bizaro86

I do think its unlikely, although the digital deal between NHL and MLB announced this week suggests they are able to get along. I also don't think the leagues need to start their own channel necessarily, they might be able to take all of the economics through bidding wars for rights. As long as you have a couple of sports channels bidding for rights, it is logical for the upwards spiral to continue.

On the other hand, I suspect the ready availability of licensed guns makes unlicensed guns easier and cheaper to acquire. Also, "mass shooting incidents per gun permitted" is a ridiculous statistic. The only reasonable way to compare countries would be "mass shooting incidents per person." If the cause of the shootings is more guns (debatable) then a country with lots of extra guns has a bigger denominator in the shootings/gun statistic, which will naturally pull that lower. Personally, the easy availability of legal/illegal guns probably increases the number of mass shootings, as it makes it easier for someone to commit one. Probably the bigger issue with that in the US is the health care system, as mental illness is certainly a factor in mass shootings.

I posted this in the Viacom thread: ESPN is the most popular channel by far, but its acquisition costs are pretty high. I love the business of Disney, and would have made it a big piece of my portfolio years ago if it wasn't for ESPN being such a huge part of the value. I think they're likely to get squeezed in two ways. 1) The sports leagues continue to grab more economics for "the only content that is always watched live" 2) The higher and higher prices they charge for ESPN hurt them if/when de-bundling occurs. While there are lots of people who would pay $20/month for ESPN, there are many, many households who get it as part of a cable package and would never dream of subscribing separately. Any thoughts? I agree DIS is a great business, I'd love to own every piece of it EXCEPT for ESPN. I'd love to hear why I'm wrong about ESPN, as I've thought this for years and so far that has cost me money...

Target permanently damaged its brand in Canada through poor execution. When they first opened, they had interesting products not found elsewhere in Canada. I bought a few different baby products (one I bought all they had) which were never restocked. I checked over 20 times (they were in a mall I go to often) and that product never reappeared for years, even though the tag/spot was still there. At some point execution failures do permanent brand damage. I don't believe they could have turned it around, even if they fixed execution, as popular opinion was that they sucked. Maybe they could have, but it would have taken years and years.

That’s really worked well in Spain in terms of their economy… We're not talking debtors' prison here. If you are truly balance sheet and cash flow insolvent, you can declare personal bankruptcy and start out fresh (but this is not without its downsides). However, in Canada you generally cannot just walk away from a debt because you are underwater on the asset. If you have sufficient assets or income to re-pay your mortgage, you are expected to do so... The only exception to this I'm aware of is in Alberta, where mortgages with 20% or greater downpayments are non-recourse.

To answer the question, yes, absolutely. If Canada's big 5 required a bailout, they would get one. I would expect the terms to be punitive, because the banks are not universally popular here. (A century of oligopoly earnings will do that to you...) Someone upthread asked about Genworth Canada. They have $3.4B in equity, and another $1.8B of premiums that they've collected but not accrued into earnings, so its shown as a deferred revenue liability. Customers pay their mortgage insurance upfront, but they book it as revenue over the expected life of the loan. So they have a total of $5.2B to pay out claims over and above their loss reserves, which are not substantial. They had $169 B of mortgages insured, but a material portion is "portfolio insurance" where they've insured a bunch of low LTV (<80%) loans for lenders. This is presumably lower risk business. It looks to me like in the US in 2008-2012 about 10% of mortgages went into foreclosure. Considering they have old (so paid down/appreciated) and portfolio loans, they're probably about averagee mortgage quality. So figure $17B in foreclosures worst case. That would allow them a 30% loss on foreclosures to cover their obligations (while wiping out their shareholders). So they're probably close to being able to cover a US-2008 style crash, which seems like a worst case scenario to me. (Canada's economy is probably more volatile, but there's less subprime).

Plus, its summer. A non trivial amount of natural gas demand in the NE USA/Eastern Canada is for heating. In the south/gulf coast, its more power generation/industrial, which is more of a year round demand generator. (or even summer-biased for AC loads). EnCana has said they're going to operate their Deep Panuke offshore gas platform only during the winter to maximize the value of their remaining resource.

I see this with myself, I've always planned to subscribe to your newsletter and Norman Rothery's as well but I always end up putting it off for "someday". I didn't grow up well-off and as often happens with people from that background I acquired a habit of severe frugality. Overall my frugal tendencies have served me well but it is something that really gets ingrained, so it is hard to override it even when you know it is the rational thing to do. I just subscribed to Nate's newsletter, and have very much enjoyed the first issue I received. I strongly suspect I will have a very good ROI on my subscription dollars, and wish I had subscribed from the beginning.

Awhile back I was looking for information on exchange traded income securities for a retirement account I manage for a relative. I found something that had sortable spreadsheets showing various types of income securities (prefs, exchange traded debt, etc). Similar to what's on quantum online, but it had pricing built in and an auto-updater. I've been looking for it again, because apparently I wasn't smart enough to set a bookmark in my browser. I'm hopefuly someone here is familiar with what I'm talking about and can point me in the right direction.

It seems to me that this should have the effect of making things worse when they eventually reopen full trading. I'm a big fan of buying after huge panics, and I still might buy something here. However, if the government of China has a recent history of freezing investments, that increases the discount that I would need to feel I was being adequately compensated for the risk. If the marginal buyers are willing to pay lower prices after a freeze, then prices will be lower.

If fees go up the total amount distributed to unsecureds will go down, since the pot of money is fixed. And all the unsecureds are accruing interest, so if the size of the pot goes down all the unsecureds will get less.

