Foreign Tuffett

Bill Ackman is fond of telling this one: My psychiatrist said I was a kleptomaniac...I said, "Is there anything I can take for it?"

I don't know about BA / TSLA but WMT going down makes sense. It is over 20x earnings for a retailer. Sure they will get a temporary bump due to hoarding but if the economy gets as bad as people believe, then walmart and competitors will eventually take huge hits as well. Yeah but... I wanted a gift for my son's birthday which is in two days. I want to buy him camping supplies. Can I go to REI? No, it isn't an essential business. Can I go to Walmart? Yes, it is essential because they sell groceries, hardware, and have a pharmacy. And... yes, camping gear. They are going to get so much more business now in all categories -- it's not just about hoarding toilet paper, pasta, and milk. Yes, this is exactly right. I got off a phone call a few hours ago with someone who was complaining that their local Walmart was sold out of a multitude of non grocery items. This includes camping type stuff, as survivalist types have gone into panic mode and bought up all the guns, ammo, hunting supplies, camping stoves, flashlights, etc.

Hey, don't post stuff like that here. There is no middle ground possible here. You'll get the same ridicule from this crowd as Trump! Typical Tom Friedman. Check out the qualifications of the doctor (Katz) who is the sole source of Friedman's proposed plan. He specializes in diet and nutrition. https://www.dietid.com/meet-the-team/#bio-david-katz Take a look at current projects of "The Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center" that Katz heads. No applicability to the world's current predicament. https://yalegriffinprc.griffinhealth.org/research/current-projects Also, "cubsfan" needs to be banned. He is basically just trolling at this point.

Well put Liberty, and I couldn't agree more. The way to beat this thing is to make a national effort to stop the spread before the healthcare system is overwhelmed. Unfortunately, here in the US efforts to date have been reactive instead of proactive, with failures of leadership at every level.

How it Liberty Formula 1 not down more? The 2020 Summer Olympics were just postponed. What does that say about the likelihood of any Formula 1 races taking place this summer? It wouldn't surprise me if the entire season ends up being canceled. At the very least it will be severely truncated. Plus, this thing is quite leveraged. Check out the race schedule: https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2020.html Management said today it still expects 15 - 18 races this season. I seriously doubt that happens unless they stretch this season well in to next year. https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.statement-from-f1-ceo-chase-carey-when-the-situation-improves-well-be-ready.605dLuJYFSuJlOw8E2T4F5.html

This is a distressed situation. I try and stay away from large cap distressed situations, as I think individual investors are at informational disadvantages versus hedge funds that can afford to spend heavily to gain access to restructuring experts, beltway insiders, specialized legal expertise, etc. I made this same point in the PCG thread.

Open the market!

Why not open a fine bottle of red and have a glass? Tis the way of the warrior. I think better to deface my face, but thank you for your suggestion

As soon as the market closes I am going to go get a teardrop tattooed under my left eye. It's the only responsible, mature course of action to take in light of today's market action.

Dear DemonSea, As I am literally a bear, I am well qualified to commentate on your "bear compendium." See attached for my contribution.

Are you suggesting that digital "coins" whose only real use cases are money laundering, illegal gambling, and buying narcotics are not safe stores of value? That's an outrageous suggestion, and you should apologize to all the hodl-ers with due haste!

XOP actually peaked in early 2014 at a little over $80, so it has actually performed even worse than my previous post outlined. Incredible.

In Jan. 2015 the S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) was at ~$46. Now it's $15.10. That's a huge, huge loss over a ~5 year time frame. There may be some more pain ahead given that XOP still holds OAS, WLL, CRC, and CHK, all of which are probably headed for bankruptcy.

I agree about shale E&Ps being almost a hard pass for anyone without near-expert level knowledge about factors like lateral length, EURs, acerage quality, downspacing, etc. A few quick reasons why: 1) Price takers for both inputs (oilfield services like drilling and completions, pipeline capacity) and outputs (literally commodities) 2) Rarely have the balance sheet strength or investor base to invest counter cyclically. This means they more-or-less all move in the same direction at the same time, thus doing the reverse of value investing. To give you an idea what I mean by this, XOM is intentionally outspending operating cash flow in an attempt to increase its upstream production by ~25% over the next four or five years. Whatever you think about XOM as an investment, it is at least attempting to invest counter cyclically by spending more when competitors are spending less. E&Ps can rarely, if ever, do this. Peyto is the only one I am aware of that, historically, invested counter cyclically to lock in lower service costs, but lower for longer Canadian NG prices + debt blew up its business model.

