Dalal.Holdings

This schmuck wants to throw a parade—Like the one Philly threw during 1918 Flu... :o His stupidity knows no bounds.

This seems to be a point lost on many investors - especially younger investors - who have been riding a decade-long bull market. Downward price action does not make something "cheaper." Downward price action only makes something cheaper if the fundamentals persist or improve. And as you note, the fundamentals are getting worse with each passing day. What happens when more and more companies start including "going concern" warnings in their public filings? But but but...stocks look cheap on a forward P/E basis when I set 2021 EPS = 2019 EPS... After an incredibly agonizing 2 weeks, the bear market clearly ended on March 24, 2020. Plus, the Fed said the recession is cancelled. What a trying time it was for all of us. Glad I got to experience a full blown recession in my life--and one of the worst on record: the Great Recession of March 2020. Another notch in my belt! If Warren didn't buy, it must be because he's senile and outmoded! Bring one of those hedge fund managers who crushed the last 10 years in...you know that guy. What's his name? Dalal, I have very much appreciate led many of you posts in this forum. Thank you for you contribution. One day we’ll get rid of the senile old man and have someone in charge who really knows how to pick stocks like the pros. He can call into CNBC and have a complete meltdown and tell all of the viewers that the world is ending. And then a few days later let us all know that’s everything’s actually fine and he made a bunch of money shorting the market. Buckeye--now that would be a sight. However, we know this 89 yo guy who lives in Omaha has leagues more class than the NYC self-acclaimed masters of the universe!

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/21/840341224/nih-panel-recommends-against-drug-combination-trump-has-promoted-for-covid-19 But did they consider all the anecdotes and "common sense"?

What happens to your S&P EPS projections when companies that spent years buying back stock (buy high): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-16/u-s-airlines-spent-96-of-free-cash-flow-on-buybacks-chart Are then forced to issue stock when times are bad (sell low): https://seekingalpha.com/news/3562845-united-airlineminus-3-after-39m-share-offering Another win for corporate execs who get to take home millions regardless!

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3562819-interactive-brokers-reports-margin-loss-on-crude-oil-contracts Looks like IBKR took (relatively small) hit due to customer losses: What are the margin requirements for futures holders going to be going fwd?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/opinions/trump-institutions-autocrats-kasparov/index.html Pretty much the exact opposite of what you’d want from a President in a crisis like this. SMH.

"The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations" --David Friedman, "The Machinery of Freedom". Not only do we need to spend trillions to secure these resources, but we also need to prevent investment in renewables because that’s #socialism. Trump bailout for oil workers incoming in 3...2...

It worked so well for the US coal and steel industries! Well, at least hotel and casino industry is doing great! Turns out bluster does not generate GDP output.

These posts mocking Warren/Charlie for expressing caution and stocking cash are sure to age well. #popcorn

Clearly shale industry didn't get the message from the slump ~6 years ago and instead dramatically expanded production. Looks like lots of pain to come...

Well I guess the futures mkt is not that “efficient” after all...now the June contract also tumbles as people realize the same could happen a mo from now...

Nah, that requires math, not just common sense. So it must be wrong. ;D Nice job, I Lol'd.

More info: https://online.stat.psu.edu/stat507/node/71/

Agree, negative pricing changes the game: the downside becomes potentially limitless. Almost feels like CME made the decision on the fly. And I wouldn't be surprised if we hear of a few trading firms going under in the days to come because of what happened today.

Gotta give the market a bit more credit than this, right? That should be priced in. Or you could just short the June futures now and make a few gazillion in a month when people figure out they can't take delivery. Again. "Damn, I'm selling my crude for minus $13 per barrel the last day of trading. Just like four weeks ago. And nothing has changed! Didn't see that coming". Too many unknowns to price in. Do the OPEC+ cuts (starting May 1) do enough? Does demand return in 'V' shape as developed regions 'reopen'? Just like with stocks, the price is a voting machine in the short run.

Yep, now just up to these (sometimes questionable) managers to seize the opportunity.

“The Art of the Deal” or how I got through all my bankruptcies

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html Testing for serological tests for antibodies is one of the hardest things to get right, especially with now touted finger prick (think Theranos). These are "analog" tests (as opposed to digital PCR tests for testing viral RNA to determine positive for SAR-Cov2). I have worked in this space for 15 years now and it is pretty clear that most people do not realize how difficult protein measurements are as opposed to DNA/RNA measurements. If not done right, they will have unacceptable false positive and negative rates. The article above clearly points to that risk. Given that at a lot of testing kits and materials in US are coming from China and not being vetted, I can only imagine what kind of misinformation about antibodies is being given out. Quotes - "The Food and Drug Administration has allowed about 90 companies, many based in China, to sell tests that have not gotten government vetting, saying the pandemic warrants an urgent response. But the agency has since warned that some of those businesses are making false claims about their products; health officials, like their counterparts overseas, have found others deeply flawed." "For example, Britain recently said the millions of rapid tests it had ordered from China were not sensitive enough to detect antibodies except in people who were severely ill. In Spain, the testing push turned into a fiasco last month after the initial batch of kits it received had an accuracy of 30 percent, rather than the advertised 80 percent. In Italy, local officials have begun testing even before national authorities have validated the tests." Yea, that’s one issue. Then there is a the issue if presence of antibodies constitutes immunity. Absolutely--and we should note that coronaviruses are not new. Many cause the common cold, so many individuals may already have antibodies to coronavirus proteins that do not confer immunity to covid-19. You have to somehow make sure the antibodies you are testing for are specific to covid-19 and not the coronaviruses that cause run-of-the-mill common cold... The propensity for false positives with COVID-19 antibody testing is high and in medical statistics, it is well known (among those trained in this, but not doctors in general) that via Bayesian statistics positive predictive value (if a test is positive, you have the illness) is proportional to disease prevalence (contrast this with sensitivity and specificity which do not change with prevalence). If a disease is rare (as we know covid is thus far), then positive predictive value will be low and so you will have a large number of false positives, especially with an antibody test that is prone to false positives. This is one of many criticisms of the Stanford study. More info for those who have intellectual curiosity: https://online.stat.psu.edu/stat507/node/71/

