mcliu

Which medical expert? The one who's flooding this thread with his opinions? Or the ones that work on the disease in question and publish their opinions in medical literature/sites? I meant experts in the CDC and other organizations that are running this operation. I just question whether we have the expertise to criticize the US response at this time. I do think that those that have medical expertise like orthopa are in a better position to judge the situation than most of us. But then again, I read from another thread that we're facing an "extinction" level threat, so maybe it's time to panic. :o

It's amazing how you can read a couple of articles, look at a few graphs and suddenly become better informed than medical experts with decades of experience. I must suck at reading.

Gg. It’s gonna be a bloodbath tmr. I’ve somewhat lucked out with only a 5% position in mostly integrated, but it still sucks.

Low oil prices are probably a net positive for US economy, so bailout seems unlikely.. The strongest players will survive, consolidate and probably be better positioned for next upturn. Maybe a new cartel will form, Middle East+Russia+US.

I don’t know for sure, but I watched a doubleline presentations where he says clients are going unhedged, rather take the fx risk (potential upside) and get some yield..

It's definitely not predicting deflation. I find it useful to use both of charts below when thinking about the bond market. The second one is probably more important. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DGS10 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFII10 What it is saying though is that the stock market guys were way too enthusiastic especially in 2019. It's also saying that the economy is not that great. It's also saying that things in the labour market are not as they seem. I just didn't figure out what exactly. All of this probably has a lot to do with income inequality and a lot of other stuff like that though, not just a prediction of the next quarter GDP print. Don't you have to factor in the trillions of $ of negative yielding debt which is pushing many Japanese/European investors to US treasuries. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=qj1l

Same thing happened end of 2018 when yield curve inverted slightly, people panicked. Then they saw stock prices fall, and they panicked some more. In 10 years, this will be mostly forgotten like SARS. I could be wrong and this is the start of the apocalypse.

Warren Buffett's company bails on Saguenay LNG project because of 'Canadian political context' https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/saguenay-lng-project-1.5486517

It's interesting how we all became qualified pandemic experts all of a sudden. ::)

At some point people will realize how much BRK is worth. In the mean time, just sit back and enjoy. ::) I don't think a dividend is tax-efficient. It forces shareholders that do not want a dividend to receive one and also pay a portion to taxes. It's much more tax-efficient for the shareholders that do want a "dividend" to sell a portion of their shares.

Don't think it'll wipe out half of revenue. Even in Japan, NIM is around 1%. US banks also have more room to increase lending and cut costs than Japan/Europe. Negative rate policy in Europe/Japan is designed to keep heavily indebted/insolvent countries and companies afloat whereas US has done a better job de-levering and restructuring following 07/08 financial crisis. Impact to life insurance, and maybe float returns. But I think insurance companies will re-price policies to achieve targeted ROE through underwriting.

Just announced -50bps!

Restaurant, theatre, concert/public-gatherings?

Uh.. what about China, Iran, Italy, S Korea, princess diamond?

Pretty crazy sector. Apparently production is still going up even as everyone's going bankrupt?!

Uh oh. Time to move to politics? ::)

But SPCE is disrupting both travel & space industries!! ;D SpaceX + Booking.com for only $7B market cap?

My guess is that because you don't need the land for the reservoirs. I read somewhere that new hydro developments are discouraged now due to its environmental damage from large area flooding (dam) & carbon release (drowned trees).

Interesting, that's an early retirement.. Thought he was a successor since taking over the conference calls only a few quarters ago. Anyone have insights into this? Q4: https://www.fairfax.ca/news/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/Fairfax-Financial-Financial-Results-for-the-Year-Ended-December-31-2019/default.aspx Underwriting pretty good. Some decent investment gains, hopefully there's more left. Non-insurance seems to be struggling. Would be nice to see more stock buybacks.

Coronavirus is looking increasingly contained. Logarithmic scale shows the rate of increase is tailing off. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 At most, coronavirus could impact the 1st quarter of 2020 for just about any global business as a fraction of sales. Will it really harm any business models? Of course not. Hopefully that's the case and not because of the definition change. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3874490 "China changes counting scheme to lower Wuhan virus numbers" China stops counting confirmed asymptomatic patients in Wuhan virus statistics

Have nothing to add to the topic, but just wanted to echo this sentiment. Having spent some time as a junior in IB/PE, I realized building detailed financial models add very little, if any, value to the investment process.

Cause we naive westerners?

It's still nice that BRK has to option to hold WFC instead of selling it to maintain the threshold (due to buybacks). Especially at these prices.

Maybe, in the past few years, insurers were hoping for higher interest rates as the economy recovers, but have now realized rates will stay lower for longer.. I think part of airline rationalization is a result of consolidation, whereas insurance is still very fragmented.

I guess one difference is that there's more money & liquidity after QE 1,2,3,4.. Also, with negative interest bonds & certain European countries charging interest on deposits. People are forced to spend or buy assets. Things could get much crazier than 20 years ago. 8)