bizaro86

Why wouldn't it be practical? IB offers accounts to Norwegian citizens according their website: https://www1.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=7021 I went into the application process and Norway was one of the choices for your country of residence. If they have a brokerage license there it seems pretty likely you'd be able to transfer your existing accounts to them, or at least wire the money. I suspect any fees charged for a wire would be outweighed by the savings in margin very, very quickly.

You should definitely switch to IB. Rates nowhere near 7%.

Sold rest of mine too. I was sad. Anecdotally - I shopped there yesterday (Nor Cal) and it was eerily empty. Yeah. But a few months ago 1 COST would get you 2 DIS shares. Now it's more like 4. I'm hoping to rotate back into it later, but when it's barely down and there's tons of stuff down 50% it's hard to keep it.

Sold COST. Will redeploy into names that are down way more.

What do you call someone on their thirteenth birthday at their party 13.75 years from today? --A quaran-teen

I think your list is mostly correct, imo. If you think Canadian residential real estate is going to drop badly, I'd probably move BNS 2 slots down the list. They are by far the easiest to get a mortgage on a residential rental property of the big banks, and have the lowest underwriting standards in my experience. Should we really worry about residential real estate? Most of it is CMHC insured, and the rest is lower-ratio recourse debt (in almost all provinces). How much of a haircut would we need to see in real estate prices before non-insured mortgages go upside-down? SJ Rentals almost never have cmhc (as that has required 20% down for many years). BNS has by far the loosest requirements, and given these loans aren't insured I think they keep them all on their own balance sheet. I think 20% declines in many markets wouldn't necessarily be the bottom. Also, residential property isnt fungible or liquid like a share of stock. When the banks sell foreclosed property, they do a bad job and dont provide any reps or warranties. So they get prices that are less than market value, and pay fees. In a big downturn, I think that gap would widen.

I think your list is mostly correct, imo. If you think Canadian residential real estate is going to drop badly, I'd probably move BNS 2 slots down the list. They are by far the easiest to get a mortgage on a residential rental property of the big banks, and have the lowest underwriting standards in my experience.

I definitely feel like $hXX today, but I'm buying pretty heavily.

While that is a good point, as presumably the go forward economic effects are similar, I think the starting valuation matters as well. The US markets were considerably more euphoric than the Italian ones, so a larger fall doesn't necessarily seem disproportionate. I thought of that, but then which economy is more tolerant of shocks? I thought the US had a stronger economy and that should count for something. Probably the US economy, but that doesn't mean it should have a smaller percentage fall. Say Italy was discounting 9% returns and earnings falls 10% and the discount rate goes to 10%. That's a 19% decline. If the US earnings stay flat (outperform by 10%) and discount rate goes from 2.5% to 3.5% (so the same earnings yield compression due to risk fears on better earnings) the loss would be 29%. Those numbers are all guesses, but the general trend would hold. Probably earnings will actually drop, at least in the short term. If US discount rates stay very low future earnings matter more than they do elsewhere, which would be an offsetting factor.

While that is a good point, as presumably the go forward economic effects are similar, I think the starting valuation matters as well. The US markets were considerably more euphoric than the Italian ones, so a larger fall doesn't necessarily seem disproportionate.

1 week cruise, free with every annuity purchase!

We have a coronavirus thread (in fact multiple) it would be great if we could leave this one for it's intended topic

DIS, LIF.TO, SRL. Sold some COST to fund the DIS.

I would say any time I'm paying a 20% incentive fee, knowing that it will be calculated fairly is important to me.

The more I think about it, the less ethical it seems. Shareholders are the ones paying for this guarantee, while management (via performance fee) are the ones benefiting from it.

That takes a lot of probitive value away from the mark on the airport. They basically guaranteed the buyer a 10%+ capital gain on the investment. On those terms, it seems likely they could have sold a small minority stake at basically any price. I wouldn't care, except they're using that mark for the performance fee.

I've been wresting with the idea for a while. But I'm not so sure travel related small (and even larger) businesses will be affected. My thinking goes that if people are cancelling their European and other overseas vacations because there are cases at their destinations or because they're afraid to share a tube with 400 other people they may instead stay stateside and go on a vacation here. Instead of not going on vacation at all, they may get in their car, do a day of driving and spend time at a destination that never saw a Chinese person. It's a lot safer that way. If it actually turns out this way, there may be a bumper year for domestic travel related businesses. I own a small travel related business. While my business is very seasonal, my bookings are down 90% this week compared to the same week last year. And my net bookings are zero, as cancellations (most specifically reference coronavirus) have outweighed new bookings. My business is focused, however, on west coast gateway cities and business travel, which are probably the most affected areas. I agree a rural B&B in a pastoral location may see a benefit, but I think it's more likely people just stay home. Fascinating. Thanks for posting. Do you have thoughts on the cruise industry? or how bad this is vs prior sars, 9/11? I was looking at the cruise industry but I also read net booking were ZERO for them recently and am having trouble figuring out if they will stay solvent given how long this could last and if the deposits come down which would use cash. The 1918 Flu pandemic had 3 waves. Came and went 3x. I didn't have this business during a past pandemic, so I dont have any good data for comparison. If there are three waves like this with a similar response lasting for months, I won't have this business after this pandemic either. :) Personally, I think airlines are a better bet than cruise lines. I enjoy a cruise, but they are a health risk at the best of times, and their target market is basically the high risk demographic for this disease. Airplanes have lots of air changes and you dont touch that much stuff. By contrast, cruise ships have a buffet for everyone to sneeze on their hands and then touch the food. Both have perishable inventory and high fixed costs, but I feel like air travel bookings will stay stronger than cruises. I also think the pricing is more rational.

