UK

I have made some...betting against MW this year/recently:)

https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/weight-loss-drugs-ozempic-wegovy-side-effects-sex-0210c42b?mod=hp_trending_now_article_pos2 This is getting really serious!:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-07/china-urges-officials-to-stop-playing-throwing-eggs-card-game

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-russian-drives-past-trail-114519189.html

Finished watching GoT. Great show, I think easily could be in my top 5 favourites. Greatest take away: chaos is a ladder, but do not overplay this, or you can get your throat cut:)))

https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/dimon-buffett-recession-stocks-what-to-know-today-5d6803b5 “I was with Warren Buffett yesterday,” Dimon said in an interview on CNBC on Wednesday. “And we always talk about the resiliency of America. It is extraordinary.”

Perhaps I am getting a little bit to excited / to early excited (maybe because also of this general market volatility), but I sold some extra shares I bought during MW attack, earlier, mainly only because of the position size (which still remains and will continue to be very large in any case) and now already thinking about buying them back. But perhaps I also should wait for some weather event to do this. Most likelly this is just a silly, immaterial and unnecessary trading, because of some more free time in a summer:)

https://www.ft.com/content/80abe7c0-e722-4224-8bf2-77bacab195f5 The head of Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, expects the benign conditions that have powered record profits for the industry, but increased costs for businesses and households, to be sustained in coming months. Munich Re was one of a string of companies to report bumper profits on Thursday, helped by a steep increase in the cost of both insuring and reinsuring properties against natural catastrophes in recent years. This has fed through to more expensive cover for consumers and businesses, contributing to an affordability crisis in some parts of the world. The boom in profits had led to expectations that prices would begin to fall as new providers were drawn to the market. But Munich Re chief executive Joachim Wenning said on Thursday that he does not anticipate any “softening” in the reinsurance market ahead of the key policy renewals that happen at the end of the year, of which property catastrophe cover is a major part. “We are very confident that the market environment . . . will be unchanged, meaning highly attractive,” he said. Munich Re, a heavyweight in the property catastrophe reinsurance market, reported a record €3.8bn of post-tax profits in the first half, helped also by a strong performance from other areas. Beazley and Lancashire, two Lloyd’s of London firms that offer property insurance and reinsurance, alongside other types of cover, also made record profits. Executives argue that the reinsurance sector is still playing catch-up after years of underwriting losses before prices began to pick up in 2022. Reinsurers “have to earn now what they couldn’t earn for so long,” Wenning said. Reinsurers have also recently benefited from a quieter period for major disasters such as hurricanes, and by tightening their policies to reduce their exposure to events such as storms and floods. Those events have weighed more on mass-market home insurers, particularly in the US where many state regulators cap pricing for local providers. London-listed Beazley reported pre-tax profits doubled to a record $729mn in the first half, lifted by a strong underwriting performance and higher returns on its investment portfolio. Its combined ratio — a measure of claims and expenses as a proportion of premiums — improved from 88 per cent to 81 per cent. Beazley said it would probably hit around 80 per cent for the full year, sending its shares up 11 per cent in London. Chief executive Adrian Cox said the performance was a mixture of good risk selection and higher prices. The property reinsurance segment was likely to soften first, given that insurers have paid out significant claims for extreme weather, he said. “There are lots of losses [for insurers]. It might get a bit more competitive but I think it’ll be less so than the reinsurance,” Cox said. Lancashire’s post-tax profits, also published on Thursday, were up a quarter from the prior period to $201mn in the first half. Chief executive Alex Maloney said he expected any softening in the property insurance market to be gradual. “You don’t go from a great market to a terrible market in a year,” he said. “It never happens that way.”

I am not sure I understood situation correctly then or understand it today, but what IB did back in February, they basically said, that if you own concentrated position in FFH, then the whole top 3 concentrated positions is eliminated from margin calculation, which is kind of interesting, especially if you own only a few positions in an account: "The aggregate projected loss of the top three concentrated stocks (and their derivatives) will be compared to what would otherwise be the aggregate portfolio margin requirement, and the greater of the two will be the margin requirement for the portfolio." So great margin rates by IB, but not so great / strange margin requirements and especially penalising if you own big position in FFH? I have no idea why this makes sense, since at the same time they would let you margin favourably some shitty smallcap in the other side of the world, yet not FFH, but perhaps this is done automatically according to some of their rules (attacked by shortsellers=no margin?).

