jmp8822

Does anyone think that WTI futures will go negative again - this time on the June contract? Why or why not?

Does anyone want to speculate on how many bankruptcies this will cause in the oil sector? I'm trying to process through the probabilities of a handful of bankruptcies and dozens and dozens of bankruptcies. More specifically, I'm trying to solve how much midstream players will be effected and how many bankruptcies that could lead to in midstream.

I'm not an expert at all, but my understanding when I was reading about it: you do need to move there physically, like LC posted. I was thinking of moving my fund management company and my family there to enjoy the effectively zero tax rate on income and capital gains. If I was single I'd probably do it - family makes it tougher.

If you've noticed I'm not waiting while there's a basket of opportunities. When Park Hotels was @$4, AerCap @$10, AEO @$6, RCL @ $20, etc. My cash went from 40% to 10% in a span of three hours - as a result the lost gains I had from not investing my entire portfolio for the last year and a half was paid back and then some. To cherry pick from your post, I was looking at both PK at $4 and RCL at $20 and am not sure why they aren't zeros if this continues for 12 months. Do you think cruise occupancy is going up anytime soon? Do you think travel will be back anytime soon? I was having trouble discounting the unknown of the virus in relation to travel. In a normal recession, hotels and cruises get hammered, and this could be the worst one they've ever had. Just wondering if you had a thesis on those industries specifically.

He did not say you should go to work if you are sick. Please stop posting your political views in every thread - it is annoying.

"One likely factor behind the savings glut and negative interest rates is negative “time preference.” Once upon a time, economic theory maintained that people always value today’s consumption more than tomorrow’s consumption – and thus display positive time preference. People would therefore always demand compensation in the form of a positive interest rate in order to forgo current consumption and save for the future instead. People were viewed as impatient, and the more impatient people are, the higher the interest rate has to be to make them save. This made sense in a world where people usually died before they retired and struggled to satisfy basic needs. However, it can be argued that in affluent societies where people can expect to live ever longer and thus spend a significant amount of their lifetimes in retirement, more and more people demonstrate negative time preference, meaning they value future consumption during their retirement more than today’s consumption. To transfer purchasing power to the future via saving today, they are thus willing to accept a negative interest rate and bring it about through their saving behavior." This is total BS. Out of the blue, humankind is now universally patient and no longer impulsive. They are so patient they are willing to accept negative interest rates. Seriously?

That was the idea behind my first post - apologies if the link led to nowhere. We are currently very close to the all-time high of the 'Buffett market-cap' measure - within a couple percentage points approximately. 143-percent now, vs 148-percent at the top in early 2000. Does that mean the market will crater tomorrow? No, but it could be a good time for an abundance of caution.

Is that metric useful? US companies are much more global than they were. https://twitter.com/teasri/status/1142201221626941440?s=21 GDP and GNP are typically very similar, which I agree is counter-intuitive. FED graph attached. The numbers on the graph are $21,285 billion for GNP, $21,048 billion for GDP.

Market-cap to GDP is very near the all time high set in 1999-2000. Is there euphoria? Perhaps not, but price is what matters, in my opinion. And the price looks high. https://www.gurufocus.com/stock-market-valuations.php

Taking a wild guess, this hasn't been one of Bruce Berkowitz's favorite days. JOE gets hit head-on by a hurricane and SHLD moving toward 'imminent' bankruptcy.

This is an area of significant current research. Here, for example, are recent thoughts from someone researching this question: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-singh-food-deserts-nutritional-disparities-20180207-story.html Lazy and stupid don't appear to be the reasons. Instead, the reasons appear to be deeper and, in my view, profoundly sad. At the end of the day, I think the poor are essentially the same as everyone else -- same hopes, same dreams, same love for their children, same fallibilities -- they just have a lot less money. If I was working two minimum wage jobs while taking care of a few kids, and the only respite I could find was a bit of nicotine, maybe I'd smoke too. The store I shop at in the poor part of town has plenty of healthy, fresh food. Yet, many $200 grocery bills of Gatorade, Ruffles, Krispy Kremes, and Totino's. Perhaps the 'food deserts' are part of a brand new concept called supply and demand. Maybe if you opened a well-stocked farmer's market in poor parts of town it would simply not get enough customers. Seriously, that author seriously believes there isn't one entrepreneur willing to make a fortune opening a healthy store in a poor part of town? BS meter going off. Victim mentality runs deep.