Interesting. It doesn't address the incentives that the current bitcoin owners have to maintain the system. Someone like the Winklevoss twins or the new bitcoin funds may find themselve essentially obligated to maintain enough mining equipment to keep a 10-20% mining share. Two or three financial players doing that for stability reasons would likely make it impossible for a black hat to control the chain. If you were earning fees off a bitcoin etf, you have a secondary incentive outside of the coins mined to keep the system stable.

Seems likely they get much more? 440m$ available. First and second lien is 263m$. Then 155m$ for unsecured and convertible before interest. So it seems they will likely get 20m$ or so? that would mean almost a double. Any value for that mining company? They are held at 72c. So First and second + interest is about 15m$. Or 40c. This is almost guaranteed. Then let's say 15m$ for unsecured, and you get 80c. So anywhere between 40c and 160c. I supose we will see. I think the 1st/2nds will get principal and accrued interest, so a total of $308MM for DIP/1st/2nd. That leaves $140MM for the senior unsecured/pari-passou unsecured, of which there is $310MM outstanding including accrued interest. So after they get their $15MM for the secured, their 15.5% PIK would have a maximum recovery of 45%. However, there will naturally be costs associated with the CCAA/monitor/wind-up which will come from the recovery. Best case scenario is another $20MM, but that seems generous. That gets you a best case scenario of just under $1.00, but I agree that $0.40 is the downside if Rogers is allowed to close. I do think there is still regulatory risk here, Industry Canada refused to let them sell to Telus last year, they may not let them sell to Rogers either. If they make them sell to a "4th carrier" the only option is wind (or MAYBE videotron), and they'd get less from either of them than any of the incumbents. I went through Cline's reports, and they have a bit of cash left but it looks like they're reorganizing, so I think they intend to spend the cash trying to sell the mining assets. Not something I'm likely to stick around for. Big thanks to Sculpin for posting this, I bought this morning and am enjoying the quickest double of my investing career.

Do you actually mean the posted rate? Because there is a pretty big difference between the posted rate and the actual market rate that Canadians who qualify for mortgages pay. (Generally speaking). That increase in interest rate would be effectively a risk adjustment.

LOL Yes, Peter Lynch anecdotal investing is rather broken approach. I read Peter Lynch books when I was just starting and they definitely made a bad influence on me at the time. (Bought Iomega, got out with profit, but we know how the story ends...). I never suggest Peter Lynch books for new investors... or anybody else actually. The thread itself is fun though. 8) Interesting to me that many of the "hates" are monopoly businesses with pricing power.

Love: Car2Go - Smartcars all over my home city at low by-the-minute pricing Hate: Coca-Cola - A long time addiction was very, very hard for me to break

Definitely, it's not like the last folks running the place were doing a bang up job, which is why there was such a large shift. The market definitely reacted this morning though, with all the big oil companies down ~4-5% when I first checked.

Yeah, this would be like Texas electing not a Democrat for Governor and house, but a 3rd party way left of the dems.

I wasn't sure if this was best in the Penn west thread or the Canada housing prices thread, so I started a new one. They have promised a royalty review, which probably reduces capital spending in the oil patch in the short term. I'm more interested in how it affects real estate prices in AB, whether that plus low oil starts a bit of a panic. The conservative party they replace has ruled for 44 years, and Alberta has never elected a party to the left of the incumbents.

So, I was thinking about this thread yesterday when I saw an unusual piece of real estate advertised in my local area. Did you pursue this further? How did it work out?

That I would like to know. I've had mistakes in my RSP and TFSA in the past, and it sucks. TFSA I get being disappointed about, but if you have to have a loser RRSP is better than non-registered, imo. You've already taken a full deduction against the invested capital against income, which is better than a capital loss that you would get non registered. Or look at it backwards. If you have a big gainer in your RRSP, you pay tax at the regular rate when you withdraw. Not ideal, but nobody complains about gains. However, if you have a big gainer in a non-registered account, you pay at the capital gains tax rate, which is 50% less.

Uccmal, how did you get TD to give you a HELOC up to 80% of total LTV with your first mortgage NOT being with TD (i.e., with First National)? In my very recent experience, every big-5 Canadian bank refuses to go second on a property with first mortgage that is not with them, including TD (had a phone conversation with them). The only firm that agreed to do it was Home Capital group, but they cap total LTV (first+HELOC) at 65% of appraised property value. They'll do it if they think they have a chance at making you a relationship customer. My banker moved to RBC for awhile, and I took a new 1st mortgage on one rental and a second (behind a Scotiabank first) on a different rental. They had no problem doing it, and pushed hard to get the second as well, which I was planning to combine with the Scotia first mortgage.

I would go so far as to say that you need to be able to estimate rents yourself. I wouldn't buy a stock where I didn't have an idea what the earnings were, and I certainly wouldn't buy a rental property where I couldn't estimate the rents within $100/unit/month with high confidence. I think RE investing is very much like value investing. The money is in the purchase. If you can buy something at a strong rental yield, below its current fair market value, dealing with the day-to-day BS will work itself out.

This is why some sort of car sharing should end up being the default car ownership option, imo. I don't enjoy anything about owning a vehicle, if I could walk to the end of the block and be sure one was there I would absolutely sell my vehicle and do that instead. (Or definitely once my kid is out of his car seat, which is non-trivial to install)

Interesting. I'm exactly the opposite. I tend to not buy stuff, because it depreciates at a fast schedule, and ends up worthless. However, I tend to buy much more travel than the average person of my income, because the value I associate with it (memories) are timeless and last forever. The not spending on stuff (cars, gadgets, etc) funds the travel and increased savings compared to the average.