LC

A man and his dog are playing chess in the park. A woman walks by and says, "Oh my goodness, your dog can play chess?! That's amazing! What a brilliant dog!" The man says, "Pffft. He's hardly brilliant. I've won 4 of the last 5 matches."

Meiroy, thank you for articulating that better than I could.

Real life does not have black and white solutions. My guess is that many here agree with the following two statements:

There should be executive order for all rich people to book a dinner, stay, golf package at Mar-a-Lago or do time. We should not have unpatriotic behavior of hiding in their mansions. Jawohl! I don’t know the current status but there was some chatter recently about making leisure travel expenses tax deductible for the year or something like that. Not kidding. :o For people who are not scared to travel/etc., there might be some good travel opportunities around. ./shrug Airfares and air travel though might not be very attractive, since airlines cut a lot of flights. Chicago-Tampa flights are fully booked - albeit with social distancing seating.

There are some benefits to experiencing poverty and disease. As they say, there can be no light without the dark.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/878946307/the-rich-have-stopped-spending-and-thats-tanked-the-economy An interesting implication as the wealth inequality gap widens.

Bought a little more Livenation. Curretly sits at about 2.75% of the portfolio. Cloudflare is the other newer addition to the portfolio at about 1.85%. Should've swapped the investments around percentage wise :D My hesitation with Cloudflare is (1) I don't know the industry dynamics as well and (2) I was not sure how their middle-market offerings would be received in comparison to similar offerings to larger customers who may place more reliance on the various security offerings provided. Livenation by contrast I know the market more intimately.

Well, you can pay for various industry publications but need the subject matter expertise to understand the nuances, as I’m sure you are aware. To combine industry knowledge and investment knowledge is a valued skill and those folks are usually in senior management or employed on the buy side.

This is usually proprietary information and keeps people employed. At the risk of sounding offensive, why do you expect them to give away their expertise and livelihood to you, me, or anyone else, for free?

I was buying in the 170s, and already own calls I purchased back in the 180 range. I feel pretty good about Brk's main areas. The cash gives optionality as well.

bought a little livenation

@2CC: that is true but in practice, MF is not designed to exploit capital structure nor is it aimed at PE firms. MF is composed of a quality (ROIC) and cheapness (EBIT:EV) component. Assessing price based on EBIT is assessing the price of the entire enterprise, which I would argue is more useful to a takeout firm than a minority equity investor.

This is a very fair counterpoint to the "Buffett did nothing!" criticism. You can earn a great return investing 6, 12 months after the crisis when the smoke has cleared.

That's correct - to hit LT capital gains tax. Also what bothers me is putting conditions. "MF outside the US" Okay, when that doesn't work what will it be next? "MF outside US and Southern Europe" "MF outside US, S. Europe, China" "MF on these 30 stocks from another screener I just ran" Also, I don't like using EBIT. I never have. Is interest not an expense? Taxes? Do they not provide informative value about the business itself? I'd argue they do.

Yesterday I sold a portion of NLSN; also closed short call positions in IRM, T, PM. PM I bought back at cost essentially; T & IRM I bought back for 90+% gains.

Aside from the question of, "what is the right valuation metric": If you assume a business is only worth the sum of its cash flows at a properly discounted rate, then valuation is all that matters. You invest, you get the cash flows over time, and if there is value then those CFs are higher than your investment. But I wonder - is this definition of "what a business is worth" too limited? For example, a business issues financial securities. Those securities are bought, traded, sold, shorted, borrowed against, derived against etc. etc. An entire chunk of the economy has been created to allocate these securities. Is that not valuable? And if so, to whom should that value be assigned?

fareast, thank you for posting. I think this is fair criticism. I have been wondering when is the appropriate time to ask the question, "What do people think of WB's actions during Mar/Apr?" The follow up questions being, "what does this indicate for a long-term investor in Brk, and what is the function then of the 120+B cash balance?" Perhaps it is still too early to ask such questions, but I think anyone making a meaningful investment in Brk needs to question these factors.

Doubt I think is a necessary but uncomfortable feeling when investing. You are wading into the unknown. Doubt avoidance is attempting to know the unknown, or exercise control over something you may not be able to control. In my opinion doubt is unavoidable. It is impossible to know the future. Putting blinders on may feel more comfortable (and may incidentally still pay off), but I don't think it is ever smart to put those blinders on. You have to make calculated decisions with less than perfect information.

Personally, I think it's a great topic. Name & shame, baby! My contribution: William Erbey of Ocwen et. al. fame. - I wouldn't invest in his crap with my worst enemy's money! And should we add Mickey Pearson of Valeant/Philidor to the list? I think so, I won't invest alongside him either.

This reminds me of the Buddhist who went to the hot dog stand, "I'll take one, please". The vendor says, "OK, how would you like it?" The Buddhist: "Make me one with everything" He pays the vendor with a $20 but then asks,"Where is my change?" The vendor says in reply, "Change comes from within"

Agree. But to be fair not a lot of elderly (most at-risk COVID group) are protesting, at least from what I've seen

Again a little bit of Berkshire, some Livenation as well.

Capital allocation depends on having a multitude of options. The problem is you can have incredible capital allocation with zero good options to invest capital into. I.e. when a good businessman meets a bad business - the bad business wins.

Bought a tiny bit of Berkshire.

The power of deregulation: Years before the nation's nursing homes experienced a heavy COVID-19 death toll, the Trump administration rolled back the federal rules and regulations put in place by the Obama administration aimed at improving infection control in these kinds of facilities. https://www.salon.com/2020/05/30/by-undoing-obamas-nursing-home-regulations-trump-opened-the-door-for-the-deaths-were-seeing/