Gregmal

I wonder if Fauci and the CDC will recommend people hold Thanksgiving and eat with their masks on? This will help with the pandemic. If masks prevents virus transmission they should also certainly prevent turkey legs and pumpkin pie from getting through, which will help in the fight against obesity and diabetes and solve covid since for everyone currently in reasonable health this is basically a non issue.

Yea...I'm looking forward to the peaceful transition of power from growth stocks to value stocks.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3633845-stanley-druckenmiller-buys-bitcoin

I think he meant he sold those, and that if history is a guide, his sell decisions are typically buy signals. At least thats now I interpreted it.

There s a good saying, "if it drives, flies, floats, or fucks, rent it"... That said, I totally agree with rkbabang as a boat owner. Expensive, but totally worth it.

I actually really like BRK here. Between the buybacks and the expertise wrt to financial and energy, that's probably one of the safest ways to play those spaces, albeit in a big vagina kind of way. There's definitely cheap financials and energy names out there, but I'd rather be a greedy pig in RE.

Real Estate and entertainment is basically in the clear now. I couldn't understand the appeal of financials/energy(outside of being cheap) vs the aforementioned for the simple reason that once covid went away, so did all their problems, now, just one less. Energy and financials have been lousy investments for the past half decade for good reason. They have tons of problems. With real estate, avoid B/C or worse quality retail and otherwise from here, even after todays rally, IMO, theres still massive rerating going to occur. Its one of the rare instances Ive seen in a while where there is more upside in the safer asset. People will be back in the offices in a couples quarters, retail will then firm up(even ignoring high quality retail assets already trading at sub 5 caps) and the spread to treasuries will be too big to ignore. I actually added a bit more JBGS and ESRT at the open.

Bought some SE. Hat tip to valueinvestor. You've definitely got a very unique approach and respectable track record with these sort of names.

Let's focus on making money here Greg. There are still lots of undervalued names. Just look at the whole Office REIT and Multi-Fam REIT thread Personally, I'd like to have a lot of those and some of the MSG E/S's right now...shucks. Too much time in politics and covid thread...maybe we get another shot when the mink virus gets here...one can hope.

I guess this kind of pisses all over Joe's big Covid Task Force agenda......was supposed to be a very big deal for him today.

2020 was basically like being in one of those game show cash grab machines....or my bachelor party at the Montreal strip club....so much money flying around everywhere. Lotta fun.

I think thats all useful, and in respect to the market, think this time is very different from March 2020 due to greater certainly all around. Stimulus and low rates will be there. Shutdowns will be area specific, however companies can also choose to close shop for a bit. But in March people had no clue about a vaccine and were woefully ill informed about what the true fatality rate was. Now? Even if you effectively shut everything down for a month or two, the hit that brings to certain spaces will be there, but it gets you through the season, its effectively a one off. A vaccines should be here in a few months. Even draconian Fauci has stated your "return to normal" could be "as late as" late 2020 or early 2021. In the scheme of an earning multiple or valuation, a couple quarters is insignificant. The data points of relevance that make it a little messy of course, is that valuations are pretty rich right now. But overall this time is totally different all around than March/April. That was a once in a generation opportunity.

Do you know why killing someone who is attacking you is more justified than killing an innocent person? Do you know why its more dangerous to drive over the speed limit without wearing a seatbelt than with one? I do, but I dont see the ties any of that has to the logical inconsistency in the above mentioned behaviors. For instance just yesterday, Chuck Schumer was partying in the streets maskless. And it was celebrated by everyone and the part where he was massless largely ignored... People have just kind of lost it with this and the media is a big part of the problem. Even the other day, my wife says to me, "did you notice the kids had runny noses all week?" and I was like yea. And she says "now my nose is runny, do you think we should be concerned?", I said, well how do you feel? To which she replies "fine". And I explain to her politely but in my head am thinking...."WTF. Every year maybe 2-3 times a fall/winter(at least since having kids) stuff like this goes around. Seasonal allergies/common cold/flu, etc....normal part of life. Now, the exact same things happen and we're all ridden with paranoia. On top of this, if these are your symptoms, and it turns out to be covid...who cares? You feel fine or at least consistent with how you normally do during this stretch of the seasons, you might have minor discomfort....otherwise, WTF is the point of all this negative energy, restriction, and paranoia....and if anything more serious comes about, well you deal with it accordingly. But the degree to which people are mentally impairing themselves over this is downright insane. Errrr.... remind me who it is that's mentally impairing themself? For one, the people who are afraid to do anything.The ones ascribing superpowers and human traits to "the virus". The ones living in fear...