I really have no idea, but if I had to vote for a one possible explanation, gun to my head, I would go with some kind of distressed / irregular selling because of this "global margin call", as Goldman called it:)

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/08/08/why-warren-buffett-has-built-a-mighty-cash-mountain Again, nothing really new, except maybe for a nice illustration:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-08-07/ozempic-boom-inside-usa-s-weight-loss-drug-capital?srnd=homepage-europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-08/jpmorgan-says-three-quarters-of-global-carry-trades-now-unwound https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-07/fast-money-quants-are-hammered-after-everything-went-wrong

Maybe Carvana could, using its shares:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-hot-oceans-hurricane-data/ This does not explain FFH vs other insurance stocks though...

So another quarterly profit sized amount as with Sleep? And why should this be necessarily perceived as bad from the start?

:)))

First two makes no sense to me and not even a news of the last week? But what do I know:). Third could be the real thing, as maybe also fears of the hurrucane season would, but other insurance stocks not going down as much (or at all). So this is either some noise, perhaps also low volume related or maybe there is a chance we could see a new "update" from MW, but why whould they not did this during silent period then? Maybe were busy deleting old tweets...It is tempting to buy some additional shares near BV:)

I think their reason was as simple as that i.e. MW attack and this is were their analysis ends. But I am curious if these requirements still are the same as in February or there were recent changes? Or why would you run into this situation now again? If IB changes its margin rules so arbitrary, maybe it is safer to use some leverage via options instead of margin (not in FFH case though) then?

Is this the same situation since MW attack in Winter or is it something recent/new? Maybe that is the thing driving FFH price down:)

But it seems this dip is only FFH related, because I do not see many insurance stocks in the red. Perhaps it is just some kind of noise.

This is so true! And at the same time I think nobody knows much about the future either. Maybe this short panic will be enough for a sentiment reset, maybe not yet. Even anecdotally, some people I know, who were eager to buy NVDA just at the top a few weeks ago, already do not want to look at it now, after it is down almost 30 percent or actually to look at anything at all:), so looks promising. But If you look at this episode not at as an isolation, but it terms of what markets (and economy) did in the last 15 years, then I do not know, maybe there is a case to be somewhat more demanding? At least until the next year/elections or maybe until FED communicates at some point whatever on earth they are going to do next etc. One thing to a some degree I have a feeling about though, is I do not understand how one could be excited much or at all on the index level (again this is not telling much about particular securities) at the current valuations. SNP at an estimated (likely not conservative or recession adjusted) ~250 EPS for a next year would be only 20x at a level of 5.000 (we are not even there yet). Down 20 percent from it, it would be at a another nice round number of 4.000, which would coincide with a 20 year forward average of 16x. I could be very wrong, but I just do not think it makes a lot sense to become very offensive until at least similar level. And I do not event want to start discussing some greedy levels suggested by some using Shiller or whatever PE. Again all this is more about market / index and not about any of anybody's favorite investment:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-08-05/warren-buffett-s-277-billion-hoard-after-unloading-apple-is-a-warning But nothing really new or interesting.

I am not against big ambitions, but just to highlight, 2x in 4 years is a 19 CAGR...would not use the words such as "cannot even" to describe such returns myself:)

This is from SA: PacifiCorp faces at least $46B in claims related to wildfires in the western U.S. following recent lawsuits in Oregon, the utility company disclosed late Monday in a Form 10-Q filing. Plaintiffs in four separate mass complaints filed between April 29 and July 31 are seeking $43B in economic, non-economic and punitive damages linked to the catastrophic Labor Day fires in September 2020, part of broader litigation that has yielded several jury verdicts against PacifiCorp, as explained by S&P Global; the utility is appealing the verdicts. "PacifiCorp believes the magnitude of damages sought by the class members in the James mass complaints to be of remote likelihood of being awarded based on the amounts awarded in the jury verdicts," the filing said. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) (BRK.A) reported an additional ~$3B in outstanding complaints and demands filed against PacifiCorp in Oregon and California, "excluding any doubling or trebling of damages." PacifiCorp said it has paid $1.02B in settlements related to wildfires in Oregon and California and has reached agreements to pay another $199M, and has reported $2.66B in cumulative estimated probable wildfire-related losses through the end of Q2. 46 B? I really hate this US style / Better Call Saul litigation...nothing ever good come from it for me.