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Add on top of this the California Wildfire litigation. A company flush with cash has become a target. I've trimmed my Brk holding due to this new era. Sad.

It was a part of a larger analysis on what to expect from cdn insurers this reporting season

Yep - nominal number haven't been whacked but the real ones have....but nobody really cares cause everybody hasn't inflation adjusted anything in like 40yrs so they forgot...it's why somebody, for example, in major US metros will tell you their home value hasn't gone down while cumulative inflation over the last two years would tell you that house prices have fallen (inflation adjusted) relative to their 2021 peak ...and then to the extent that Mag7 numbers are levitating the overall EPS picture......I mean when you have monopoly or monopoly adjacent market power as a subset of Mag7 have.....you are deciding your EPS growth in the boardroom YoY and not out on the street (excepting deep economic headwinds ala 2008 when even the mighty get crushed). The GDP/inflation picture is interesting - what I would say is that on the road to 'fixing' an inflationary bout one should expect a short-ish period of stagflationary numbers like we are getting now......it's kind of an expected waypoint on the road back to 2%.

Sorry guys. but again GM had to spend better part of the last decade exiting its global footprint, and invest in its ultiim EV platform. These are down now, or at least the runway has been built. The shares that they are buying back are far more valuable than a decade ago. This is not some mindless steel, iron ore or coal company that wants to get some love by buying back.

Bloomberg - Politics [April 26th 2024] : Sweden Ramps Up Defense Spending Goal to 2.6%, Past NATO Target, & Bloomberg - Politics [April 24th 2024] : Global Military Spending Tops $2 Trillion for First Time as Europe Boosts Defenses.[1] - - - o 0 o - - - Something is actually happening and going on, Mike [ @cubsfan ] et. al. As with everything related to Politics, things take time, and is subject to a lot of inertia. - Personally, I'm feeling confident, the general European sentiment about actual political support for the war of Ukraine against Russia now gradually is changing from 'empty / hollow' talk to real action. Btw : How is it even possible to talk while [dam'n] thumb sucking?! _______ [1] I have today without luck tried to verify the data in the article on the NATO webpage.

Whilst I agree that’s the strategy these companies should pursue, unless there is clear evidence companies are going to do this going forward it’s still a big risk to own them. GM hasn’t done much in the past 15 years. It’s up approx 50%, I know that doesn’t include the dividend, but that’s terrible under performance

I think one by one these left for dead companies are figuring out that the playbook that is most likely to work for them in this investing environment is to pour all free cash flow into buybacks, or a combination of debt reduction and buybacks. The math doesn't lie, if you trade for less than 10X earnings then you are essentially priced for a zero growth future. But because you are trading for less than 10X earnings you can create enormous growth just buying your stock. GM is a perfect example. Their stock is up 50% since November, eps estimates get revised higher every month, but it still trades for less than 5X earnings. If people will never value it higher than 5X, they don't need to do anything but buy every share they can afford and investors will do phenomenally well.

L3Harris Technologies Reports Strong First Quarter 2024 Results, Increases 2024 Profitability Guidance • Orders of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x • Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%, up 5% organically1 • Operating margin of 7.3%; Adjusted segment operating margin of 15.1% • Earnings per share (EPS) of $1.48; Non-GAAP EPS1 of $3.06 • 2024 adjusted segment operating margin 1 guidance increases from ~15% to >15%* • 2024 non-GAAP EPS guidance range increases from $12.40 - $12.80 to $12.70 - $13.05* A little pop out of LHX today... Seems to be heading in the right direction. They seem to be achieving the integration savings from the merger, reduction to debt, and they seem to be optimistic on the demand for Aerojet. They restarted their buy back but only enough to offset dilution. They mentioned they are going to be reducing and simplifying the adjustments to their non-gap numbers. I would like to see more prime contracts, and expansion internationally.

"In the future" can be an awfully long way away. I wouldn't base your investment decisions on an article citing birth rates and trends. The United States is uniquely positioned as being a very desirable (and apparently easy to sneak into LOL) destination for young, productive (and fertile), immigrants. Many other countries have much more serious demographic problems.

