Jurgis

rishig, I don't believe that's true. IIUC, 2nd liens (e.g. 165167CQ8 that Picasso pointed to) are secured and trading at $.50. Not clear whether they are good investment though.

I wonder if this article was automatically generated. Would not surprise me. Would not surprise me if this was written by human either though... ::)

First, let me say that I don't know what is going to happen. We may have some serious instability (lol it's IMO a stupid word for drop or crash), we may not. We may have it this year, in next couple of years or in next 10 years. There is a high likelihood that market(s) will drop over 20%+ sometime in the next 10-15 years, but not because of doom and gloom predictions, but because the probability over that time period is high. I do not have concrete examples how things will be dealt with. The monetary issues are in the hands of central bankers and even though doom and gloomers say they have no solutions, that's just based on their limited view of the future. The same was said in 2008-2009 and later during Euro crisis, etc. Yet things worked out so far. Regarding debt issues, this needs political solutions, which may or may not come. Once again, doom and gloomers believe that no solutions will come. But IMHO it's putting on blinders to any solutions and their possibility. In USA tax reform can solve pretty much all issues and I don't really see monetary issues in US. In Europe, situation is harder because of Euro, so yes, there is more risk that Eurozone won't arrive to a good solution. Yet, I would not give more than ~60% chance that Eurozone will have a huge crisis and crash. In China, like in US the problems are solvable. There might be some market drops while they do it, but there's nothing catastrophic. The problem I see is that doom and gloomers may be kind-of right sometime in the next 10-15 years, but you will be missing all kind of opportunities while you wait for the crash to materialize. Buffett has been preaching inflation for the last 30 years or so. What would have been your return if you listened to this? OK, so maybe Buffett is bad at macro, but how do you know that X, Y, Z aren't too? (To address the topic of this thread: Dalio makes some good arguments. But you have to look at him like you look at Buffett: he talks one thing and invests... well he invests to make money like Buffett does. So don't expect him to be 100% in cash, gold or whatever the current gloom and doom favorite play is.) BTW, I think I see a preconception bias here already when you label the policy "experimental". :) History does not repeat (although it rhymes), so every day is a new day and every policy is "experimental". Muddle through is a possible future. Long term (not 1-3 years) what happens in China (and perhaps other populous emerging economies - India, etc.) will affect the world enormously. So one positive situation: China grows to be like US in 20th century. The rest of the world has a muddle through growth by supplying/trading-with China/etc, while having so-so internal economies. Inequality and debt can be dealt with in US via tax reform (though, yes, it's tough to do a good tax reform due to a lot of vested interests). BTW, yes, if you ask me about next 10-15 years, there's a high probability that we will go out of the Goldilocks zone of 1-3% inflation sometime during that time. On upside or downside. Might lead to big market drop. I have no clue when and whether it will happen at all. I have somewhat high hope that it would not lead to catastrophe for our way of life, but nothing's certain. Even longer term 20-40 years, I think we have a significant (over 10%) chance that we'll have a serious social disturbance that may impact the whole planet. But again, like Tetlock says in Superforecasting, any predictions that go over 5 years are waste of time and no better than a flock (sic) of chimpanzees. ;) Anyway, I'm probably not going to convince you. Not my point either. Everyone is welcome to follow their own convictions, etc. I probably should not post on these threads. It just sometimes gets under my skin. Take care

Can they sell million+ shares at .30?

Yet another the sky is falling thread from the perma negative crowd. Why am I not surprised.

There was a question at DJCO meeting of why Munger bought BAC when he bought the three big ones for DJCO. I did not understand/hear the answer and I don't see it in any of the notes (perhaps note takers did not hear it either). Anyone know what the answer was?

I'm with you man.

2nd liens at $50ish might not be a bad investment. Fido shows zero inventory, so I'm not really spending much time on them. Unsecureds at .13 might work too, but only if you can sleep at night, etc.

Buffett's Berkshire was acquired because of anger..... Right. Though Buffett says it was a huge (biggest?) mistake. ;)

Anger is a powerful force. And it can be constructive as well as destructive. Anger has led to positive changes through human history. Jealousy and envy - hmm, I wonder how many fortunes were built based on these. Not sure if those are positive examples though.

SWF seeking HF for LTR; PICs; DD+++

I just keep buying the common. Not that anyone cares or should follow. Have fun.

BeerBBQ: you are saying "current market value of the outstanding debt". But you have to realize that unsecureds are trading at .15 on dollar (not counting March 2016s) and secureds are trading at .50 on dollar. So, yeah, CHK may be worth "current market value of the outstanding debt", but that's small solace for bondholders - or shareholders. The question is really whether it's worth par value of secured and unsecured and IMHO the answer in current situation is "no". If nat gas recovers - and personally I am much more oil bull than nat gas bull - especially coming into spring - then maybe. But weak maybe really. Disclosure: I still have some unsecureds.

Like Picasso says, I believe common is toast. I think that unsecured's can get at best 50% par if all stars align. In the worst case unsecureds are also toast or 10 cents on a dollar. I think that it's best for most noteholders that they file before March while they still have cash and they don't pay the March unsecured at par. However they will probably try to limp through, so I would not try to predict when they will file.

I think I disagree that unsecureds are worthless if CHK files. But it will depend on a bunch of things, so I won't argue strongly.

I completely agree with Buffett. However, it's "America's best days", not necessarily "investor's-who-just-bought-whatever-US-company-stock-and-expects-that-GDP-growth-will-make-his-pick-work best days". If I had to pick whether to be born in US right now (knowing nothing about the future) or any time in the past (knowing in general what will happen up to 2015, but not particulars that would make me rich), I'd pick to be born now.

I don't want to derail this topic, so probably we should move this elsewhere if there is any interest to continue... But anyway: IMO opportunities in energy/coal/metal/etc. that have 5.5x upsides are all pretty much "hail Mary" high-BK-likelihood companies. There might be one or two small caps that are real opportunities, but not many. Companies that are highly likely to survive are mostly trading at 2x upsides or less. If you really think PAH is 5.5x upside, it's probably a better deal (vs. risk) than similar return opportunities in those sectors. But that's just MHO.

If it's not a secret, what other names you have in mind that have similar return? I've looked at PAH and haven't bought. It's hard for me to value expected (as opposed to existing) cash flows based on recent roll-up.

BAC without WTA. And some others.

I prefer http://media.giphy.com/media/Kerg053G7ZJUQ/giphy.gif nowadays.

Don't make me change my opinion, man... :-X 8) On serious note, I don't care much about negativity. I am long only. I keep buying. When I run out of cash I will stop. Period. GL.

I got the same impression.

Yes. Bought higher too, so not sure this tells you much. GL. :)

There's not enough negativity yet. This thread is an example.

What's the CUSIP of the 2nd lien bonds? I don't see them on Fido.