Spekulatius

Here is what comes to my mind: Peter Ustinov was the as they say knowadays.

Thanks, couldn't get past the paywall but this SA page provided insights in the comments section. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3507213-brookfield-to-take-25-stake-in-dominions-cove-point-in-2b-deal I would love to be a fly on the wall in the meetings where Brookfield determines their fair value marks. Between this, the overpriced Railroad they bought, the GCP shopping malls, the Forest REIT projects etc. The mental gymnastics will sure make the flys head spin. It would probably kamikaze into cow poop to feel better afterwards.

Is there a reason why you prefer something like SDS over just shorting ES? I don’t see it, but I may be missing something. IRA accounts can’t use margins so shorting is not possible. That might be one use case for SDS. Puts are preferable imo, but are expensive right now due to high volatility (VIX~28 right now)

$SPAQ down a good amount. Beware Boredom! $SDS also has a dry cough. Sold the SPAQ warrants Monday at the open. Was just banking on the Fisker announcement confirmation, which happened. SDS sucks, but to me, especially if you consistently reposition it, it can be a cheaper hedging alternative. Dont at all recommend holding over night for more than a day or two tops, as the decay will kill you. Thx. I always wonder how folks deal with trades, especially losing ones. I had a small one going on with a “BLM“ Bank, but that was cheap stock that I wouldn’t have mind owning for a bit too. That trade made a little profit. Typically, I find these things just a distraction and rather stay away, but sometimes there is an urge to do something.

LOL. Reminds me of my grandparents (from Germany) stories during WW2 when news from the war would be in the radio mostly. Then all of a sudden no news about a certain war theatre/ battle any more. My grandma then had to switch to BBC to find out what happened ( they had a German language Channel on Longwave) which was illegal of course . Needless to say this isn’t what winning looks like typically.

Sold my MSGS on that vaccine spike yesterday. I like other stocks better.

Well, beware of November then, if that is what you think is holding this up. Personally, I think the markets have come to terms that March was a media hoax and that while the virus is real, it is much closer to the flu than some doomsday bug. To the extent that politicians dont shut the economy down, things will grind it out, with the weaker numbers more than offset by confirmation of long term ZIRP and the goldilocks scenario where mainstreet needs stimulus for a longer time than Wall St does. I am still quite bearish, but this seems to be my read on why the market is trading where it is. Further, as BG mentioned, we had extreme excess and exuberance in some social media and biotech maybe 5 years ago, tech and pot 3 or so years ago, etc, which shook itself out. There certainly isn't a case that there arent stocks you can buy for reasonable valuations right now. But as always, you have to pay up for quality. If you wanted firesale prices, you should have been buying in March. I wouldn't be opposed to a real bear market. I would actually welcome it. I'm just saying that we're not close to 1999 levels from a euphoria (or valuation) perspective in my opinion. The 1999 stock market was very bifurcated with a lot of cheap but also very expensive pensive stocks. The well known quality large cap stocks were very expensive as were fat growing tech stocks, many of which had questionable business model. Now, the bubble seems to be in stocks like TESLA (and it’s imitators), SHOP, SAAS companies as well as millennial stocks like LMND. This pretty much looks like 1999 to me, except they in 1999 interest rates were higher, but also the economy was in much better shape.

This is a deeply philosophical question that scholars have not nearly contemplated enough.

$SPAQ down a good amount. Beware Boredom! $SDS also has a dry cough.

CBOE and a bit more LHX were my recent buys.

Adds to CBOE and LHX

It’s likely that they only count positive cases. I think the bigger problem is that people have to wait many days in FLA to get results. DesSantis better goes to work to match his rhetoric from a few weeks ago.

I think there is a kid at the bottom of this pool that isn’t in this picture. It doesn’t scream any more. Mommy doesn’t care. This would be a “deep value investor”.

Disneyland Hk closed because of 52 new COVID-19 cases. Disneyland Orlando opens with 12.5k new cases. Guess who will have more success dealing with an epidemic. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/media/hong-kong-disneyland-closing/index.html

Situations similar to this may be quite close to occurring if there is a radical regime change come November. i wonder if the radical regime change theme should not trigger to question the direction of the cause and effect. Both President Hoover and Governor FDR had very similar positions on a strong dollar and a balanced budget. President Hoover in July 1932 expected recovery by the end of the year and before the election. FDR's approach accounted for the possibility of a severe and prolonged contraction. At the time of the devaluation, the US had a positive trade balance and even if the move was a global one, the overriding objective was domestic. The idea was reflation, just like now. Moving away from certain regime changes that still need to be defined: https://www.clevelandfed.org/our-research/indicators-and-data/inflation-expectations.aspx Reflation will happen somehow but it's hard to see how an economic slowdown will not meet negative rates. Lower interest rates have been mentioned a lot as a reason for higher equity multiples, but the lower tax rates are a factor too. I recall statuatory tax rates of close to 46% and they were 56% (for retained profits with cash back for dividends) in Germany. It has been a race to the bottom, but the last tax rate reductions seems to have done little for growth and much for wealth inequity. Time to try something else, I think. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-tax-rate

I gathered some additional info about air circulation that might be useful for some. Most heating and air circulation systems will recirculate some used air to reduce energy consumption. HEPA filters in the duct path should catch droplets, but may not catch aerosols , so that may pose some risks. in the Montreal area, there was one urging home where insufficient air circulation was suspected to be a factor in an outbreak. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-canada-quebec/canada-sends-army-to-quebec-care-homes-on-frontlines-of-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSL2N2C31TG I talked with a manager of a manufacturing company (which I consider very proactive with respect to COVID-19) and they Changed their heating/air conditioning setup to single use air only a while ago. This prevents recirculating, but it also increases the nerdy consumption. I had a talk with a local residential HVAC guy (because our central HVAC is 20 years old and likely to break down soon). I got a quote for a replacement system and it’s has an optional UV duct unit for about $525. This unit should get rid of the Virus if it circulates through the duct system. There should be commercial systems like this as well (costing likely much more). I will talk without facility engineer at work of what he thinks of installing them as a precautionary measure.

