UK

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-target-railroads-ocean-shipping-in-executive-order-11625736601?mod=hp_lead_pos12 In the case of the seven Class 1 freight railroads, consolidation has given railroads monopoly power over sections of the country where theirs are the only freight tracks, the person said. The executive order will encourage the STB to take up a longstanding proposed rule on so-called reciprocal or competitive switching, the practice whereby shippers served by a single railroad can request bids from a nearby competing railroad if service is available. The competitor railroad would pay access fees to the monopoly railroad, but could win the shipper’s business by offering a lower price, using the rival railroad’s tracks and property. The STB proposed a competitive switching rule in 2016 but hasn’t yet acted on it. “The consolidation brought about much-needed rationalization in the system 25 years ago, but the net result is a lot of shippers who are subject to a market-dominant railroad,” said a government official briefed on the White House’s proposal for the STB. But a move to mandate switching would guarantee a battle with the freights and the railroad trade association, the Association of American Railroads, which has long opposed the policy. “Competition remains fierce across freight providers, and any proposal mandating forced switching would put railroads—an environmentally friendly option that invests $25 billion annually in infrastructure—at an untold disadvantage,” Ian Jefferies, chief executive of the railroad association, said Thursday. “Such a rule would roll back the foundational market-driven principle that keeps the industry viable, reduce network fluidity, and ultimately undermine railroads’ ability to serve customers at a time when freight demands have dramatically increased.” In the rail industry, a wave of combinations in the 1990s left the U.S. with just seven Class 1 freight railroads. STB merger rules in place since the administration of President George W. Bush have effectively prevented further consolidation. Still, the White House argues that the current state of the industry leaves railroads with effective duopolies in much of the country, and monopolies at the local level, meaning customers have little leverage to negotiate prices. The White House will also encourage the STB to consider proposals that would compel railroads to offer rates that would better enable shippers to cobble together routes across competing rail networks to lower their costs, and to more readily bring cases to the STB to challenge railroads’ rates, this person said.

https://www.tunnelbear.com/ ?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-it-would-take-for-herd-immunity-to-stop-the-coronavirus-pandemic-11600594201 "Reflecting these real-world effects in disease models can shift the estimated herd immunity boundary. One group of researchers estimated that threshold for Covid-19 could be as low as 10% to 20%, though many epidemiologists say that is unlikely. Other modelers have estimated it at around 40% to 50%. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said his group estimates the herd-immunity threshold at between 50% and 80%."

Very interesting discussions. Thank you all!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-18/sweden-s-face-mask-debate-heats-up-amid-covid-resurgence-warning

more like 100%:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-11/a-1000-stock-jump-is-hong-kong-s-new-pro-democracy-rallying-cry https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-12/the-1-100-rally-in-lai-s-firm-slows-after-regulator-warning Buying the stock has become a popular way for the city’s pro-democracy activists to show support for Lai following his arrest on Monday, along with snapping up copies of his Apple Daily newspaper.

It seems he changed his mind regarding BRK, but they were net sellers of equities and ultimately cash increased to 147 B from 137 B at the end of q1. So was it really a big change of mind in general?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-06/goldman-says-time-to-think-about-a-shift-in-market-leadership?srnd=premium-europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-03/chinese-tech-stocks-soar-as-u-s-measures-spur-support-hopes

https://www.rvcapital.ch/

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/trump-says-401k-investors-who-followed-his-advice-are-doing-phenomenally-the-others-not-so-much-2020-07-26

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-plans-to-sign-executive-orders-aimed-at-reducing-drug-prices-11595623107

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-13/opium-demand-jumps-as-desperate-afghan-villagers-seek-covid-cure?srnd=premium-europe

https://www.wsj.com/articles/zimbabwes-plan-to-save-its-currency-shut-down-the-stock-exchange-11594129176 “For the last decade or so, Zimbabwe has been an upside down place,” said Peter Townshend, portfolio manager for Sanlam’s Africa Equity Fund. “Any time you see stocks going up, it is actually a bad sign and indicates deteriorating conditions.”

https://www.barrons.com/articles/insurance-hot-again-allstate-kkr-deals-lemonade-ipo-51594226748 "Separately, KKR (KKR) said Wednesday it agreed to buy Global Atlantic Financial Group, which offers retirement, life and insurance products. KKR will pay 1.0x the insurer’s book value when the deal closes. Global Atlantic’s book value was $4.4 billion as of March 31. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021." https://www.wsj.com/articles/chubbs-pandemic-estimate-could-buffer-insurers-11594202402 "But overall, the bar may be raised for earnings season. The S&P 500 property-and-casualty sector is now trading at an average of 1.3 times book, recovering from its slip below book value in March and just off its five-year average of 1.4 times. This suggests a less-scary downside from Covid-19 is already priced in. Investors’ focus should now be on whether insurers’ pricing and premiums can show signs of possible upside." https://www.allstateinvestors.com/static-files/0e2153e0-b5ef-479c-98f6-b06cbe1dbed0 "Multiple of 11.9x last twelve months earnings and 1.78x book value as of March 31, 2020 Represents a 64% premium to closing stock price over the latest 30 trading days"

"The question comes more loudly now than at any time since Berkshire missed out on the dotcom boom: has Mr Buffett lost his touch?"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-18/sweden-remains-far-from-herd-immunity-despite-softer-lockdown https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-antibody/antibody-levels-in-recovered-covid-19-patients-decline-quickly-research-idUSKBN23T1CJ

