LC

What exactly did Trump's administration do here? The article you posted does not mention anything.

The definition of lying to some of the people all of the time. So trashy. Well, they can't fake the all-count deaths, at least (yet). Of which we have ~65,000 excess deaths, broken down by weeks ending: 3/28: +4,300 4/4: +12,900 4/11: +20,000 4/18: +17,500 4/25: +10,900

Greg - not sure, my personal uneducated guess is relation to international travel. One outlier that baffles me is Louisiana. Here you can check the weekly excess deaths per state, check out LA https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm#dashboard I know there is a large Asian community in LA particularly for the fishing industry but that could just be spurious reasoning.

Sold all the WFC I bought yesterday - will take any profits where I can get them to lower my cost basis on this one.

I agree some really good posters have reduced or eliminated their activity. However I was reading some old threads from 2011-2014 (or so) and was expecting the dialogue to be at a higher level - but actually I found it very similar to recent years. I was surprised to be seeing personal attacks, political bickering, faulty logic (your returns sucked last year, your analysis must be wrong!), etc. I think perhaps there is some nostalgia at play :D

alwaysdrawing - Thanks for the counterpoints.

Mephistopheles - this is exactly the questions I am asking myself. If his reason to sell is WFC-specific, what is it? He mentioned in an interview prior to the Annual mtg that he was still confident in the WFC brand. Now that is just the brand - it doesn't speak to the cost structure, the loan book, management, or anything else. As to whether it is WB selling - this is a pure guess, partially trying to think of the "wort case scenario. As JRM mentioned the 13F filed in Feb shows 323.2MM WFC shares help by Berkshire which is a reduction of 15%. Combine that with the excessive selling in the past month or so (compared to other banks) , and combined with WB's comments at the AGM, this is my less-than-educated guess.

It is interesting all the people buying WFC whereas WB was selling. (And WB may be fully exiting his WFC stake - if you recall during the annual meeting he mentioned "We don't trim positions") Makes me fear I am missing something big and obvious.

Sold out of MO, bought PM with proceeds. Bought a little WFC and cloudflare

Interesting thread, thanks again for posting.

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better. I agree. Why isn't it happening?

Not to mention more accurate transmission rates and exposure rates which could potentially justify reopening “the economy”, rather than making less educated estimates.

How do we know where it "matters most"? Masks. Nursing homes where more effort is put in separating infected from not infected. Better ventilation and training at Nursing homes. The only reason we know this is because of the extensive testing which was done and continues to be done. And since you’re so concerned with wasted resources, if we had tested more people much sooner, States would not have been fighting over masks and ventilators for weeks. And existing masks and ventilators would have been allocated more efficiently.

Starter positions in livenation and cloudflare

Why did they sell Berkshire now? Berkshire has owned highly regulated businesses for years. Same with its bank portfolio. It hasn't met those aspects of Akre's criteria for a long time - so why sell now? Perhaps Akre doesn't believe Berkshire fits the remainder of his criteria, perhaps: Enduring, predictable high ROEs* and FCF** Identifiable, sustainable competitive advantages Pricing power in excess of costs, inflation protection

How do we know where it "matters most"?

Other countries have tested more people per capita than S Korea, without the draconian measures. I fail to see how less information is more useful.

It does to me but my opinion isn’t worth hundreds of billions.

Bought some BRK, PM

I don't think so (or let's say, I hope not). China needs strong allies before furthering aggression. Weak oil prices hurt Russia which indirectly hurts China's political sway.

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_34.html

We've turned into a decidedly average country with a wide tailed distribution ;D ;D

ATT bought back about 5.3B in Q1 (aprox 2%)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/politics/rick-bright-coronavirus-whistleblower.html We are a well functioning democracy. We are a well functioning democracy. :-X :-X :-X

No, Taleb is being cheeky in an attempt to appear smart on twitter. If you don't assume what is called a Markov process, then you are left in a much worse (and less sensible) place.