Castanza

Wow It's not like he wasn't working with huge teams and that he hasn't shaped the culture there to a large extent that will stay after he's gone, but this is a big announcement. Wow indeed. It will be very interesting to see how they do without him... To be fair, Johny had already semi-retired a few years ago when design responsibilities fell more on others and he spent a lot of time focusing mostly on Apple Park, but it's still turning a page of Apple history. Is Apple's design that hard to mimic going forward? I mean once the iconic style is established it shouldn't be that hard for others to carry on. At least styling wise. I don't really picture apple shifting their style to something else (in a dramatic sense) anytime in the near future.

As someone who thinks the government shouldn't forgive student debt or give out guaranteed loans to 18 year old kids, I agree with what you're saying (as a first step). We need to move away from this for profit, sky rocketing education cost model that has been ushered in by government. The best way as you pointed out would be to incentivize certain careers. One, I don't think government loans should be given to students unless they meet strict GPA and SAT scores coming out of HS. Two loans should only be given for students who are pursuing STEM careers. Perhaps even do a census and give loans to the top 25 career field demands. Three in order to keep receiving the ability to take the loans out students need to have strict GPA requirements (depending on major) to meet. There needs to be terms for a major change as well. Limit them to changes within the top 25. All of that being said I don't think that is a permanent solution. It will create a lot of division and issues if done for a long period. But it is a step in the right direction. I think the best process forward is to start introducing apprenticeships in high school. If a Junior in High School has a good inclination for math and engineering then have a course which allows them to work at a local engineering firm for a few hours a week. Not only does this teach the kid real life work vs study, it gives employers good insight to potential candidates. I bet a lot of these employers would be willing to give out scholarships (with terms) if they had a kid they really liked. I also think that apprenticeships could be used as a path to a career directly out of high school without needing a college degree. I mean how many careers are out there that really don't require a whole lot of education. Maybe they require a certification or something that a local employer would be willing to train and test their apprentice on. But there are TONS of business jobs that shouldn't require a degree. We need to bring value back to k-12 education. Not diminish it by making a bachelors degree the new high school GED. We also need to bring value back to a bachelors degree. Not diminish it by making masters degrees the new bachelors. I mean it's quite ridiculous...The issue is employers want to know if a person is smart enough to do a simple job....But we are using a bachelors degree as a checkbox when that is not its intended purpose. We already see this hypocritical attitude and standard in the business world. Look how many people run successful businesses with just a high school degree. Look how many entrepreneurs there are with only a high school degree. You mean to tell me those same people need a 4 year degree from a state university to manage a Sherwin Williams?

Lance, I always find your positions quite interesting. Do you use IAU as a hedge? Hi Castanza - yes, I do. I’m concerned that rates are headed lower, particularly between now and the election. I already hold a large position in TLT and don’t want to add to it (will opportunistically take this off if rates continue lower). Also I’m not comfortable shorting the indexes even though they seem overvalued here. Thus, IAU it is. Thanks Lance Thanks Lance, appreciate the response.

Lance, I always find your positions quite interesting. Do you use IAU as a hedge?

I’m reasonably sure most of them will spend it on their liquor of choice within a day or two. But you can't be sure. And that's such a specific example lol. Anyways. I agree with Stahleyp in terms of euphoria. granted I wasn't an investor during the 1999 bubble. But I have done quite a bit of reading on it. Same with the 1983 video game bubble. To me it looks more like we might have localized bubbles within specific markets (think tech subscription services and SaaS, auto industry). I do think a lot of the hype simply is being expresses with "the changing of the guard" so to speak. What I mean by that is the rapid influx of millennials and other young investors entering the market. This demographic communicates much differently and it very much driven and motivated by trends and fads. I think it's easy for this generation to latch onto IPO's etc. and then blast it all over social media and other outlets. I think a bubble does exist, but I don't see it at 1999 levels where everyone was throwing every last penny at basically every company that launched.

Never said it was....simply pointing out a fact.

You can't artificially create demand by printing money and giving it to poor people. Policy built on hopeful premises is dangerous.

Greg, that is a simple yet important insight about Kellogg. However, I think part of the difference lies in the marketing of the product. Yes, Beyond Meat is marketed as a healthy alternative to meat. But I think the core of their marketing is on the sustainability of the product. I rarely see the company discussed without the sustainability and environmental aspects being mentioned. I think this really "sells" it to the millennial and younger generations. I think people have a bit of an irrational fear when it comes to sustainability. For some reason everyone thinks eating meat is killing the world. I won't disregard the harmful nature of industrial farming (some aspects) as there are some things that need to be changed. It seems that any company who markets themselves on the "wave of green" translates well with the younger generations. Long story short, it's way over valued, isn't as good (healthy or taste wise) as everyone says and is simply surfing the green wave. Every wave meets the shore eventually. Also Kellogg is one of those big evil conglomerate corporations that millennials love to hate. :P

Well there is about 573k hiding in the Wallstreetbets sub on Reddit. And a few million more scattered across the site. Truly entertaining to see their logic and reasoning.

