Spekulatius

People with RV‘s often don’t drive that much with them over the year. I doubt it makes a difference for gasoline or diesel consumption in the US, much less the world.

Ok...So I guess "the crash" will be in 6 mo then... You also said schools will open in most states by September which is possible but depends too much on local politicians. I think new case numbers will improve from here on out (have likely peaked nationwide), but "dramatically improved" is questionable. Furthermore, hospitalizations and deaths will have a longer tail due to inherent delays. I definitely do not think there is enough data to suggest we are close to herd immunity as you've suggested. But none of this really matters economically as the damage is done particularly to the U.S. due to a much longer drawn out and larger in magnitude pandemic than most industrialized countries (second round of fiscal stimulus in progress...). Those second and third order (largely economic) effects of the pandemic will have a long tail... Let's put it this way, if the US daily new cases do not drop to 20k or below by the end of August, I'll apologize in this thread. How about that? Moving goal posts? We had 49,600 positive cases yesterday and 1105 death. By mid September, we are on track to be worse than Italy in terms of normalized death rate (death/ 1M population). 49,600 is much more than 20,000 objectively.

Bought a bit of BMRN this week. I have been following the company for a while and after the recent drop, the valuation seem Ok, even if the Hemophilia treatment won’t pan out. I like their focus on rare diseases and they are self funding and at this point, I think the Hemophilia drug is more like a free option.

Sold most of my BAESY this week. It is the defense co, I have the least conviction in and it did well recently after the dividend payment was announced (they had deferred it after COVID-19 happened).

If you run a fraud, you definitely want auditors that work shit. Or does it make sense for managers to pay auditors to uncover your fraud?

Sam Zell should lead by example and go into a crowded office every day. What he means is that somebody else takes the lead while He runs his empire from a yacht. It’s all Bs anyways. There will be plenty of people and jobs going back to the cities if rents and RE becomes cheap enough.

Actually, I think forced delisting of chinese companies from US stock exchanges could create up some interesting opportunities. Like what? Alibaba or Tencent. If they fall hard due to forced selling, I would be a buying in HK, if only for a swingtrade. Of course, that wouldn’t be a good private transaction, that would be a go chinese transaction.

Actually, I think forced delisting of chinese companies from US stock exchanges could create up some interesting opportunities.

I agree on Airbnb. I also think Nextdoor has a lot of potential growth possibilities and could become huge.

I listened a bit to the Author in a podcast (There are few out there ) and found his advice generic and useless, but each it‘s own.

I have heard and directly seen stories enormous wealth creating and distractions with stocks. I worked for a company that was later out by JDSU. Some folks I know who were just average hourly folks rode it all the way up and then down. Same with Nortel. A colleague I know worked for Lockheed and mentioned a guy who averaged doen into Lockheed stock when they got into trouble due to the Tristar (a commercial airplane ). He averaged all the down and got a 100 Bagger and that was back in the late 90‘s. I spent time on a message board in 2001 or so, where one poster went full bore Mirant (he thought it couldn’t fail) and he got wiped out when they declare bankruptcy. He later committed suicide supposedly. I guess there all kind of stories out there. One thing I know is that staying in the game is half the battle, at least. Index fund do ensure survival so that’s one of the reasons why they serve the vast majority quite well.

I believe we see a new FANG coming up every 5 years on average. Just look at Tik Tok. Instagram might have been a new FANG too, if Facebook wouldn’t have been able to buy it out. These platforms are not as durable as people think and popularity can be fleeting. I think GOOG and AMZN have built up various moats and may be more durable. Regarding ATOM, From my experience, Material tech companies have a hard time monetizing. I don’t think these are likely to become new Fangs. CRSP could be good, but with biotechs, it’s seems to me that generally the value of platforms is generally overestimated. It all depends on clinical efficacy and selecting the right target in the end, the technology or platform to do so can always get licensed in. In any case, Biotech or even medial technologies are heavily regulated by the FDA and don’t enjoy the fast scaling that internet business can show. On the positive side, the profit potential is enormous, so a lot of wealth can be created, but I think it’s difficult to get into the $100B league.

CEO is doing smack talk and uses profanities. CEO wears a wig. Company is incorporated in Florida or Nevada.

Adding to ABEV

Time for you to step up. You can earn valuable brownie points now.