Maybe he realizes one day that he can’t open the schools because he chose to open things that should have remained closed given the circumstances. The ability to open schools safely is going to be driven by infection rates and particularly hospitalization rates. With the numbers that FL, AZ, GA, TX and Southern CA are putting up, I don’t think they are going to be able open the schools which pretty much guaranteed another 6 month of crappy economy in these states. It‘s not a matter of politics either, the Virus doesn’t care whether a state is red or blue. What matters is if you give him a chance to spread. A lot of countries have shown to safely safely open schools. If any state can’t open the schools, it’s not on Trump, it’s on the Gouverneurs and to some extend on the people too. You eat your own cooking with this epidemic and share them when with your neighbours.

Yes, the issue is that some managers are good in some companies, but fail nomothetic. Actually Schmitt who ran Novell (leading it to its surmise) and Google (he developed the upstart into a mature powerhouse) is a great example. This lead me to believe that many that are recognized as great managers aren’t really that great but rather lucky or perhaps great in one setting and mediocre in others.

I vote for EB simply because I know nothing about it’s business model.

Here is a good one from ours truly Keith Smith: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/value-hive-podcast/id1492171651?i=1000482333189 Another good one from Rich Howe (Spinoffinvesting): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/value-hive-podcast/id1492171651?i=1000477715866 Rich covers MSGE/MSGS and IAC.

LHX (one of my holdings) got some love in VIC recently at $182.5. Now trading at $164, I can’t help but add some shares. generally speaking, defense stocks have been weak lately, anyone have any idea why? Fear of defense cuts if Biden wins the election? In any case, I am familiar with LHX (more so with L3 than with the Harris part) and the combinatory Company looks like a good bet to me. in my opinion, this is a good GARPy stock pick. https://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/idea/L3HARRIS_TECHNOLOGIES_INC/8346441774

Depends on what's a "reasonable time frame". The time frame I see most often in the media is 12-18 months. It's hard not to be doubtful of that claim. From what I at this point we have the knowledge and capability to pretty much make any (most?) vaccine in 12-18 months. So I'm not so worried about the time frame. What I'm worried when it comes to the vaccine is: 1. Will it be any good? 2. Will the moron internet people actually get vaccinated? If you were under age 40 and in good health, would you pursue a covid vaccination? I wouldn't. The mortality rate and morbidity does not justify the time and the risk of side-effects for people of that age. If you are over 50 or 55, it starts to become a real risk and the vaccine might offer some real value. I hope we will see a vaccine developed, but I am not particularly optimistic about the adoption rate or the efficacy of the vaccine. SJ Having a vaccine with a known and well established immune response will beat getting the virus in the wild any time. I don’t know how this is even in question. In any case, count me in as getting vaccinated even if it is only 50% effective. I also get vaccinated for flue every year which wouldn’t kill me either, but having the flu isn’t fun and having COVID much less so. My wife has seen patients aged 30 year up in ICU‘s in rather sorry conditions. Right now, an acquaintance of her from CA in her forties is in the hospital and hasn’t exactly the greatest time there. If I can help it, I‘d rather avoid such a ordeal.

Not to mention even if schools manage to get solid systems and software in place for online learning there is still the issue of teachers themselves. Online teaching is a whole different ballgame. Throw in teachers over the age of 50 who have been in the classroom for 30 years and their effectiveness dwindles. Here in PA a ton of my coworkers pulled their kids from school and rushed them to PA cyber school simply because the teachers are at least trained for online learning. Our own school district is pretty good and I like most teachers, but it didn’t have the resources when the lightning struck on March and everything went remote. It took them 2 weeks to come up with an improved plan and we as parents had a hard time to make sense of what they came up with. I regard it pretty much as lost time and student engagement tanked for sure, not just with our own kids, but other parents reported the same. This remote learning may work for adults, but I think it’s worthless for smaller kids and mostly worthless for high schoolers too. Both my wife and myself are working away from home and in the evening we had a hard time to trace back what was happening during the day , what should have happened and what actually did happen. I have never seen such a mess. I think the fall Semester if it continues remotely would be a bit better, but not much. I hope that for the sake of mankind, the kids get back in the classrooms, not just for the sake of learning, but also for the social interactions. I can give up school bands, sport and all that extra stuff, but we need to get the basics done in the class room.

So Trump Tweets to open the schools ASAP, but how are the schools going to open in states that have high infection rates? Unless those rates go down, AZ, AR, FLA, GA, TX and many others won’t be open the schools at all, imo. In any case, the decision to open is made at a district level, not by the governor, much less federal level. The governor/ states gives general guidelines but that’s pretty much it. Having lived through the online schooling since March with my teenager I pretty much think it’s a disaster. If these states can’t open schools in many areas, many parents are forced to stay at home which pretty much guarantees that the local economy there is going to be crappy. I located in MA and our schools district has to create 3 plans ( online only, hybrid online/regular and regular schools with some precautions). I am hoping for the latter and I would be seriously pissed if my local government messed this up and gets hospitals and schools shut down in exchange for keeping bars, gyms and nightclubs open.

I don’t think what he is talking about (totalitarian kind of subversion) Does not apply to our current situation all that well. We now have an abundance of Information sources with rapid feedback mechanisms which gives you exactly the kind of information that you want or should I say deserve. Those things didn’t exist in the Soviet Union or other totalitarian stated in the 1980’s and before and they lead to somewhat different issues.