Spekulatius

Yes, Reits are best in tax deferred accounts. Lots of good suggestions in this thread.

I enjoyed listening to the song and her voice definitely has soul. I subscribed to her as well so I can keep track of her progress. I found many times that unknown songwriters in coffee houses etc perform beautiful songs gems that would probably be very popular when a well known branded musician would performed them.

All the defense contractors are cheap - NOC and even the blue chip LMT. I have added to LMT recently. I own GD as well, but too a bit off as I think they NOC and LMT are even better deals right now.

Where do you think the preferred trade when there is no amendment by January 20th?, because I think that’s the way more likely outcome. I would say around $4, give or take. That’s based on where they traded before Trump Geotagging eclectic and when Trump is gone, they could just get back to the same price point, absent any Executive action. It’s a simple point of view, but do you have a better one? I think there is quite some lack of crucial think here. Every bullish aspect here is celebrated but where is the post mortem when the predicted events don’t occur. Fair example, just a short while ago, the story came up that three Fannie Mae staff should be ready to work over the holidays to work on financials etc presumable to get ready for privatization. Well did they work over the weekend! If email that they may require to wrote leaked out what would you expect the fact that dozens if not more staff worked over the holidays would have leaked out as well. And if it didn’t leak out and you invert your logic what does it mean? Anyways, we will see who is right, I think most of the time value of the executive action option value has deflated but not all. $4 is probably the downside here for the $25 nominal value preferred, give or take.

Interesting company. Thanks for sharing. It also has an interesting valuation - roughly 50x forward revenue ( give it take). The Motley Fool Industryfocus Podcast discusses AI in their 12/4 episode.

Interesting enough, both ARKK and ARKG come up in Fidelity as Hard to borrow although they weren’t expensive to borrow ( 0.5% annually for ARKK). Can you get short squeezed out of an ETF?

Our town made news today, for all the wrong reasons: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/massachusetts-high-school-halts-person-classes-after-teens-attend-new-n1252857

25% in something like Atlas is really gutsy, imo, especially since you have more exposure with Fairfax being at 20% is even higher.

Yeah, but those were OUR dates, based on assumptions that sometimes turned out wrong. The question is whether Mnuchin ever had a "date" other than last minute. We may never know, but while time is running out, the last minute has not yet arrived. What makes you believe something will happen at the last minute? That’s another one of OUR dates? These papers are like call option that on January 20, imo. At least the executive action part of the value will expire. I am not sure what the lawsuit part is worth. Even if executive action were to occur, there is a strong likelihood that it will just be reversed. Yep. Now Dems control House, Senate, and presidency. Nothing will be done in the next 4 years at least. Or Mnuchin will say, "I don't want to leave this up to Dems" and he'll sign the PSPA amendment. Which will most likely promptly reversed 2 weeks later. Just a general observation from binary net situations, I have found that in most cases absent much indications of progress and with deadlines approaching these often trade on more hope than facts. I guess we will know in two weeks.

^TYX (30 year treasury) at 18.25 - highest level since late February 2020

Yeah, but those were OUR dates, based on assumptions that sometimes turned out wrong. The question is whether Mnuchin ever had a "date" other than last minute. We may never know, but while time is running out, the last minute has not yet arrived. What makes you believe something will happen at the last minute? That’s another one of OUR dates? These papers are like call option that on January 20, imo. At least the executive action part of the value will expire. I am not sure what the lawsuit part is worth. Even if executive action were to occur, there is a strong likelihood that it will just be reversed.

Added a bit $LMT

Dates came and passed with no result. I recall the last key date was 12/9 and I don’t think that anything happened then either. Two weeks from now, Mnuchin is out, the administration will change and everything will get a new hard look. Back in 2016 when Trump got elected, the thesis was that Mnuchin would help out his hedge fund buddies and get Fannie and Freddie privatized again at favorable conditions. This didn’t happen, unless they waited for the last two weeks to do it. The lawsuits didn’t go anywhere either. I don’t see much reason why the preferred and stocks don’t fall back to where they traded in 2016. I know I am only a casual observer but that‘s how I see it - a classic way of thesis creep.

On that end, my wife is technically on a 32h work week, but had 55-60h the last few weeks, I clouding Cmas and new yearThey sometimes try to incentivize nurses coming in extra days with considerable cash bonuses (hundred of $ in addition to overtime). Burnout is a real problem and if a family member is sick it’s Game over for a few weeks (which is part of the issue with staffing it appears). Somewhat related, we got a message from our sons school yesterday that go from hybrid to fully online, because a student was tested positive and it turned out he attended a larger New Years party with many other students (against the current rules in MA) but they can’t identify them. ( I guess nobody wants admit breaking the rules) so without possibility for contact tracing, they shut it completely down for 2 weeks at least. Hope they had fun and it was worth it .

My own take is that instead of focusing on who should get it first too much is concentrate on getting ad many people vaccinated as possible quickly. The “who” is less important than the “how many”. Frontline workers don’t like to get the vaccine - “Next one please”. I think this is one thing that Israel gets right : https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/world/middleeast/israel-coronavirus-vaccines.html Agreed, it's insane some places are only vaccinating during business hours when they have doses on hand to administer. In Canada some of the vaccination centers in the most populated province closed for the holidays even though they had vaccine available. Europe seems to have the same problems based on what read and hear from my brother and they are perhaps even worse.Germany has build up vaccination stops in addition to healthcare facilities to increase the capacity to give shots. Those should be open 16 h a day but somehow they are not. Then there was enough of BioNvax shots ordered and the Astra Oxford vaccine is late and the EU decided not to give any emergency authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines on principle apparently. It is quite infuriating to see how states and countries can botch this for one reason or another. I am guessing that this will all run more smoothly in 1-2 month but it sure is painful to watch. Now I start to sound like Gregmal :o.

