Spekulatius

Yeah his ramblings are something to watch. He clearly doesn’t not how to conduct a meeting. These WH meetings are a complete embarassement. He should just set the tone agenda for the day and let those experts (Fauci, Birx) do most of the talking. Kushner as a logistic czar is a joke too (besides the bad optics) ,why not get a qualified army corps General in charge who knows he is he is doing.

That's interesting. From what i read a lot of lower-income people losing their jobs right now, will actually have more money coming in than before (combination of unemployment and the check from Mnuchin). How fast do you get an unemployment check after you file in the US. There might be some cash flow mismatch, but my impression was that for a couple of months most people will be able to scrape by. It could be a other wrinkle they this crisis leads to a further destruction of the middle class. Let’s say you have a couple earning 200k/ year in 2019, you get zero Covid-19 check. 200k is a lot in some parts of the country but not they much in others. If now both lose their jobs, they could be worse off than a low income family actually.

The shortages are certainly regional and even depend on the store. Anecdotally there was TP at Costco, but other item seem to be on short supply. Strange enough, I never had problem to get the French cheese that I like like, Supermarket or generally the more gourmet stuff. It’s thee simple things they run soft as people go back to what they ate as kids apparently and stock up on Macaroni and Cheese, Kraft ultra processed crap, Spam etc.

Just taking a bit longer than expected to funnel stimulus money to them. Don't worry, they're good for it. "they were late on the payments for November, January and February" This thing didn't start impacting the US until at least late Jan. Why did they miss November and January? I suppose all of us peons can chip in and help them. ::) Yeah, they were rumored to be weak before this started, but the epidemic was probably the death knell. A lot of commercial RE players in NYC were already hurting before the crisis developed, especially those in retail (which got amazoned ).

Kushner Co defaults: https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/capital-markets/kushner-companies-mortgage-103550

Truth is always somewhere in between. That all the frauds were committed by financial institutions during GFC because they were out to screw people, and this time they are out to help is just too simplistic a view of the world. When there's $350 billion at stake, and hundreds of thousands of people / entities involved, there will be bad actors. At some point, there'll be opportunistic politicians rage in the name of "we the people" to raise his/her national profile on things that go wrong from the left and the right. At that point the only thing the banks can hide behind is the guidelines on the origination / monitoring rules that they want government to put out now. Even then, politicians can change goal post down the road if it suits their purpose. None of this is to predict this whole thing will necessarily be poorly executed this go around. Just saying plenty of issues exists in this whole endeavor. There are already people saying this is a give-away to the rich and connected, and they are right in some respects. Such is the nature of human societies at large. The big risk is not that banks are trying to screw their customer, with the new arrangement where they don’t partake in credit risk, their incentives is to approve everyone without due diligence, which lead to tax Payers taking losses. For now that’s fine, but when it’s over, there could be hell to pay if banks are grossly negligent now.

There is a chance they we get European even Japan like zombie banks in the US. low NIM/ earnings power and assets that aren’t marked as defaulted, but aren’t paying either and just sit there on the balance sheet and fester. this whole loan forgiveness thing is OK, but I get a sense that it is “Calvinball” time and default become a sport and in the end, banks will be the bag holder - because the buck stops somewhere. Even if not, the low interest rate low NIM environment causes a semi permanent impairment that may justify the pounding these bank stocks have received.

LAACZ - annual report is out. Solid results for 2019 and the balance sheet is ready for what 2020 will bring: https://backend.otcmarkets.com/otcapi/company/financial-report/243339/content

It’s just a flesh wound, as are his huge bank positions, which are also impaired. Anyways, my guess is that BRK hasn’t really bought anything substantial yet. He is likely waiting for much better bargains. He probably bought back a little stock, but that’s is most likely it.

I just don’t think so. It wouldn't be Buffet like. I think they just realized they these airline are impaired and may go to zero. If you think about it and look at the cash burn and make a timeline when this epidemic truly is over (Spring next year is earliest in my opinion due to vaccine availability) then it makes sense. The problem is they none of the airline companies lasts that long without bankruptcy.

Bought GOOG with an L and a bit of RTX. GOOGL was a partial rebuy, as I sold most of my position a few days ago.

