Gregmal

Added to MSGE & S, ILMN

https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/shocking-images-show-packed-wuhan-pool-party-in-former-coronavirus-ground-zero/ CLEARLY! concerned about the virus....

You know, as they say, the first 50 bags are much harder than the next 50!

Sooo...lots has and hasn't changed here since all the +1 worthy "it fell when everything else did, I knew it was bs" stuff happened back in March. The larger question regarding the "thesis" here(if you will call it a thesis for the funny money), is still: -scarcity -acceptance/adoption as store of value -lack of government interference The first two seemed to have only strengthened with recent events, and while the third issue is still up for debate, it seems less of a risk as incompetence festers elsewhere(all that money printing) and banks now, even some of the TBTF ones, start getting involved. Is there any reason this is not likely to be taking out ATHs? There's certainly a lot of funky stuff trading at bubble type valuations right now, but this at least is in its own universe of uniqueness as an "asset"(if you will give it that benefit of the doubt). It may, as I said much earlier in this thread, be another case of the little guy catching on before the institution, and after a "scare the little guy out and accumulate" campaign from the institutions for the past couple years, it may be time for a new chapter here.

How many people "knew" better than to buy AMZN, TSLA, NFLX, FB, or even lesser known equivalents like TDG, HEI, WING, etc only to have it go completely the other way? Conversely, how many people "knew" of all the value in....dont know if I want to start naming names because its sensitive and subjective, so if you disagree with the name, try to focus more on my point.... SD, SHLD, SRG, etc? The truth is that most people dont really know, and even most of the ones that "do", dont escape the same fate. The trick is really just to find something you are comfortable with, company or strategy wise, and be consistent with its application.

RBACU

Taleb was sooo last week. He/she/they have apparently learned about "false equivalency" recently and now EVERYTHING is apparently an example of false equivalency.

Theres "good people on both sides" lol. Viking and some others have been reasonable and valuable here. I dont think Canadians in general have it out for America. There is again, cultural differences, and there is also Trump. He's very divisive and I dont think its a Canadians hate America thing as much as it is the fact that Trump has basically gone after every country we associate with in an attempt to squeeze out a few schekels in favor of the USA. Its bound to piss people off. There is also probably a little bit of little brother syndrome as well. I'm still waiting for all the lockdown countries who now supposedly "think less of the US" bc of covid to keep having flare ups...while we get on with our business because we let the thing run its course. Of course theres also the folks who continue to shift narrative. Dalal is always right about everything! He predicted more COVID cases and death will come tomorrow and by golly, I think he may be right. Of course when he's wrong, the evidence quickly disappears or gets modified. I definitely doubt the doctor claim. At best, psychiatrist. I wouldn't even give him dentist. At worst he's an academic with a PHD who demands the title...we all know about those..

I utilize brokers often as a way to learn about different markets. You have to do proper DD otherwise you'll waste time talking with pikers. But theres ways to learn who the big guns are and these people have immense value and connections. And, as is true with any broker, they are almost always willing to talk to you because its their job. For instance, in April, I was talking to a guy here about some Newark/Jersey City area CRE, and he goes "no one is buying anything right now. Why would they when you can get Vornado where its trading?" Funny, but also partially accurate with a lot of the private market feedback I got. Public markets are a much better all around investment right now.

Aaaaaand, at the same time, out of the other corner of the mouth, Trump is responsible for 160k+ deaths! If Trump is responsible, so are governors, no? Probably even moreso. Or...there's other factors at play, such as density, etc.... LOL you guys cant even be consistent. Yup, entertainment.

Bought a few Oct VIX $35 calls as my August ones roll off worthless. Also bought a small bit of BTI.

The China and Russia vaccines will probably be vilified by the left as an election interference serum....

OK, fair enough. I took "few weeks" and didnt include early July as thats over a month ago. But this still has what to do with my original point? How does this compare to what NY/NJ numbers looked like during the peak?

Do the demographics, land mass size, population, population density etc too. NYC has a population density of 38,424 per square kilometer NZ has a population density of 15 people per square kilometer. Why dont you post a twitter link on the data from Antarctica to really hammer the point home. This is all thats left at this point, for the boys who cried wolf.

https://nypost.com/2020/08/10/thousands-gather-for-wild-rave-at-prospect-park-in-brooklyn/ Social distancing in NY. But we still cant get an indoor restaurant reservation...

