Jurgis

Tail section risk is not that high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_structural_failures ;D

988 years in the future and they are still blowing up. Nobody learns from history... /shakes head

I'm not a professional economist. 8) Back of the napkin: Retail https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag44-45.htm 15M labor force, let's say 7M unemployed. Leisure and hospitality https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag70.htm 17M labor force, let's say 10M unemployed That's about 17M unemployed. Total US labor force is about 160M. So a bit above 10% unemployment. I don't know if these assumptions are too draconian. In other sectors it's likely people won't get fired even if company curtails operations. In retail a lot of people are hourly, so they are not really "fired" if they don't work. Retail sales are likely to suffer higher drop than 11%. 20%+? I might be totally off though. ::) Don't rely on these estimates to make any decisions. 8)

Yeah, I cannot get toilet paper, so I use $ bills instead. Cheaper too.

I think a lot of people have incorrect concept of "full lockdown". I had questions about how the heck things work in a full lockdown in California. So I searched. The list of "essential" businesses that are open is quite longer than you'd think. In case you wonder if you can get strawberries: agriculture is not shut down. In case you wonder if you can get anything from China: port of Long Beach is not shut down and railroads are likely not shut down either. In case you wonder if you can get a loan, cash a check, or do a refi: banks are not shut down (though some might have limited staff in branch and/or shorter hours). In case you wonder if you can get your appliances repaired or purchased: appliance repairs is essential business and not shut down; purchases might be more mixed bag. I just bought an appliance (but we are not in full lockdown as California is). I'm not saying that "lockdown" is "just like a flu" ;D. It is bad. But it's not 100% stoppage of economy either. BTW, I find it really funny that with "lockdown" in effect, I can easily buy non-essential products like window blinds from China, but I cannot buy such essential product as US made toilet paper. ::)

I thought so too and even heard a buy falling through. But then I just heard from a friend that last weekend he got outbid on a house with 6 offers quite a few of them cash. :o Although now that open houses are presumably cancelled, I don't see houses being sold. People would not be stupid enough to buy houses after just a virtual tour would they? ::)

It is (hardly) surprising how myopic even intelligent and trained investors are when considering complex systems with multiple levels of effects. 1. Let's move manufacturing to US! - And let's pay increased prices for products. Let's NOT move manufacturing to lowest cost countries, cause consumers will be just fine with higher prices and will never reward cheaper sourcing of goods. And shareholders will cheer companies manufacturing in higher cost locations and having lower margins. NOT. 2. Let's prepare for next pandemic and have ... 10x ICUs ... 10x ventilators ... cause nobody cares about the healthcare costs. The extra capacity costs will be gladly absorbed by taxpayers or shareholders. NOT? 3. Let's not source drugs from China ... cause shareholders and taxpayers would revolt on using substandard source with no quality control ... they would gladly absorb the costs of manufacturing in high quality facility in US. Yeah! Great! All pharma shareholders let's unite and vote for that!

Saw this claim on a roll of toilet paper: "1 roll lasts 1 week" I said "No sh1t!"

You were right, the NAV as of the close yesterday was $48 and it traded between $44.5 and $45.5. It seems like a pretty low risk way to make 5 to 6% in short order as the price of the ETF converges on NAV once selling pressure subsides. You are assuming price is gonna go up to NAV rather than NAV is gonna go down to price. This is far from assured.

Just for fun: 1) Same as it looked pre pandemic 2) Depends on how the pandemic is handled. Best case: 1-2 quarters, worst case: probably a year. Yeah, I know that vaccine is not gonna be ready for a year-18 months. Economy won't stop for 18 months. People won't shelter-in-place for 18 months. 3) Likely none. There will be companies that go BK though. 4) At some point tax rates will likely go up. Quite possibly not soon. 5) This is not politics section 6) Yes. Deficit will go up. Money will be printed. 7) No.

IMO relative valuations (selling something to buy something) is very hard. Actually I find relative valuations (whether to buy X, Y or Z) to be very hard overall. :'(

Is there a PFIC issue owning Pershing Square? Some sort of tax issue? I vague recall that was the case. I don't own any Fairfax India for that specific reason. Yes, Pershing is PFIC. You can still hold it in IRA without tax issues (presumably, I'm not your tax professional and all that). There might be complications with 401(k) due to ERISA regulations. Consult your tax professional. Read this thread from beginning or reconsult thepupil ( https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/pshne-pershing-square-holdings/msg390736/?topicseen#msg390736 )

Everything.

Highest YTM are 2039/2042 ones. Or at least they were at Fido yesterday.

Highest YTM is 20 year 5%+. Not that attractive IMO, BWDIK. Convexity! This bond is trading at 80 cents and was 105 just a few days ago. Magically resolving all issues and getting the bond back where it was is a ~35% total return opportunity. Magically resolving all issues will probably produce way higher return on common.

I'd say wrong.

Highest YTM is 20 year 5%+. Not that attractive IMO, BWDIK.

Why do you think that? What would be your estimate for loan losses? Edit: Looking at this, it was not bad in 2008-2009: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1393612/000119312511014919/d10k.htm Do you expect it to be (much) worse this year? If so, why? And how much worse?

Down 50%+ so far. Seems really cheap if one looks long term. Even assuming it does not grow much.

I realized that I might benefit a bit from this via Tencent, YY, NTES positions. Still not planning to buy much more in this space.

That is very likely right. I'm just not sure that I'd invest based on this. Nimble traders might profit though.

Lurker for years, my first post on this forum. I had the sae thing in late January. Extreme stomach discomfort that started quite suddenly leading to bouts of vomiting. I couldn't even drive myself back home without puking into a bag. The stomach discomfort got better in 24 hours (mild fever also went away). Then the coughing started which later days. I'd wake up at nights to cough for few minutes each time. Chest tightness also began. I'm a lot better now, but my chest tightness isn't fully gone. If I fully relax my body I can feel a tiny bit of resistance to talking in a whole breath of air. I also have asthma and using my inhaler helped! CorpRaider, keep hope and stay happy. Positivity helps the immune system. Thank God for Netflix. I watched a ton of comedy when I was going through the bug, whatever it was. Stay hydrated!! I never considered Corona seriously but it does look like the symptoms are correlated. Now if there was community transmission in late January, just imagine how off we are with the denominator. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The hard thing with exponentials is that it's easy to be way off if we are even slightly off in any parameter. What if we are wrong on the start date by a couple of weeks or so? Orthopa's anecdotes and line of thought seems reasonable to me. This might be neither the flu nor COVID-19. It happens quite a bit that viral infections are diagnosed (by exclusion?) and it tests negative for flu. My son years ago had periodic spouts of sickness we could never get to the bottom of. Sometimes, it was just a stomach flu (vomiting), sometimes it was high fever (so high they we went to the ICU with him because were scared) and always tested negative for flu. These period spouts of virus infection went away by itself thankfully as he grow older. I am not a doctor, so don’t claim to know much, but seem seems to be quite often viral infections around they don’t seem to test positive for flu. Anyways, good luck and hopefully you feel better. Even if its’s just a stomach flu it’s no fun, I had my fair shares of those way back, I am afraid that because COVID-19 is not tested, a lot of people may self-diagnose as COVID even though it isn't. (Of course, there's also the opposite: people may self-diagnose as non-COVID even though it is.) Even if these people are tested negative for flu (but then flu testing is also not very common), it's still not necessarily COVID.

QFT.

I am wondering the same thing. 8)

This. I've been to Finland a lot and visited Norway two years ago. Great places. In summer. ;) (I've been to Sweden too, but ... who cares 8) )