LC

Yeah, I agree. It's a little ridiculous. "We won't stop raising rates until some of you bastards are unemployed!" "Just stop eating and you won't get heartburn!"

Same. How far out with the calls are you going? I usually stick with about 6 mo and slightly OOM.

Could you share that? Would be interesting to hear Malone talk about AT&T...

Colorado is down too. Everything is dropping prices. Frankly, everyone who could afford to move or buy a first/second home already has.

I still work and I really enjoy my profession. I've been working with the same rotating cast of math nerds and general lunatics for over a decade, so it's always entertaining. A colleague is a 70+ year old greek woman who builds models by day and goes to Astoria and dances in these greek festivals and dance nights. And she's a genius. Another guy is an ex-cosmonaut/russian propulsion scientist...he says to me, "If you're ever in a field with an enemy sniper, don't run. You'll just be dead AND tired". So just a wacky crew, the work is rewarding and not stressful, the pay/benefits are good...I'll keep doing it for another 10 years I think.

My approach to Fairfax and Berkshire are slight different. Berkshire I generally only accumulate when it gets cheap, but I rarely sell. I should've sold at 360 but I'm OK not selling and holding that for a while, probably because I'm an idiot. Fairfax on the other hand I will trade in and out of.

Yeah I bought some oom 2 mo puts. wouldn’t have thought to but with Vix at 20 it’s relatively cheap for something asymmetric.

I think part of the problem is psychology - these guys get real rich, real famous...and what occupies their mind is losing it. Which is totally understandable. But I'd imagine the real smart move would be to just admit that and own a bunch of ultra conservative, pensioner/retiree type stocks.

My buddy tried to start a grow op up in New England and it was a total cluster. Dealing with the town, the people, vendors and permitting…his group sold out to operators and did decently on the deal, but the weed industry is hard enough as it is (this ain’t 2015), why make it harder?

Well dropping oil prices may bring down the dreaded “inflation” and which would give our federal banksters pause to continue raising rates…which would see equity/housing+consumer markets rise…could be a built in hedge but frankly the world never works so directly. So just something to keep in mind.

Create the problem, sell the solution.

Stuff everybody already knew: https://kdvr.com/news/data/wealthy-people-flood-colorado-2020/

Now the dorks are talking about a share repurchase tax: https://finance.yahoo.com/m/d6ad8053-511f-3651-9afa-cc291a568254/a-stock-buyback-tax-is-added.html

Agree. A Yep that is the position I am in. It’s a crummy to see Fairfax mgmt screw minority shareholders.

What’s funny is how politicized the economy has become, and also how futile politicking the economy is.

Employment seems to be holding up well which I think is why most people are not expecting too much of an earnings decline: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Colorado, New York, montreal, Italy. Generally in that order of operations as the properties are owned in the family. Spent the day fishing the yampa outside steamboat. Great to float also if that’s your thing!

I agree - I'd argue it's consumer mindset. I still buy Baci chocolates because that's what we had as kids. They don't taste as good as Ferraro et al but I buy them anyway because nostalgia is the best flavor there is.

If you like that genre, I’ll recommend again The Bear on Hulu. Even better than Burnt in my opinion.

Bradley Cooper is great - I recommend Burnt if you haven't seen it.

I have a portion of my portfolio for special situations. Merger arb and the like. I generally weight positions equally but underweight some positions which have more of what I call the bullshit factor. Think spirit airlines with 2 parties fighting over it and spirit obviously preferring the frontier bid (probably someone is getting paid??) despite jetblu giving a better bid. So I underweight something like that because who the heck knows what will happen there. i think they get popular when the market goes sideways and people are looking for uncorrelated returns. Everyone wants correlated returns in 2020. Nobody wants correlated returns in 2022.

The Bear on hulu - great season.

It’s been some product my folks had for years that I inherited pre 2012. Essentially an annuity and I keep 50k principal in it and just clear anything above that every December and donate the amount since it’s not much. But I keep it as some pseudo cash position if the US ever goes Russia and everything sells off like crazy 75+% amounts. It’s purely psychological and let’s me stay fully invested with the funds I actually use and manage.

Agree on that. I keep 50k in a 3% earning account. When shit hits the fan that’s where I would pull from. When shit really hits the fan, I can pull from the helocs. When the Russians nuke us, none of it matters anyways.

James, that is an interesting article, thanks for posting.