Uccmal

Agreed, times have changed, but they have also made a national energy policy more of a necessity than it has ever been. Lack of money, has a wonderful way of concentrating the minds of everyone, Like it or not, there will be climate driven constraints, but it can be done intelligently (ie: orphan well clean-up) The Supreme Court has ruled there is 'duty to consult', not a 'duty to agree'. A sick community cannot veto a pipeline, because it cannot make a decision. The obvious industry 'consultors', are the governments of the day, under a national energy policy. There will be quasi-privatization. Crown corporation in-ground SPR, pipeline company, oil company, rail (oil/grain car) fleet, tanker (nfld) fleet, supply-chain (medical, food) infrastructure, etc. Most likely as oiligarch, crown corp and 1-2 private corps. And perhaps one of the biggest lessons from Covid-19. All of the above are essential services, with immense value-add, and robust . When the sh1te hits the fan, the gig economy, and non-essential services break down. Interesting times. SD What this says to me is that if you have pipe already, it will become increasingly valuable. The repercussions for future supply are interesting to say the least. SA, And to a lessor degree the other large Mideast countries are going to be facing revolution if the oil price stays down for very long. We saw what happened to Libya’s and Venezuela’s supplies when governments become unstable. Simultaneously we have a virtual elimination of long tail projects by every major player in the world. The outcome is likely toppled regimes, and a massive price bounce back, down the road. It may become more like railroads, with very few players making a lot of money. We could speed up the rebalance really quick by turning the gulf fields into glass. China may take exception but I sure Moscow would be on board.

I get that he prefers paper but I have never thought of him as a luddite. He was using a cell phone before most people, in 1998, during the LTCM thing. He started playing bridge online in 93/94 before the internet took off. His cell number is likely pretty well guarded. His security service at home probably knows how to reboot the router and change in printer cartridge anyways. :-). I think its is more about preferences and disciplined time management. He is likely watching and waiting and nibbling here and there. Dude is nearly 90... maybe he is having a nap.

Well said. He is waiting, like the rest of us. Companies aren't really very cheap in aggregate, yet.

Who says we can’t drink? You gents are killing me! Our household right now - short version - consists of [2 x #metooCOVID-19?] - we bottomed out on Saturday March 14th 2020, both ill. Forced to switching to digital retailing [we chose nemlig.com] because of no access to testing as of now. She makes lists of what to order - I type them. At every order - if it's not already on the list - I add wine. Now she has started asking me : "Why are you ordering all that wine?" -I guess it's an unconscious mechanism. [ : - ) ] To be clear John. You think you were sick with Covid 19. Sounds like you are okay. I am thinking my whole family was exposed but we cant know for sure. We flew to Southern Mexico in later February for a week (no reported cases there) came home, and my 10 year old daughter got sick. It was definitely a flu like thing with chills/fever fatigue for a few days. The rest of us were fine although both my Wife and I felt off for a day or two. The little one recovered, and the rest of us are fine. I dont think Mexico was the source, but rather the act of travelling was the source of whatever it was. Pearson Airport on TO was still a cesspool. Back on topic: - Everyone I know is at home except for a few health care workers. - Our house cleaner works at a grocery store the rest of her time and is working full weeks. No more house cleaning, but coercing and bribing the kids is working. - My home reno project is grinding to a halt. It is becoming impossible to work with the kids at home, and with curbside ordering for supplies in effect. Eventually I have to buy (and actually see) parts for the next phase of the job (a powder room). It will get mothballed until next fall. Its spring and the biggest time of year for the "other retailers": HD, Lowes, Nurseries, Home improvement, landscapers, outdoor reno workers,etc, and they are not selling. Lineups for non necessities and online ordering are killing their sales during their Christmas season. - Online ordering starting to show cracks. Tried to order a couple of books for my daughter and Amazon Prime had a one month wait. Chapters/Indigo promised 3 days but the order is nowhere to be seen. - Online food orders need to be made 3 weeks out. I am sure there is more. - Saving huge money from cancelled travel and wife working from home. Not happy about either outcome. - Temporarily down around 700k in market losses. Not overly uptight about this. I wont sell anything so it doesn't matter. The companies I hold will all be thrivers, after this. - In general people are not spending in my area and among my friends. These people can afford it, there is just nothing to spend on. Observationally, there must be huge negative spinoffs into the general economy, hence my basket of puts.

Some of these are likely but some are unlikely, based on observations since 2000 or so. - Digital purchasing may increase but in whole sectors it just doesn't work that well. i.e. groceries: delivery has always been available, for 120 years, and has never become the primary means of purchase, home supplies: people still like to kick the tires. I can look at 20 profiles of a reno part I need and nothing compares to actually holding and looking at it. This will play out one way or the other in real time, in the next couple of months. - for alot of people working from home sucks, and nothing really gets done. Not everyone but many. People are social. Maybe it increases a bit, but so many jobs don't work that way. More and more people fly for business every year. - many companies are never prudent with their capital. Most CEOs in general don't think that way. They are not value investors, and have no investing acumen. Look at the huge number of share buybacks at market highs as an example. Sure they will be prudent for awhile until the heat is off then its back to debt fuelled empire building. - same goes with people saving. If the aftermath of 2007-2009 has shown me anything its that human nature doesn't change. - definitely agree about the high quality companies. But that has always been the case. - bureaucracy never goes away. It gets cut in one area and appears elsewhere. All big organizations have it. That is why the investing curve exists - Peter Lynch covered this really well 30 years ago. - supply chains might diversify. Probably due more to automation becoming cheaper than sending raw materials to Asia in return for garbage products.

