rb

I've actually went into this with a large cash holding. Not because I knew a pandemic was coming, but because the numbers didn't make sense for a while and I've stopped buying. So during this time I've been more focused on accumulating holdings as opposed to having fun trading. Right now vol is expensive, so as a value investor I don't wanna buy vol, I wanna sell vol. So here's an idea for those that have some capital on their hands. It's nothing fancy. But find something that you like, you like the price and don't mind holding. Buy the underlying and sell a short dated call on it. If you don't get called you got a subsidy on your purchase. If you do get called then these days you've made a nice penny on the call premium.

I know that a huge part of the population can’t handle a $800 emergency, but I am surprised they so many real estate investors can’t handle on or two skipped rent payments. I mean we are like 3 weeks into this. It's really for some of the same reasons why some people can't handle an $800 emergency. They "REALLY" must have that investment property. Or probably more accurately those investment properties. You'll be surprised how many people I know in this space that talk like Goldman bankers but shouldn't even be allowed to hold a calculator. From the banks' perspective they're probably pretty safe. Those type of properties are pretty well collateralized. The banks this time around will play like angels. If you're regular Joe they won't foreclose, let you skip payments, etc. In order to "help with the effort" ::). But if you're a small commercial/residential real estate investor and you have the misfortune to come up for refinance now they'll rip your eyes out.

A bottle of cotes du rhone. I couldn't resupply today. I spent the day reading ARs and by the time I went to the store there was a 40 person line outside of the store. Cause hey, social distancing. So I was like Fuck That! and grabbed a bottle from the good 'ol cellar.

I fully agree with you on the simplicity of bills. Sadly we don't live in that environment. But c'mon, this is a 2 trillion dollar there's room in there for everyone's hobbies - Republican and Democrat. Usually those are pretty cheap too. But they wanted a 500 billion fund with no oversight to be used at the discretion of the Treasury - read "Trump". Now seriously, I don't care who you are lefty, righty, republican, democrat, agnostic, stoner, libertarian, extraterrestrial you can't tell me with a straight face that you trust Trump with 500 billion, no strings attached.

Is this coming back to the virus is a Liberal hoax to destroy Trump? I was actually pretty surprised about the announcement. Not the announcement itself but by the timing. And it wasn't just Trump, it was some Texas guy as well. I thought it would be at least an extra week until Republicans get to the "well the old folks are gonna have take one for the team". Which is a weird thing since they're their electorate. But maybe donors are more important than votes or maybe it just got so complicated they can't even keep it straight. Now in practice, the way I understand it Trump can't really open up anything because he didn't really close anything. Except the border, he's probably not too keen on doing that. I actually do care about all those people that you talk about and I think that people do need to think about opening things up. Not Trump, and the politicians, but smart people. A couple of reasons for that. I don't think you can keep it shut down for much more than 3 months and still have an economy. So as a heartless prick, at that point the old folks really have to take one for the team. But really we won't get to that point. Anyone who think you can keep Americans sequestered in their house for 3 months is out of his mind mad. At MOST you'll manage a month. Now if you can manage a month that's actually pretty good. Cause China got things under control in a month. The problem is that the US is a lot worse than China. China didn't really have widespread infection. Most of it was in Hubei. In the US this virus made it to Shittown Alaska. You have NY, WA, IL, CA as big problems. Florida is probably a shitshow we just don't know it yet. Then you have the smaller centers popping up. So you'll have a rolling curve working its way through the country with different timings. Working on a one month time frame for max sequestration this is a nightmare! By the way, does anyone else think that divorce lawyers are gonna make a killing off of this?

Well... we all pretty much expected this. If 25% of the US population cannot handle an $800 emergency. Then this was gonna happen with a shutdown. I think that the banks learned from the last crisis that mass foreclosure is a dumb move so I don't think you'll see that at least from the big banks government orders or not. From the bucket shops who knows. I think the size of the damage will be determined by how quickly things pick back up. Banks effectively lengthening mortgage terms by 3 months is a big nothing. It's just a liquidity event. But if you go to prolonged 10% unemployment then it stops being a liquidity event and it becomes a solvency event for bank customers. Then it becomes a problem. I'm actually not so concerned about the restart. They seem ready to pump so much stimulus into this there will be more coke than in Scarface for the economy. It probably doesn't hurt that it's an election year. The Republicans are usually the ones that block these things but now their guy is in the White House so they'll be air dropping the 100% pure Colombian stuff. 2 trillion is not enough? Here's another 2 trillion! Remember in the wake of 2008 crisis the fed did 250 billion in QE between November and March. I think this time around they more than that last week.