This seems to be a point lost on many investors - especially younger investors - who have been riding a decade-long bull market. Downward price action does not make something "cheaper." Downward price action only makes something cheaper if the fundamentals persist or improve. And as you note, the fundamentals are getting worse with each passing day. What happens when more and more companies start including "going concern" warnings in their public filings? But but but...stocks look cheap on a forward P/E basis when I set 2021 EPS = 2019 EPS... After an incredibly agonizing 2 weeks, the bear market clearly ended on March 24, 2020. Plus, the Fed said the recession is cancelled. What a trying time it was for all of us. Glad I got to experience a full blown recession in my life--and one of the worst on record: the Great Recession of March 2020. Another notch in my belt! If Warren didn't buy, it must be because he's senile and outmoded! Bring one of those hedge fund managers who crushed the last 10 years in...you know that guy. What's his name?

For the "nothing could be done anyway" and "please don't blame our leader" crowd: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/seoul-s-full-cafes-apple-store-lines-show-mass-testing-success It's ok, it only cost our economy trillions of dollars. No big deal. Let's not hold our federal gov't (CDC/FDA which botched testing and did not prepare back in January/Feb) accountable... Actually, let's put all the blame on the lesser guys in federal government/state/local leaders (don't they run the FDA/CDC?), but leave nothing for the guy at the top. We need to provide him the asymmetry he always gets from his followers: no downside, only upside. Zero skin in the game "I take no responsibility" POTUS.

What’s even more amusing is the other hedgie names being brought up here while Warren’s name is trashed. The guy built up one of the most valuable companies on the planet from a failing textile mill, did not charge investors fees for the privilege of being on the ride, literally built up a company that stands the test of time, and people are freaking out that the company has 20% of its intrinsic value in cash... Why aren’t those hedge funds worth hundreds of billions like berkshire is? Why couldn’t they take all the fee money they nabbed from managing OPM and build up a berkshire over decades? Could they not figure out how compounding works like Warren could? Why are Ackman and Einhorn still managing single digit billions? A legendary investor is able to compound $20M or so over time into a megacap conglomerate while most great hedgies merely “tread water” while taking home fat fees. Guess it’s similar to a couple of months ago how everyone thinks the cash is “burning a hole” in Warren’s pocket. Maybe easy to say when the S&P is at 2019 levels. Don’t think Warren is too bothered what other people think, certainly not minority shareholders who have only been around for a tiny fraction of Berkshire’s ride.

Great summary of the progress that has been made in this thread (though there are forces that insist we go backwards and rehash some older, largely defunct discussions). Funny that "socialist" state Sweden (whose numbers don't look that good and has very low density) is cherry picked. Coming up with notions alternative to Occam (and ignoring the pile of evidence on Occam's side) is hard work. Germany gets it. So did S Korea. We've flattened in the hard hit places in U.S. and I think it is time to strategically reopen them. I think it is going to take lots of testing, public masks, some form of contact tracing, etc. And I think some regions (due to governors) will excel over others (due largely to vacuum of leadership at the federal level).

Who would want to hold cash? Sounds "irrational"... Some people sound upset that WEB was not aggressive enough with cash which is strange. Look around you. There are so many companies that didn't stock up because "no one could have predicted this crisis" and now they're on life support. What is your "adjusted EBITDA" when >50% of your revenue evaporates??? Companies that "optimize the balance sheet" and don't believe in having excess capacity around are the ones to fall. The ones that keep ample cash are the ones to stand the test of time. That's why it's safe for these guys to not diversify and keep 90% of their wealth in that single stock. $125B in cash is not much for a company Berkshire's size. AAPL is a worse offender, but AAPL mgmt has fewer options with cash. When you manage hundreds of billions of dollars, your investment options dwindle (and so will your returns as Warren and Charlie repeatedly state). I don't think Buffett is hypocritical. He clearly has shown that he has run out of investment options for a while--his investments in airlines and OXY show desperation that there was not much else out there for him. He's broken some of his old rules because his investable field has gotten much smaller. And he's more likely to invest at low PE airline stocks than some SaaS with barely positive "non-GAAP adjusted earnings less stock comp".

Yeah be careful with ozone--O3 is highly reactive and can damage tissues, can be carcinogenic. And it may not be necessary--if you leave your garage open on a sunny day (or leave contaminated items in a car with windows that don't block UV/windows rolled down, that's probably enough UV light to do the job. The primary way of catching this is likely inhalation of droplets from someone nearby who has it, not from touching fomites anyway.

A sorry excuse for a leader. The virus is coming for your guns! Buy more guns and shoot it! That's the only way to make sure. My in vitro study shows that guns kill viruses (you try for yourself and see what happens when you put a bullet thru a test tube). Let's open up the gun shops as essential businesses. ;D