Sharad

I wish I had listened to myself. :-\

Why not bail them out with government help at pennis on the dollar, and then give secured bondholders and the company the option to buy said bailout shares from the government for 3x (or some exorbitant multiple of) the cost to the government one year from now to remove all conditions? That might make the company think twice about leaving less than a quarter's worth of operating cashflow on the books at any given time.

Purchased: Copart, Disney, Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp, and Texas Pacific Land Trust.

Any chance he told you what timeframe constitutes an extended up market stretch? 11 years 10 months and 13 days.

I don't know why it went up, but I bought VIX put options (one week expiration at 3:50pm), seeing that Biden likely wins South Carolina, the White House/Federal Reserve/ECB/CDC/EU will announce some form of action (whether it actually can do anything is an entirely different thing), and the VIX was nearly 50 today, and though I see more downside for the next little while, even in October 2008, the market had massive gyrations up and down, and moments where things settled for a few days. In any event, I suspect if you had a lot of short positions, then you couldn't go all-short into the weekend. People likely waited until the last minute to cover some positions or hedge out some short positions.

Back to the market action: the market has basically completed the circle back to the S&P levels in September when Powell indicated asset purchases would continue until the spring, which basically opened the rush into equities. This appeared to be a classic blow-off top, and so we were bound to give that back. We just gave it back in bigger chunks as a result of novel coronavirus. So, now that we gave back what was never really ours, we can address how the market gets impacted by coronavirus. Given earnings expectations weren't exactly stellar before, does China's upcoming stimulus drive us back up? One thing to pay attention to: Chinese activity is now rising day over day...it's a small green shoot for them, but might take a little while to be recognized here. And the virus is likely already spreading in North America: Canada and US simply aren't testing as many people as other areas of the world. Does Powell indicate that asset purchases continue after his Q2 end date? Would that even matter? Those are the questions I currently ponder, while I expect China to announce some sort of first round of massive stimulus in the coming weeks.

I think many people are looking at rates of infection and morbidity rates, which won't give us the true picture of the impact to the global economy and to the stock market, which is (crudely) for which many of us are looking for answers. My take: The virus likely has a much lower morbidity rate than the 2% in Wuhan, but the cases were never identified and reported correctly, and they sent people home or people avoided leaving home to deal with it themselves (h/t muscleman for some insight as well). Anyone at the beginning of the crisis that died of pneumonia like symptoms probably was ruled as a death from other sources. Regardless the morbidity rate at the beginning was skewed by the hospital cases, similar to the morbidity rates for people hospitalized for the flu in the US (8-12%, per CDC). This spiked up morbidity rate clearly spooked the world, and the unknown nature of this virus is enough to scare everyone, so everyone freaked..but the market remained sanguine for two reasons...one, the Fed is in the midst of a massive asset buying spree, the repo markets are wide open, and liquidity has pushed markets into a blow-off top since Powell declared, for all intents and purposes, that the Fed has the markets' back during his Fed press conference in September. China also clamped down hard on the virus, trying to contain it, and, through surprising transparency, shared a lot of data with counterparts in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, where the first full mapping of the virus' RNA was completed within a few days of receiving the virus sample itself. While the markets drank the Fed Kool Aid, the tanker and dry bulk markets showed a different story. Rates plummeted, even in the face of IMO 2020 standards for tankers, which basically docked a large percentage of "dirty" tankers, to be upgraded with scrubbers that would reduce sulfur (?) emissions during their travels with petroleum products in a bid for global trade. This should have been the perfect recipe for a massive breakout from a 12 year bear market for rates, and the stocks soared from September to January in anticipation of it. Coronavirus clamped that down. China wasn't receiving their deliveries. The country shut down, stockpiles have built up, and demand for petroleum products declined 25% plus. The market factored all these things in, and banked on a huge stimulus in China to keep the party going. South Korea dented those prospects, but Iran, and especially Italy, broke the whole thesis down. The moment a bunch of villages near Milan became a prime cluster outside China, all bets of containment were off. In the meantime, we have seen the market reach the apex of a massive blow-off top after a nearly 11 year bull market from the March 6, 2009 bottom. The last 4-5 years have resulted in P/E valuations doubling (or more) for the biggest companies in the S&P 500 (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/pe-ratio), the massive move to index investing (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/19/passive-investing-now-controls-nearly-half-the-us-stock-market.html), and the retail investor returning to the market over the last couple of years (see the increased interest in Bitcoin, Tesla, r/wsb, etc.). We were likely due for a large market decline when Powell pulled the plug on asset purchses (he declared mid Q2 2020, so let's say April), and that would have likely pushed us down 20%, like the Fed pivot of 2018. Once you factor in the coronavirus, how much further could we fall? Not only should we see the "p" of the p/e ratio fall, but we will also see the "e" fall too (see MSFT today). Bottom line: IMHO, this is only the beginning. I was holding out hope, but that Italian outbreak changed it all. The Greek fashion designer who contracted it during her time at Milan Fashion Week means that cases will likely pop up everywhere, especially larger markets. Anyways, I think people shouldn't be evaluating this from the morbidity rates, etc (I am guilty of doing this when we were transfixed by what was happening in China, and far from everywhere else). They should evaluate the destruction of capital flows and trade, and how much wealth that destroys. The destruction of wealth could mean a steeper decline. But the banks are better capitalized, so the upswing should be equally dramatic, whenever that will be. This is going to get much more ugly (consider if the Olympics are cancelled), and I think S&P 2,500 could be in the cards...but I could also see a massive upswing in the summer, when coordinated global stimulus pushes things higher, faster. We shouldn't be comparing this crisis to SARS or any other modern pandemic threat. This should be compared to the 1918 influenza outbreak and the subsequent 1919-1921 market crash and depression. If you are looking for investments, consider NYSE:NVO (their products are probably the least sensitive to the virus) and Nasdaq:GRVY (Gravity Co Ltd, as South Korean gaming company: SK gaming culture is amongst the most profitable in the world and what the hell else are they going to do there now?). Sorry for the long response. I was hoping it would help people see the broader picture of the market's moves ahead of the coronavirus, and the moves within the "guts" of the economy at the same time.