I've been wresting with the idea for a while. But I'm not so sure travel related small (and even larger) businesses will be affected. My thinking goes that if people are cancelling their European and other overseas vacations because there are cases at their destinations or because they're afraid to share a tube with 400 other people they may instead stay stateside and go on a vacation here. Instead of not going on vacation at all, they may get in their car, do a day of driving and spend time at a destination that never saw a Chinese person. It's a lot safer that way. If it actually turns out this way, there may be a bumper year for domestic travel related businesses. Anecdotally, I have friend who is going on a cruise ::). Also have a friend who's going to GDC 2020. OTOH, there was a scheduled international company-wide event that got cancelled - no travel. I was going to China in May. Haven't cancelled yet. Airlines have cancelled flights to end-of-March only, so I'm waiting for extension of the cancellation to get full money back. Also to see what's China travel advisory level is by the end of March ( https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html ). Likely won't travel. Have couple potential international trips in July... we'll see how things go by then. None of these trips will be replaced by domestic travel. :) GDC has been cancelled after all the big companies pulled out.

I've been wresting with the idea for a while. But I'm not so sure travel related small (and even larger) businesses will be affected. My thinking goes that if people are cancelling their European and other overseas vacations because there are cases at their destinations or because they're afraid to share a tube with 400 other people they may instead stay stateside and go on a vacation here. Instead of not going on vacation at all, they may get in their car, do a day of driving and spend time at a destination that never saw a Chinese person. It's a lot safer that way. If it actually turns out this way, there may be a bumper year for domestic travel related businesses. I own a small travel related business. While my business is very seasonal, my bookings are down 90% this week compared to the same week last year. And my net bookings are zero, as cancellations (most specifically reference coronavirus) have outweighed new bookings. My business is focused, however, on west coast gateway cities and business travel, which are probably the most affected areas. I agree a rural B&B in a pastoral location may see a benefit, but I think it's more likely people just stay home.

Good idea. Added a few shares as well.

Wrote leap puts on BRK.B and SAVE

Unfortunately I think you're right. It doesn't seem like there is much if any support for BRK, and this seems like a good time to be buying 20% of daily volume to me.

AER

I thought it was interesting when he was talking about apple - a $75-80 Billion position for Berkshire - that he characterized it as their 3rd biggest commitment after Insurance and the Railroad. Which indicates roughly how he values those two businesses within Berkshire. BNSF 2019 Pre-tax income: $7.2 billion which is 93% of UNP's pre-tax income. UNP is a $121 billion market cap, so it makes sense (assuming that UNP is not wildly over/undervalued) that BNSF is viewed as a bigger position. he also paid $44 billion for BNSF inclusive of debt and paid $35 billion or so for his AAPL stake so he could mean that too. Either way, BNSF is very valuable and has been a great purchase. I'm a heretic and think it would be good to highlight its value through say a taxable spin-off of 5-10% of the company. it already files K's and Q's (as does Energy) and would require no effort; I also don't know this, but I think insurance regulators would like it being public, but maybe not. it's all optical in that i think it would serve a lot of purposes that aren't economic: highlight Berkshire's diversification (it's not a bank stock!) highlight th degree of transparency offered byt BE and BNSF, etc. the counter would be the stub float of BNSF would trade at a discount to UNP and then people would argue for a congo discount on top of that, so it could be value destructive! i would prefer stub flotations of BE and BNSF and maybe even PCP, but I recognize that's probably not a widely held view. I think this would be a reasonable option, but they'd probably have to sell more like 20% of the railroad/utility for there to be reasonable liquidity/not a huge discount in the new stock. The problem that runs in to is that what would they do with all that extra cash? The biggest objection to BRK right now is the cash balance, if they sell $20-30 B of subsidiary stock to the public that just makes the problem worse. They could do a public tender where they offer the sub shares for BRK shares, but somehow I don't see that happening.

Bought T and AWK out of the money puts at the open. Sold BRK.B 220 puts. Bought VIAC in the money leaps. Added to Fairfax India and ALX.