Yes, it varies by location. No Problems where we live which isn’t far from Jurgis’ location. My wife just bought groceries for $300 today and she got everything, even Toilet paper. I do think that supply chains are stretched in some parts. Shortages are most likely due to hoarding. TP seems to be over, but now grocery Stores restrict items like eggs (only one box/ person) and things like this. Everything they get low probably get bought up, just like it used to be behind the iron curtain like in the DDR back then. I don’t work in food distribution, but the struggle to keep things going are real. I support manufacturing as part of my job, which supplies components to medical equipment and also for military R&D and there is a lot of demand for medical right now, while military is normal. Furthermore, there are personal shortages in some areas, because you can find skilled labor quickly and some folks can’t come to work because they have small kids at home or perhaps are afraid of infection risk. The company I work for gave everyone supporting manufacturing a temporary pay raise of 10%, supposedly to mitigate this. Then there is the issue with essential vs. nonessential business. Our is considered essential, but some of our suppliers from other stated (with different rules) may not be so, if they shut down, it can affect us too. It’s a big mess. Then if you do get a COVID-19 case, probably part of the building needs to be shut down for cleaning, which causes downtime and probably doesn’t help with employee retention too. So I think the ability to keep running even for essential business will be impacted more and more as this drags on.

Yes, there is real chance that we repeat the 1930‘s. Scary.

Yes, I think BAM can be compared to BX or KKR to some extend, except BX really doesn’t have permanent holding. They will sell everything of the right price, while BAM keep theirs around to guarantee the Stream of cash from LP to GP permanently.

I think it was UAL who said they are burning 60m a day. That’s craziness It is the consequence of having a high operational leverage. It is deadly in a time like this. A lot of business are in the same boat. I wonder about stuff like steel mills. They continue to operate, but where does the product go? At some point they need to shut down. Scary.

Smart move. In my opinion, DAL is likely a zero. They will run out of cash by fall. LUV will last longer but even they could be done in winter or spring.

When facts change, You have got to change your opinion. These airlines are are likely zeros. They don’t last longer than few month without meaningful revenues and will go into prepackaged bankruptcy before thy run out of cash. By fall, they are done, imo.

I agree with everything thepupil started. BPY is overleveraged and compared to comps overvalued. That’s without even taking into account external Management and the fees along with it. There is absolutely no reason to own this. If you like BAM, just align yourself with Management and buy BAM. No reason trying to be super smart here.

I bet there is more PPE coming on from abroad than is exported from the US to abroad. Starting this petty war is a fools game. There are rumblings that the US intercepted a french order for masks from China by bidding higher before it was delivered. Not good.

LK is more like a fling that gives you Herpes. Yuck. The US should just not allow listing companies with a VIE structure and we would be done

So what’s the reason. Defense act only applies to domestic production. Every other country is hit too and does the same thing basically. Most mask are produced in China anyways. FOr what it’s worth, the MA governor on today briefing said that MA ordered N95‘s mask a while ago, which came through NY (airport) and were confiscated there. It’s a Wild West out there and everyone grabs what they can. Next shipment for N95’s for MA is coming though Logan Airport.

There have been plenty of Chinese frauds (actually even net nets ) where even the cash wasn’t real. I think as a group, these net nets lost money. Unless one has some boots on the ground and can at least verify some of the numbers (like Store traffic, store count, cash etc), it’s just a gamble and not one with good odds based on the history of Chinese frauds. It’s remarkable how every economic crisis reveals fraudulent companies.

Even though I live in the heart of New England now I claim that Dunkin Donuts just sucks. Neither the coffee nor the donuts are any good.

Anyone looks at UTX or RTN. It looks like each sharecount RTN gets converted into 2.335 newco shares and each UTX into one Newco share. UTX trades at a warrant and so does OTIS and CARR (Carrier). Carrier is an interesting business, but they loaded it up with too much debt imo ($10.7B). I have not looked at OTIS yet. UTX will take its lumps due to commercial aerospace exposure, but it’s a good business longer term. Raytheon’s defense business will help stabilize them until it blows over. It‘s like Boeing without the catastrophic risk.

I was hoping to see this dip back into the 40’s. DNKN also looks a bit interesting although their leverage and the whole “asset lite” thing always gives me pause. I never know how to views companies like them, MCD and other franchise chains because of that. So generally I just stay away. The problem with being on top and asset lite is that you need to pay attention on how the grunts on the bottom are doing. If they fail , the franchisor will fail too even if it is financially healthy by itself. I am suspicious about the financial health of DNKN franchisees.