Following. I cant even begin to imagine a candidate. I can buy puts on big liquid names but these are not companies I would short. I am just trying to catch a relatively short term action and hedge the rest of my portfolio in the meantime. My understanding of shorting is that one needs to identify something that is in trouble where the herd still believes it has potential, and shorting exactly at the point it is starting to drop. Shorting based on valuation clearly doesn't work very well. Tesla being the prime example of this, along with hundreds of others. There are so many things in this environment that can screw up a short. Airlines worldwide should go to zero but they wont due to creative bailout methods. Cruise lines seem obvious but I am not so sure its that obvious. I dont see the public sector bailing them out, but private investors may bridge them cash until they can operate. Cruise lines can also anchor their boats with dramatically reduced costs, or do repairs so they get a few years ahead of the curve on maintenance. And were headed into the off season anyway. Their biggest costs would be staff, fuel and lease costs. Two of those would be really low now. Lease costs could be out off. So, as much as I hate the industry I dont see cruise lines as a viable short. And hating an industry is not a reason too short. Yeah, its harder than it seems. Oil is too badly hit to short now. Most E&Ps are trading as if they are in bankruptcy already.

That was a really good post. I have had a conference I was to be at in early July Cancelled. It was to have 30000 - 50000 in attendance. July... think about that for a minute. Hundreds of full time jobs for months eliminated. Multiply that across the globe out to July and August now. Even if Covid were bought under control tonight, it would take months for the economy to recover. And it doesn't matter what the public is told in terms of social distancing, the damage is done. It doesn't matter if a President says everything opens back up in three weeks, he will be ignored. The 24 hour news cycle will keep feeding the hysteria whether it is justifiable or not. The economy and the markets are going way down. Last week was just a head fake. Eventually, some semblance or normalcy will assert itself either due to better treatment, protections, or an outright vaccination, but it will still take months to recover after that. And Elon Musk should stick to his circle of competence, which is building great companies, with exciting vision, not opining on public health.

At the moment stock markets are not a reliable indicator of anything. They are caught in the hands of professional manipulators who trade continuously for a living. They simply are not reflecting reality which is that the main street economy is at least 50% closed. I wouldn't worry, markets will figure out soon enough that governments can help people stay alive and fed but cannot prop up an entire moribund economy.

Government $$$, that's why! It will be gone in a flash.

No sh*t. The stimulus plans to me indicate how dire this is. The stimulus plans are stop gaps at best and meant to keep certain segments of the economy from insolvency, and starvation. Thats hardly thriving. People are so damn stupid and gullible.

This is the obvious course of action. With H1N1 my parents who were late 60s didn't need the vaccine, while my family did, except the baby (at the time). I think they came to this conclusion via deduction (no one over 60 was getting the symptoms). This time there is no such protected group, that are obviously standing out.

I've started doing this and have had some success...one of them was epic in it's execution. I've never seen volatility like this in my 30 years of investing...not even close. The perfect move is to set up your "watch list" of potential candidates ahead of time. Scan that list frequently, ESPECIALLY on down days. If a stock is down 30%+ on just general news, BUY. Wait till the market recovers and position goes back up 30, 50, 80 percent. Write out o the money covered calls 3-6 months out. You will have TREMENDOUS upside and will recover a significant portion of your initial capital. WASH, RINSE, REPEAT For example, I bought GES at about $3.80/share. The next day, the stock goes to 11. I sell the September 12 calls. I got back all but $.10/share of my initial purchase price! I now control GES shares, cost basis of $.10/share. I get everything up to $12/share. I also get to redeploy the capital into another position. So if somebody could do this MULTIPLE times, you could control an incredible amount of stock with very little capital. If somebody could do this 12-16-20 times a year you could get reasonably wealthy. I have tried this so many times over the years. The one thing anyone contemplating it needs to be aware of is that at some point you most likely become a long time shareholder awaiting a rebound that can be years out. Some examples include OBE(PWT), RIM (BBY), most recently WCP(Whitecap Resources) BTW: DTEJD, I have been following your posts for years about Detroit and housing and always get alot out of them, so take the criticism from a place of respect. Al

I've read guys like Icahn and Tepper are buying some oil patch debt. I followed up on this into the night (the prefs idea). Turns out many issues that look like a great deal on the surface are not such a great deal. The companies mentioned have covered their bases quite well, which is I guess why I hold them as common stock. The best apparent deals have rate resets attached to them. With interest rates down and likely to stay down for years, they will reset at lower rates. Most are also perpetual issues that are callable by the companies at par value. The companies will just keep rolling them over indefinitely. In a dropping interest rate environment these prefs sell off. It has the effect of dropping the share price rather than raising it. In summary, one would only buy these issues for income. There may actually be permanent capital loss.

Everything is so fast moving that its hard to make any reasonably educated decisions. The problem I have with writing options is the huge amount of margin they use up. Covered calls would be cheaper but I dont have enough common stock in anything large cap to make it worthwhile putting alot of brain power into. The other area from my 2008/09 playbook I completely forgot about were Preferred shares. I just had a look at several sets of Prefs for Enbridge, BCE, and Bam in Canada. Enbridge in particular has a few series that are yielding 10-11% and are off close to 50% in the last two weeks. Did people suddenly stop buying oil and gas (rhetorical). BAM and BCE have some yielding near 8-10% and trading down 40% or so. Did people stop using the internet and making calls? I may look at picking up a basket of these and sort the garbage out later. My research department doesn't have the capacity to analyze all the prospectus :-).

Trying to buy puts on MA, and a couple of others. The implied volatility is way up. The cost is more than the other day, when the stock was higher. Option sellers are expecting a quick reversion right back down. Todays market rise is in response to the expected stimulus plans. Once they come out and eveyrone realizes the economy is operating at 70% things may really drop. I am sitting out Leaps for now until this volatility settles down to a lower level.