Spekulatius

FRFHF, ENB and DVA. I sold ENB due to Line 3 and now Line 5 troubles. DVA was stub position and was sold due to poor fundamentals are. FRFHF will be converted into BRK.B eventually. I also trimmed WFC a bit as I was way too overweighted and I am getting concerned about earnings power at lower interest rates. I would buy it back if shares fall back a little again.

"Cowboy hat from Gucci, Wrangler on my booty." I need to read that S-1, but I am lazy AF. Yes, KTB’s results were weak, a continuation of trends that have been persistent since at lest 2014. Posted a deep dive on this yesterday: https://lowtideinvestments.com/2019/06/18/kontoor-brands/ Enjoyed reading that. Thanks for sharing. I suppose my similar, sort of opportunity cost for a KTB position might be CPRI or TPR. Thank you for sharing your research. I have been working on KTB as well. I was far from impressed with the Q1 results KTB released today. Not a total surprise that Q1 was weak though, since VF's Q1 earnings still included Kontoor. I have looked quite a bit into this stock too, as it indeed looks cheap. I have decided against investing for a simple qualitative reason: If a very smart management team like VFC can’t fix KTB, what makes us think that standalone company can do better? This was not a business that was badly managed, imo. It is a business that even a very strong management team decided to get rid off. I don’t think I am smart enough to go against their judgement and it is quite likely that this business will continue to struggle. I would be more inclined to invest in KTB, if I consider VFC’s management subpar, but that far from being the case, imo.

I think your take is actually pretty close to the Fed’s baseline forecast, namely the economy does fine and they don’t cut during 2019. The reason they’re slightly more dovish than what you think is appropriate is that they now see some negative economic indicators showing up and inflation is undershooting their target. What I find pretty strange is the extreme confidence with which the bond market is predicting multiple rate cuts this year and how happy Mr (Stock) Market seems to be about all this. The Fed has pretty much indicated that rate cuts are not forthcoming this year unless the economy starts deteriorating. So if the bond market is right and rates are going down big time that means the economy is going to do pretty badly. Will stocks do great under such circumstances? I don’t think so. Either everything is good news or everything is bad news. Right now it’s a former.

Othe then perhaps boosting asset prices, I don’t think the level of interest rates matter much at this point. 2.25%, 2%, 1.5% why would anyone care? What did Europe or Japan get for lowering interest rates to basically zero?

I look at the records from my old message board and it was clear to most of us, that first ENE was overpriced, but also risky. The derivatives and trading shenanigans were sort of known (Pg&E bankruptcy). Proving fraud is very hard, but yellow and red flags were quite possible to detect. Same is true for many other frauds that came up later. Just avoiding stocks with similat traits that show yellow flags will not get you into this mess, but you will miss some opportunities to make money as well of course.

Spekulatius, I've - with great interest - been following your moves for years. [However I do not understand some of your moves, to me basically because your investment universe is much larger than mine, based on that you have multiples of investment experience & stock picking knowledge compared to me.] This move by you is a surprise to me with regard to EXOR.MI & FCAU [i'm unopinionated with regard to FRA.DE.] If you would take the time to elaborate just a bit on your line of thinking here, I would personally appreciate it very much. As far as EXO.MI is concerned, I made the decision to reduce cyclicals, especially automotive in my portfolio. EXO via FCAU and CNHI (the latter may be overvalued actually) is quite exposed. I have not changed my opinion on management. I only sold my position in tax deferred account and keep my position on a taxable account. FRA.DE simply has reached my valuation target. I am surprised it rerated that quickly, because they will have negative FCF due to an investment in Capex for the next few years.

HHC and VNO come to my mind.

EXO.MI, FCAU, FRA.DE

Enron‘s balance sheet almost doubled in size from 1999 to 2000 from ~34B to $65B, while profits were relatively small. they had huge balance sheet items from trade receivables and assets from risk management activities showing up on their balance sheet (~12B and going up more than 5x). Value investors would have never touched this, because it was just to expensive. I do know a few of them got sucked in on the way down though.

Interesting, in CA, I could simply get my tax bill lowered, when I filled out a form, that was backed up by an appraisal that I received when I refinanced my property) and which was lower than my tax appraisal at that time. NY has dedicated companies that fill out grievances for you in exchange for part of the tax savings for one year.

I didn’t think of this angle and sold my few shares recently. Worked out OK. I keep this on my watch list , as I think it’s a secular growth play.

I think the price is going much higher. They're going to have excellent subscription numbers for the Disney+ channel. More Blockbuster movies on the way including Toy Story 4, Star Wars Episode 9, Frozen 2, and Lion King. Possibly true. I am mostly worried about ESPN.

Sold DIS. I think it is fully valued.

