Uccmal

Thanks Grossbaum, Nice summary. I dont frequent the board as much, and have barely posted for several years. I have held First National for at least 8 years. At the moment it probably makes up about 12% of my portfolio. I became an owner due to being a customer. I am no longer a customer. I needed a lender that could give me a big HELOC in the last refinance, and Scotiabank had slightly better rates than FN. FN doesn't do HELOCs (so far). Their growth story is nothing short of amazing. Nearly all the business they write is 'prime' mortgages. They chose to be selective, and leave the chaff for lesser lenders. Consequently they have no trouble securitizing their mortgages with Institutions. They also do alot of business for TD. And they are very slowly building out their commercial mortgages to prime customers, of course. I also like the fact that they are a virtual company. You cant walk into a First National outlet. They have been in business since the start of the internet and have kept costs very low by not trying to be all things to the public. I especially like the special dividend that seems to appear every Christmas. This has paid for my family to go south a few times. The way I work a company like FN is to buy it when there is some kind of crisis, or panic. Last spring is the perfect example. I was selling off part of my position during the rally ahead of the Pandemic last year. Within weeks I bought back whatever I had sold, and some extra at half the price. Right now I am very slowly selling it down to keep the position right sized. Eventually something will happen to bring the price back down again and I will load up. And again, and again. Tawse and Smith still seem very much in control. As long as that is the case I am okay with it. Last year, one or both of them took some money out, likely for diversification or estate planning purposes. I am wary of a couple of things: - Tawse or Smith, or both deciding to retire. But I honestly dont think they will. It cant be that difficult to run this thing now that they have all the controls and culture in place. - the growth runway: Every year I keep expecting them to hit a wall, but they seem to keep on pulling rabbits. Should they hit a wall the stock will likely stabilize at a price that justifies the dividend. - a major recession in housing. As above, they are a careful lender, and cut their teeth during the financial crisis. I am not sure they would even miss a beat since their customers are the least likely to suffer in a recession. Cheers, Al

I find this whole thing fascinating, insofar as having my life upended in every possible way can be considered fascinating. I had a buy list for years of a few US and a couple of Canadian stocks that always seem overpriced to me. In March, early April I bought shares in HD, Costco, FB, Apple, Visa, Mcd, and Ko. In Canada, new stocks were QSR, CN, and CTC.a . I expected FB and Apple to rise with the movement online. I had no idea that HD, CN, and CTC, would recover so fast. I thought Visa would come back quicker, but it is taking its time. The whole home renovation, building boom took me by surprise. A deeper dive into possible second order effects might have uncovered this, but as is usually the case with a crisis there simply isn't time to think about this. On the dark side I bought puts on some of the Us names above and got skinned alive, but I have more than made back my losses on that. I dont think we can easily predict the effects of vaccine(s). Some of the trends were already in motion before the pandemic will continue such as cashless payment. I am not convinced that video meetings will be popular enough to sustain the stock prices of Zoom and its ilk, which we saw yesterday. The big companies are going to eat their lunch anyway. And there is a high level of Zoom fatigue. Another trend that will continue to gain traction are ESG stocks - not particularly related to the pandemic. Obviously, drug companies who have treatments and vaccines will do well but that is probably priced in. My take on travel is that it will take a couple of years, at least to come back. And as mentioned above alot of these companies are now owned by the bondholders. I wouldn't touch airlines ever. They just lurch from crisis to crisis. Then, there is the uptake of a vaccine. My feeling is that being vaccinated will become a passport to doing all sorts of things in society. Private companies and their insurers will force it on people, where governments do not. If you want to travel on our flight you have to be vaccinated; work at our company; enter our premises, etc. I am not really buying anything new, or even looking right now. Alot of the "backbone" companies are at least fairly priced and I will hold the ones I have already. Guessing which retailers, travel companies, or manufacturers will do well is difficult, and will likely take longer than expected to play out. On a side note, Vaccine or not, the UK, EU, and US, and probably quite few other countries are rapidly heading toward herd immunity of some sort. I always wonder what the real positive numbers are. If the US (for example) is really getting 300 k cases per day that gives it 100 M cases within a year. The same would apply in many places. At some point left unchecked numbers will come down on their own. That assumes some level of persistent immunity. Adding a vaccine into this scenario only speeds things up.

