What are you buying today?

[John Hjorth]

I may need to duck and cover after posting this, but I bought some Biglari Holdings today.

 

I know, Sardar is the worst partner money can buy, but this is just a short-term trade on the assumption that the 20%+ drop in the price of BH is due mostly to the company getting dumped from the Smallcap 600 index. Reading reports of the annual meeting that was held last week, it doesn't look like Sardar dropped any unexpected bombs that would explain the cratering stock price (the dual class stock structure was a foregone conclusion). Volume in the stock today was about 30 times normal volume, which is probably due to index funds selling.

 

In any case, the next couple of weeks will either make me some money or teach me an expensive lesson.

 

Valid posts about BH from several fellow board members here - but not based on the time horizon applied by treasurehunt for this move. To me, it's more like SharperDingaan buying DB back in September 2016.

[villainx]

I think if there is an adequate margin of safety, why not?  The only thing to be weary of is forgetting the margin of safety and focusing on - if the trade works out - hey, I made a bunch of money by investing in a company with questionable management when it dropped by x%; that means I should invest in companies with questionable management and or I should invest in companies after it dropped x%. 

 

 

[John Hjorth]

Added to BAC, C & JPM today.

[Spekulatius]

I may need to duck and cover after posting this, but I bought some Biglari Holdings today.

 

I know, Sardar is the worst partner money can buy, but this is just a short-term trade on the assumption that the 20%+ drop in the price of BH is due mostly to the company getting dumped from the Smallcap 600 index. Reading reports of the annual meeting that was held last week, it doesn't look like Sardar dropped any unexpected bombs that would explain the cratering stock price (the dual class stock structure was a foregone conclusion). Volume in the stock today was about 30 times normal volume, which is probably due to index funds selling.

 

In any case, the next couple of weeks will either make me some money or teach me an expensive lesson.

 

Valid posts about BH from several fellow board members here - but not based on the time horizon applied by treasurehunt for this move. To me, it's more like SharperDingaan buying DB back in September 2016.

 

I agree, for a short term trade with a clear exit - win or lose, Mr. Bigs integrity is almost irrelevant.

 

Speaking of the DB shipwreck, the price is almost back to where it was in 2016. Are they better or worse off than back in 2016? I have a hard time telling.

[John Hjorth]

Added to LUND B.STO [L E Lundbergföretagen AB, ser. B] today.

[jouni1]

bought some BUD today

[no_free_lunch]

bought some BUD today

 

The stock or the product?

 

;)

[Lance]

PM

 

Thanks

Lance

[tombgrt]

IPO.TO, ATU.V, RIG leaps otm (speculative), TOO and more GXE. Went on a buying spree this week after selling some of my CRC options last week. Was getting trouble sleeping well. :D

 

Bought more PPR, ATU and IPO with CRC call winnings.

[SafetyinNumbers]

IPO.TO, ATU.V, RIG leaps otm (speculative), TOO and more GXE. Went on a buying spree this week after selling some of my CRC options last week. Was getting trouble sleeping well. :D

 

I bought some ATU.V as well. We must have been most of the volume from the buy side since not much traded.

[tombgrt]

IPO.TO, ATU.V, RIG leaps otm (speculative), TOO and more GXE. Went on a buying spree this week after selling some of my CRC options last week. Was getting trouble sleeping well. :D

 

I bought some ATU.V as well. We must have been most of the volume from the buy side since not much traded.

 

Probably! :D

 

How are your positions sized in oil? GXE position for me is far larger than ppr, IPO and atu but I might add if they stay ignored. They will likely fly under the radar for some time. Or they could double overnight, who knows!

[jouni1]

bought some BUD today

 

The stock or the product?

 

;)

Both, actually  8)

[DooDiligence]

Disclosure: I still have about 30x bagger on NFLX ... on a dinner tab sized position.  :'(

 

Well, at least you have bragging rights, right?

