bizaro86

If the step-mom runs the business, I think it's very likely that the "do-nothing" choice ends up with ~100% of profits paid as salary/benefits to the step mom.

Mfcb calls

Added to a long term position in ROST. Big down week surrounding earnings, which were a beat. I believe the market is reacting to the Q4 guidance which was lower than what folks have been expecting and what they have been consistently delivering. They have consistently sandbagged guidance and then beat it, so I'm not concerned about that.

TIPS are a series of payments. Over the last year there has been inflation, so the nominal value of each payment has gone up. Interest rates have gone up as well, so the appropriate discount rate for discounting the series of payments that make up the TIPS is higher. The second factor outweighed the first, so the price is down. Basically, even though the nominal value of each payment went up the present value of each payment went down.

Fox could be some of the best value in the market right now, especially at his size. Mostly exposure to DIS, which is decent on its own, but because of the collar you don't take much downside risk. Plus, the standalone stub is getting valued based on estimates of segment EBITDA, when they also a bunch of real estate that is very valuable. There is also some option value that they end up getting a bargain buying the RSNs back from Disney for anti-trust reasons.

I have quite a bit of respect for Clarke in Canada. CKI.TO

My position that most resembles that description is Bri-Chem [bRY.TO]. It trades at less than 50% of NCAV, so there is certainly room for a double. They kitchen-sinked their last quarter, so just about anything will be viewed as an improvement next quarter. I think the risk-reward here is very good, but zero is on the table so it isn't a huge position. Probably my current best idea is Labrador Iron [LIF.TO]. Premiums for high quality ore are very high, and the market has missed how much it'll help them because of the strike (resolved). Could easily end up paying $4 or more in dividends next year on a $27.50 price.

I doubt the Chinese (or anyone else) will block the deal by Friday...

6.625 '18s. I like the lien vs SRAC (and the way lower price). While I'm pretty sure they're undersecured at present, I think there's a chance ESL makes a credit bid with its debt higher up the capital stack for some of the things they want. If what they want is actual operating stores and they're willing to pay something around current assets for them that is very helpful, imo. I think the unsecured holdco debt has a very good chance of being a zero. I suspect the SRAC/18's will end up the fulcrum security, and I think there might be value hiding in the real estate, likely even in the RE that has been pledged for debt. I realize that this sounds exactly like the thesis that equity holders had for years, so I've kept this a pretty small position. The difference (imho) is that now there is a hard catalyst - these assets are getting dealt with in the court process.

If you like CLF you might want to take a look at LIF.TO. Big down day today and could easily distribute $3-$4 next year on a $26.xx stock price. They have some of the same drivers as CLF (N.A. iron ore, high quality premiums, pellets) but a lot of the value is from a royalty interest, which lowers their downside.

I am not a lawyer, so... I think any defensive moves work in certain cases, don't work in others and result in even worse situation in yet others. Yes, if you make a relative your guardian, this will work unless the court is corrupt/broken like in NewYorker article and moves guardianship to non-relative anyway. Especially if your relative is not resident of the state and only in-state guardians are allowed. Also this puts a risk that your relative could take advantage of you. This might not be an issue for you personally, but for other people it might be (I know situations like that and there are articles about this too). Obviously the state guardian and judge in NewYorker article were evil. But look at it from different perspective: what if a relative is evil and milking old person? Then you'd want the state to appoint different guardian than the evil relative. How do you determine who's evil who's not? Yeah, in ideal world you can. In our world, it's not that easy. Of course the relative will say that they are not evil, the state guardian will say that they are not evil, and the court judge will say that they are not evil either. The best thing is to have trustworthy relatives, trustworthy lawyers/advisors/doctors and live in a location that has trustworthy legal system. It might not be easy to get all of these, but it's worthwhile to try. 8) Those are good points, with lots to think about. I'm more of the age where my elderly relatives are trusting me with stuff. Which works out great for them, because I'm honest and hardworking. :D But it does seem like a good idea to have a plan in place for things like this. I'm going to bring it up with my estate lawyer the next time we do our wills.

