KinAlberta

An interesting read: The Bigger Short By: Jon Schwarz, Ryan Grim April 20 2021, 4:00 a.m https://theintercept.com/2021/04/20/wall-street-cmbs-dollar-general-ladder-capital/ Referred to in the above article: Is COVID Revealing a CMBS Virus? 23 Aug 2020 Last revised: 1 Dec 2020 John M. Griffin & Alex Priest University of Texas at Austin - Department of Finance https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3671162

“ unfortunately ” ? “As I look at the after-hours price, BRK-B sits at $173.50 - so the recent record is within sight, unfortunately.“

A one man shop had overhead of more than $500,000 per year? I think I may see part of his problem. Postage and printing alone can be a killer.

I wonder if there shouldn’t be a cute phrase about the increasing discomfort with cash piling (up while investors increasingly view positive market returns as inevitable) to serve as s precursor to Buffett’s quip about being greedy when others are fearful. Warren Buffett's Cash "Problem" Just Got $2.4 Billion Worse -- The Motley Fool https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/06/08/warren-buffetts-cash-problem-just-got-24-billion-w.aspx

Benjamin Graham only wrote six books and one of them was: “On Storage and Stability, a Modern Ever-normal Granary”. So I bought it and even skimmed through it. I always find it fascinating to see where finance personalities find cause for market intervention, regulation, etc. It’s refreshing to see the rational pragmatic mind fending off and challenging what often tends towards impractical ideological or dogmatic thinking. Anyway, are there a lot of parallels here between Graham’s thinking on commodities, the Federal Reserve’s approach to stabilization, supply management (in the news because of free trade talks with Canada) and protectionism? Eg The US Federal Reserve massively expanded its balance sheet buy buying up a surplus commodity (crap worthless paper that no one wanted) and then either let it mature (kept it off the market) or will sell it back onto the market when prices have risen. They pumped money into the banking sector, established ZIRP, stabilized prices/interest rates, etc. Supply management (Canada) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada)

Family farms one of many concerns in unified fight against Trump's trade threats: Don Pittis Abandoned farms are a symbol of the kind of market forces many rural (conservative) Canadians oppose Don Pittis - CBC News 7 Hours Ago http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-tariffs-canada-1.4707631

Scott, here’s a tough question. What has been in your portfolio (key contributors) over say the past 15 years? I think it’s important to include the last downturn because if not for the good fortune of government bailouts and FedReserve market meddling portfolio design and cash on hand matters most in downturns. As for Gods. If I knew God existed and that it created the universe, I think I’d worship it even if it hadn’t done much since.

Paying taxes owing out of my salary for those reinvested dividends would be a struggle. ;-) It’s always easy to get very rich reinvesting everything in the stock market - when you do it on paper for propaganda purposes. It’s a bit tougher in the real world.

Thanks for posting this information. That's very interesting.

He leaves this comment pretty unsubstantiated: "best portfolio of blockchain-related assets" Overstock's Huge Upside Hinges On Blockchain;... excerpt: Forte’s bull case for Overstock is all about the company’s Medici Ventures portfolio of 10 investments related to blockchain technology. ... “Given our view that not only is there tremendous value in its holdings, but it owns, by far, the best portfolio of blockchain-related assets among current publicly-traded equities, we believe the stock merits such a valuation,” Forte wrote in a Monday note. https://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/18/01/11000795/overstocks-huge-upside-hinges-on-blockchain-da-davidson

Well said. Thanks for the comments. "theory and reality are only theoretically related" -Robert Grossblatt "Love of theory is the root of all evil" - William M Briggs

Hussman has a strong belief that valuations matter. Similar to Graham’s nonsense that in the long run the market is a weighing machine. This underlying faith in investors someday suddenly coming to some sort of quantitative value based assessment of the market they invest in, is constantly being brought up by value investors. I think Jeremy Grantham correctly surmised that the weighing machine proposition is just a belief in regression to the mean. Here again (see below) I’d say this common view is wrong, and is basically nonsense. The idea that valuations will only appear in the long run, that a look at the long run somehow a series of presents will change into a useful measure of value to influence investors to act accordingly is nonsense.this somehow out of an analysis of a series of prices which will average volatility right up to the last or most current point in the analysis . If capital flows always drive valuation in the short term, they therefore drive valuations in the long term. There is no long run weighing machine. Simply put, we can only live in the present and we can never escape the present to live in the mystical long run where suddenly valuations become apparent.

