Spekulatius

I think it is a curse especially if you take the analogy too far. Every crash or bubble has its own fingerprint and while some of what we have today is similar than in 1999, it is not quite the same. For example in 1999, old economy quality mid and small cap stocks were very cheap while stocks that were cheap in this crash were of much lower quality for the most part. Back then we had higher interest rates and credit stress, while we now have the Fed intervening to reduce all credit stress and low interest rates just to name a few. Some of the excesses seem the same though. I knew quite a few folks who blew up their portfolio and retirement accounts in 1999 and I think we will the same thing happening now. You can only neglect fundamentals so long and by definition not everyone can sell out before the crash because the sellout is the crash.

I did some more research on this topic and this is what I found: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/kzf0jz/when_boomers_are_proud_of_their_2020_gains/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

It wasn't four days. And the guy's name was Jack Ma. ::) Cats taste like rabbits, I have heard. At least that’s what my grandpa told me, based on his culinarily experiences in WW2.

Recent buys. FB, starters in VMW and RNR. RNR is a reinsurer that has me interested because they have one of the best underwriting records of al, peers and they also manage some third party/ hybrid vehicles. VMW is growth at a reasonable price.

Is there any difference between FNMAS and FNMAT other than higher liquidity for FNMAS?

The bubble is not just in story stocks - Look at Deere for example. It is a triple from the 2020 lows, trades st 20x EBITDA and has a stagnating top line. There are many others like this too.

Always liked the idea of owning SRE given the TX utility and exposure to LNG / Mexico growth stories, but never did more than a superficial look due to the CA wildfire noise. Has that been addressed at this point in the wake of PG&E? How do you get comfortable? SRE never had an issue that caused a wildfire. EIX had some smaller issues but never to the scale of PCG. SRE is the best run of the three (by far) then EIX and last PCG.

Bought FB and SRE today. SRE is a well managed utility that I have bought a few times over the year. It trades a t the lower end of its historical valuation range and should be a good low risk trade for 10-15% upside with little risk to principle or longer term hold depending on how things develop.

There is a lot of evidence that opening the schools with precautions and social distancing protocols don’t cause much virus transmission.

Yes, recharge stations will be required, but possibly not at many as people think. For the typical guy who drives to work and back home every day, stops at the grocery store, and then drives his kids to soccer after supper, he already has plenty of battery capacity for daily use. When he gets home from the kids' soccer, he'll just plug his car in from his house electricity and he'll be ready to roll again the next morning. With this type of use as his primary pattern, his behaviour will change from stopping to buy gas once every 10 days or two weeks to instead plugging his car in overnight at home once every 3 or 4 days. The only time when range might be a problem for him will be on weekend trips out of town, or longer vacation trips. Instead of going to the gas station 25 to 40 times per year (ie, every 10 days or two weeks), he might only use a paid-recharge facility 10 or 12 times per year when he exceeds his car's range. There is, however, a group that will be dependent on paid-recharges, and that is people who are living in houses and apartments without private parking. The people currently using on-street parking cannot simply park their car in their garage or on their driveway and plug their car in overnight. In some municipalities these people who do not have private parking spot are not numerous, but in other municipalities such as Montreal, there is heavy reliance on on-street parking. With current technology that requires perhaps 30 minutes for a basic recharge, I don't view existing gas stations as a model that can shift effectively into electric. The better model would be McDonalds, Starbucks, Dunkin, etc partnering with some outfit to electrify their existing parking lot. So, if you imagine yourself taking a trip that exceeds your car's range, you've probably already driven for 4 hours and you need to take a break to drink a coffee, or eat a burger anyway. So you just plug your car in while you take your break. You probably wouldn't at all want to pull into a Shell station, plug your car in and then twiddle your thumbs for the next 30 minutes. But, all of this is a reflection of current battery capacity and current charging times....all of that could be drastically different in five years. However it evolves, the gas station/convenience stores are in a bit of long-term trouble. They make their money from the traffic of people buying gas, not from the gas itself. The price of gas is ridiculously competitive so the margins aren't great, but they just hope that you'll buy a pack of smokes, a couple of lottery tickets and a gallon of windshield washer fluid while you're stopped for gas (the margins *are* great for those items!). When they lose the traffic from the gas re-fills, are all of those convenience stores viable? I don't think so, but time will tell. SJ This is a pretty good framework. assume fewer, but longer stops reg cars and make sure it is worth it. It could see something like Cracker Barrel doing very well if they add charging stations in their parking lots, as ther restaurants are already destinations in a way. Same for McDonalds or open air shopping centers close to highway exits that offer a variety of options to keep folks entertained for the duration of the charge. Smaller standalone convenience stores may suffer loss of traffic though.