The founder managed to sell a few decent sized blocks at high prices. One of them to a "private fund" which sounded to me like a fund covering a short position. Predictably, they filed a preliminary prospectus to issue a ton of shares if they can get it going in time. Today's volume is high so maybe they got some shares sold? https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1843974/000157587224000368/es106_n2.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1843974/000157587224000367/xslF345X05/ownership.xml

was the Globe and Mail comments AI Generated?

all of the above. Partly, I think, a hang-over from absolute boom times in 2021-2022. Many companies still working down bloated inventories. The truckers are obviously exposed to that, along with general cyclicality. But the really well run ones, like ODFL and TFII will do smart things during slow times and gush cash on the next up cycle. All that I know is the stocks will move higher before we read about the end of the freight recession in the paper.

It is because of the nature of the human mind to perceive transient prices as permanent. The fixation on HWM is real. Investors feel robbed of any $ that is below that high water mark. My other pet peeve is, many won't invest in the market when it is all time high and want to wait for the pull back. When the pull back comes, they panic or wait for some more pull back. There is a huge demand for knowing short term market directions and no wonder market prognosticators have a thriving business.

Should we add CLF to this list? $5 Billion of net debt reduction since 2020. Announced a $1 billion share repurchase program in 2022. Just announced another $1.5 billion for 2024. For comparison, current equity market cap is ~8.5 billion and rough EV is ~11.5 billion. Not an insignificant share count reduction/deleveraging that has occurred and will occur going forward.

It is amazing to me that they don't mention, in this outlook summary, what jumps out at me in their numbers, which is the fiscal deficit. Combining federal and state deficits, this was 9.2% of GDP in 2023 and is expected to come down slightly to 8.9% in 2024 and 7.9% this year. In the USA, federal deficit was 6.3% of GDP in 2023, or $1.7T, with another $1.2T from state and local governements, so the number is comparable. Both are unsustainable, and it would seem worth mentioning that this stimulus can not go on forever. In India's case, there is some consolation from the fact that accumulated debt is not as high as the levels typical in Europe and North America. For the USA, this is 121% at the federal, with another 14% from state and local governments, for a total of 135%. In India, fortunately, debt levels are lower, 61% at the federal level and 30% at the state level, for a total of 91%. In addition, the 9% or so combined deficit is not far from the real GDP growth rate of about 8%, compared to the USA's growth rate of less than 2%, so India's real indebtedness as a percentage of GDP may at least remain at about the same level as a proportion of GDP.

Truck-load arguably canaries in coal mine for recession? People getting out? OR Great companies valued thusly, and valuation just reasonably de-rating a little? n.b. I haven't read the ODFl call yet. Great, well-managed companies - I am attempting to dribble in to ODFL on a day like today.

US birth rate currently 1.63, I think that’s a huge problem for the economy and stock market in the future. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/america-birth-rate-decline-a111d21b#

Curious as Ive noticed and been perplexed by this for a long time, and it again seemed forefront and center after the META earnings(just as a prime recent example). We see it all the time when folks talk "macro" and "the market"....ticker ABC goes on multi year run, then regresses. The regression needs to be analyzed and theres often talk of whether or not "its warranted". Index pulls back 5-10% and "its been bad" for investors. Or "thats why its dangerous to be in stocks". COST falls 10% from ATHs and now its obviously because it was priced to perfection(rather than the entire two decades prior when it was also expensive)...Seems stupid and Im failing to understand why most investors arent agnostic to this sort of pointless fixation/type of analysis. Or if Im missing something and there is a huge benefit to this sort of stuff? If an instrument goes from $50 to $75 from January to September and then in Q4 from $75 to $60....my observation is that many investors, on December 31, would feel like they lost $15.

down in sympathy maybe, TFI reported this morning. Truck-load in a very sorry state these days. Bedard, says this freight environment is one of the "worst in 30 years". As for TFII, considering the environment, they put pretty numbers.

Any specific reason you think it will be blocker? Or simply that they seem to want to block everything including two handbag companies.

Isn't it the truth!!

What's going on with ODFL? Down again ...

Yeah, The US justice system in operation and at its finest. Something to think about here.

Now back down to $17.30.

Damn - that sounds bad. I didn't realize it was that dangerous.