Not a good sign. I see Facebook has now surpassed its all time high along with Home Depot. And Apple and Google are working on it. It is fortuitous that I hold all of these except Google. Middling positions. The market in aggregate seem to see these mega caps thriving, and they are. The S&P wont be testing new lows any time soon. The market has bifurcated.

Ok, well... Home Depot just reached an all time high. Go figure. Managed to snag a couple of hundred shares a while back but what to do. Nothing is usually the best course of action.

No kidding. And government wanting to keep a home grown air business at all costs with no accountability.

That’s pretty heretical talking here. Isn’t get you confined to the “praising the virtues and glory of FFH” or the politics section. Yeah well. I was a shareholder from 1996 to 2012 so I think I am qualified to comment honestly. :-)

I don’t know If people are making a big deal out of Bam’s ownership structure, or not, but it seems similar (more or less) to what you get with Berk, FFH, FB, Goog, MSFT or any number of other companies where the primary operators control the voting shares either via volume or multiples. I t he case of a badly managed company like FFH it is bad. In the case of a well managed company like Berk. It is good. I suppose if people think there is back room enrichment going on that is a different story. A lot could be hidden in the back room I suppose but BAM has been operated like this for at least two decades. That’s a long time to hide fraudulent activities.

Anyone notice that CAR (Avis) issued 500 Million in 5 year bonds at around 10%. The stock won’t recover with those kind of headwinds. I cleared car rental companies from my watch list.

Enbridge - Pipe is getting harder and harder to build. An oligopoly is being created.

I think people are under appreciating the following: 1) second wave: people still expect it to go away on its own in the summer and never come back. let's not forget that the 1918 flu had a second wave which was worse than the first one 2) that if there is a cure, it may not be easy to manufacture, distribute and administer. Take Remdesevir for example, the market moved up a couple of times because of preliminary research it may be a cure. Not to mention that the trial didn't have a control arm, but let's just say it is significantly better than a control. Even in that case, know that Gilead can only manufacturer several million doses by the end of the year (going on memory). Second, more importantly, it is an IV medication. How many people are willing to get sick and then get hospitalized to receive an IV drug? 3) that if we completely 100% open up the world economy, it won't change the fear that is ingrained in people - travel, retail, leisure, entertainment, large events, etc are bound to be effected until there is A) a simple cure or B) a vaccine. These industries are likely to remain in a recession for some time. I think all of the above are expectations now, not some surprises. There won't be more news like this virus is a pandemic, not something that only happens in Wuhan. Almost every country is infected and dealing with it. Especially the second wave -- I highly doubt anyone right now expects it to go away on its own. At some point, we will decide to live with the virus. The lethality doesn't look that bad if you trust the antibody testing studies. And it seems like we will reach a herd immunity soon in many areas. Call me an optimist. Your an optimist :-). Actually, I don’t really disagree with anything you have said. Where I differ is that the economic effects are going to last a long time. I am not really considering the virus as a factor going forward. It am expecting something of a paradigm shift. A huge segment of the population has been living on credit for a long time. In between this and job loss these people will not be in good shape for a long time, if ever. If the job loss, and debt repayment, last a few months to a couple of years people will become much tighter with money. My Grandparents repaired, saved, and never borrowed. They lived through the GD. By our standards they were tight with money, even though my GF worked the entire depression (he was a teacher). Governments can only do so much to ignite spending. If people develop a healthy fear of debt the economy will take a major hit. Right now, markets are acting as if everyone will go back to their debt fuelled spending ways as soon as we contain this virus. I think it may not return for a generation. Especially if the economy adjusts to having fewer workers. IMHO.

I have been reading through the whole thread. This has been exceedingly frustrating. I have taken some realized losses on puts I bought. I have kept more than enough to hedge any downside for now. In the meantime I have been buying an assortment of high quality companies that should rebound and some have already. Recent additions include Canadian Tire, more HD, more V, Sbux, QSR, Aw.un - tsx, More FB, more V, Mcd, Apple, and a couple of other things. Yesterday I went across the portfolio of ~ 20 stocks and sold 5-10% of everything, and all of Starbucks. Sbux was back to its value of late fall so I dont see any upside. I can always buy it back when it readjusts downwards. I still think we are going to get a second major down at some point, I really don’t seen any reason why this may not happen. But I am no longer buying hedges or trying to guess the direction. I am staying to my long term procedure of buying the best companies at reasonable prices. Every time I drift and get fancy with options I seem to get skewered. So, Keep it simple.

