Spekulatius

I could see them making a run at RLGY if their management looks for a buyer. Shares look somewhat cheap and they own some of the best known franchises, although I am not sure how much the franchise name actually counts.

Thanks, I kind of do to. Charter just seems to fit alongside Disney (edit: and SoftBank.) Thanks to Cable Cowboys, and of course thanks to Liberty. I actually think that CMCSA is becoming more like DIS. At one point, they wanted to buy DIS a couple of years ago, no they run into each other with SKY.

Still gambling on the ourcome of certain scenarios ? Do these trades generally work out for you. I am curious, if this is truly better time and money spent than being an armchair investor?

CHTR and CMCSA. Not today but a era recent purchases were AKBTY (Turkish bank, small position) and AVX (electronics distributor)

I listened to this book as an audiobook during my long weekend commutes. I think it is a fantastic read (or listen) abdndurectoy applicable to investing as well, even though it is mostly about how the human mind works. I highly recommend this book!

I also think they utilities can at least theoretically recover the cost of a natural disaster from their customers via increased rates.

Since it went on sale today, decided to purchase a first lot of CHTR and LRBDA. I agree it’s thr narrative here - communication toll road at 9x EBITDA that will likely benefit from secular tailwinds including 5G. I also added a bit more CMCSA as well - same idea really.

The increasing cap rate issue become even more severe when there are secular headwinds like with retail properties. B malls trade at a much lower multiple than C malls and if a property drops from the B mall into hr C mall bucket, the cap rate could go from 7 to 10% easily. That is why I am not sure, if stocks like KIM are really cheap. Yes, they do trade at a discount to NAV, but is the discount really 43% like the report above mentions suggest. We know that they dispose of properties for a 7.5-8% cap rate and KIm trades at an implied 8.5% cap rate. Well, at least optically, that is not much of a discount. Of course , KIm claims that they are selling their lesser properties, but what if the bucket of clunkers constantly gets refilled, due to the issues with retail? It is not a gamble that I would be willing too take, given where I think retail is going and considering the fairly high leverage of even Reits considered to be well financed like KIM.

I knew what was coming when you asked that question. While I think you may be correct, in some ways, there are many ways to skin the cat and approach investing. I do know quite a few people who have never done a "Deep dive" that you are describing and who have done quite well. I have done OK too most of the time, and if not, it wasn't because I was didn't knew enough, it was because follow common sense. I am a "hobby investor". I work my job as a professional in a specialized field that has nothing to do with finance. Playing the stock market has been one of my "hobbies" since 1982. Since it is a hobby and a profitable at that, I am spending maybe 5-6 hours/week on this, bunt t sometimes very little for many month, if I don't feel like it and there doesn't seem to be much to do. I have also become lazier over time. I certainly don't have the time to spent 50h + on a single stock, especially, since i run a diversified portfolio as an insurance against my negligance. I invest based on heuristics and I am aware that those have limitations. I look at a few quantitative measures as a mental checklist 1) Is this a good business 2) Is the stock cheap 3) Is management capable and honest 4) Is the stock safe (from permanent impairment) 5) Are there more headwinds or tailwinds going forward That's pretty much it. I don't try to be extremely correct. I think it is quite easy in most cases to see if the business is "good" or bad. I also think it does not take all that much to find out if it is undervalued. It can be quite difficult to determine the headwinds or tailwinds in the future and this last one has been a recent addition of mine. I want to see at least 4/5 of these criteria being checked of before investing and I prefer a balanced scorecard over one that just emphasizes one (like cheapness). In most cases, if you are approximately correct on above, you should do OK. There are other reasons why I don't like spending to much time on a single investment. I believe spending too much time will leave to the fallacy, that you believe you know much more about the business than you actually do. If you spent 50h on a single investment, you most likely still have not had an inside look in any of these companies, spoke to an employee or manager and you certainly don't know how the sausage is made. But at least in my case, I found that if I spent that much time, the "sunk time syndrome" often works against me and I feel I need to do something when in fact it may not be warranted. So I might buy a stock, just because I spent so much time on it, not because it is better than another stock in an unrelated business. That has lead to some malinvestments for me in the past. But the biggest reason not to do this is because at least with some experience, going broad beats going narrow and I feel is not detrimental to investment returns, but avoids the nail and hammer syndrome.

I spent probably about 90min total, if that. Its compounding a bit, since i have been following it a bit since 2015,mostly as part of my Malone holdings, which I since sold. The way I do it, when something peeks my interest, I start to read up on the competition and study one or more competitors stock as well. I often like the competitors more since they fall more into a style box. In this case, I found that I like CMCSA. I do agree that CHTR could deliver higher returns, but I think there is lower risk in CMCSA.

Just asking questions. Even if I don’t like a stock, I don’t short it. I do own a bit of CMCSA and like it more, due to lower valuation and leverage.

What makes you think I would short it? I look at LBRDA vs directly buying CHTR.

Looks like the NAV of LBRDA is about $91 vs a $83 share price- do folks here think that a 10% holding discount is a bargain? I typically look for larger discounts when looking at holding companies (even though this is pretty much a single asset holding company), due to the cost burden at the holding level.

^ Simple, he works for the owner, the treasury. I think he sleep very well. And with the full backing of the treasury, there is no issue with soundness either, their rating is the same than the US sovereign. If they ever generate a loss, they will get the cash to plug the hole, in exchange for an IOU. Same than with social security.