Based on what i know longevity has nothing to do with healthcare costs, its much more a factor of what you eat, drink, smoke and how much you use your body. No drug in the world will deliver what not smoking and drinking, eating healthy and running/weightlifting 2-3 times a week does for you. And the richer you are the more you know and care about that, its not even about the money directly. It's quite difficult to tease out the effects of lack of health care access on mortality versus other factors, but to my knowledge the existing data suggests there is a relationship. See, e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775760/ If you are aware of contrary studies that suggest no link in the US between access to healthcare and mortality, I'd be interested in seeing it. More anecdotally, do you really believe that poverty has nothing to do with, for example, having hookworm, or that having hookworm has no impact on overall outcomes: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty You also didn't mention a few other factors associated with poverty that likely increase mortality: (i) more environmental pollution; (ii) more dangerous jobs; and (iii) more overall stress. Regarding the "self-discipline" argument, I think it's easy (and perhaps comforting) to say that the poor die sooner because they are lazy, impulsive and stupid. I personally doubt that account and the policies based upon (or justified by) it. Here is what I know about my Midwest city: I grocery shop in the rich part of town every Wednesday and almost everyone is buying healthy food. I then grocery shop in the poor part of town every Sunday and almost everyone is buying junk food. And the junk food is not cheaper - if anything, it is more expensive. I'm talking brand name everything junk food. Why are those poorer people buying junk food that will kill them sooner? I'll let you solve that. But, it is an undeniable, extremely strong correlation and if your answer is 'policies' good luck with that.

Based on what i know longevity has nothing to do with healthcare costs, its much more a factor of what you eat, drink, smoke and how much you use your body. No drug in the world will deliver what not smoking and drinking, eating healthy and running/weightlifting 2-3 times a week does for you. And the richer you are the more you know and care about that, its not even about the money directly. +1 Also, to be rich you need self-discipline. To eat healthy you need self-discipline. To limit smoking/drinking you need self-discipline. Poor people would be extremely unlikely to start eating kale and flax seeds if you gave them an extra $5,000 per year. Junk food and poverty are a mindset, not an income.

Sorry all of this is going on in your life. We've missed seeing your comments here. I am definitely not an attorney, I'm just a guy thinking this through, but here are a few thoughts for you/your attorney if applicable. Forgive me if this is totally irrelevant to your situation - I have very little knowledge of asset separation precedent in divorces. Thinking about the concept of 'spousal support', assuming this means you pay her a fixed amount per month/year doesn't make sense even if you were a professional investor because you have no clients to draw an income from. Your household investments are an asset on a balance sheet, not an income item with a certain monthly/yearly income value. Assuming she is getting half of the marital assets and then ALSO wants a steady income doesn't make logical sense if your household income comes directly from volatile assets. Therefore, I would suggest if she wants your investment expertise you could continue to manage her investments and your investments and she would then receive the income/capital appreciation or losses based on your investment expertise (in reality she wouldn't agree to this which proves the point somewhat that she doesn't think you're such a good professional investor after all). Her getting half of the marital assets, which should earn interest/capital gains on their own, and then ALSO getting an additional portion of your half of the interest/capital gains seems like double-dipping and if it could be explained in a clear common-sense way, might get you somewhere with a judge. Sorry if that came across convoluted or doesn't apply.

Wait, what? McDonald's offers a size of fries bigger than 'large'? How much does it cost? How many fries compared to one large fry?

In January 2015, I started a value-based fund. Fund performance has beaten the S&P 500. (Prior personal returns are good too, but not as relevant and not marketable) I haven't attracted investors well via traditional methods with people I know - there seems to be too much catching-up to do with "what is an investment partnership, why would I do something different, etc., etc." All that said, does anyone have any experiences, or suggestions based on adding my fund to an online database, where perhaps investors would inquire about my fund? Which databases should I look into? Or other methods of attempting to raise capital, i.e. has anyone ever been to "fund raising happy hours" (suggested by my audit firm, could be a sales pitch to use the other third-party service providers that host the happy hour, I would also have to fly there). Is anyone on the IB fund list, and been able to raise money via IB investors? Thanks.

Every time I hear this argument I wonder, where do you draw the line? Curious to hear your thoughts. I don't draw lines. And who gave you the power to draw them? You do whatever you want to your body and let me do whatever I want to mine. Not much to add to this thread, but "do whatever you want to your body and let me do whatever I want to mine" isn't the best argument. There are too many real world externalities. Who pays for the hospital stays, police force, etc. etc. for people who are drug addicted non-productive members of society? Drugs users don't exist in a vacuum.