Yup, AZO, NVR, and DDS are terrific examples of the power of the repurchase. I am sure Buffett is aware of what can be done with buybacks. And I agree with the point that he had greedily been hoarding cash for his own reasons, but he's also seemingly had a fairly large change of heart over the past couple quarters and on a relative basis there really isn't "that" much of a valuation difference in the shares with respect to its range over the past 4-6 quarters. Even at its cheapest prices, he wasn't really going insane. People thought Q4/Q1 activity was a big deal. Annualizing this Q puts the pace at about 7% s/o per year. That's nothing to sneeze at regardless of who you are, but quite incredible with respect to what the previous expectations were. Typically, when you see this sort of trend, it continues in a big way. Again, look at how AAPL really accelerated with this once they saw it paying off.

Do you know why killing someone who is attacking you is more justified than killing an innocent person? Do you know why its more dangerous to drive over the speed limit without wearing a seatbelt than with one? I do, but I dont see the ties any of that has to the logical inconsistency in the above mentioned behaviors. For instance just yesterday, Chuck Schumer was partying in the streets maskless. And it was celebrated by everyone and the part where he was massless largely ignored... People have just kind of lost it with this and the media is a big part of the problem. Even the other day, my wife says to me, "did you notice the kids had runny noses all week?" and I was like yea. And she says "now my nose is runny, do you think we should be concerned?", I said, well how do you feel? To which she replies "fine". And I explain to her politely but in my head am thinking...."WTF. Every year maybe 2-3 times a fall/winter(at least since having kids) stuff like this goes around. Seasonal allergies/common cold/flu, etc....normal part of life. Now, the exact same things happen and we're all ridden with paranoia. On top of this, if these are your symptoms, and it turns out to be covid...who cares? You feel fine or at least consistent with how you normally do during this stretch of the seasons, you might have minor discomfort....otherwise, WTF is the point of all this negative energy, restriction, and paranoia....and if anything more serious comes about, well you deal with it accordingly. But the degree to which people are mentally impairing themselves over this is downright insane.

I'm still trying to figure out why fans rushing the field sets them aghast, but protesting in the streets is ok. How fans in the stadium is a no-no, but we can use the arenas for voting stations. How a campaign rally is a super spreader event, but in NY/Philly/DC, etc congregating and holding dance parties to celebrate their candidate winning the election is celebrated by the media.....There was also Justin Turner....the "covid stricken player" who celebrated with his team. "covid stricken" of course used to describe "absolutely symptom free, I feel great"....Strange times we live in.

I think owning and watching AAPL may have helped enlighten the old man as to the true force of buybacks. You dont need a growing business, but if you have one, all the better. You just need to start with a huge pile of cash. AAPL had what at the peak? I think $220B or so? There's a lot of similarities except a narrative change with BRK could be even more explosive as its been a dull and boring stock for the past half decade and shareholder base is mainly conservative folks and old geezers.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/notre-dame-fans-storming-the-field-after-clemson-upset-set-off-covid-19-alarm-bells-across-college-football-051612499.html Obviously these people want to be nationally mandated to stay in their basements...with 10 N95s on.

Yea, basically. I guess in a nutshell, when done right, you are absolutely better off owning a great business. But overall, the reliability of the asset is the safer choice. I suppose anecdotally that's why you see a lot of normal people get rich via real estate, or at least more so than you see normal people getting rich owning and growing a business.