Two "jammed" owners of comparable property should buy each other's property (swap) at a low (or at least realistic) valuation. Or would that be unlawful? I was thinking the same exact thing. I would highly doubt there would be a loophole that obvious. Couldn't you also just sell it to a friend for a low price and then buy it back for the same low price?

I think the main issue is it's very difficult to decide whether a stock price is irrational or not. Greg I think you are right to an extent when you say we are not looking at things in the right way. But what is the right way? If you can't go by fundamentals all you're left with is human psychology. That is difficult to quantify. As to your cooler I have a Coleman cooler from the 90's that keeps ice for about 5-6 days. Use it frequently :p Also, Walmart sells a knockoff Yeti and so does RTIC.

Really admired the humbleness of the Toronto team. Leonard, Van Fleet, Lowery and the rest of them simply went out and played hard. Highly respectable, well disciplined talented team that earned it.

Any more details on why it was a circus?

I'd say the 150 billion number is too big unless AWS gets like 100 billion from start ups (I dont really want to invest in amazon so didn't spend any time there). Total smb internet marketing spend is only 60 billion. Marketing epxenditures as a precentage of revenue is only 15% or so, social is just 4% of revenue. So I have a hard time believing the 40% of incremental vc funding goes to google or fb ads. That being said 30-40 billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Not all of it will be lost, and again these companies are long term compounders and if this happens its probably a temporary imparement of profits, but definiely interesting. Right, the key question here is whether Chamath’s 40% is something that applies only to, say, US-based early stage startups, or it is more universal. If it’s the former, I think you’re right that the maximum revenue impact will be around $30bn between Google, Facebook, and AWS. If it’s the latter, we have a much bigger problem… The worst case scenario for current investors I think is one where VC funding dries up, the companies take a big hit to revenue, and their stock valuations go down as people start to realize that their growth over the last several years was not really a secular trend but rather a temporary VC-fueled boom that is not coming back anytime soon. You also have to think about why VC cash might dry up? Certainly if we hit a recession it would affect the flow of VC capital. Not to mention I believe a recession will severely affect Amazon and their already over ambitious logistics projects. Couple this with the inevitable AWS market share loss as Microsoft pushed Azure (recently partnered with Oracle), and other companies gain some share. And then the cherry on top is the current governmental involvement. Personally I don't invest in Amazon. They seem to highly levered and priced beyond perfection. They have primarily grown in a bull market and competitions is always improving.

Don't really play option that much. But do you think today's significant drop has anything to do with the "quiet period expiration"? That being said the IPO lockup is in Oct. Hard to imagine this bloat holding on that long, but it's not unreasonable to use those as potential target dates for shorts. I still don't have the cajones to do it.

I agree ODFL is best in class. I have had positions in them in the past. WERN is on my list of companies I was looking into. Did you have an opinion on KNX? Or is it simple WERN is the cheapest so no others are worth looking at?

Just abbreviated quarterly revenue growth and quarterly revenue earnings :P

LOL you're right...damn I'm an idiot. I did try the Beyond Burger at TGI Fridays. I guess I didn't really notice a difference. Personally I prefer real beef as there is a definitely a difference. I don't agree with the people who say you can't tell it's not real beef. You can tell, but he experience is still pleasant and enjoyable. However, I don't see myself ordering them long term. Even if they get the price down below beef. This is the first time a burger replacement product feels like a legit contender (as far as being able to sustain and build customer satisfaction.) I wonder what's gonna happen to turkey burgers :P

Need I say anything? up 600% since IPO. Is anyone shorting this? If not what are your opinions? From the product standpoint it's actually pretty good. Tried a burger at Red Robin the other day. Their product pipeline is pretty impressive and from what I hear they are all pretty tasty and have good reviews across the board. But they do have some supply chain issues and even if they didn't I find it hard to justify any of the price movement. I can't help but correlate this to TLRY. Either way I have no positions of any type.