The book 'Stumbling on Happiness' by Gilbert was a huge influence on my life when I read it. It was long ago, but the main points have always stuck with me. Recommended. I haven’t read the book, but this seems great advice. One thing is sure that happiness doesn’t scale with the money spent.

I am sorry to hear this as well. A losing a close relative and particular a brother is a watershed moment. My thanks to all those who prevent more losses in lives this year @DocSnowball @Dalal.Holding and many others.

To deal with exactly this issue - we have an adjustable target total equity cost (adjusted for dividends since day-1), and a maximum market value forcing a capital repatriation. Within limits, as our MV rises, so does our target equity cost. Proceeds typically not repatriated until 3-6 months after they were raised. As we prefer concentrated positions, our downside is exposure to multi-year STRINGS of losses of 25-50%+/yr; hence, you aren't selling this to OPM. Our upside is that repatriated capital (as and when it occurs) pays off mortgages, funds education, capitalizes new opportunities, etc. Immediate benefits, that show up as incremental discretionary cash flow every month. Works for us, but everyone needs to evolve their own process. Good luck. SD On that end, after refinancing my mortgage at 2.75%, I don’t think prepaying is a good use of capital right now. I did end up prepaying some of mine at the end of 2019 (we were paying close to 4% back then) because my wife insisted. I guess it’s like everything else - mortgage is a form of leverage (one of the best forms of leverage) and one need to take this in account when considering the overall financial situation. As things stand currently, i just think there are a lot of ways to make better use of capital taking some short term, but little long term risk.

This is kind of besides the point, but I believe that quote you always see from CNBC about "you gotta be in the market because the 10 best days account for all of the return in any given year". It's such a cherry-picked fact. When did those trading days occur? Probably during periods of heightened volatility where the market was swinging up and down wildly. So in order to get the best trading days you had to stomach the worst trading days too. I've never actually looked at this before, but it confirms my suspicion about the "best trading days" garbage CNBC feeds retail investors. The attachment shows the 2020 trading days ranked in order (by absolute value of returns) and shows you that the best and worst days were clustered around March and April with a few exceptions outside that time. If you state how much of the market return occurs in a few best days, you also need to state how much of a decline you could have avoided being out of the market for the few worst days to make this assessment more symmetrical.,

My own take is that instead of focusing on who should get it first too much is concentrate on getting as many people vaccinated as possible quickly. The “who” is less important than the “how many”. Frontline workers don’t like to get the vaccine - “Next one please”. I think this is one thing that Israel gets right : https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/world/middleeast/israel-coronavirus-vaccines.html

I am at a hair less than 10% this year. One excuse is that I managed it with way less volatility than the SP500. I am happy with the result, it could have been way better than that. This year was the year for the bold but I can’t afford 50% hits in my age. Pluses were waiting out some declines from early to mid March and mistake was waiting too long until the end of April to do something and partly those went into the wrong sectors (not tech heavy enough, defense stocks etc). I am pretty happy with my portfolio as is right now and I think everyone who made some money, stayed healthy, and has a job is a winner in my book.

My own picks for 2020 were Megacable and DD. Both didn’t really work (went on a COVID-19 hellride ) but stocks recovered. I sold them on the downdraft for what I consider better opportunities. Megacable is still on my watchlist - their Operation performance was Ok, but being located in Mexico for sure didn’t help. US cablecos (which I owned but subsequently for decent returns) were the better choice.

Happy New Year all Cheers nwoodman Thank you for sharing. It's interesting to eyeball the chart showing the dramatic growth of alternate capital sources and relatively slow growth of traditional sources. "Reinsurance disintermediation appears to be gaining traction as global capital pools seek higher returns and uncorrelated asset classes in a low return world." (Slide 38.) This is a narrative heard before (i.e. MKL/Nephila), but the chart really helps illuminate the drastic change over the past 10 years or so..... Isn't this the primary argument for why insurance rates have been low? Crowding out and too much capital? It's why I've been so skeptical that this hard market will last, because I don't see anything changing the trend of outside capital flooding the industry at lower rates of return. Any thoughts anyone has on this and why it's not expect led to affect this hard market would be helpful. Yes, I think it is correct to assume that hybrid capital which can be quickly ramped up has shortened the hard cycle duration. It is instructive to read the annual report and presentation from RNR (a very good underwriter which also manages several hybrid capital pools) on this matter. I am a little more guarded in my view of insurers here than most because of low interest rates and any hard market arbitraged away by hybrid capital that can quickly swoop in.

I think $BABA has one of the best risk reward ratios of any large cap stocks here at current prices. Short term volatility is pretty much a given, but in the long run, I think buyer should do well here.

Gheez Castanza, we are 9 month into this, your wife is a nurse and that’s how well you are informed? You are correct, there are no LT studies on the vaccine and there is Little known a out the LT effects of COVID-19 either, except indications that there are some that could be a problem. Most importantly, the vaccine will absolutely absolutely prevents you from carrying COVID-19 and infecting others - in fact that’s one of the main benefits of vaccination.