G&A also likely gets scrapped in any sort of M&A, or at least a good chunk. For smaller scale and high cost of capital REITS, yea, a discount to NAV is always warranted IMO. But generally speaking there isn't, and shouldn't be, because you have the large guys trading at premiums and its almost too easy to acquire when you can issue shares the way most of them do. If you are a specifically focused REIT, you very much have a reason to roll up smaller guys as NN and NNN leases require little overhead. The management teams dont have any say it whether they sell unless there is concentrated ownership. This of course assuming nothing crazy happens like with CWH. Regardless of focus on REIT, the Brookfield strategy of taking these stable income producers and pulling as much capital out as possible, and then levering that capital has squeezed significant amount of value into the complex. Of course, its sometimes compared to an elaborate house of cards, but I think there is merit to the strategy. Metaphorically, I like the reliability of collecting $20 every time a car shoots over the GWB much more than I'd like having to run Costco, even though there are few businesses better than Costco.

Thats a reasonable take, but how durable is the cashflow from a painting? The NY Mets? A bar of gold? You could probably chuck some single family residences into the category as well. Vintage cars too. Supply and demand can exist outside of the presence of earnings. Also with regard to covid, it sure has created short term, temporary headwinds and tailwinds for many businesses. Its also accelerated already in place trends. Most of these where already occurring prior. But looking at it from an exception to the rule scenario often just leads to excuses not to invest. How durable was tech during the dot.com bubble? Depends when you bought it. How durable was housing 10 years ago? Generally speaking though, there are trends and strategies that work well when properly implemented, most of the time. Its what is fascinating with BRK vs BAM. BRK takes a more risky approach IMO, buying operating business. They are just 1) very good at it, and 2) very conservative. BAM takes a very conservative strategy...hard assets that often produce income streams, and puts it on steroids. Taking something exciting and making it boring vs taking something boring and making it exciting. Both results are hard to argue with.

OK so with the election over and focus here moving back to investing shortly, I thought it might be a neat exercise to kick around the above subject matter. At the crux of the Berkshire vs something like a Brookfield, the main difference, IMO is not the contrast in leverage utilization vs cash hoard, but the focus on assets vs businesses. I have long looked at Berkshire and admired their businesses. They are powerful and almost run themselves. Great brand value, which is an asset to a certain degree, but nonetheless the majority of their holdings are "operations". Whereas on the other end, you have Brookfield which buys assets as the primary driver of their strategy. Infrastructure stuff is kind of a hybrid, both an asset but also an operation. Its probably where BRK and BAM have the most in common. Generally speaking though, what are the opinions on preference for the two? An asset, like an office building or a pipeline requires rather minimal attention, is hard to impair or mismanage, and regularly spits off cashflow. A subsurface royalty or a ground lease you are basically just letting somebody else use your space for a recurring, high margin fee. Whereas a Costco, an Apple, a chemical company, or a homebuilder, needs to consistently be on top of their game. They have consistently evolving variables, employees, regulatory expectations....however just anecdotally, I've found that businesses can compound with great velocity and you can much easier hit a real home run getting into a business at the right time, whereas an asset just kind of goes slow and steady. Where do folks stand? Is it different in terms of public vs private? Theres obviously a great advantage to not having to worry about evolving and operating a business if its a privately held asset. Its also much harder to destroy value and make bad decisions with an asset...which is not to say it cant be done, but an asset that simply appreciates due to existing, is much harder to impair than one where you regularly have to make judgment calls or face operational risk. Its funny but folks often associate classic value investor aphorisms like "margin of safety" with Berkshire, but on a fundamental level, that seems more appropriate to ascribe to the Brookfield strategy....of course the debate around the utilization of leverage not withstanding.

Quite happy with the direction they seem to have slowly moved towards.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/what-florida-can-teach-new-york-about-handling-covid/ FL vs NY. Sure, bring politics in to it. Because thats the difference.

Everyone answers to their own P&L. With respect to this...muscleman is clearly winning here...Who cares how many cases of the sniffles we had today...