REI.UN, BAC, 6C

And... Limit dowm

Then there's this. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S You couldn't script this stuff.

This is utter bullshit. This situation is why you have federal/national governments. In order to have a large coordinated response to large scale problems that don't care about borders or your political views. It doesn't get more textbook than a pandemic. I agree with rb. Cuomo just said today NYS is paying 7$/mask because they are competing with other states. This is where federal government is supposed to step in. And I don’t disagree with that....but states were slow to communicate to federal government what was needed. Who has better visibility into local hospitals and what supplies they do and don’t have? States do. That is all I’m saying. And when you communicate you get called a snake during a presidential press conference. For what it's worth I think that the CDC "there's a beautiful COVID test in every pot" press conference will probably be recorded as a historic moment. The feds' job is not just to coordinate purchase of masks. Besides the coordination of response to the outbreak you also need to coordinate the economic response. If i shut down Washington state, then you don't have aircraft parts for your factory in South Carolina causing economic harm. Furthermore a lot of states have balanced budget legislation. So without the feds stepping in then they cannot offer any economic response.

The reason why Europe is such a mess is because the idiots wouldn't listen. The days before national emergency/lockdown orders came through the restaurants/cafes/ etc were full. The virus probably had an orgy with the culture of kissing too.

This is utter bullshit. This situation is why you have federal/national governments. In order to have a large coordinated response to large scale problems that don't care about borders or your political views. It doesn't get more textbook than a pandemic.

Never let a good crisis go to waste right?

That's why we toil isn't it? Because we don't know the future. That quote from fairfax is nice when you're trying to build a narrative. But I remember other things during that time. After that nice market romp Microsoft was still trading for 10x earnings and Google wasn't far behind. These weren't fantasy companies either. They were companies with solid gold earnings and platinum growth rates. They just chose to ignore those because they didn't fit the narrative. Now the corona virus hit. Do you want to own Google for 13x earnings? How about Microsoft for 10?

I don't think there will be deals. Government money will have significantly better terms than a Warren deal. Prices haven't even come down that much either. You take todays prices, add a control premium and the valuation sucks. If he didn't do the deal 1 or 2 yeas ago why would he do it now? I think we'll see an expanded equity portfolio. The old man is probably buying bank stocks like crazy. And why not? The equity deals you can get right now are better than the deals you would get on the private market.

BRKB @166.97

You can’t have a depression in a fiat money system unless politicians and central bankers choose to have one. We are far more likely to have an inflation. You are correct in your premise, but wrong in your interpretation. You CAN have a depression if your politicians and central bankers are dumb enough. Have you looked around lately....? Though i agree unless there was something seriously wrong with the economy that was papered over (not impossible, I have certain doubts). There is no depression to come.

It's not gonna be the great depression, but it definitely matters more now. In the 90s low oil prices were good because the US profited from that. But now, they produce a lot of the stuff. So the balance has shifted. It's labour intensive, so it employs a lot of people with good wages. Moreover, these jobs are in some shithole places in the country. If oil wasn't there these guys would be lucky to get a job at Dennys. So it matters more than before. But not anywhere any depression level stuff.

Why, if my position is strong and I have money, and my stock is cheap why shouldn't I do a buyback? If you were a moron and were doing buybacks when your stock was at 30x earnings, sure sucks to be you. Buy guess what, the smart thing is to do buybacks when your stock is cheap, not when it's expensive. Starbucks has a very strong brand. This move hurts their brand. Look at the negative press from today; it is only the beginning - they are going to continually get skewered. Perception is very important. Oh yea, ppl are gonna quit starbucks cause they do a buyback... phualease! The guys at chick-fil-a hate gay ppl and I had to stand in line to buy some chicken in west freaking hollywood. And seriously out of all the companies to be insensitive to issues... Starbucks?? Really??

EPD, MO, WFC, ZBH, some BRKB

Why, if my position is strong and I have money, and my stock is cheap why shouldn't I do a buyback? If you were a moron and were doing buybacks when your stock was at 30x earnings, sure sucks to be you. Buy guess what, the smart thing is to do buybacks when your stock is cheap, not when it's expensive.

That was definitely some meth level shit! The whole market went up like 4%? Some stuff like EPD went from -18 to -2!

Well that was WEIRD AS FUCK!!!

Buy them all?

Same, was surprised it hit today. I almost did. But got greedy and put in my order at 167. Before it moved away. That's ok though. I'll get my fill before the close.