Spekulatius

Woman on average have better returns than men accord8ng to a fidelity study. Men care about being right, woman care about returns. https://www.fidelity.com/about-fidelity/individual-investing/better-investor-men-or-women

There is a constant stream of packages from AMZN delivery centers to my house. Only my wife knows what’s in them. >:( I moved recently and bought a house, so discretionary items were home gym equipment, paint, several pieces of furniture, tools, pressure washer. A lawn tractor is probably next. I will also need winter tires.

I’d say on average activism is a good check on management. However, there are some problems associated with it (short-termism, maybe too much focus on cost cutting?). Also, it looks like Elliott is “walking the line” in terms of what is acceptable behavior. The Elliot activism looks like blackmail to me. They don’t win by arguments, they win by blackmailing and discrediting people. It’s a pretty lowlife way of making a living. Also potential harmful for him and his employers, friends or family, if he ever gets into issues with the wrong people who pay back in his own currency and up it a notch.

Is is really? I do follow some gamers and there are way more viewers on YouTube than on twitch for those that stream on both simultaneously. From what I see YouTube has features to donate to players directly and better chat functions that Twitch has not yet implemented. This may depend on the player community and the game played. I see some players have 10k+ viewers in thr twitch app and they may not stream over YouTube. There is probably enough room for more players anyhow.

If cars can drive themselves, I would expect the numbers of miles driven to go up significantly. It is possible, that the self driving feature will increase the price of a car significantly. Driving up utilization is fine, but this doesn’t change the fact that most cars are used from 7-8AM and from 5-6PM weekdays for commuting. If you reduce the number of cars, it would mean shared drives or people would have to wait. I do agree that self driving cars will change the value proposition of a car. The key feature may be how well the self driving system works, not the mechanics of a car so much. However keep in mind that a self driving cars isn’t just software, it is and advanced sensor, electronics (radar, lidar (?) system where the software is part of the solution. The car makers have quite a bit of know how in system engineerinf using sensors and electronics, so I am guessing that the will take part of thr design of thr self driving feature. I don’t know how this plays out, but I do t think the self driving feature will make the cars itself a generic, like Windows did what PC’s. I don’t think that is likely the case.

The focus on quarterly earnings is in fact due to management being fixated and incentivized on it. It differs a lot from company to company too. Incentives explain almost everything.

There are mandatory vehicle inspections in some states in the US as well. NY and MA have mandatory vehicle inspections and in fact, cars tend to be in a better shape than in CA for example where there are none. I am fairly certain that the average car age is higher when vehicle inspections are absent. What? Of course there mandatory car inspections in CA for emissions ( https://www.dmv.org/ca-california/smog-check.php ) Maybe you mean mechanical/safety inspections? But mechanical inspections are not as strict in MA as in EU and they don't check much. OTOH emission inspections are presumably stricter in CA (not sure about MA) than in (most?) EU. Yes, there are emission tests in CA, but those are easy to pass compared to emission and safety tests in MA and NY. You see a lot of non roadworthy cars in CA (yes, I am stereotyping, but you can tell that a 20 year old Buick’s driving with 50mph on a highway is probably driven by a Hispanic in CA). I don’t see these cars in NY or MA.

There are mandatory vehicle inspections in some states in the US as well. NY and MA have mandatory vehicle inspections and in fact, cars tend to be in a better shape than in CA for example where there are none. I am fairly certain that the average car age is higher when vehicle inspections are absent.

My favorite would be the German car makers Daimler and BMW.DE. Both trade at around 7x earnings, no debt if you separate out their finance arm and below tangible book. They paying dividends too - Daimler is around 6 %. Shrug. An alternative is buying the Exor conglomerate with holdings in FCAU, Race, CNHI and insurance( former Partner RE) at a ~40% discount.

I am guessing that software toolkit’s will be sold enabling to build a website that is compliant. could be a great business at least in the short run and probably sticky in the long run.