Transports and logistics companies have been hammered this past year. I believe the market is mispricing the sector as a whole due to a negative sentiment from trade wars and potential economic woes. Many companies being down 30ish percent. When in reality we are beginning to show an uptick in trucking tonnage with an overall bullish trend. Knight and Swift recently merged and I believe this move is being reflected on top of the overall negative sentiment among transports. Personally I believe it was a good move as both were well run companies. KNX also saw an increase of 25% in quarterly earnings growth yoy and only a -5% quarterly rev growth yoy. To Compare FDX is up 2.9% QRG and down 65% QEG. JB Hunt up 7.3% QRG and up 1.2% QEG. Old Dominion is up 7 QRG and up 21.9% QEG. But both JB Hunt and Old Dominion are trading well above book value. At the very least KNX is worth a look! https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TRUCKD11 KNX quick stats P/E - 11.09 PEG - .71 P/S 1.03 P/B .98 EV/Rev - 1.15 EV/EBITDA 6.11 Total Cash 60m OCF 916m Debt 981m (increased substantially due to merger) Debt/Equity 17.7 (lower end of industry) https://investor.knighttrans.com/sites/knighttrans.investorhq.businesswire.com/files/report/file/2018_Annual_Report_and_Proxy_Final.pdf

Surprised to see Trump come out against the deal. But I highly doubt anything will be done. It seems our government is perfectly fine with "as close to monopoly as you can get" aka duopoly as long as they feel they have some measure of control or influence over said company. People like to say China's government is too closely tied with private industry (which they are) but fail to see all the corruption right here in the States. Disclaimer: I have been long defense companies for basically ever. Defense sector is basically free money over the long term. And if companies aren't selling to the US they are selling to other nations. Maybe I'm a hypocrite for speaking against the sector while also investing?

http://clarkstreetvalue.blogspot.com/2019/06/spirit-mta-sells-mta-assets-to-hpt.html

Sold 75% of my HSY - Hershey position. Merely profit taking as it was my best performer this past year. Cost average was 95ish and sold today for 136. My thesis hasn't changed much on the company in general, but this rapid ramp up in price made me want to take some profits. Edit: Tariff tensions are making me a bit uneasy with HSY. The three Mexican plants are quite important in supporting the North American supply chain. I'm uncertain how tariffs will affect the NA segment. NA makes up about 89% of HSY market where Brazil, MX, China, India make up most of the remaining market share. India is their fastest growing international market. One thing I do like is Hershey owns all but 2(located in Georgia and NY) manufacturing plants. And in general, their products are manufactured in the marketplace which they will be selling. This helps reduce risk somewhat. Noticed a large surge in $125 August puts today and figured, might as well take profits. Honestly, this has been one of my best plays. Link to the 10-k if anyone was interested. Don't think I've seen this stock covered on here. https://www.thehersheycompany.com/content/dam/corporate-us/documents/annual-reports/2019-proxy-statement.pdf

Anyone know if Burry still has his position? At the end of 2018 he still had 538k shares. I find it hard to believe he would still be holding, but it was also hard to believe that he bought in the first place.... I don't understand this company, their business model, future and how they manage to stay afloat. Revenue hasn't really decline too much since their peak in 2011. But cash flow continues down. And I simply don't see how they add any value to gamers. If Microsoft or Sony were to announce new consoles which didn't have disk readers you can imagine what that would do to $GME. I just don't see how his is sustainable with collectibles and console sales. Someone convince me why I shouldn't short this company with 2021 LEAPS.

"Starting today in Ashburn" Referring to my company (at least partially). This is a big deal. Most of our customers are choosing Azure and Oracle products/services over AWS. Why? Based on what I hear is... 1.) Oracle is very hard and expensive to leave 2.) Azure is cheaper than AWS not to mention if companies choose Azure they often get large licensing breaks for other Microsoft products which they inevitably use. 3.) Azure is arguably better and offers more features than AWS 4.) Microsoft and Oracle are much more likely to commission a local engineer to help out with issues. Both AWS and Azure do some things better than others. AWS is much easier and streamlined if you have to do disaster recovery. But personally think some of the tools offered by Azure are more compatible with development. Honestly it's very close and neither company offers a large enough advantage to justify the cost of switching (in many cases). From what I hear on the street is Microsoft has recently (past year) changed how they "work" their developers. They have really given them free reign to explore projects on their own and come up with new tech and tools. I think Microsoft does a better job at providing some management and accountability with their "pipes." AWS is very hands off an supportive. I have seen multiple Oracle, Azure, HP, and IBM engineers get a permanent office in my building for extra support. But I have never seen an AWS engineer. In fairness we do maybe 20% AWS. It all comes down to price. It's amazing how cheap large companies are. I've seen people complain about paying for 50 Gb of memory on a VM because they weren't currently using it. It's literally $15/month and this is a multi billion dollar company (Bayer). Even if they were running that on say 3k servers, it would be a drop in the bucket as a revenue leak.