Spekulatius

This is what Altice stated in their Q2 earnings report: Altice is interesting because their footprint is strong in NYC. They are basically saying that urban customers moved out to the suburbs and moved right back into the city again after the pandemic was over. Anyways, the pandemic caused a temporary dislocation in housing supply with more demand in some areas and less damned I urban areas, but did not really change overall demand. So, basically right now, the whole thing seems to have played out by now, except prices are without doubt higher, but that may be due to lower interest rates. I don’t think that COVID-19 has changed the overall demand for housing much at all.

Could mean we are close to the top, to borrow from another thread. Not related to housing, but there was a lively strip club scene during the heydays of the telecom boom in Ottawa in 1999/2000.

Here is what my goto expert wrote on these matters: @BG2008 Thank you for your compelling writeup for CLPR. I don't own it, but it seems interesting. I think hedging with puts on large liquid names or ETF's is a good idea. I think getting a new major who hopefully helps to reduce the crime problem is also a nice catalyst. I am only involved in this - "you know who, too illiquid to mention deep value stock", but so far I have been only cashing dividends and no capital gains. Maybe it works out like KYZN (had only a very small position there), you never know. The more liquid names will move much sooner, I am sure.

So the answer to question: Percent loss in value of residential real estate oligopolies due to hybrid work =zero.

@irnovo$SLQT coughing up blood too. Earnings missed by a huge amount, mostly due to rapidly rising costs and worse economics. What a disaster this sector is and quite frankly, I don't fully understand, why they are doing so much worse than last year. No position.

Rush isn't exactly folk. If Rush counts, we need to add Bryan Adams as well. FWIW, I have never been that much of a Rush fan, but their late Drummer was the bomb. I watched some youtube videos from Neil Peart and it is unbelievable. On another note, I also watch the Paul McCartney docu 3,2,1: https://www.indiewire.com/2021/07/mccartney-321-trailer-paul-mccartney-hulu-1234649387/ I watched some episodes with my son (he plays piano and sax) as I try to get him to understand modern music history a bit and the Beatles. I play stuff like Four Tops (Motown), Earth Wind and Fire (they have an awesome horn section), or Miles Davis "Blue" when he is with me in the car and he likes most of it.

Watched CODA and loved it, Very engaging feel good story. It also reminded me to download Joni Mitchell albums from Amazon music and listen to them again. On a side note, why have the Canadians so many of the best folk music songwriters: Joni Mitchell (not just folk, but that’s how she started), Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Loreena McKinnet etc.

Population growth doesn’t meant that real estate in those growing areas necessarily does well. It means that there are jobs in those areas and that you can build houses there. You have the best growth in real estate prices where supply is constraint. that’s places like the Bay Area or NYC. I lived in the North Bay in CA from 1997 until a few years ago and since then, prices for single family houses have roughly tripled while population has remained flat. What happens in those areas is that lower income people move out and higher income people move in. As for NYC, I am not really all that optimistic on office. There is plenty of supply from the Hudson area for example and probably not that great demand. There is no pure play multifamily housing play for NYC that I am aware of. For suburban Boston, there is NEN, but it has pure liquidity , as well as quirky owners and is a partnership.

This one:

You would be buying BTI if you were a yield pig (I did buy a little). Added to MSP (A managed software provider (as the ticker indicates). I liked the their past quarterly earnings and think they could grow for a long time. High teens growth is too low for the compounder brothers in software, but is fine with me.

Narrative violation! I hope @D33pV4luefinds a new place. Seems easier to leave NYC than coming back - the opposite of a roach motel.

Sold my last lot of PKE. Worked reasonably well.

Probably just for the debt.

Sure, the rents in Orlando etc go up -short term. Longer term, it is relatively easy to add supply and rents won't go up once supply matches demand. That's not going to happen in NYC. Same with many single family homes in southern states. There are low barriers to new building and that means that rents and home prices are capped.

That one top I don’t mind calling. I also think this top is called correctly. A few weeks from now, the delta wave will be over. The endemic will stay with us though.

Yes, I like this one a lot. “Little Miss Sunshine” is similar and also very watchable. I m currently watching “Atypical” on Netflix. It’s a very well scripted show about an autistic adolescent teenage kid and his family. Very funny, Imo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atypical

One thing we have seen lately is that the confidence have been eating away from some stock that are more story driven like biotech, SPAC, many more speculative microcaps and fintwit promotes. It is quite interesting actually - there is sone pain in pockets of the market but the indices seem pretty stable. Often, bear markets start on the fringes but perhaps iris just another sector rotation. Stock prices change the narrative, especially if there is no valuation floor to fall back on or the business is crappy.

Was looking at that potential FCF gusher SU and just decided to buy some BTI instead. Couldn't help myself.

AMZN stock hasn’t moved for one year, so it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a consensus pick. I actually think it is quite attractive. If I had to mention one thing everyone is bullish (including pretty much everyone on this forum), it is housing. Nary a bear to be seen, but what if this was just a COVID-19 surge that is already over? Could we’ll be that the millennials return to the cities to their apartments, because there is no Peet’s coffee within 20 miles, the diner in town doesn’t have a decent Avocado toast and the Uber drivers don’t even to bother to go that far?

Sold Vivendi in my tax deferred accounts due to distribution being a taxable event (most likely)- I also sold CNNE when I noticed holding PFSE was tanking while CNNE shares held up…until they didn’t.

Bought a bit more Prosus and 9988.HK (Alibaba in HK). The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Well, I am seeing some indication from med tech companies that elective procedures are getting delayed, due to hospitals in some areas having to prioritize. I think opening schools is another issue. If they do go back in remote, there is an impact on the economy locally. My guess is by the time we are back to school, the current wave will be receding already. So yes, there is some impact on the fringes, but it won’t affect the economy as a whole.

COVID-19 is not a major concern for me any more. It has pretty much become endemic ( a bit disappointing that the herd immunity is elusive even with ~70% vaccination rate). Transmission is unfortunately high enough amongst even vaccinated with the delta variant that this disease will stay with us most likely forever, but the protection provided by the vaccine is good enough that it will be more similar to the flu in terms severity, which I think is manageable. I think we will get a booster shot on the market that is optimized against the delta variant, and I intend to get it just like I got my annual flu vaccination shots. As for the ADE, I don’t think there is enough evidence that it is a risk. The risk is which unvaccinated as we see them filling up the hospitals in Florida and Texas. I do think there is some supply chain risk regarding China. China does not have a high vaccination rate and they vaccinate with the Sinopharm vaccine that had pretty much the worst efficacy of all vaccines on the market. But that’s more a Chinese problem than an US problem, even though we could some ripple effects as well.

@irnovoWhat is the issue with $GOCO? Looks like revenues are as expected and cost are higher, due to higher minimum wages /tighter labor markets? If so, it seems likely that competitors like $SLQT and $EHTH will see similar issues. Are these companies have real platforms or are they just glorified call center operators with at risk commissions as main source of revenues. I have been following $SLQT since it’s IPO but never invested. One reason is the spammy nature of their business model.

$OPFI down 8% @$6.85. Glad I didn't touch this one: