Spekulatius

As to why Cheetoh's went up in price - listen to this oddlot's podcast. The new corporate mantra is "Price over volume". It means that companies started to rise prices even if they lose some volume. There are a lot of examples cited: Pepsi (double digit price increases), Wingstop (raised prices when chicken wings wholesale price went up and didn't lower them when they went down), Hotels (occupancy down compared to 2019, prices up), Cruises (same) . You can also look at energy (crude) or automobile (less supplies, higher prices). The list goes on and on. It's not just limited to consumer goods, it happens in industrial markets or services as well. This will end when the consumer / customers start to push back presumable. So far that has not happened yet. Another thing to note - people and business are now already conditioned to see price increase and don't push back as much any more. This shows that inflation has a strong behavioral aspect. in other words we have already sticky inflation that creeps up in many, if not most goods and services. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-09/corporate-earnings-calls-provide-clues-on-inflation-odd-lots-podcast?srnd=oddlots-podcast#xj4y7vzkg

@changegonnacome Yes, that’s correct. Inflation is a flat tax on everyone and we know where tax checks go. Inflation is the government way to silently reduce liabilities and obtain more taxes at the same time.

@longterminvestor Thx for the comment. I wasn’t really following this story closely, but it was clear Berkshire had the inside track in this deal. let’s also not forget that this happened in a choppy market, some of Allegheny’s equity holding were affected, so with a fair bid from Berkshire at hand that sure is going to close, it was hard for an outside to make much more compelling bid.

LOL, it's like playing Jumanji when you get your renewal letter:

I take the opposite side on this. I think it will take a long time until Russian stocks trade again in western markets.

I think it's too early to draw conclusion from the investigation. My guess is that if the Ukrainian pro government organization was indeed involved, it wasn't done with the Ukrainian authorization. The reason is simple - the truth on these type of things do come out and pot. down side too highvs the pot gain (as we see now). The pipeline wasn't really all that important - it was idle and was supposed to remain so. I thought it was a russian psy operation with the intend to create fear in the west , but that does not seem that likely now. We do not even know if the leak is true, but it does come from sources that have been credible in the past (major German TV station). If it turns out that the Ukrainian government was involved, then Ukraine will lose a lot of support in the Germany and likely the rest of Europe as well.

Interesting results from Nordstream leak investigating from credible sources: Seems like a pro Ukrainian group was involved.

In every war in the last 100+ years, nations went into it unprepared and vastly underestimated what they needed to produce and move to keep the front lines supplied. I think every war is entered with the assumption (spoken out or not) that it only last a few weeks or at most month and that just isn’t the case any more. Wars tend to last longer nowadays and they are typically won by those who can outproduce and get their material to the front lines (logistics) in time. I think it was a General Bradley who said that the war in Europe was won by Victory cargo ships , Jeeps and Mack trucks. Germany had none of these, stuff was moved often by railroad and horses, believe it or not in WW2.

Sector rotation. They were hot last year, this year not so much. Don’t ask me why. There are some pockets where COVID-19 hangover exists from lower demand. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines are one example, but it also effects testing equipment and some clinical research business.

Added a bit to LSXMK and more to $BTI. Also a starter in $PKBK (cheap and very profitable NJ microcap bank with some hair).

Todays ad for me. I don't even want to find out where this leads to: Edit I swear this thing is mocking me now:

I am not sure where BHE is held, but suspect it’s at the insurance level as well. However, if it is were possible to spin BHE it would make the least sense because BHE has so much depreciation that they have a negative income tax rate, meaning they reduce taxes for the rest of Berkshire as long as they belong to the conglomerate and would lose those tax credits if they were stand-alone. I think BHE is actually the least likely part to be spun off. I think the easiest so spin off would be the large minors stakes that also present some deadwood like KFC or maybe even KO. They are not controlled by Berkshire, so Berkshire could sell them off, as ai think they are more or less sentimental holdings in WEB coffee can portfolio and unlikely to outperform in the future,

Why are you so bullish on TV? Looks like the merger with MegaCPO is dead for the time being. (FWIW- I hold MegaCPO shares)

I have not clicked on anything, despite the tempting displays. The ad AI definitely watches what you are typing or elsewhere looking for. Ever since I have researched and purchased a car, i get bombed with car ads in youtube for example, but I have never seen a car ad here on this site.

The bad joke above aside, the ad targeting here on this side really blows. I don't know why the algo here thinks that I am target audience for female swimsuits. I would have expected some ads from Ken Fisher here or crypto scams. For while, I did get an ad for mail order brides from Ukraine, which at least makes some sense based on keywords that were discussed here in one thread.

Tough choices. I vote the deep discounted one on the right:

Could be currencies - if you do have foreign stocks

Actually, it was never that easy to get money out of China even years ago. I know this, the company I worked for years ago had the issue talking to an accountant I knew. You had to apply at some sort of government authority who would be take their sweet time. There was possibly some corruption involved to grease some wheels as well, The Chinese Yuan is not a freely convertible currency either.

I think Germany for once is ramping up ammunition production significantly. Rheinmetal alone builds two new plants - one in Hungary and one in Germany if I recall correctly. I don’t think producing artillery shells is that hard. It’s the more complex stuff like smart ammo (Excalibur) that has complex supply chains and takes longer.

The terminal value question is a good one and I can’t answer either. I think the position that Berkshire has was established by T&T not Buffett.

There is something for everyone, HR, supply chain management, production planning, engineering, general management. Endless possibilities.

This a WW2 manual Joe to do duct sabotage from the CIA. It is free are and can be an obtained at Gutenberg.org. Found this through a tweet from Elon Musk. Part of it read like a corporate training manual for new employees: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26184/pg26184-images.html

LOL, Roach motel: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/mark-mobius-china-investing-capital-restricting-outflows-markets-strategy-jinping-2023-3

You are right. That said, the deal was announced on March 2022 when the market was quite choppy due to the war in Ukraine. So I think Berkshire benefited somewhat from this. On another note, I wonder if LSXMK could be attractive to Berkshire, once they clean up the structure. They own already 20% of it and are the largest shareholder. I think owning Siri would be attractive to Berkshire as it fits right in their wheelhouse in terms of the business they tend to like. This could happen if a Malone decides to call it quits.

The US will be fine, there is competition between states and colleges for once. However some colleges may ruin their reputation over time. I call out Yale as the Ivy league University that is most likely to do so. I think a College like University of Chicago may run circles around them in ten years.