I don't know details about Spain, but IMO a bunch of Europe reopened too much with no checks. In particular, there is a lot of vacation travel, which was pushed by vacation destination countries for their economy, but which was IMO foolhardy. Plus there was quite a lot of de-mask-ization and social distancing reduction going on - maybe not in all countries, but in some. IMO even in Massachusetts people have relaxed the attitudes way too much. But hey, I'm probably the only person who still pretty much has not met my friends or traveled anywhere. ::) Yes, the recent outbreak in France, Germany and Spain is certainly travel related. It is understandable that young folks like enjoy night live where it’s warm and close to a beach ( been there , done it) but this just doesn’t work in the current conditions. FWIW, the Spek family has traveled and will travel again locally in New England. We keep an eye on the local COVID-19 conditions like we do with the weather and will bail out of any restaurant when we don’t like the setting and it seems crowded etc. It is what it is and not what we like it to be.

Fun fact. The hardest hit district in NYC (Brooklyn) seems to be Corona, NY with a 51.6% positive rate. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/nyregion/new-york-city-antibody-test.html

Worth mentioning that GD's Bath Iron Works workforce just wrapped up a two month long strike. Yes, HII builds big boats and not (Dr Evil voice) "frickin' laser beams" like some of the other defense contractors. Of course, the same objection could have been made when the company was spun off from NOC and was trading at $30 or $40. You are trading low margins for (1) very high revenue visibility (2) a strong competitive position (3) a biz that doesn't change very quickly. The risks are that (a) margins deteriorate* and (b) US Navy moves away from big boats. Long term, I think margins will be OK, and (for reasons that are too lengthy to get in to here) I also think the Navy will continue to build big boats. If Newport News lays off 50% of its workforce as soon as CVN-81 is delivered in 2032 then I will have been wrong about the latter. * We saw this in Q2, largely due to COVID Yes, HII was very cheap when spun off, but so were most defense peers at that time. I see that the 2021 earnings projection for HII is $11.2/share down from $14.5. Any idea why earnings for next year are projected to fall that much?

Have you considered the possibility that the reason why things are going okay in Lombardy these days is because they actually made significant progress towards herd immunity during their atrocious outbreak in the spring? Lombardy is a region where the official numbers state that there have been 97k diagnosed cases and 17k deaths recorded for a region of 10m people. With a ~17% calculated CFR, clearly the official statistics are drastically under-counting the true number of cases in that region. So, run the calculation backwards, beginning with the number of deaths to infer a plausible number of infections in the region. If you are in the camp that believes that the IFR is likely around 0.5% or 0.6%, then the 17k deaths implies about 3 million infections. A region of 10m people with ~3m infections could be quite far advanced along the path to herd immunity. So, are the current daily numbers in Lombardy indicative of good management in the present, or poor management in the past? SJ Specifically around this exchange about herd immunity, in early June, the Bergamo province reported population antibody levels at 57% which would clearly not support the notion that much lower antibody levels prevalence would be sufficient herd immunity under any circumstances. However, the numbers suggest that herd immunity had become a contributing variable going forward, at least for those who could mount one (immune response). ----- Bergamo has meaning here because it's a nice city perched on a hill that marries well the ancient with the modern and is a great example of the mixed human nature of the Piedmont region. Its geographical features also make it an ideal place for the start or the finish of cycling race. It's also relevant because this CV threat, for me, became really real when first accounts (early March when choices had to be made for survival and when army trucks were handling coffins) of what was happening in hospitals made it to my email box. This is when i decided to establish a scorecard looking at the effectiveness of various national public health organizations and leaders across the world in dealing with this phenomenon.. The Bergamo province and Northern Italy had a similar experience compared to various areas of Spain, New York and my jurisdiction with a large spread occurring before the actual implementation of measures (spontaneous, encouraged and imposed). In hindsight, whatever the causes (close to high volume international airports, large events as super-spreading catalysts, older and more fragile population etc), it looks like every day counted and it is reasonable to suggest that the outcome would have been a 100x better if measures that were actually applied had been applied about 2 weeks earlier (with obviously a much lower cost). It's been shown that the viral load is highly determinant as to whether one catches the disease or not and how sick or dead one can become. The viral load concept can be applied to the population level and is one more argument suggesting that herd immunity is a dynamic concept. Bergamo showed that a high population viral load will drive up the population herd immunity required to contribute to flattening the curve. There are several quantifiable and sophisticated ways to report on what happened in Bergamo. Here's one example (and i'm sorry to say a preventable one): Note: to understand, there is no need to speak Italian or for fancy statistical knowledge. ----- Even though the value in the hotspot is 57%, Italy as a whole is far from herd immunity with only 2.5% antibodies overall. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-italians-covid-north.html Another tidbit, for whatever it’s worth. Italiy’sVOVID-19 fatality rate is 586/1M. When the US reaches 198k death (we are currently at 177k and increasing by almost 1k/day) we will be just as bad as Italy. That should occur around mid September at latest. I recall folks talking on Italy’s incompetence back in February. Well, it took a while but we have beaten them to it. What happens when NJ/NY are removed from the fatality rate? They are definitely in a league of their own. Well, if we remove the Lombardy from Italy’s fatality rate, Italy looks great too. You can check out worldodometer for the US state level fatality rates. Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida and others all have fatality rates higher than Italy, so it’s not just NY either. FWIW, the highest fatality rate is with your state NJ, not NY.

