bizaro86

IBKR

One way to raise money for a few years cheaply assuming you still want all the MSTR exposure would be to go synthetically long. Buying a call and selling a put at the same strike gives you full MSTR exposure, and releases almost all of your cash. Obviously it uses margin so you want to be reasonable, but the effective rate is quite low and it's locked in for the life of the options.

Basically I put 20% down on a house, and thst 20% was approx. my entire net worth at the time. Of course, in my 20s when I did this the NPV of my future earnings/savings was very high relative to my financial net worth.

For someone living 100% off investments (which I believe applies to James iirc) I'd use house price / net worth. When I bought my current house as a young person that calc spit out ~500%. Now it would be more like 25-30%. And since I don’t plan to ever move but do plan to compound I expect it to continue to decrease.

I think the absolute numbers matter a bit here. Not saying to share them obviously, but if 67% of your net worth is enough to live comfortably forever, then clearly it makes sense to buy it. If it’s really a one of a kind then I think that's another point in favour. You could always lower the risk in your portfolio as well (add some fixed income, whatever) to hedge against a big loss in your assets base immediately after making the committment.

I think a major pipeline is probably impossible. I think getting some extra capacity out of the new transmountain expansion by adding pumping stations will happen if tarriffs go live, and that might only take a year or two.

I use IBKR for my non-registered accounts with reg accounts at RBC DI. I like IBKR better, but when I set them up IBKR didnt offer the reg accounts I needed (eg LIRA) and the difference is smaller when you can't really use margin/most options anyway. To John: I picked RBC because I think they're the least bad of the big banks for brokerage. I used to have Scotia iTrade, but I switched because I had to call to give instructions for corporate actions, and I do a lot of special situations so that was a huge hassle. BMO requires calling as well. I like that they're too big to fail as well.

UK court strikes down 2 offshore approvals. Approvals granted in 2022 on projects that are well into construction https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e1pw7npklo.amp

Which part of Mexico are you in? Pacific coast (eg Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Cabo) would be majority Western Canadians who are way more likely to vote Conservative (blue provinces). I also think the demographics of people who would be in Mexico right now (older, better off) are more likely to vote Conservative.

I stayed home for 1.5 weeks with my first, and regretted immensely not staying longer. My wife had ~15 months. Our second I took 4 weeks, which was better but still sad to go back. Then I got laid off at 5.5 months and never went back to work for someone else. The next two years were amazing- I worked on starting my business after they were asleep in the evening, and spent the days with my kids. I think it's made a huge difference in my relationships with them, and I often tell people getting laid off was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I'm hearing rumblings in Calgary about a production cap if the tariffs apply to crude oil. Basically limit production to the amount that can be sold at full price to the east/west coast by pipe/rail, plus the amount that the Midwest can't replace from elsewhere. That would keep underlying prices up and force the buyers to pay the tariffs effectively. I have to think if gas prices go up 15-25% in a week in most red states that will put huge political pressure on Trump. Link the production cap to the wcs/wti differential - as long as it stays low and the buyers are covering the tariffs keep pumping.

I think it was in few special situation type portfolios with the potential for a bump when they announced the usual end of year tender. Since they didn't this year, there might have been some selling there, and it's so illiquid it wouldn't take much to move the price quite a bit. I've added recently.

They're right next to Russia. That'll make you harder.

More JOE

+1 I'm actively trying to quit reading the MSTR thread because every time I want to put on long 2x BTC//short 1x MSTR type trade. But Saylor needing Fibre was post-of-the-year calibre.

That $33k was in Canada, where most of that stuff would be covered by the government on an ongoing basis. Obviously in the USA costs would be much much higher.

Exxon does things the Exxon way. Even if there's no practical difference they'll never ever change because that's the Exxon way.

And there are other factors working against progress in many fields. As an example - I love baseball, and go to the batting cage every week. I enjoy it and it's good exercise. But I'm not a 7% better hitter than I was last year. In fact I'm probably worse because of age related decay in reaction times etc. So many fields are like that, or at the very least have diminishing returns. The first 100 hours of practice makes you good, the first 1000 great. But it might take 10,000 to become elite. So effort is going uo exponentially but skill only linearly.

It'll certainly be interesting. Canada does not have anywhere close to the export capacity to stop selling oil into the USA. I suspect if a 25% tariff happens that would push up US oil prices compared to world prices, although maybe not by the full amount. Canada would be screwed, because quite a bit of production can't really shut in (it wrecks it) and so needs to keep going and becomes a price taker. But production would drop, exports to the coast would increase, and you'd see crude-by-rail to eastern Canada. Higher domestic US oil prices than world oil prices would spur US drilling, but would also harm US refining, which is an export industry.

One possibility here is CNQ. They are (imo) the best management team in Canada oils and are both cost conscious and capital allocation focused. They trade at a higher valuation because of that, and their stock drops less during downturns. The vast majority of the firm was built on opportunistic acquisitions. Now they tend to pay more with cash/debt and then paydown during the upcycle, but share issuance has been part of the model as well.

One example of this type of investment (that has worked out great for some on this board) is Constellation Software. Although they haven't really issued many shares, which maybe disqualifies them from this list

Nice. I think Hong Kong is very cheap. Will have to find some stuff for my TFSA.

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One of the many reasons I own IBKR.

With the spreads they charge on currency exchange it might still be cheaper to buy pink sheets if there's any volume at all.