15%/year for 10 years is about two doubles, or 4x current investment. I think Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (TSX: PBH) and Savaria (TSX: SIS) can reach those levels in the next 10 years. Both are roll-up companies, and should be able to continue to acquire businesses in fragmented industries over the next 10 years to achieve returns at about that rate. I also think companies that have a history of hitting those numbers will continue to do so into the future. I like Novo Nordisk and Fastenal. Both have minimal long term debt, massive ROA, and good capital allocation histories. Timely share buybacks and sustainable dividend policies should continue into the future.

As algorithms start taking in all the information and interpreting the data, will COBF add an algorithm section so we can discuss which algo's we are investing in?

I think you would enjoy the book, "Astroball", based on everything you discussed about Theo Epstein's m.o. with the Cubs.

James P Carse, "Finite and Infinite Games"; Tom Wright, Bradley Hope, "Billion Dollar Whale"; Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga, "The Courage to be Disliked" (basically a primer on Adler); Ben MacIntyre , "The Spy and The Traitor"; Laurence Gonzales, "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why". I enjoyed these books immensely in the last 6 months (among the books I read). While none really added anything to my investment process, per se, I feel they all added another ring to my tree of knowledge, and I highly recommend reading any of them to think differently or learn more about things that have happened in moderately recent history.

You should take a look at "Pirate Hunters", too. I enjoyed it more than "Rocket Men" for some reason (seeing as Rocket Men has higher ratings on almost every website), but it may simply be timing on my part.

They're filing for Ch. 11 at 12:01am Pacific Time. https://sanfrancisco-cbslocal-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/01/28/pge-votes-to-file-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy/amp/?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fsanfrancisco.cbslocal.com%2F2019%2F01%2F28%2Fpge-votes-to-file-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy%2F

I see this more like a Fannie/Freddie situation. The state takes over the entity, prevents bondholders from securing their debts through any renegotiation, sets up a claim for future wildfires via inverse condemnation, and just milks any operating cash flows to pay for corrective action on fixing the infrastructure problems plaguing the entity (also due to terrible zoning by the state). Bondholders would likely see a fraction of face in such a situation (they're unsecured, after all). In any event, I'm lost as to how equity is still sitting at $6...

As long as you're picking up pennies in front of the steam roller, why not just sell $190 strike puts against RHT (2020 expiration)? Surely the deal won't fall apart. Seems like less work. Does China have to approve the deal? If so, then I suspect there is a lot of risk...

Added to PZA.TO - Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/mega-millions-jackpot-rises-to-1-billion.html Back on track? ;D

PZA.TO: Pizza Pizza Royalty Corporation - currently yields over 9%; historically pays out 95-100% of income to shareholders (royalty corp after all). Stock is under pressure due to weakness of pizza delivery due to US entrants and Uber Eats and other direct delivery companies, but the drop feels like it's overdone now. Even if dividend needs to be cut (Q2 weak results could be a harbinger of declining revenues), the yield should still be over 7% at these prices.