 

Or is it worse to be right but have made almost no money than not to have invested at all..?  :-\

 

Nah. I'm happy I invested. I'm happy to have made some money. And I'm happy to tell people that I have a legit 30x bagger.  8)

 

 

 

It's like that 70 year old who had sex with 20 year hottie told the priest at confession: "Telling you? I'm telling everyone!"  8)  ;D

 

 

Additional disclosure: it's dinner-tab sized because I sold a bunch at 2x and 10x and whatever... Well at least it's not like AAPL/ARMH(Y)/GOOGL/FB/Hansen(Monster) where I sold everything at minor percentage gains or even losses at various times.

 

Congrats, to the 70 year old (and to you for enjoying your gains.)

 

Oh, and more BRK & CHTR (BTFD!)

[John Hjorth]

Just buy some more BRK.B, Jeff! It's the perfect time of the year for it - about 50,000 Berkaholics [all of them constantly buying Berkshire, under eternal avarage ins] - coming out of their holes and caves, to go to Omekka - oops, typo here - Omaha - to have a good time and good experience! So the market price goes down because of lack of presence of the usual buyers in the market. -Capital allocation has momentarily switched from Berkshire to beer!

 

[if you sense a stint of envy in this post, I assure you it is! I will have to settle with Yahoo Finance - not that bad either ...]

[gfp]

Added to BRK today as well.  Great price around 190.  Quarterly report out Saturday morning with new cash balance (should be huge) and quite possibly zero net earnings on the headline number because of the new mark-to-market equities passing through the income statement..

 

Just buy some more BRK.B, Jeff! It's the perfect time of the year for it - about 50,000 Berkaholics [all of them constantly buying Berkshire, under eternal avarage ins] - coming out of their holes and caves, to go to Omekka - oops, typo here - Omaha - to have a good time and good experience! So the market price goes down because of lack of presence of the usual buyers in the market. -Capital allocation has momentarily switched from Berkshire to beer!

 

[if you sense a stint of envy in this post, I assure you it is! I will have to settle with Yahoo Finance - not that bad either ...]

[Charlie]

"Added to BRK today as well.  Great price around 190.  Quarterly report out Saturday morning with new cash balance (should be huge) and quite possibly zero net earnings on the headline number because of the new mark-to-market equities passing through the income statement.."

 

I also bought some B shares. At P/B of 1,358 and earnings out at Saturday it´s a good buy.

And of course I like the big Apple position, which probably got bigger.  :)

 

[treasurehunt]

I may need to duck and cover after posting this, but I bought some Biglari Holdings today.

 

I know, Sardar is the worst partner money can buy, but this is just a short-term trade on the assumption that the 20%+ drop in the price of BH is due mostly to the company getting dumped from the Smallcap 600 index. Reading reports of the annual meeting that was held last week, it doesn't look like Sardar dropped any unexpected bombs that would explain the cratering stock price (the dual class stock structure was a foregone conclusion). Volume in the stock today was about 30 times normal volume, which is probably due to index funds selling.

 

In any case, the next couple of weeks will either make me some money or teach me an expensive lesson.

 

Valid posts about BH from several fellow board members here - but not based on the time horizon applied by treasurehunt for this move. To me, it's more like SharperDingaan buying DB back in September 2016.

 

Thank you, John. I don't disagree with Ballinvarosig's valuation either (except for the market cap error in his first post). But my thesis is just that the sudden drop in price was due mostly to index fund selling. Of course I am down about 7% on this trade so far, so this isn't looking like a hot idea so far. :-) But I am going to hold on for a couple of weeks unless some other reason for the drop surfaces.

 

I don't think DanielGMask's concerns about management integrity are very meaningful to my trade (not to say that management integrity is completely irrelevant here, but it's a risk I am comfortable taking). Also, I hardly ever do any short-term trading, and I consider this an experiment where I might learn something.

 

[John Hjorth]

I have tried to do a to some degree similar trade like you do here treasurehunt. The real point here is, that if you never try it, you will never learn it. So H/T to you from me for doing it, and posting about it.

