Spekulatius

Sal Daher's podcast on iOS Thanks, this “Angel Invest Boston” podcast is a great podcast series, especially since I live in the greater Boston area. Subscribed.

Interesting clinical candidate with an unmet need. It looks to me like they will need to raise cash with a secondary very soon though. It shouldn't be too difficult to raise money (they've already done some licensing deals - one with a Japanese major and they also got some funds from CF foundation). Their Ph 3 results for Lenabasum should most likely be great (their Ph2 data and recent hiring shows they are prepping for approval) - out in a few months. Stock is ripping. Up 60% since this above discussion. Funnily i discovered this stock from a podcast where a healthcare VC with a great track record was pounding the table on it like crazy. Yes, stock has rebounded substantially. Would you mind disclosing the podcast? I am constantly looking for new material.

Do you think anyone in a NYC apartment building talk to their neighbors or even say hello? I agree that probably should've been a first step. This is NYC, so in any case, the neighbor in question will tell you to GFY. Move somewhere, where you own all 4 walls of your place yourself. That solves this and many other problems.

Reduced GOOG and BAESY a bit.

It’s true that building in Texas is comparably easy, which holds housing prices down, but I think that may change for two reasons that are probably somewhat related: 1) demographics are changing and Texas become “bluer” and at some point attitudes towards zoning etc will become more like in California. 2j The expansion is space has its limit with the millennial generation that can exist any more if there isn’t a Chipotle and Starbucks within two blocks from the home. That will cause some housing to become much more desirable and limit the spread. I would think any of the above would show in a city like Austin first, DFW area second and Houston probably last. Anyways, I think it would be a multi decade trend and then there is some back wind from the Texas economy doing better than average too. I think any bet on the Texas economy in the long run may be a good one.

Corporate debt/ Pretax ratio would be a better measure since interest is paid from $. Since the tax rates are at a historic low, using post tax numbers does skew the ratio a bit. but overall, the point is valid.

Almost any recession is closely related or caused by a credit even. The 2001 recession was not just the aftermath of a dot Comrades move forward! Bubble, there were a lot of telecom and independent power producers going bankrupt (Global Crossing, Worldcom, Mirant, Enron, - El Paso and Williams almost went bankrupt) The GFC was centered around the financial system, but eventually the credit crunch hit the whole economy. I think it is reasonable to assume that the next recession will also be related or caused by a credit event.

Same here. Price action looks very weak. I think we will get mid fifty prices in a general stock market correction. I did notice some smaller insider sales (Breen etc) at the end of last year. Edit : also added a bit of LBTYK.

Don't forget pissing away money on Lyft, Maven, and probably Cruise. While Ive long liked Cruise, it is hard now not to view it through the tainted lens of Softbank being the main reason it's considered a home run... All the car companies except Tesla have been trading like junk for the last 12 month almost without exception. that includes Europe, and to a to a lesser degree Japan. They are like the c malls of the industrials. For sure, with regard to the sentiment, but 2019 was yet another record year for auto sales(in $ figures). The problem is they are terrible allocators. E&P companies are probably better peers than the malls. They make tons of money in good years but give none of it back to shareholders because dumb career industry folks run the companies based on out dated and inefficient theories for "what you're supposed to do". Then during the bad years... shit gets ugly. As my bearishness on the overall market has grown, GM has started to bother me more. If this is how they perform in a record market, I probably dont want to be around for when things stop going perfectly. How would you run GM better? Large buybacks may not be the best course of action because the stock really didn’t move. In a way it would be wasted. GM will bleed probably bleed $10B+ In cash during a recession because they would need to spent on new models and because the industry is in transition on electrification and self driving cars. There isn’t an easy way out, the business is a value trap. If I had to buy one stock, it would be FCAU. They are winning market share in trucks and the merger with Peugeot will fix their ailing European business hopefully.

Don't forget pissing away money on Lyft, Maven, and probably Cruise. While Ive long liked Cruise, it is hard now not to view it through the tainted lens of Softbank being the main reason it's considered a home run... All the car companies except Tesla have been trading like junk for the last 12 month almost without exception. that includes Europe, and to a to a lesser degree Japan. They are like the c malls of the industrials.

I noticed the same thing. It shows how people are starting think about it, even though it obviously has no value because it isn't printed on green paper with pictures of good (i.e. dead) politicians on it. It’s gold for millennials. It’s also a solution if you need to launder money, live in Country with Capital controls and a crappy currency (which typically go hand in hand) and want to transfer you wealth. It might have its limitations, but if you need to move money under the nose from a government, than its the way to go.

This is all true to some extend, but as I mentioned before , most Germans don’t own stock and the unemployment rate is 3.2%, which is full employment and then some. The unrest in the populace, which will eventually eventually Merkels removal (imo) is related to I immigration policy etc and not to economic issues.

I posted a comment on this article today: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4314926-atento-deserves-your-attention I think this week's selling is coming from RSU's issued 30 months ago that vested on Jan 2. Last year it was a similar story and the stock declined 14% in 5 days following the vesting of RSUs on a lot of volume and this year it's also down about 14% on significant volume in the 4 days since vesting. Last year ATTO bounced back 13% the following week. Not sure if we'll see a replay but it's a reasonable speculation. Thanks good comment. It does seem selling on no news and typically I don’t think that indiscriminate sellers are that well informed.

