Spekulatius

Sold PRSP. Seems fully valued.

The real difference between good schools and bad schools aren’t the teachers, it’s the parents of the kids attending the schools. http://freakonomics.com/2007/10/04/more-evidence-on-the-lack-of-impact-of-school-choice/

A 20% FCF yield with a 13.5% decline in operating profit isn’t necessarily a good deal. I have heuristically come to the concluding that most of these type of value situations don’t work, and even if they do, they cause much more grief then they are worth (averaging does trading around ). Others may come to different conclusions and better results, but those are mine. FWIW, I think the whole cable / TV sector is a bit spooked by subscriber losses, but MSGN are definitely the worst I have seen.

^ I passed on this because it is a cigarbutt ( albeit with a lot of life left) in a sense that it will be worth far less once the contract with MSG ( the sister co) is up. It rather deal with the foibles of MSG, as sports team valuations have tail winds.

Mexico has 8% interest rates. Doesn’t count, I guess.

Added some too, but it didn’t sell off on earnings as I first thought. It was the news about the MSG Sphere project cost increase (from $1.2b assumed to $1.7B proposed) and the delayed spinofff do the sports assets that caused the drop, in my opinion. I do agree that earnings shouldn’t matter.

The 80’s were only great in retrospect. I was investing (little money, since I was student) and it wasn’t all peachy and little did we know that valuation multiples would go up as much as they did. Also keep in mind that inflation and real interest rates were much higher - you could still buy 8% treasury bonds in 1990, with corporate bonds yielding much higher. It was a great time, but it did not always seem so. In 2009, you could smell the fear and desperation. I have seen nothing like this before and likely never will. Yes, if there ever was a time for no- brainer buys, it was at about the time when Sanjeev posted it. It literally was the best time to put money to work since I started investing (which was early 1980’s). I would have much rather started in the early 80s. You had S&P 500 returns for over 17% for around 1981-1999/2000 time frame. I don't think the returns from 2009-2029 will earn anywhere close to 17%. I'd also say that there was much, much higher risk in 2009 than in the early 80s. There wasn't much talk about a Great Depression. There was a very real chance we could have gone through a second Grand Depression in 2009.

Yes, if there ever was a time for no- brainer buys, it was at about the time when Sanjeev posted it. It literally was the best time to put money to work since I started investing (which was early 1980’s).

Typically, if someone tells you that an investment is a no-brainer, it means you should forget about it. This reaction is correct probably 90% of the time, because there are no investment no-brainers. The only thing there is are investors not using their brain. #punchlinecompleted

^ I very much agree with SD‘s post above for once. +1. If one had an infinite balance sheet, you could buy up the entire SPY and guarantee a 2% payout increasing with inflation with infinite duration at its current valuation and it should be AAA rated. One could argue that it this securitized bond were default, the US would probably default as well. It’s a Gedankenexperiment, but imo a helpful one.

Same here. Got some GRIF at the close. Also added to FOX, BNTGY, WMB,WAB and a starter in DD (rebought).

You can just go with another lender, depending on how much you sunk into mortgage application. They very likely will have different appraiser hopefully coming up with a better valuation. Appraisals are just a few hundred $, I think.

wow that's great. Must be a really nice cabin at $315 per night vs all the other cabins on Air BNB at less than half of that. Some here say needs to be taken with a grain of salt, sort of like claims on stock portfolio performance ::)

I did the same thing a while ago. I actually asks my appraiser for a low appraisal and used that to get my taxes lowered. However, I didn’t have loan to value issues either.

Another “crappola” spin-off. What is the thesis now, since the initial thesis of a software subscription business seems to busted? Or is this thesis still intact in your opinion? Was the thesis ever that this was a software subscription business? Maybe your opinion of CVET is shared by others, which makes my thesis more plausible that the business fundamentals will be strong for a long time while being hard to understand in the present, and potentially a source of excess returns. But that's what makes a market. Yes, I believe that was the thesis. But this software business is small and the company is loaded with debt. early indication are that the business doesn’t generate much cash. If you are just interested in the distribution business, you can buy PDCO, which although it is not a pure play on animal health, trades at a very undemanding valuation.