"Block chain is essentially the new dot com. " - SharperDingaan That may very well be true - or just "a flash in the pan". Interesting article (second link below) showing the 'sloppiness' of those rushing to seize the moment and of course - a whole lot of money. BTW, I have shares in Leonovus - have had some for a while and the addition of blockchain tech (as with OSTK, etc.) adds a secondary lottery ticket to the package. The latest rise is purely a mania for what can only be described as pure speculations. In fact, that's why I decided not to start a dedicated Investment thread on this little speculation as it has zero the intrinsic investment qualities that would align it with anything respecting the agenda of CoB&F. Hey, I'm early to such games - as back in the day I even owned shares in JCI Technologies (an early Torstar, Southam jv). It was so early to the internet that even Wikipedia has deleted its page for lack of links and Wikipedia's editors not understanding the nature of the early internet itself. :-) bolding above is mine

The Case Of Wilbur Ross' Phantom $2 Billion http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/11/07/the-case-of-wilbur-ross-phantom-2-billion/

Yes, thanks. I've actually got OSTK. (I own an inconsequential amount though.)

Is anyone following Blockchain technology? If so, I hope you will share any stocks that you own or are are looking at that are beginning to employ the technology. (I'll share mine later.) Also any good lay articles on blockchain (outside of bitcoin usage). What's Holding Blockchain Back From Large-Scale Adoption? SEP 21, 2017 https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/21/whats-holding-blockchain-back-from-large-scale-adoption/#655d041a2309 More Mainstream Companies Invest In Blockchain March 17, 2017 http://www.nasdaq.com/article/more-mainstream-companies-invest-in-blockchain-cm762121 Bank of America Has Filed for Over 20 Blockchain Patents Already Aug 11, 2017 https://www.coindesk.com/bank-america-filed-20-blockchain-patents-already/ Also links from the same page above: "Nov 1, 2017... British Telecom Awarded Patent for Blockchain Security Method The U.K.'s largest internet and telecoms provider, BT, has been awarded a patent for a method to prevent malicious attacks on blockchains. Oct 30, 2017 ... Sony Seeks Blockchain Patent for User Authentication System "Electronics giant Sony has proposed a two-part blockchain-based multi-factor authentication system in a new patent application." 11 Blockchain Technology Stocks https://investingnews.com/daily/tech-investing/blockchain-investing/blockchain-technology-stocks/

Not sure if this is related but I'm seeing the message quoted below on https://finance.google.ca/. I assumed they were shutting down the service but is it just a brief interruption? If it's permanent, can anyone recommend another simple but decent free stock tracking service? Yahoo Finance? Others?

Jeremy Grantham has also spoken up a few times about the problem professional managers face in having to satisfy their clients by capturing every last percent of the upside while protecting capital. Five!!! Five (5) years of fishing. :-) bolding is mine:

If he quits, I think that would be one of the greatest indicators to hedge or raise cash in one's portfolio. Yes, I totally agree. What never seems to get recognized is Hussman's incredible sense of fiduciary responsibility. It's very much like he's being investing a widow's money all these years - but being relegated to a market of equities. The rest of the world always finds ways to justify any level of risk taking in any market. Hussman looks at worst case scenarios and probabilities. His problem being that he can't seem to accept the fact that emotions, perceptions and many, many relativistic factors rule and the data thus evolves.

Smells like an opportunity generator. :-)

bump

A few times a year I just google EV/EBITDA to see what shows up. Today's search yielded the article below. The fact that its about SocGen research caught my attention.:

More references to Klarman Paul Tudor Jones Says U.S. Stocks Should ‘Terrify’ Janet Yellen - Bloomberg Excerpt: Managers expecting the worst each have a pet harbinger of doom. Seth Klarman, who runs the $30 billion Baupost Group, told investors in a letter last week that corporate insiders have been heavy sellers of their company shares. To him, that’s “a sign that those who know their companies the best believe valuations have become full or excessive.” Share sales by insiders outstripped purchases by $38 billion in the first quarter, the most since 2013, according to The Washington Service, a provider of data and analysis on insider trading. Klarman also noted that margin debt -- the money clients borrow from their brokers to purchase shares -- hit a record $528 billion in February, a signal to some that enthusiasm for stocks may be overheating. Baupost was a small net seller in the first quarter, according to the letter. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-20/paul-tudor-jones-says-u-s-stocks-should-terrify-janet-yellen

maybe the wrong thread for this but here's the 2017 FPA letter. Note the comments in the letter on the market and ETFs being weapons of mass destruction and the insider selling.