A hole in jeans is a fashion statement that makes jeans more valueable. So I smell win-win solution. 8) Exactly! Also , you can pick a different spot to sharpen your blades.

haha....don't know why this guy is shirtless. :o anyone actually try this? The comments look positive. I am running an experiment, using the same blade for 2 month now and can confirm thwt it works. I sharpen the Mach3’s every 2 weeks using about 10 strokes on my jeans. While they are not quite as sharp as new, they are plenty sharp to get the job done. Thanks for posting.

I expect nothing to happen, everything remains as it is. as I mentioned before, I don’t see a pressing problem. Kicking the can down the road, is common in politics , even more so, if there is no issue with the can. The chances of a lawsuit driving a change are already very slim after 10 years and so many losses.

Depending on how you view investing. I think the biggest fallacy for the Graham and Buffet group is that people believe when they do their home work, their investment is a sure success. In fact it is essentially a probability game. You can do the research and improve your odds of winning but it is never a sure thing unless you trade like Steve Cohen. You can have a simple business and a great operator and you buy at a cheap price and you can still lose. This Fannie/Freddie bet is no different from this view. I think it is more like a bet in a poker game than value investing. Sure there are bets with good risk/ reward and those with bad ones, but I think it is much harder to determine the probability of a those bets, than determine what an investment is worth and purchasing at a discount from that value, which is the idea of value investing. It seems to me that most investors have a way too optimistic view of the probably of a positive outcome with these binary bets.

What is not simple about this? Goal: create a secondary liquid market for mortgages to stimulate housing. 1. borrow at the lowest possible low rate (from Fed). 2. buy quality mortgages (95%+ of which are single home risk-weighted at 50%). 3. pool them to securitize. 5. issue securities (mbs) backed by the pool. 6. guarantee payments of principal and interest on the mbs in exchange for a fee. 7. sell the securities to institutional investors. 8. hedge interest rate. 9. make coin. risks: interest rates (hedged), bad mortgages (qualified). If the fee does not cover borrowing costs CFO needs 3rd grade math tutoring. The not so simple part is who owns this? The government think that they own this and you own toilet paper. Thes speculators who buy the “toilet paper” think otherwise. So far it looks, smells and feels like toilet paper for the last 10 years and especially since the government is on the other side of the table, I think chances are fairly high that this in fact is toilet paper. That’s my simple way of looking at this.

I probably would tell them just to avoid anything with complexity and /or high fees. That alone more or less should steer them in the right direction.

A bit off topic, but I always liked the Swedish chef in the muppet show:

Here is an attempt to determine the value based on a regression with the number or users. Makes sense to me and may or may not be better than SD’s chicken bones. The valuation approach in this article indicates a substantial overvaluation , but not by 10x or more. https://quantpedia.com/Blog/Details/what-is-bitcoins-fair-value

If they sell treasuries, they need to buy something else from the proceeds. It would push prices up for whatever they decided to buy. re selling treasuries or stop buying them. Chinese probably know this will not work as the 2008 crisis has proven the Federal Reserve will buy whatever there is to buy in lieu of China, Russia, Japan or whoever. The US can finance itself, it appears, although at great risk to the dollar. Unknown territory, if you ask me. Remember too central banks require extremely liquid markets. What else is out there besides treasuries? Spekulatius, one of the CEOs a while back stated his company (either Fannie or Freddie) is unwilling to extend credit (probably as in buying lower quality mortgages but still acceptable) because they would not put taxpayers capital at risk. This was a clear complaint on how the company had to operate day in day out. Meaning they were overly conservative with the credit box. Watt made a mention in this regard as well. You speak as in from 30,000 feet. Of course the banks will extend credit to the rich, well-to-do and the lucky ones scoring above 700 in their credit profile. Or you also think there are no issues in the lower percentile of the mortgage market where credit scores rank low, those mortgages Fannie and Freddie may not be willing to securitize given the risk in relation to a taxpayers' credit line? Is it possible that your definition of "credit worthy borrowers" may be leaving a good amount of people in the cold, those who could still buy a home if credit standards loosen up a bit? Fannie and Freddie could -for lack of better words- relax standards so long as they put at risk their own capital. I don’t know the answer, but wasn’t it FNMA/FRE job to create a vehicle for conforming and standardized mortgages with 20% downpayments a certain minimum credit rating and income/debt service ratios? As long as these entities stayed with these parameters, they did OK, but when they moved downmarket starting in thr early 2000’, together with other subprime lenders, the mortgage market for really distorted. Nobody prevents private capital to jump in and fill gaps left by FNMA/FRE which should and are run like utilities. I dont think they should be everything for all people. FWIW, credit frothiness in the mortgage markets is already occurring as we speak right now.The evidence is clear when you look at the real estate markets in many urban centers. I don’t think now is the time to light the second stage of this rocket, because I think we know how this will end. At least FNMA/FRE should not be part of it, when market participants decide to do stupid things again.

I like Ennismore. They run a mutual fund that does some shorting too. They discuss one of their long positions every month and they seem to be doing quite well. http://www.ennismorefunds.com/oeic.html

If they sell treasuries, they need to buy something else from the proceeds. It would push prices up for whatever they decided to buy.