Looks sort of cheap ( ~ $4/ share in earnings ) but top line has been shrinking ( I prefer waist line shrinking ;D) and there is ~$1B or3x EBITDA in debt. Looks a bit toxic to me.

ection: Daily Dispatches Google to Buy Manhattan Building for 100 Times 1996 Price By Joshua Chaffin Financial Times, London Thursday, May 23, 2019 Google has agreed to pay $600 million to acquire a historic building in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District -- a hundred times what it was sold for in 1996 -- in a deal that reflects the tech company's growing footprint in New York City. For Doug Harmon, one of the agents who brokered the sale, it represents a career milestone: Mr Harmon has sold 450 West 15th St. -- also known as the Milk Building -- five times in a career that has spanned New York’s latest real-estate "Longevity is a brutal competitive advantage!" quipped Mr. Harmon, the chairman of capital markets at Cushman & Wakefield. The first time he sold the building, in 1996, the cobbledstoned neighbourhood was a gritty outpost with a reliable supply of transgender prostitutes and illicit drugs. It went for $6 million to Moishe Mana, an Israeli immigrant who grew wealthy after founding a local moving company, Moishe's Moving, and his partner, Erez Shternlicht. Under their ownership, the eight-storey industrial building led the neighbourhood's turn toward trendy fashion and media company sell the building to investment firm Angelo Gordon for $55 million, and then flipped it four years later to Stellar Management for $161 million, which then shifted it -- with his assistance -- to Jamestown, a developer, in 2013 for $284 million. Now comes Google, whose $2.4 billion purchase of the nearby Chelsea Market last year reinforced the neighbourhood's status as New York City's technology capital. It also helped to cement Mr. Harmon's standing as one of two uber brokers in a real estate-obsessed city. ...

Loved it too. However, I am a Coen brothers junky.

Ditto. this is. Particularly relevant one for most of us: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/change-your-mind/

Not a luxury apartment by any means (at least when bought in 1996), but the appreciation of this real estate asset in Manhattan beats pretty much anything out there: https://www.ft.com/content/e46c1558-7ccf-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560 Can the creator of this thread correct the title. It hurts my eyes...please.

Awesome interview. I really enjoyed the The whole thing, especially the Q&A session towards the end. Druckenmiller is always worth listening to, whether you agree with him or not.

Same here. I also bought CTVA.

I need to cycle back into refineries again. I bailed from MOC (at a small profit) and like Buffets former pick of PSX better, as it is better run (imo) with better capital allocation. It’s not cheap enough me to buy though, so I got some DOW instead. CLF‘s dividend raise is supposedly trying to bolster confidence, but the yield is too small to matter and won’t support the stock, imo.

Bought a starter in WAB, DOW, a bit more CVTA WI, GOOG and DXC today. Fun times.

Yes, but who invests for survival? If he wins it will take bear market bottom multiples to tempt me, and only in sectors where he doesn't plan expropriations or interventions. The only good thing that can be said for Corbyn is his policies likely lead to elevated inflation so that Britain has a chance of emerging from the inevitable crisis with less debt. Mind you British politics is fragmenting, and I think the process might accelerate. That may make it less likely that a Corbyn government wins power. The logical consequence of electing a man like Corbyn your leader in a centrist country is that the party gets marginalised. That takes time to play out but it may have started. The same may happen to the Tories if Johnson is the new leader. I wonder if we are heading for a three-bloc parliament: 1) BoJo Tories + Brexit Party (hard Brexit, economically right) 2) Lib Dems + Change UK (hard Remain, economically centrist) 3) Labour (confused on Brexit, nutjob left). The biggest bloc could well be (1), but it probably won't have a majority. 2+3 would likely govern in coalition, but that dilutes Corbyn's idiocy. Many commentators here are in despair. Personally I think it's fascinating and actually quite uplifting to watch a democracy reshaping itself as the will of its people shifts. It looks chaotic in close focus, but I think in time the big picture will look clearer. The big parties need to adapt or be replaced, and it will be interesting to see which happens. Britain is welcome to nationalize BCS at book value. ;D. I don’t really understand what’s going on in Britain, but fragmentation is going on everywhere in Europe. In Germany for examples, the Green Party is now strong than the traditions large parties like SPD ( left leaning) or CDU (conservative) and instead of 3 parties there are now 5 or six to content with. This means that anything in politics will be watered down by having multiple stakeholders and governments will become less stable and will be rearranged more often.

Distance and time a huge deterrents. It is quite likely that most advanced civilizations wipe themselves out, or that life disappears due to naturally occurring cosmic events. I believe at some point the earth was at risk to permanents disappear under a huge I ice cap, which could have destroyed life on earth or at least stalled the development for a huge cosmic timespan. If an alien civilization for example come around earth in a 100M years (a comparatively short timespan in the cosmic picture) are we still around here on earth? We might have destroyed ourself, moved on somewhere else, or our civilization became so advanced that we have moved on or are in a state that is unrecognizable to an outside civilization.

I believe this to be correct. The QE in Europe has driven LT interest rate to zero and worse, which makes the 2.x% in the US a great deal now, comparatively speaking.