I don’t see a crisis in Asia either, but I could well see the trade issues affecting the sentiment and leading to outflows. Most countries are somewhat dependent on capital inflows and when it goes the other way, the currencies and stock market tend to suffer, Happens every couple of years (last in late 2015j and is really nothing special. It’s part of the EM cycle.

I don’t think we have ever seen a president surrounding himself with so many crooks and lowlifes ever- Manafort, Ross, Nunberg , Scaramucci, Pruitt etc. Feels like a banana republic to me. Surreal. Yea, except for Obama - Hillary, Rosenstien, Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Susan Rice, Reverend Wright, etc, etc..... Why exactly is Susan Rice for example a crook? Reverend Wright was quickly sacked and never part of the government or even campaign in any way. Not the nicest fellow in my book, I agree on that.

Why CAH and not the better managed MCK or ABC? Valuation is a bit less for CAH, but I think the better management at MCK or ABC more than compensates for the valuation difference.

Reduced my position in ENB and FB a bit. I added to FB after a disaster CC and now have reduced my position to what I had prior. ENB was an overweight holding that I reduced after the run up. I started buying into this to early. Still one of my largest holdings right now.

I don’t think we have ever seen a president surrounding himself with so many crooks and lowlifes ever- Manafort, Ross, Nunberg , Scaramucci, Pruitt etc. Feels like a banana republic to me. Surreal.

The shipping industry is a disaster. Sure, money can be made in an disastrous industry, but why go there, when there are far easier way to do equally well with much less risk and effort.

The last sentence is the key here. Thank you for your take, StubbleJumper.

Yes, there are issues, but the scientific method still works. Good science will crowd out bad science, because good science works and bad science doesn’t.

Yep, generate great performance when you manage a few million, then generate lousy performance when you manage billions. Talebs Monkeys at play.

These guys don’t need to adapt. They were filthy rich before before their performance record went to hell.

I think OTCQB/OTCQX will eventually be the OTC market. Current pink sheets will be around for some time though. I agree the grey market is as good as dead. It's the fault of any company that isn't labeled "Pink Current Information". Instead of posting their financials on their website (or mailing annual reports to investors), they could submit them to OTCM and you'd be fine to trade their security. OTCM accepts hand-written financials if you are a real penny-pincher. There's no excuse to be "No Information" or the like unless you are planning or actively trying to screw your shareholders. You got that right. You either don’t want other shareholders, or you want to screw them.

Time to get back on topic or remain silent imo. Doug asked a personal question and didn’t ask for a debate. Sorry, if I contributed to the thread digressing.

My grandfather went to war (drafted as a reservist) in the German army during WW2. As teenager, we did find some of the pictures during his service time and asked him about it. He did talk about his service and some of the memories from that time and some fellow soldiers on this pics who didn’t come back. we were curious back then as 12 or 13 years old, but understood that some questions should not be asked and it is better to let him decide what he want to talk about , rather than lead with questions. Soldiers in war, especially young ones, are pretty much all the same. I met quite a few the soldiers going over to Iraq desert storm in 1990, since I was living near a big US garrison and airport in Germany. A lot of 18 year old, with little education, somewhere from the Us heartlands that had never seen foreign soil before and wouldn’t be able to pick where they were Much less where they were going and what exactly what they were fighting, if their life dependent on it. Many of them had never had a beer (since they were underage in the US), but we bought them a few, since they were of legal drinking age in Germany. We found it odd , that you can sent someone who is not even allowed to drink a beer, to war and kill people. Those guys were too young to even be afraid. Strange world, but it’s pretty much any war anywhere is fought by 18-22 year old young men who don’t really know what they are fighting for.

Time for an activist. LOL

Fidelity will not allow orders ( except selling existing positions) for OTC stocks which do not post financials with the SEC, even if those companies post financials on their website. Similar with Wells Trade. I used to have Etrade account which could buy anything a few years ago, but I don’t know if that’s still the case. IB lets you buy almost anything OTC but there are a few stocks which for one reason or another, don’t show up in their “ product” using search etc list and hence can’t be traded. The $300M market cap minimum strikes me as arbitrary and if I would deal with microcaps a lot , I would just move to another broker.