LC

Another way to think of it is to break it up into its parts: an overall market correction + COVID 19's impact. A lot of people had expressed concerns about market valuations two,three, four months ago. If COVID 19 didn't exist but we still had a market correction - what prices would be reasonable? Market multiples down from 24x to say 20x? Then, layer the COVID 19 outbreak on top of that and ask yourself again, what prices seem reasonable?

Don’t toot my horn - I’m down these last few days. Emotionally the objective is to stay even keeled. There is a spectrum. On one side we have national pandemic and fear totally gripping the US markets, massive sell downs. On the other side, the CDC finds a vaccine in two weeks, and whatever market rebound that possibly entails. The future is unknown but right now everyone is focused on the former and cannot even imagine the latter being a possibility. Guesstimate the odds of each and use that to discount your valuations and amount of dry powder to hold. That’s my goal at least, I’ll prob end up in the poor house voting for Bernie.

I too hope you are wrong. I will say, on the other side of the argument: COVID 19 does not change the underlying cause of high asset prices: very low interest rates globally. It may hurt the productivity side of the equation - low activity, low top and bottom lines. But (if things work out for human society - an optimistic view) this is a temporary problem until normal activity resumes. It has historically paid better to be on the optimistic side of human progress. The alternative is we hole up in bunkers with canned foods and burn worthless paper certificates for heat. I am hoping we somehow make it through this - globally.

I bought V but similar thoughts I assume.

I agree. Already trading volume is 3M shares.

5.5MM shares traded hands today as prices went from 219->216, about 1.1B worth of stock, or 20% of the entire amount WB spent in 2019 repurchasing. But apparently there isn't enough volume for WB to make significant market repurchases? ??? ??? ???

Hell, you could function as a hedge fund in the original sense of the term and buy the market with a % of your portfolio; then integrate your top 5/10 superior companies and trade around their relative values. At the very least it would appear to be a moderating factor to smooth out market gyrations, at best it would be a cause for out-performance. The other thing is that Turtle creek does limit their universe to mid-cap companies, so not the full market universe.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-warns-it-expects-coronavirus-to-spread-in-u-s-11582653829?mod=hp_lead_pos2 Given the 3-4 week incubation period it is probably already here in the US.

I never know when, so I go in drips-and-drabs. In terms of cash-on-hand never more than 10% per week, which in the event of a "prolonged" downturn gives me at least 10-20 weeks to pick up shares; plus more as cash flows during those 10-20 weeks comes in (salary, dividends, etc.)

I hope not, would like to buy more. Added to V today. Might join u guys on this MSGN trade for funsies.

Very interesting - thanks for the context and a good lesson that one needs to be very, very wary of mid-cap credit risk. A factor of Turtle creek's strategy is the relative valuation trades/re-balancing within their portfolio. This strategy only works IFF you own very high-quality businesses with zero/near-zero probability of capital destruction. A difficult ask, to be sure. But, it allows you to potentially trade quite profitably within your portfolio, perhaps even ignoring absolute valuation.

On this point, I would suggest reviewing the performance of Eurozone banks in their era of negative rates. The banks simply cannot make money in such an environment.

I think that's exactly what he should be doing. He is already sitting on 100+B of cash to make a deal. Rates are super low to provide the remainder of financing. The reasonable solution is to maintain enough cash to make a big deal (if one ever comes along) and re-allocate any excess cash either internally or back to shareholders.

Pretty wild that Berkshire payed 1.5% of US federal corporate taxes.

Pretty good 30 min presentation about how they think about value investing.

https://mule.substack.com/p/heterogeneous-compute-the-paradigm Interesting article for those interested in semiconductor architecture.

These are developed based on Dr Stuart Mcgill's work, I do them too (in some fashion or another). I also find that leg strength and abdominal strength help in supporting the trunk and keeping the spine stabilized. Stay healthy! ;D

"Constant effort is life's greatest shortcut."

https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/insights/publications/2020/01/sec-proposes-changes-to-accredited-investor-definition/

My guess: a combination of explanations of the cash balance (including diatribe about high valuations); performance of the stock portfolio (Apple); and a bunch of the regular feel-good history lessons.

Looks interesting thx for the research idea.

What do you mean by "60 day rollover rule"? You can remove funds from your Roth IRA without penalty, if you put them back in after 60 day or less; at least that’s my understanding. Yes that's right but I am not sure whether it is required to be the exact same security which is returned. I.e. if tendering shares worth $100 and replacing with cash of $100 is considered a distribution or not. Also note you can only do this once annually.

If SBAC cannot help directly, I believe Citi operates in Cameroon. https://www.citigroup.com/citi/about/countries-and-jurisdictions/cameroon.html

I wonder if the 60 day rollover rule could apply.

You've always got such creative financing ideas; a real treat to read. Thanks for the food for thought. Cheers.