rb

Writser, what can I say, for someone who didn't work in back office you have pretty deep knowledge about this stuff. Everything you wrote is pretty spot on. I didn't work in back office but I know quite a bit about it because I'm weird like that. The reason why I mentioned whether the shares are at Euroclear (which they probably are) is because you can can have weird cases where the trade is executed on Euronext, clear through Clearnet, but it's in some weird depository somewhere. In cases like these is better to check just to be sure. This whole situation seems weird. While, I'm not a securities lawyer, as far as I know the regs Spek mentioned have to with transparency in pricing of securities. So it's very hard to understand how a public corporate action is in violation of the regs, but OTC trades in those securities are not.

Sorry, I don't mean to nitpick because it's a very productive discussion. But Euroclear would not be the custodian. It would be the depository. The custodian is who's between the broker and Euroclear. So the broker deposits the shares at it's custodian, which in turn keeps them at Euroclear. Yea, it's annoying.

I'd say that what you should do depends on how much you have invested and if it's worth the hassle. This is not a brokerage problem, it's a custody problem. IB would not be doing the corporate action for you, IB's custodian would be doing it, which I think it's city. Moreover since this is in France it wold probably be done by Citi's office in the UK or Luxembourg. What you need to do if figure out where do these securities clear. If they are traded on Euronext you may be in luck and it's Euroclear. Then what you need to do is get the shares into a custody account at a custodian that's active on Euroclear and they will do the CA for you. If the shares do clear on Euroclear I'd say the reason why IB doesn't want to do the CA is because you may be the only one on the platform owning this and they don't want to pay citi for the CA. However, this is just where you problems start. 1. Custodians don't really deal with retail investors unless your talking REAL money. They certainly won't open an account to do a CA for a shitty Cameroon stock. There's no way they would open a custody account for a Roth IRA. Even if they would be willing to do it, the fees would be huge. 2. Find a broker that has a custodian that clears on where this stock clears. Even if one of these brokers would have you as a client the problem is the the stock is in Roth IRA. The broker will probably be in Europe and would have no way to do an in kind transfer between a Roth IRA and an account at their firm. Some possible good news. I noticed that now Euroclear does open accounts for retail investors. Problem is I don't know how much it costs and you must be a resident of Europe. It's a long shot but maybe you can work the German thing in there. Another thing, any US broker to which you can transfer the position in kind has a custodian that can do the corporate action for you. If you can find one that's probably your best bet. But my guess is that they won't want to do it. You basically have a complicated situation that's made worse because of the IRA.

John, is it possible that you've blocked me? I tried to reply to your PM but it said I can't because you're not accepting messages from me. Normally I wouldn't send this message, but by the nature of the message I was trying to reply to, I got the feeling that I wasn't on your "bad" list.

I don't really understand this argument and I think its wrong. I've heard both Buffett and Graham argue the exact opposite repeatedly. As bond yields rise, earnings mulitples contract (and earnings yields rise) and current stock prices go down which increases future returns but depresses current returns. On the other hand when bond yields go up, earning yields go up and stock prices go up which improves returns looking backwards (from historical time point to present) but depresses returns looking forwards (from present to future time point). This makes sense as its the bond yield which competes with stocks. Higher bond yields tend to attract people away from stocks and lower bond yields tend to push people towards stocks. Incidentally this does not really contradict the return premium argument since return premiums are about future stock returns and not current ones. A higher bond yield means a greater required future return on stocks which means stock prices now must be lower. Similarly a lower bond yield means a lower required future return on stocks which means stock price now must be higher. Lower bond yields therefore should have led to higher stock prices in Europe. You are absolutely correct. What I was trying to say in the point you quoted was that European yields were lower from the start. So European stock multiples were already elevate and returns should have been lower from a market risk premium perspective, all else being equal.

Have nothing to add to the topic, but just wanted to echo this sentiment. Having spent some time as a junior in IB/PE, I realized building detailed financial models add very little, if any, value to the investment process. There's a difference between hyper detailed financial models and no models at all. Just like everything in life there are diminishing return and that is true with modelling as well. At some point it becomes clear whether something is a good investment or not. But how do you determine that? Through some sort of a model. Of course if you have to increase the number of decimal palaces to determine if something is a good investment or not then it most likely isn't. Sure IB takes this really far, but they have to. Otherwise how do they justify the fees? So they take a few juniors and make then crank up the decimals. But going from there to no models is basically taking to the extreme in the opposite direction and pretty much committing malpractice. As for economics, there pretty much everything is a model. If you make a statement about something, it's basically the result of a model. Making an economic statement and then saying you don't know jack about modelling is akin to saying "look at this pretty thing i just pulled out of my butt".

:o did you just mention "he who must not be named"?!

WOW!!!

Please support your point that central banks have removed market fluctuations! With facts, not feelings. So when pressed for facts about central bank actions the only thing you can come up with about central banks is some preposterous idea that central banks will "decree dividends to be negative"? I'm sorry, I never in my life thought I'd say this.... but Scottie makes more sense than you when he's stoned. The difference between you and Scottie... honesty. He openly admits he's a troll.

Please support your point that central banks have removed market fluctuations! With facts, not feelings.

WOW! You sound like a real winner! You remind me of the CDO manager from The Big Short. You can't build a simple economic model but pontificate on macro issues no end. Please continue to confuse me with your brilliant insights. Keep on WINNING!!!

Yea, I keep seeing you on these boards rambling about central banks. That's almost all you talk about. But it's pretty obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about.

There are several idiosyncrasies between Europe and the US that result in stock market differences. 1. There is A LOT more private business in Europe. This simply doesn't show up in the stock market, so the stock markets of Europe are far less representative of the underlying economy than in the US. Germany in particular, for the size of its economy, its stock market is a joke. 2. Dividend yields tend to be higher in Europe. So you get more of your return via dividends which puts downward pressure on nominal stock index values. 3. Related to 2 above, there is far less buyback activity in Europe than in America. This probably has to do with the fact that they use less far fewer stock options in executive compensation. This of course creates differences in the share prices and the value of some indexes. 4. Bond yields. European bond yields are lower and have been for a while. Which normally lead to lower absolute results. Stock returns are a risk premium posted on bond returns. You lower bond yields and you'll end up with lower stock returns even though as a stock investor you will be adequately compensated for your risk.

It's also because they don't have to generate a profit. So they don't have to become a circus. I mean yea, Reuters is a private enterprise, but now it has a very wealthy sugar daddy that doesn't care about squeezing a few dollars out of it and leaves it alone. Everybody here is complaining about about CNN and FOX, i suspect the targets of the ire is driven by political beliefs more than anything else. But you could read the writing on the wall when they brought in Jeff Zucker to run it. And when it comes to FOX I'm not sure that the Murdochs are even conservatives. I have a sneaky feeling that they're just cold blooded capitalists that figured out that the circus sells better than the news and further that the righty stuff sells better than the lefty stuff.

Reuters

Why don't you like MLPs? Is it just the tax implications or are there other issues?

Yeah, I think that Cramer's wrong on all counts (as usual?). He's mainly talking about E&P majours being cheap and making this bizarre, no testable thesis about snowflakiness of wall street types (really?) that's affecting the sector. Well I've looked quite a bit lately at the sector and I don't buy it. Yes, the E&P majours have made great strides in financial discipline. They actually have real free cash flow now. All the money isn't going "back into the ground anymore". Koodos for them. But by any normal company standard they're not anywhere close to a bargain. Let's not forget that what we're talking here is really a commodity - so supply and demand dominates. The demand, while a tad weaker has been there. Yea you can talk about Tesla and the electric revolution, blah blah, but Tesla's vehicle count is in the hundreds of thousands - TOTAL! while Detroit 3 pump out say 10 million trucks a year. Meanwhile all over the world people are switching from their Toyota Corollas and Volkswagen Golfs to crossovers which use more gas. So that's about for the demand side. Now let's look at supply. Over the past decade essentially Iran and Venezuela have dropped off the oil map. These are/were 2 of the largest producers of oil with some of the largest reserves on the planet. Oil prices did what? They went down! This summer you had the attack on Aramco facilities. At any point in the past 30 years this would have been a majour event. This time it was basically a global yawn. All of this points to a very, very well supplied market of oil. So I think tat E&Ps are in a very tight spot right now. MID STREAM In my view this is where it's at. They call mid stream energy. I have no idea why since it looks very different than up stream. People buy trucks and crossovers, but do you see any new refineries popping up? There's a massive switch from coal to nat gas. Yea you can frack the hell of of the soil and bring the price of nat gas to naught. But there's only one way to bring nat gas to a nat gas power plant. Then you have the infinite wisdom of index funds. Where you direct capital flow by sector and a nat gas regulated mainline is the same thing as an E&P and they get dumped at the same rate. I mean, you just gotta love these guys! Out of the whole bunch what I find most interesting is EPD followed by PSX. EPD being more pure play. The only reason why I haven't backed the truck on EPD is that I'm still doing research to understand their recent profitability spike and whether it can be reversed or it's here to stay. But it sure looks that most of mid stream is undervalued to some degree. And that's actually saing something in a time when it's hard to find anything that's undervalued.