Using about every cliche about the Millennial generation there is. My sample size is small, but from the handful of millennials I als I know from work, no fits this description. As for the student loan bailout, it’s inevitable, imo. Once the millennial generation puts their mark on the political landscape, it’s only a matter of time. Ah, Greg was a grumpy, 65-year old senior when he came out of his mother's womb, so I would take that all with a grain of salt...especially on the $9 avocado toast...it's more like $15 everywhere! That being said, the stats don't lie, and they do show that Millennials are struggling on a broad basis. So maybe not your immediate peer group, but certainly the age category. And truth is that is natural since they come out of school with debt, carry mortgage debt, credit card debt and auto loans as they build their young careers. But the sheer weight is enormous for this age category compared to Boomers, Gen X & Y, etc at the same age. Cheers! No question the issue with student loan debt is real. The peer group I am referring to are all engineers, so they have a decent paying job, which goes a long way towards solving the problem.

Using about every cliche about the Millennial generation there is. My sample size is small, but from the handful of millennials I als I know from work, no fits this description. As for the student loan bailout, it’s inevitable, imo. Once the millennial generation puts their mark on the political landscape, it’s only a matter of time.

Another “crappola” spin-off. What is the thesis now, since the initial thesis of a software subscription business seems to busted? Or is this thesis still intact in your opinion?

Bought back some WAB. Price seems under pressure after the secondary (GE liquidating shares they received as a merger consideration). Starter in BNTGY (Brenntag). Small adds to BRK and WMB.

He bought a lot of bank stocks, but hasn’t touched the trust banks. I don’t think he has got much love for them.

On overall basis, I do, actually. The question is if this is warranted, or I'm naive. Perhaps it's not only about the Danish legal system, but also about that I live a place, where we have some kind of a "dual legal" system - the legal system and The Law of Jante. Parts of the Danish press practise The Law of Jante zealously. Here is a hilarious example. ["You can't speed up a Tesla when it's standing still" and "I haven't filed a police report for violence against me by the officers because they were two against one." [ : - D]] The real problem is that I may be severely biased here because I forget about such cases [related to equality for the law] in the long run - simply because I don't give a damn about them [like example above], and because I haven't really seen some appalling evidence that there exist exemptions from equality for the Law. There is a risk that the casuality in this line of thinking may be logically flawed. So, thank you for asking, wachtwoord. Home bias for sure, but having lived in both the US and Germany, I would trust the legal system in Nordic countries, Germany, France and UK more so than in the US. I believe the jury system, quality of the defending lawyer and prosecutor as well as location can make the outcome of a trial quite unpredictable. A conviction for the same crime can have vastly different outcomes which is much less the case Europe. However, I am not a legal expert nor have I run into legal issues anywhere.

Water is an interesting field, but it’s hard to invest in. In the end, who owns the water and who can do what with it is determined by politics. There is and industry around water (irrigation, desalination, filtration, pumps), but it’s actually not growing that fast and I don’t think there are any huge moats there either.

Likely sectors are chemicals (maybe DuPont, or LYB) or aerospace. They have already toeholds in both, so there would be a knowledge base in the company about what to buy. Both are durable business that will not go away. Buffet sold of PSX, so I don’t think he will venture in the refinery sector.

Just present facts without any judgment. You researched this individual online and found out these violations. I wouldn’t even call him a swindler (which is a judgement) and you don’t know the terms of the annuity , so I wouldn’t even comment on that. Then if the customer is interested, offer further help to investigate or look at the annuity contract. It‘s then up to the customer to take action and work with you or somebody else. That’s what I would do, but then again, I am not an investment advisor.

Sold REZI after the earnings report. I had reduced my position before the CC, but sold out after. While they made the revenue and earnings number, it was a very low quality report. Gross margin does and the pro forma # excludes the indemnity payment to HON (capped at $140M/ year). This payment is represented on the balance sheet as a $580M liability , but I think it will cost more. Anyway, thy have about $1.1B in debt (costing ~$70M in interest) and don’t seem to be able to generate any FCF currently. I misjudged this, it’s another crappo spinoff (GTX is a sinking ship also), so I take my 15% loss and move on. KTB is doing better than I thought, also the earnings report is nothing to write home about either.