I think of buying PM (and maybe MO and BAT) too. What i dont like, is the payout Ratio, which getting Close to 100%. Whats your opinion on that and what do you like about PM? If you like, u can PM me. I saw a lot of people in here buying MO in the last time. Maybe someone of the buyers is willing to give me an insight about my concerns regarding the payout Ratio issue highlighted the post before, here or as a PM. Warmly, Snorky MO has been paying out 80% of its EPS as dividends for a number of years, and that process has not changed. With PM, its payout ratio has exceeded 100% recently, but the investment thesis is that, now that the iqos R&D has concluded and its marketing for the product has ramped up, there is hope that the FCF will improve soon to bring the payout ratio in line...Finally, with BTI, the company is engaging in the integration of LO into RAI and RAI into BTI. There should be hundreds of millions of synergies available that will eventually (i.e. next 2-3 years) find its way to the bottom line. This in turn will result in better dividends for the future. For BTI, the primary concern I have is with its Newport line (from the Lorillard business), and whether it will get caught up in all of the FDA investigations and future regulation of flavoured tobacco products. For PM, the concern is about fledgling growth in many of the countries it resides. For MO, the skies look clearer, and it appears that they are approaching the FDA approval process in a much more pragmatic fashion than BTI, Japan tobacco and other competitors. The FDA will approve a marketing statement for the iQOs product. It's a question of how aggressive that statement will be. We should find out in the 4th quarter this year. I'm long all three stocks, but am more heavily weighted in MO and BTI.

This is how real stories are pulled apart by people like Alex Jones and his conspiracy theorists. Someone's describing a complex thing as best as they can with only a few details, people try to picture that in their head (sometimes the wrong way, because maybe the car couldn't move forward very fast because of traffic/pedestrians crossing, maybe they got in from driver side or passenger side, maybe the parked cars we spaced wide apart with lots of space, maybe if you saw a photo of the street where it happened it would completely change your mental picture, maybe she's assuming things about the others in the group - ie. why they didn't see, but in fact they were just distracted and not expecting this -, or other important details that weren't included or even noticed by the person, etc) and it doesn't quite work in their mental picture built on sparse details from a witness's memory (which we know isn't like a photo or video when it comes to details, even if what they describe actually happened), so they call BS. I'm still in the "I don't know, but probably" camp. Equating my skepticism to a man who creates his own news (he simply makes stuff up) is interesting. You ask people to believe a story online from some random anonymous person, but don't believe another guy doing the exact same thing. I'll just write it how I see it: I don't believe the news story until I've read perspectives from both sides of the aisle (I read the WSJ, WaPo, NYT, National Post, G&M, etc.). We all believe stories that fit our personal narrative. As an example, you simply wrote Alex Jones' name in responding to my comment to dismiss my skepticism. I wouldn't say you're in the "I don't know, but probably" camp due to the dismissive nature of your comment. I am in the "it didn't happen, but made a good story to get a lot of Reddit followers" camp. I didn't go on and on explaining my skepticism, but it seems interesting that the narrator wrote about talking to the bouncer after the incident about cameras at the club, and the fact there were parked cars, etc., knew that the bouncer talked to the manager of the club, yet, after gathering all the facts, she both still had time to leave a scene of the crime before the police arrived and chose to, given, in literally any city in North America a large number of police officers would be due to the large gathering of inebriated people. Usually I don't believe what's written by random anonymous people online. I think it's usually best. I won't be posting on this topic further, but look forward to your insights on CSU and other investment ideas in the future, Liberty (insights which I respect and appreciate for that matter). Good day.

So, the guys in the passenger seat lunged out of the car, through parked cars, pulled her in, was able to reverse his lunging momentum out of the car to pull her in, whilst they drove away without missing a beat? We're looking for gumby. It shouldn't be so hard to find him. In reference to whether it matters if things are true or not, it does and it doesn't. This takes away from real tragedies in that we lose sight of human trafficking which can and does happen very often. This also takes away from the way a lot of criminals are attacking people, especially the elderly and women. However, the facts in the news are real: human trafficking is an epidemic. People in general need to be careful when out in public, inebriated. With more and more contact with more and more people, clearly bad things can and will happen. Best to be prepared at all times.

Sounds low given drinking and driving would be an alcohol related death, n'est pas?

Given Wall Street likes to categorize everything as growth or value, all the crap that is dying is dumped into value, weighing down on quality value investments.

Tobacco stocks.

On the flip side, here is Ryan Leaf's story. For every Tom Brady there are many more Ryan Leaf stories. I am grateful to have not put all my eggs in one basket, even though some, with way more talent than I have, accomplished so much. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/ryan-leaf-nfl-biggest-draft-bust-turned-life-article-1.2624679