Would an enduring power of attorney help prevent this? If your relative could present a court with a document saying "if I'm ever not in sound mind I appoint my son John smith my guardian" it seems like that would be governing, wouldn't it? I'd be pretty young for someone to pull this on me, but it seem likely that the time to prepare for stuff like that is before you need to.

Been busy. Last week or so: Wrote BRK.B puts (195 and 197.5 strikes) channeling my inner boilermaker. LIF.TO WEQ.DB SHLD debt

I don't understand how a stock can be up from its 52 week high. Unless that part of the pie chart is only stocks that are flat at a 52 week high?

Nice to hear that you have 500B to spare. ;) Probably want to use limit orders on that one.

If I had $1 B I certainly wouldn't burn it trying to take down Uber, but I'm pretty confident that with that amount of cash you could scale a competitor. I make no claims that it would be easy to raise, but you had quoted WEB on coke, and I don't think Uber is the same at all.

I could take on Uber with a few billion. You'd need the tech infrastructure, of course, which I don't think would be insurmountable. Then, you'd contact all the existing Uber and Lyft drivers, and offer them 125% of the fare collected if they drove for you as well, then charge 90% of Uber price. Cheaper for users and more $ for drivers. Drivers would sign up, because they can do both. Many already drive for Uber and Lyft, and I don't think Uber can make their contracts exclusive without risking making the drivers employees. You could leverage their existing driver base to gain scale. You'd burn money, of course, but that doesn't seem to be an issue for actual Uber. I'd start in big VC cities for maximum exposure to funders...

I'd pay 8x P/S for airbnb if that was available to me in a heartbeat. I think long term their margins are better than booking.Com (less advertising required) and their relationship with thousands of individual hosts is a moat. I think they have untapped pricing power as well.

Mostly nothing is that special about their brands. Nobody gets excited about chalet/montanas/Kelseys etc. They are in airports and strip malls. Swiss Chalet is bar none the cheapest sit down restaurant where I live (including family run ethnic food restaurants) so they have that going for them.

If it's going to AECO (which is in Southern Alberta) and then Dawn that is TCPL transportation. Alliance goes to Chicago. Firm is better than interuptible, but Alliance is better than TCPL because gas is at a premium in the Midwest compared to Canada, although AB gas has been strong lately...

Do you know off the top of your head - is the egress Tcpl or Alliance? The latter is obviously worth more, although a brief look suggests their production is relatively dry, which I think reduces the premium for getting gas on Alliance.

I did read the full text and that's about the gist of it. A couple of things about your list thought. There's nothing in there about increased production of automobiles in the US. Another major thing is the elimination of NAFTA chapter 11 - Investor dispute resolution system. Reasonable minds may disagree here but I think that it was boneheaded to begin with and personally I'm glad it's gone. I'm quite surprised that the Trump Administration wanted that one gone. I can't imagine it was hard for us to agree. I think the idea is that the "high wage" content excludes Mexican factories (at least for now) so that will push content in Mexican vehicles back to the US. I agree that Trump shot the US in the foot getting rid of chapter 11. Canada loses those all the time, and I don't think Canadians have ever won one in the US. Canada has paid out over $200 MM in claims, I believe all of that money has gone to US corporations. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/nafta2018 While the US has never lost one. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nafta-isds-weekend-1.4814141 Doesn't seem like something that hurts Canada to have removed to me...

The de minimus is only going up that high for duty, sales tax only goes to $40. The issue for online shopping doesn't tend to actually be duty, it tends to be huge brokerage fees charged to collect a couple of bucks of GST. My impression as a Canadian consumer is that Trump got a "win" but online shopping and cheese are both unlikely to get any cheaper. Sales tax means I still pay brokerage fees, and the quota is small enough that it'll go to US producers as producer surplus without really lowering domestic prices...

"Useful" in the context I'm using it means "statistically likely to result in income sufficient to repay the loan used to acquire it." I think it's quite likely the market would be able to figure that out.

Apparently that was an experiment to decide what the best price is, and they are now charging everyone the same price.