Bought some ATTO as a rebound play.

The US is a lot Europe in terms of economic diversity - in Europe you have Munich and Luxembourg on one side and Greece and Southern Italy on the other. In the US you have the Rich areas like the Bay Area and NYC and poor areas like Kentucky and Mississippi etc. You just have more cultural glue to hold the US together compared with Europe.

Tequila (CUERVO.MX) Artificial body parts and organs Space Technology Housing in Texas

If only they were. I cannot sell or buy ASFI anymore even though I just hold 100 shares worth $1000 .. Admittedly I had a larger position in the past but even then I wasn’t close to owning 1% which would be 65k shares - a position worth a few hundred k and three weeks of trading volume .. Margin rates can be negotiated. Just threaten to leave for lower margin rates at IB and see how your broker respond. They may not exactly match IB‘s rate but probably close enough. A bunch of CoBF people have previously tried to persuade me that IB is the best thing since the sliced bread. Now I'm gonna gloat and say "I told you so". 8) No, I'm gonna say: "Sorry you guys are having these issues". :'( The margin rates are too good to move away from. I only know how to buy and sell equities. I haven't even explored 99.9% of the tools being offered.

1) I think multiples in Europe have compressed over the years. They were quite richly valued in early 2000’s and valuations have come down. 2) Overall, quality is lower, as measured by ROIC. Demographics are worse, but with export oriented economies, that’s not necessarily a restriction to growth. 3) There is less of a shareholder culture in Europe. most Europeans hold no or very little stock and there is no 401k equivalent. Large buyers like this tend to create a steady bid and that. is missing in Europe. 4) I recently looked at some very LT performance numbers and based on memory, since the DAX was created in 1990, the index is up by about 7.8x, which is quite similar to SP500, so over the longer term, at least the German index has performed equivalent. That said, it outperformed in the 1990 and underperformed since the GFC. It’s similar to emerging markets and I think the correlation is no coincidence. 5) The financial sector is permanently impaired . Banks, but also life insurers etc. are impaired by a combination of negative interest rates and competition.

^ Another thing for my bucket list. Probably worthwhile to visit before it gets on the radar door for international tourism.

I find it interesting that so many people use leverage 10 years into a bull market. I was aggressive up to 2012, then again in late 2015 and at the end of 2018 but now I try to keep a healthy amount of cash to be able to pounce whenever I see some great setups.

So with WPC, ORI and MCY, you are bullish on property insurers? ORI looks interesting based on valuation metrics. I have owned MCY before ( a long time ago) when it traded at book value. I used to have my car and property insurance with them when I lived in CA.

This is probably #1 for me as well. His speech at the University of Florida in 1998 was particularly instructive: For this little nugget of wisdom, I am eternally grateful. His speech at the University of Florida in 1998 was one of his best. Just this timeless excerpt: https://www.tilsonfunds.com/BuffettUofFloridaspeech.pdf I am on my second pint of microbrew now and for a totally unrelated reason also bumping long forgotten threads.

LOL My atheist grandma was supposedly on her deathbed and the catholic run hospital sent a priest to for the last rites. My grandma became furious and noticed that this “ alter Bock” wore a wig amongst all thing. She chased him out swearing in her Berlin accent from her bed calling him out. She lived on for another decade. she is my family hero. Mine are: 1) Stay healthy enough to enjoy good wine and beer 2) Survive another year 3) go to 1) again and repeat as long as possible

By mitigated, I meant: - no foreseeable route schedules or flight volumes will be impacted as they had a mitigation plan in place. Indeed they expect an increase in bookings and revenue this quarter. - the impact of the 737 MAX not making schedule is a 4-6% operating cost increase. They have negotiated one settlement with boeing on financial compensation to offset this, and have future talks teed up. Issues like this are temporary if you are a buy-and-hold 3-5-10 year kind of investor. What are the consequences, if this bird never flies again? LUV would need to change their plain procurement and costs would probably be permanently higher be sure now they would need to fly multiple aircraft rather than one. Also, in the case, that the 737 max does not fly again, I expect Boeing to restructure and possibly declare bankruptcy. The main reason ai think so is because they loaded up their supply chain with unsold planes and are probably liable for inventory not just in their possession, but also for their suppliers. This scenario isn’t that likely, but I think it is way higher then the probabilities assigned by Mr Market currently. The fact is that Boeing designed an aerodynamically unsound plane with that is stabilized by shoddy software. They can fix the software, but does it make the plane sound? What would happen if a other bird falls from the sky after the FAA approves it to fly again? LUV uses only Boeing planes, so they are tied to the mast, so to speak.

Hilti used to be a public company and traded on the Swiss exchange. Trumpf is a Family owned business with a very long term focus. They developed their own photonics Technology for their lasers (the modules are build in NJ/US) in order to control the whole value chain. I don’t think they are likely to sell out. Well, BRK could buy IPGP. ;) Yes, that would be a great company for Buffet to look at. I am guessing there are folks within Berkshire’s operations that understand IPGP’s market position and moat. I have no idea if IPGP’s board would entertain a sale - the company is still founder driven to some extent.