One issue with comparison of fund managers' not performing well for any period of time, (especially 10+ years) is the alternatives in investing. You can buy a Total Stock Market index fund or S&P 500 index fund and know you will be average. I can't think of another profession where any skills are totally worthless unless you outperform the average.

I posted an idea here on ticker EXTN on Nov. 5th, 2015. It was picked as a "top-idea" on Dec. 1st, 2015 on Seeking Alpha by another author. Plagiarized? Not exactly, but it did seem a bit sketchy to me. For reference, there has been a grand total of two articles written on EXTN on Seeking Alpha, one of which was the article written less than 30 days after I posted here. Granted, I didn't write the article myself on Seeking Alpha, (which I suppose I could have), but I doubt the author could tell you with a straight face he didn't "borrow" the idea from my original post here. I much prefer this site because it isn't run like the bottom feeding losers run Seeking Alpha. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/extn-exterran-corporation/msg252343/#msg252343 https://seekingalpha.com/article/3719086-exterran-corporation-undervalued-underfollowed-spin-100-percent-upside Edit: The author's first bullet point: "contracted compression business provides stability through the cycle" I said in my writeup: "Complemented by historical stability, fourth quarter Contract Operations revenue" Frankly, I posted it publicly on purpose, but the fact that someone else might be "selling" the idea on Seeking Alpha does bug me. That site should not benefit from my original write-up by selling it to others.

I don't see any LEAPS listed for CACC.

Thanks for the well wishes. You're right that consensus is there is lots of excess capacity. However, we've been drawing worldwide inventories at a record pace for the last 12 months, though all you read about is shale "flooding the market" and other headlines. If global demand continues growing at a similar clip as the last few years (1.5-2 million barrel per day demand growth), we should continue drawing at a similar pace, potentially drawing at an accelerating pace. We'll see - hope I'm right - will be paid a lot for it.

I've dabbled in LEAPS. I run a concentrated book and have bought some LEAP puts in the past (3% or so of portfolio a couple times - catastrophe bets that haven't paid off). Currently, I have call LEAPS that I bought Q3 last year with about 10% of portfolio value, funded by a sale of puts roughly at the money, to net out to zero cash (puts/calls on same company - an oil stock). It's a high implied volatility stock, so selling the puts ATM funded quite a few far out of the money calls - puts sold at $10 - calls bought mostly at $30. I think I was able to get approximately 6-1 call/put with max loss at put expiration of 20% of portfolio value if the puts were exercised and the stock hit zero. For reference, the stock is up about 50%, so I won't get put (thus far), but the calls aren't in the money. The calls are basically an attempt to get massive leverage to crude oil rising dramatically this year - a position that I have some conviction in. Said another way, I don't really think oil is headed down (so puts shouldn't get exercised in my analysis), and if oil does hit a high number, I could have a large gain. My warning on the LEAP discussion is be willing to think through what your goal is and how immune/not immune you are to volatility. For instance, my portfolio ended the year up 70% or so total because the LEAPS were up about 6X or so (though they were never in the money, but close). However, YTD my portfolio is down 19% or so because of the underlying stock pulling back and some decay (though the puts I sold also decay which slightly helps). Basically, I have an event (oil prices going up this summer/3Q/4Q) and a stock that should skyrocket with crude oil if it hits $80-$90+ and I'm willing to wait for that, at the expense of losing money if oil/the company goes totally the other direction, and not losing much if the stock treads water because I captured the expensive volatility upfront with the put sale. For reference, this is the first time I've ever put on this strong of a LEAP trade because I liked the setup and the huge upside if I'm right. No one is expecting oil to hit $80-$90+ this year (as far as I can tell), so I was willing to take the risk which appears asymmetric based on my analysis of the oil market. And, if I'm dead wrong, I can handle losing 20% if the underlying hits zero - certainly wouldn't be the first time I'd been wrong and moved on. That said, I do still think the probability of the stock actually hitting zero is low.

So depending on VIIX movement... since it has gone up less than 80% including after-hours today, I think XIV still remains. I wish I was on top of this enough to make sense of it exactly to make some money. Anyone have thoughts?

The VIX spike has been crazy to watch. I wonder if any of the "new economy" short-volatility funds have been margin-called to zero today. Wouldn't be a good day to be short volatility.

Can someone point me to the website(s) where the most recent drafts of the tax bill from the House and Senate are posted, i.e. the ones they are voting on? I can't seem to find it easily with a google search. Thanks.