Interesting article on Marketwatch: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-is-less-deadly-than-sars-but-that-may-explain-why-its-so-contagious-2020-01-30?mod=home-page This is basically congruent with what BG has been saying. Another bit: If this stuff is true then the people handling this on the Chinese side must be some of the biggest idiots that God ever let through the door!

LOL 10% of Costo's market cap is just shy of Carrefour's market cap. File that under boneheaded moves.

When I'm there in the summer I pretty much avoid them all the time, virus or no virus 8)

I pretty much agree with all that you say. I just don't know that something like "premium" or its derivatives has a place in mass retail. It's pretty much failed every single time and price has won every single time as far as I can see. This is also the reason why Amazon started by selling books. It was a fairly large category and books were basically the highest markup retail product. Amazon won that category hands down on price. When you say "it's quick, convenient, consistent", you're basically saying logistics. Given WalMart's expertise in this field I don't see why they won't be able to match or even best Amazon if they put their mind to it. It certainly looks like that for the past year or so they've definitely put their mind to it. So it could very well be that Amazon will get a real fight coming to them.

I've heard millennial say that and now you have too. Because I've done that often and I'm a millennial though probably one of the first ones. Personally for the stuff I buy I never found Amazon to be cheap. Books yes, but otherwise no. I mainly use Amazon for peculiar stuff an for holiday shopping when I don't want to be a sardine at a mall for a day straight. Otherwise I use it and knowingly pay for convenience. I once had a trip to go on, I needed some stuff, ordered it around midnight, paid extra for one day shipping and at 7 am the next day it was already on my porch. I must say that was impressive. But i don't really buy soap and stuff like that from Amazon. The only time I've bought regular stuff was when I had to increase the value of the basket to qualify for free shipping. So if it comes down to logistics being the differentiator for Amazaon, i can't see why WalMart of all companies won't figure logistics out.

I think that when it comes to the subject of space it is best to keep an open mind. Those with closed minds have constantly been proven wrong. 500 years ago we were burning people that didn't think that the earth is the centre of the universe. Turns out it isn't. 60 years ago we didn't know there were more galaxies than our own. Turns out there are billions. 20 years ago we didn't know that there were other planets other than the ones in our solar system. We made some tech and turns out there are tons. Then 10 years ago we didn't know whether there are other rocky planets other than our own. So we made some more tech and figured out that there are tons of those also. We are really an incipient species when it comes to these things. But the doubters of what's "out there" because we don't have definite proof have been proven wrong every single time. With that kind of background, I wouldn't really want to be in the doubter camp. Also it's a mystery how life evolved on Earth. We have a very good idea. It was a result of a confluence of cosmic events and geography. Water, a good planetary address, and a right mix of elements from space. This worked in our case. And life on Earth wasn't a freak accident. Earth is really stubborn in creating life (see past extinctions). There really isn't anything special that resulted in life on our planet. All these incidents are happening all over the universe every single day. There are however some issues of whether we will ever encounter life. One is distance, and if Einstein turns out to be right, the universe may be rigged so that we cannot meet. The other is time. One hypothesis i can accept is that we may actually be one of the first intelligent species of the universe. Because the universe took a long time to create the building blocks of life. So that could work. But that's a weak argument, because over such vast periods of time small variances can have a huge impact. Maybe if the Spanish Inquisition did not exist Queen Victoria may have watched the Great Exhibition on her smartphone from her residence in the sea of tranquility.

Because of a nationalistic NI party that's keeping the Conservatives in power.

Wrong! It's been chartered before. See 1937. History helps.