Looks like he made a bad trade. Hopefully he will be alright.

Have you considered the possibility that the reason why things are going okay in Lombardy these days is because they actually made significant progress towards herd immunity during their atrocious outbreak in the spring? Lombardy is a region where the official numbers state that there have been 97k diagnosed cases and 17k deaths recorded for a region of 10m people. With a ~17% calculated CFR, clearly the official statistics are drastically under-counting the true number of cases in that region. So, run the calculation backwards, beginning with the number of deaths to infer a plausible number of infections in the region. If you are in the camp that believes that the IFR is likely around 0.5% or 0.6%, then the 17k deaths implies about 3 million infections. A region of 10m people with ~3m infections could be quite far advanced along the path to herd immunity. So, are the current daily numbers in Lombardy indicative of good management in the present, or poor management in the past? SJ Specifically around this exchange about herd immunity, in early June, the Bergamo province reported population antibody levels at 57% which would clearly not support the notion that much lower antibody levels prevalence would be sufficient herd immunity under any circumstances. However, the numbers suggest that herd immunity had become a contributing variable going forward, at least for those who could mount one (immune response). ----- Bergamo has meaning here because it's a nice city perched on a hill that marries well the ancient with the modern and is a great example of the mixed human nature of the Piedmont region. Its geographical features also make it an ideal place for the start or the finish of cycling race. It's also relevant because this CV threat, for me, became really real when first accounts (early March when choices had to be made for survival and when army trucks were handling coffins) of what was happening in hospitals made it to my email box. This is when i decided to establish a scorecard looking at the effectiveness of various national public health organizations and leaders across the world in dealing with this phenomenon.. The Bergamo province and Northern Italy had a similar experience compared to various areas of Spain, New York and my jurisdiction with a large spread occurring before the actual implementation of measures (spontaneous, encouraged and imposed). In hindsight, whatever the causes (close to high volume international airports, large events as super-spreading catalysts, older and more fragile population etc), it looks like every day counted and it is reasonable to suggest that the outcome would have been a 100x better if measures that were actually applied had been applied about 2 weeks earlier (with obviously a much lower cost). It's been shown that the viral load is highly determinant as to whether one catches the disease or not and how sick or dead one can become. The viral load concept can be applied to the population level and is one more argument suggesting that herd immunity is a dynamic concept. Bergamo showed that a high population viral load will drive up the population herd immunity required to contribute to flattening the curve. There are several quantifiable and sophisticated ways to report on what happened in Bergamo. Here's one example (and i'm sorry to say a preventable one): Note: to understand, there is no need to speak Italian or for fancy statistical knowledge. ----- Even though the value in the hotspot is 57%, Italy as a whole is far from herd immunity with only 2.5% antibodies overall. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-italians-covid-north.html Another tidbit, for whatever it’s worth. Italiy’sVOVID-19 fatality rate is 586/1M. When the US reaches 198k death (we are currently at 177k and increasing by almost 1k/day) we will be just as bad as Italy. That should occur around mid September at latest. I recall folks talking on Italy’s incompetence back in February. Well, it took a while but we have beaten them to it.

We don’t even need a chinese retaliation. If US high tech companies can’t do business any more with Chinese companies then Some tech business like semi equipment will be very vulnerable. AMAT and LRCX for examples that are pretty typical and have ~30% of their business in China. You couldn’t tell by the charts though.

Every one of the defense contractors I follow has done well, except HII. HII has done considerably worse than GD with their shipyard business, it seems they have operational issues. Luckily that’s the one I don’t own, because I consider it low tech. They do have a substantial backlog, but need to execute better.

You realize that this is likely party sanctioned and a big middle finger to the US? They claim no community transmission since May and have every one tested in Wuhan. One should at this with caution, but the claims are likely directional correct, otherwise this party wouldn’t happen. In the mean time we can’t even open up our universities and schools.

For value to work (low price/ book, low PE etc) you need someone else to flip your shares too, for a higher multiple than you paid for. Right now, the counter party for this doesn’t exist. There are folks who are willing to pay higher and higher multiples for compounders not tech stocks, but there is no one, who is willing to pay higher multiples for “average” stocks. That’s the problem with value stocks, the clock starts ticking the moment you buy them and if nothing happens, it’s dead money or worse a loss.