’t think so. ESPN itself would be worth only a small multiple. Think MSGN or other cable business. 7x EBITDA maybe.