[Spekulatius]

I have tried to do a to some degree similar trade like you do here treasurehunt. The real point here is, that if you never try it, you will never learn it. So H/T to you from me for doing it, and posting about it.

 

You need to set hard exit criteria for these kind of trades. In case of BH, I think you would need to set a date by which the position is sold. If you don’t do this, you let the botched short term trades become a long term investment, while you know they are not potatoes really. Beware of changes in the investment thesis, they rarely work out.

 

Easy to say, but hard to do.

[LR1400]

I’m also going to do some short to moderate term trading as John discussed, and note what he and Spek have said.

 

All of the successful people I’ve studied that use this strategy use a trailing stop loss % of the high. They don’t put it in they just mentally have that target and sell if the price reaches that.

[JRM]

I've found that selling is far more difficult than buying.  I don't trade short term (because I'm terrible at it), but I've adopted a trading technique to my buying process.  I will establish my sell criteria before I make any purchase.  For traders the sell criteria could be a stop loss, price, or other technical indicator(s).  For me, I will sell if my core investment thesis is busted.  I will write down one to three (or so) bullet points that encapsulate my core investment thesis for a position.  If at any time if I realize my thesis is wrong, than I will re-evalute the position.  Its much easier said than done with something qualitative, but this approach also helps when the going gets tough.  This process has helped me hold onto eventual winners when the market wasn't cooperating early on.

 

Most novice investors tend to sell winners and hold onto losers until the portfolio is full of losers.  I would love to hear Buffett's thought process on IBM.  He will admit when he's wrong and move on.  He also made a little money on the "loser" IBM position.

[treasurehunt]

I have tried to do a to some degree similar trade like you do here treasurehunt. The real point here is, that if you never try it, you will never learn it. So H/T to you from me for doing it, and posting about it.

 

You need to set hard exit criteria for these kind of trades. In case of BH, I think you would need to set a date by which the position is sold. If you don’t do this, you let the botched short term trades become a long term investment, while you know they are not potatoes really. Beware of changes in the investment thesis, they rarely work out.

 

Easy to say, but hard to do.

 

Good point. My exit criteria for this trade aren't completely set in stone. My idea was to wait until trading volumes are back to normal levels and the impact of index selling has died down, but it's hard to know how long this will take. My estimate was two weeks, but it could be three weeks or four. The other thing I am paying attention to is whether there is some other reason for the substantial drop in BH stock. After the release of Q1 results, which were horrible, it appears that the drop reflects at least in part a real decrease in the intrinsic value of BH. So I am much less sure about the reasoning behind my trade. I will probably sell the stock this coming week.

 

Now to think about exactly what lesson I should learn from this. :-)

[WayWardCloud]

Added big to GCI Liberty (GLIBA) today 12.8% > 20.3%

and to Liberty SiriusXM (LSXMA) 5.6% > 8.7%

 

Go Malone, Go!

[Lakesider]

Added to AR, Bought BHF, SD

[John Hjorth]

Here is a trading suggestion for you, treasurehunt,

 

Svenska Handelsbanken AB:

 

SHB A.STO market price SEK 98.22 [1 vote per share, highly liquid] [the A series share, ~98 percent of share capital]

SHB B.STO market price SEK 105.80 [0.1 vote per share, lower liquidity][the B series share, ~2 percent of share capital]

 

One has to get out of sloth mode, and sell the B and buy the A for the same amount of money, adjusted for 2 times commision per account involved, and then just go back to sloth mode again. You number of shares will increase by approx. [[105.80/98.22]-1]*100%] = 7.7%, without tying up further capital.

 

Damn good trade, if you're long SHB long term. "Keine hexerei, nur dumme Börse." Naturally, it requires, that you have some SHB B.STO shares to do it with.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

If you don't own any of them, just buy some, and immediately forget about your buy, and then do the trade. It releases a good dose of endorfines in your body! [ ; - ) ]