I took a cursory look at Hertz and Budget-Avis last week. I am not impressed. These are both companies that have been around forever. Neither pays a dividend. That’s a big red flag for me. What does the shareholder get in a slow growing industry, prone to mild cyclicality, if there is no dividend? These companies seem to be in a perpetual state of buying up smaller players, who seem in a perpetual state of appearing and competing on price. Every once in a while they get kicked back to the pond by a recession when they can’t move their old fleet out at a profit. When I rent a car I rent on price, and nothing else. I can go online and choose from 15 companies in every airport, have at least of which are owned by the two or three players, who compete with themselves. While your at it look at the ten year charts. Neither stock has moved in ten years. Stock doesn’t move and they pay no dividends. What’s to like.

Agreed, times have changed, but they have also made a national energy policy more of a necessity than it has ever been. Lack of money, has a wonderful way of concentrating the minds of everyone, Like it or not, there will be climate driven constraints, but it can be done intelligently (ie: orphan well clean-up) The Supreme Court has ruled there is 'duty to consult', not a 'duty to agree'. A sick community cannot veto a pipeline, because it cannot make a decision. The obvious industry 'consultors', are the governments of the day, under a national energy policy. There will be quasi-privatization. Crown corporation in-ground SPR, pipeline company, oil company, rail (oil/grain car) fleet, tanker (nfld) fleet, supply-chain (medical, food) infrastructure, etc. Most likely as oiligarch, crown corp and 1-2 private corps. And perhaps one of the biggest lessons from Covid-19. All of the above are essential services, with immense value-add, and robust . When the sh1te hits the fan, the gig economy, and non-essential services break down. Interesting times. SD What this says to me is that if you have pipe already, it will become increasingly valuable. The repercussions for future supply are interesting to say the least. SA, And to a lessor degree the other large Mideast countries are going to be facing revolution if the oil price stays down for very long. We saw what happened to Libya’s and Venezuela’s supplies when governments become unstable. Simultaneously we have a virtual elimination of long tail projects by every major player in the world. The outcome is likely toppled regimes, and a massive price bounce back, down the road. It may become more like railroads, with very few players making a lot of money. We could speed up the rebalance really quick by turning the gulf fields into glass. China may take exception but I sure Moscow would be on board.

I get that he prefers paper but I have never thought of him as a luddite. He was using a cell phone before most people, in 1998, during the LTCM thing. He started playing bridge online in 93/94 before the internet took off. His cell number is likely pretty well guarded. His security service at home probably knows how to reboot the router and change in printer cartridge anyways. :-). I think its is more about preferences and disciplined time management. He is likely watching and waiting and nibbling here and there. Dude is nearly 90... maybe he is having a nap.

I quite frankly have no idea what to make of this for the immediate future. Could be a dead cat bounce. I have always been over 100% invested, for 24 years. I will ride the elevator up or down, but I much prefer up. My living expenses are 2/3 covered by dividends, most are unlikely to be cut. For the other 1/3; I have years worth of credit lines I can tap, and deflation is causing expenses to go down. So far I have saved about $4500 from cancelled travel, not eating out, and lessons of various sorts. If summer camps for the kids, and summer travel is cancelled we are looking at another several thousand. Renovation jobs are on hold. We were planning to spend 30,000 or so on some "needed" outdoor work, but there is a moratorium on new construction work. And my own home reno will go on hold in a week or two when I can no longer get in the store to "see" the parts I need. Curbside has limited utility for me. Multiply my reduced expenditures out throughout the population and you get a major recession followed, or concurrent to a market rout. The travel, camp, and lessons costs are gone forever. I wont be travelling anywhere but Canada until at least Christmas (My insurance wont cover it until this is over). The reno costs are kicked down the road for me, but for people on reduced or no pay there are now years out. Further out from me, people are unable to get new credit cards, mortgage rates are up, house sales are gone. And people don't think this is going to affect stock markets? Most people live paycheck to paycheck, and are unprepared for any interruption. The government stimulus is just a bandage.