I watched Greyhound too. This is also basically an alternative history movie where all the German U-Boot commander collectively loose their mind. Tom Lasso is surprisingly good. Not a premise that interested me at all, but I heard enough good things about it from people who's taste I trust that I check it out, and both my wife and I really enjoyed it. I started to watch To. lasso. it has some classical Yankee - Brit hum out in it, but so far I like it. The Expanse season 5 is pretty good, one of the best one actually. They drop one episode every week.

I don’t think a few thousand people at riots mostly outdoors are going to do much a difference. What does a difference is what is going in people homes firmest (family/household mixing). We are seeing now the fallout from the Christmas and New Years parties which hopefully will wear off in a few weeks. Same story in other countries as well. The most important thing the administration can do is getting the vaccine rolled out as quickly as possible. There should be no amount of $ and effort spared to get it done. Even if it costs $1000 to get one person vaccinated, that would be only $340B for the entire US population, not much compared to the $900B aid packages. Foremost the vaccination directly fight the root cause, the aid packages just the symptoms.

Yes, Reits are best in tax deferred accounts. Lots of good suggestions in this thread.

I enjoyed listening to the song and her voice definitely has soul. I subscribed to her as well so I can keep track of her progress. I found many times that unknown songwriters in coffee houses etc perform beautiful songs gems that would probably be very popular when a well known branded musician would performed them.

All the defense contractors are cheap - NOC and even the blue chip LMT. I have added to LMT recently. I own GD as well, but too a bit off as I think they NOC and LMT are even better deals right now.

Where do you think the preferred trade when there is no amendment by January 20th?, because I think that’s the way more likely outcome. I would say around $4, give or take. That’s based on where they traded before Trump Geotagging eclectic and when Trump is gone, they could just get back to the same price point, absent any Executive action. It’s a simple point of view, but do you have a better one? I think there is quite some lack of crucial think here. Every bullish aspect here is celebrated but where is the post mortem when the predicted events don’t occur. Fair example, just a short while ago, the story came up that three Fannie Mae staff should be ready to work over the holidays to work on financials etc presumable to get ready for privatization. Well did they work over the weekend! If email that they may require to wrote leaked out what would you expect the fact that dozens if not more staff worked over the holidays would have leaked out as well. And if it didn’t leak out and you invert your logic what does it mean? Anyways, we will see who is right, I think most of the time value of the executive action option value has deflated but not all. $4 is probably the downside here for the $25 nominal value preferred, give or take.

Interesting company. Thanks for sharing. It also has an interesting valuation - roughly 50x forward revenue ( give it take). The Motley Fool Industryfocus Podcast discusses AI in their 12/4 episode.

Interesting enough, both ARKK and ARKG come up in Fidelity as Hard to borrow although they weren’t expensive to borrow ( 0.5% annually for ARKK). Can you get short squeezed out of an ETF?

Our town made news today, for all the wrong reasons: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/massachusetts-high-school-halts-person-classes-after-teens-attend-new-n1252857

25% in something like Atlas is really gutsy, imo, especially since you have more exposure with Fairfax being at 20% is even higher.

Yeah, but those were OUR dates, based on assumptions that sometimes turned out wrong. The question is whether Mnuchin ever had a "date" other than last minute. We may never know, but while time is running out, the last minute has not yet arrived. What makes you believe something will happen at the last minute? That’s another one of OUR dates? These papers are like call option that on January 20, imo. At least the executive action part of the value will expire. I am not sure what the lawsuit part is worth. Even if executive action were to occur, there is a strong likelihood that it will just be reversed. Yep. Now Dems control House, Senate, and presidency. Nothing will be done in the next 4 years at least. Or Mnuchin will say, "I don't want to leave this up to Dems" and he'll sign the PSPA amendment. Which will most likely promptly reversed 2 weeks later. Just a general observation from binary net situations, I have found that in most cases absent much indications of progress and with deadlines approaching these often trade on more hope than facts. I guess we will know in two weeks.

^TYX (30 year treasury) at 18.25 - highest level since late February 2020

Yeah, but those were OUR dates, based on assumptions that sometimes turned out wrong. The question is whether Mnuchin ever had a "date" other than last minute. We may never know, but while time is running out, the last minute has not yet arrived. What makes you believe something will happen at the last minute? That’s another one of OUR dates? These papers are like call option that on January 20, imo. At least the executive action part of the value will expire. I am not sure what the lawsuit part is worth. Even if executive action were to occur, there is a strong likelihood that it will just be reversed.

Added a bit $LMT

Dates came and passed with no result. I recall the last key date was 12/9 and I don’t think that anything happened then either. Two weeks from now, Mnuchin is out, the administration will change and everything will get a new hard look. Back in 2016 when Trump got elected, the thesis was that Mnuchin would help out his hedge fund buddies and get Fannie and Freddie privatized again at favorable conditions. This didn’t happen, unless they waited for the last two weeks to do it. The lawsuits didn’t go anywhere either. I don’t see much reason why the preferred and stocks don’t fall back to where they traded in 2016. I know I am only a casual observer but that‘s how I see it - a classic way of thesis creep.