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-02/jpmorgan-s-bond-chief-has-no-time-for-fed-haters

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/12/druckenmiller-central-banks-are-financial-worlds-darth-vader-creating-exploding-asset-bubbles.html

So ... I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html

Becky Quick: (02:47:14) This next question comes from Steven Staller. He’s a shareholder in Atlanta, Georgia and he says, “Would you please help us understand the effects of COVID-19 are on our insurance businesses? Other insurance companies have reported losses from boosting reserves for future insurance claims that they expect to be paying as a result of Coronavirus. Yet in Berkshire’s 10Q released this morning, we do not appear to have reported much of these future expected losses. Can you tell us why this is the case? What kind of risks Berkshire is underwriting that allows us not to be affected by the pandemic or conversely, what we are writing that might be?” Warren Buffett: (02:47:47) Well, the amount of litigation that is going to be generated out of what’s already happened, let alone what may happen, is going to be huge. Now, just the cost of defending litigation is huge, enormous expense, depending on how much there is. Warren Buffett: (02:48:08) Now, in the auto insurance field, which is our number one field in terms of premium volume by some margin, that’s more definable, but who knows what comes out of it in terms of litigation. But in what they call commercial multiple peril, which involves property losses and where some people elect to buy business interruption experience coverage, many policies quite clearly in the contract language would not have a claim for business interruption under a commercial multiple peril policy where you’ve elected that. But other policies do I know of, I think I know of one company. I don’t know the details, that’s written a fair amount where they cover or they certainly there’s a good argument perhaps that they cover business interruption that might arise from a pandemic. Warren Buffett: (02:49:26) Well, they’re in a very different position than the standard language which says that you recover for business interruption only if involves physical damage to the property. And you can buy all kinds of different policies. We are not big in the commercial, multiple peril business. Warren Buffett: (02:49:47) So I mean, this is not like our auto business or anything of that sort, but we will have claims. We’ll have litigation costs, but proportionally it’s not the same with us as with some other companies, which have been much more… Warren Buffett: (02:50:03) …those with some other companies which have been much heavier in writing business interruption as part of a commercial, multiple peril. But you don’t automatically get coverage if you have business interruption. I mean for example, I think it would be unusual if say General Motors had a strike, which they did, and that they have business interruption that covers a strike. We actually wrote about, probably the only annual report in the United States, we wrote about business interruption insurance because we had it over in France, when one of our properties was adjacent to a much smaller property that had a fire and then it spread to our plant and it caused a lot of physical damage and we have business interruption that ties in with that. But if we had some company we were selling auto parts to and they had a strike, our business would be interrupted, but that is not part of the coverage, unless you specifically really buy it. So, there’s some claims that are going to be very valid and related to the present situation. There’ll be an awful lot that there’ll be litigation on that won’t be valid. Warren Buffett: (02:51:18) And, there’s no question that some insurance companies, I know one particular, that will pay a lot of money relative to their size, in terms of policies that they’ve written. And I think we have reserved, and our history shows we generally have reserved on the conservative side, adequately at least. And that’s certainly our intent. And we tell no managers of any of our insurance operations, what numbers we expect from them or do any of that. They evaluate their losses and they build in something for social inflation. They build in things for all kinds of things. And generally speaking, Berkshire has been pretty accurate in its reserving. And, I have no reason to think that we’re otherwise than that, currently.

https://www.ft.com/content/a2b4c18c-a5e8-4edc-8047-ade4a82a548d Sweden’s unique strategy to deal with coronavirus will ensure it has only a small second wave of cases unlike other countries that could be forced to return to lockdown, according to the architect of the contentious policy. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist who devised the no-lockdown approach, estimated that 40 per cent of people in the capital, Stockholm, would be immune to Covid-19 by the end of May, giving the country an advantage against a virus that “we’re going to have to live with for a very long time”. “In the autumn there will be a second wave. Sweden will have a high level of immunity and the number of cases will probably be quite low,” Mr Tegnell told the Financial Times. “But Finland will have a very low level of immunity. Will Finland have to go into a complete lockdown again?” He believes European leaders, fearful that their health systems would be overwhelmed, felt they needed to copy China’s approach, the first country to lock down because of the disease. About a quarter of people in Stockholm had the virus at the start of May, according to a mathematical model by Sweden’s public health agency, which Mr Tegnell said was part of the reason the number of cases in the capital had fallen recently. By contrast, tests this week in Norway’s capital Oslo suggested that under 2 per cent of the population had been infected. But Mr Tegnell said uncertainty about how long virus immunity would last meant it was unlikely Sweden would reach “herd immunity”, a level of the disease where so many people are infected — usually about 80 per cent — that it stops spreading. “I don’t think we or any country in the world will reach herd immunity in the sense that the disease goes away because I don’t think this is a disease that goes away,” he added. Many countries’ hope is that they can keep the virus at bay until a vaccine is found. But Mr Tegnell said that, even in the best-case scenario, it was likely to take “years” to develop one, before it could be administered to an entire population. “It’s a big mistake to sit down and say ‘we should just wait for a vaccine’. It will take much longer than we think. And in the end, we don’t know how good a vaccine it will be. It’s another reason to have a sustainable policy in place.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-politics-trust/coronavirus-health-fears-outweigh-concern-for-economy-global-survey-idUSKBN22H098

https://www.barrons.com/articles/warren-buffett-is-too-cautious-berkshire-needs-an-activist-investor-says-51588611940 "Swing you bum!" :)