I continue to be concerned about this. The good news is that at least one of the five current SEC Commissioners (Hester Pierce) seems aware of the issues this new rule might cause: "Initial commentary in response to our proposal is admittedly not very supportive. Encapsulating early sentiment, one commentator wrote, “This is a terrible proposal, one that will destroy wealth and value for savvy investors who spend extensive time researching and gleaning information from OTC-traded companies, even if those companies do not report to the SEC.”[9] Admittedly, getting the balance right is difficult. As we finalize the rule, we need to make sure that it hinders fraudsters without killing the market for micro-cap stocks. I look forward to further commentary to assist us in properly designing the rule to achieve our objective of ensuring that retail investors can get the information they need to make decisions without imposing undue costs on broker-dealers, issuers, or investors." https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/peirce-broken-windows-51st-annual-institute-securities-regulation Interesting that the OTC Markets Group met with Pierce only 10 days after she gave the above speech. https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-14-19/s71419.htm The bad news is that OTC Markets seems to think the below is a good idea: "Securities in companies that do not provide current information under the Rule, or otherwise fail to meet an exception, should be eligible for quoting on an “Expert Market”, where quote distribution is limited to professional investors. By using commonly understood market data licenses intended only for professional investors, retail investors would not have access to quote information in these securities, giving effect to the Proposal’s call for increased retail investor protection while not disadvantaging the more experienced, sophisticated investors that make up the bulk of the Proposal’s comment file to date. Many broker-dealer compliance teams already use our “No Information” designation and other data-driven methods to make suitability decisions. This results in broker-dealers putting up “gates” that restrict retail investors’ access to “No Information” and other high-risk securities. The Commission can build on these industry best practices to modernize the Rule and provide for an “Expert” market where brokers to [sic] execute orders for financially sophisticated and risk tolerant investors." https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-14-19/s71419-6471877-199389.pdf

I just emptied my pockets. I have exactly $37.53

Ouch! Another guide down. I don’t own this crappola spin-off any more. Pre market trades around $9.5: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/resideo-announces-selected-preliminary-third-212500494.html I am not as familiar with REZI, but my conclusion on GTX was that it is a solid, if somewhat cyclical, business weighed down by excessive debt and asbestos liabilities.

I've done some work on this since the announcement and own it. Agree that this situation is all about whether or not FTC signs off. I think the odds are pretty good this gets through. If you make a thread I'll be happy more than happy to share anything/everything I know.

Why is it a terrible short? I actually thought the Seeking Alpha article that moved the market today was quite well done.

writser The below is from page 118 of the full proposed rule document. The Commission proposes to define the term “publicly available” to mean available on EDGAR or on the website of a qualified IDQS, a registered national securities association, the issuer, or a registered broker-dealer. Further, publicly available shall not mean where access to proposed paragraph (b) information is restricted by user name, password, fees, or other constraints My interpretation (not legal advice) is that companies like PDRX that post annual reports on their websites or otcmarkets.com would pass this test. However, the dark companies that only mail/email out their financials would not. I think that in practice, many brokers will stop allowing retail customers to buy any and all dark companies if this rule goes through. Merrill already did this last year. Spekulatius Yeah, I think that since this rule will (I think?) turn many dark companies into Level 2 assets, even small funds/SMAs able to own illiquid stocks will have a tough time owning them. mjohn707 Ha ha ha. Well put.

You are trolling, right? Either way, here you go: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/proposed-new-sec-rules-for-otc-securities-relevant-for-us/

Yes, we did see it as there is already an active thread on this very subject.

http://www.nonamestocks.com/2019/10/sec-wants-to-stop-trading-in-dark-stocks.html

The rationale for this trade idea is almost completely backwards-looking, but the stock market is forward- looking.

Bumping this, as it has the potential to be problematic for many of us COB&Fers.