bizaro86

I think it's relatively unlikely Canada has the political will to build new railroads through the wilderness.

I understand what you're trying to do, but I think you're looking at the wrong data. In 2018 US oil production was 10.951 MMbbl/d. That was up from 9.357 MMbbl/d in 2017. So production increased ~1.6MM bbl/d in 2018. By comparison, Sept 2023 production was 13.236 mmbbl/d compared to 12.325 mmbbl/d in Sept 2022. So production increased 0.9 MM bbl/d in the last year. So production increased ~57% as much and the rig count was ~57% as high (using your numbers of 500 and 877). That doesn't seem like much of an argument in favor of increased efficiency to me.

You can't really compare rigs to overall production. If the rig count went to zero production would stay the same initially and then start declining at the rate of natural decline (varies by reservoir/pressure/stage of a well's life) Rig count is better compared to growth/decline of production.

If we're adding Scandinavian private firms I'd much prefer Lego.

I had this thread open already and saw your post, and thought "selling PayTM doesn't seem like tha big deal a deal". Then I clicked back to the main forum. RIP Charlie.

I think they need to have some sort of stable currency for the economy to function, and the peso has lost any semblance of trust. It's better for a country to have it's own currency (since it can control its own monetary policy according to domestic conditions) but I think they're past that.

In neither Prem nor Burry's case did I mean total underperformance. But the macro stuff has, in both cases, detracted from performance rather than enhancing it for the last decade or so. IE. macro trading has caused their record to underperform where it would have been otherwise. Obviously Burry doesn't have a public record except for his quarterly fillings, and with the ~100% turnover he runs I think those are probably of limited utility in estimating his returns. So I agree he could still be beating the market.

I think Burry and Prem Watsa had the same issue - make huge profits from a spectacular macro call, then spend years trying to repeat that at the cost of significant underperformance.

While it's very high, 90% is verifiably more than live within 160km of the US border. Alberta is more than 10% of the 40MM Canadians, and basically everyone here lives further than that from the border. Metros Calgary and Edmonton alone get you over 3MM, and the smaller centres and rural areas get you to 4MM outside that band. It's really only Lethbridge and some farms within that distance of the border in AB. Add Saskatoon (~300k), Newfoundland (~500k) and Northern BC/Ontario and you've got at least another million. We're having pretty significant in-migration of people who can't afford to live in Vancouver/Toronto any more...

I recommend patience and limit orders. Expect to get 200 shares at a time...

Should probably be clear I have no position here. The current multiple plus potential competition plus patent expiry puts it in the too hard pile for me. I've put snack companies in the "avoid" bucket as well based on the potential for loss of customers.

My general impression is "more effective". N=1, but my mom has tried all sorts of stuff and has been way overweight for decades. Interestingly, she wasn't able to get the full size pens this month (4 doses of 1mg) and Costco Pharmacy sold her the 4 doses of 0.5 mg pen (she was annoyed because it was the same price). She's already had many of the consequences (eg both knees already replaced) but even if there are long term side effects it seems probable that the lower stress on her heart/kidneys/knees/everything else would outweigh them.

Maybe. My mother has lost 60 lbs in 8 months on Ozempic. She's cut her spending on junk food in that time period by at least $100/month and probably $200. That might not be typical, but if you multiply that by a few million people I can imagine a world where you start to see deleveraging on your fixed costs...

John - I had to read the caption twice. I was absolutely convinced you had, for reasons unknown, posted a map of Canada's oilsands. Because in size and location what you've posted matches them fairly closely.

Live footage of RK/Parsad...

They have rent control. You can't raise the rent more than ~2% per year unless the tenant moves out. But since the tenant would have to pay double elsewhere they aren't likely to move.

I would roll forward the losses and just be mentally aware that I can sell some winners without tax considerations. Whether you pay 0 tax on winners now or later doesn't make any difference, and I think being able to trim things that get overvalued without tax considerations can sometimes improve returns.

The apple one is interesting. In the last week or so (in round numbers) the market price of their Apple stake is down about $12B. Now, that takes it down to levels it first achieved like 3 months ago, so not exactly a huge deal, but still, definitely a large position.

I thought the recent VIC post on WTW (in free with login mode) https://valueinvestorsclub.com/idea/WILLIS_TOWERS_WATSON_PLC/8662645288 Was interesting. I could summarize the thesis as: this is a good business trading at a low price. Probably something good will happen, and if it doesn't organic/inflationary growth probably keeps you whole. I bought a starter. I have no relevant experience with insurance brokers, and following one seemed like a good way to learn.

I took epistemology in high school and have been interested in the subject ever since. Would you be willing to post (or DM) a link to your book? To keep this somewhat on topic (as I'll likely write my own book someday...) I'm curious whether you (or the others who have self published) found value in making your book available via Kindle Unlimited.

I don't think that's true at all - I think it's just hindsight bias. It's easy to see the growth companies of the 80s because you already know how it turned out, which makes it seem obvious. If it was easy/obvious at the time Lynch's results wouldn't have been so much better than everyone else's. I don't know what the current crop of amazing growth companies are, but I'm pretty confident they exist.

Is it important to you the payments be smooth? If not, I think VCI and LIF will both payout high average yields, but they'll be lumpy. VCI is a glass recycler that crushes bottles and sells the pieces to fiberglass manufacturers. They are the only firm that does this in Alberta, and there are multiple fiberglass manufacturers here, because of cheap natural gas. I think this is a great niche business. LIF has a royalty and equity stake in a large, long life iron mine. They dividend out basically all cash flow, which varies dramatically with iron ore prices. On average I think payouts will be higher than your list above but much more variable. Final idea is MRD. Real estate owner and developer. Land business has huge tailwind as people move to AB from BC/ON to escape onerous housing prices. Yield is 5.4%, and owned RE portfolio/management of a captive reit are significant here, so the development land is more gravy than necessary to tread water. I own all 3. Finally, I think Canadian prefs are very cheap right now. I'm still in the accumulation phase so Im not converting my LIRA to a LIF any time soon, but I levered up a taxable account for my wife (whose taxable income is much lower than mine) and put the money in prefs. She'll pay very low net taxes on the dividends because the dividend tax credit is figured on the top bracket while she pays in a low bracket, and the margin interest is still 100% deductible so the tax benefits are very real. Floating rates from good companies pay around 10%, and since it moves with floating rates the interest rate risk from funding with floating rates is lessened. I think these are potentially a good source of retirement income - they don't have the dividend growth side covered, but you could pair them. Eg, something with a low but growing payout for the future with a pref to cover the now.

I'm on vacation in Australia right now, and they're definitely following it here. Random tourist guides mention it in their spiel, signs/ads everywhere, etc.

Probably better to rent a fast Tesla on Turo when you want one.

I agree with all of that - there are a number of issues that will be difficult. But it isnt the same as fusion (another one that is always 10 years away), where the issues are the laws of physics. This one the biggest issues are human laws and risk tolerance - I think self drivers are probably approx as good as the average human now. But San Francisco is a bastion of over-regulating everything, and if they're allowing commercial use it's definitely getting closer. Melbourne is definitely a big city, and big cities will naturally be early adopters for this. But the cost of having a human driving the car is really significant - if you eliminate that part the cost of having a car at all times within 60 seconds probably goes down enough that spreads to the suburbs and smaller cities. So they have a huge percentage of the market to work with- if it's never practical for rural areas that doesn't matter given the relative populations.