That's quite the claim. For something so obvious, I'm sure you'll have no trouble providing us with the evidence. Perhaps, but at what cost? Texans have been travelling to neighboring states over those weeks to escape such onerous requirements. Somewhere between 5-10k Texans died from COVID in the past few weeks. I guess these are necessary sacrifices to the COVID-god, so the rest of Texas can drink in air-conditioned bars without wearing a face mask. There have been 8K TOTAL covid related deaths in TX since this whole thing started. That is simply not true.

Not in the past few weeks! Otherwise, you'll get no argument from me about how bad New Jersey is. In fact as a New Yorker, I'd be happy to contribute a few lines if you'd like...shall we start with the smell? ;D Sure, not in the past few weeks. As has been said, they "ate their vegetables"... assuming you consider remdesivir a vegetable. Record vegetables eaten in March/April. 8-10% death rates...hardly the model. And now those that didnt die, are at the mercy of "I'll let you know when you can get on with your lives, but not anytime soon"....from Murphy and Cuomo...

How right you are! 10,000 or so (I just eyeballed it) people died from COVID in Az & Tx over the past few weeks. Morgue capacity is probably more necessary at this point. Indeed. Worse than NY for all them dumb red states didnt exactly play out. In fact, FL, GA, AZ, and TX have less deaths combined, than just NY. The relevant question right now for NY/NJ and those states....if you won't allow businesses to open in counties seeing less than 100 cases PER WEEK, well, when will they be able to open? And if you are forcing them shut(yea imagine that? A filthy rich Goldman banker putting mom and pop shops out of biz in order to bolster his political ambitions?) why do you continue to charge them property taxes? And at the "corporate rate" at that? Disgusting.

Governor jackass in NJ continues his daily pressers. Its become clear that any success he had handling this originally, has been totally overshadowed by the selfish, "look at me" parade he continues to embark on. Yea, keep talking about how low the rates are and how great it is going, while suffocating your residents and still refusing to let businesses open. Keep sending in the police to arrest gym owners... and having state trooper drive-by's every half hour to harass every bar and restaurant....What a clown show. Says Murphy.... “Believe me, I want to get to gyms, I want to get to indoor dining, I want to get to theaters,” Murphy said. “But we can’t do it if we think we’re gonna have a likelihood of killing people.” Oh dont worry Goldman banker turned politician....you and Cuomo already set records for killing people.... Still waiting on all the hospitals going over capacity in Georgia, Arizona, Florida, and Texas as well. Two more weeks I guess?

As for the Gates theories, I dont buy it either. Bill is one of MANY, MANY resources available to Berkshire. Gates pitched Buffett hard on buying MSFT a long time ago; Warren didnt get it, and didnt do anything. Look at the stocks that make up the majority of the Gates portfolio. Definitely more WEB influenced than Gates(with a couple exceptions). Oh yea, and the fact that Gates was buying stocks in Q1. Which is not to say Gates was bullish, but he clearly was OK buying the same stocks WEB often laments missing, while WEB himself, did not. If it was Gates, well than I think that needs to channel an entirely different bunch of queries. Such as, when the going gets tough, how do I feel about Bill Gates being the shot caller at BRK? I think the much more plausible scenario is that as things progressed, specifically mid to late May, it became obvious that while some of the already shut down states like NY/NJ etc would probably be shutdown for a long time, most of the rest of the country would open back up and people clearly weren't going to change their long term behaviors. Memorial Day I think was kind of a wake up call for many. Warren probably realized this, and while valuations arent by any means cheap, the other side is that now we have an economic reset, and subsequently, a low base(data wise) similar to what we had in 2010-2012, a point in time when many also felt the market was in a bubble and propped up by the Fed. The next piece of the puzzle may be revealed in a week or so, when Q2 positions get disclosed.

Thats certainly plausible, but is also a significant deviation from his attitude in early May. In May, he wasn't even certain the cash hoard would be sufficient. The stock was cheaper, by his own admission, at 225 in February. I'd suggest rewatching the AGM. There were folks here and other places, who were debating selling their stock because of how downbeat he sounded. Going from that to then potentially repurchasing the same amount of stock they did in all of 2019, inside of what was a 4-6 week window....definitely something changed. Put another way, if the stock was cheaper in February(when they bought 1.75B for the ENTIRE quarter), and the cash on hand wasn't enough under some scenarios, no way this guy is pouring money into buybacks at a record pace.

Typically a non 105b would dictate you must wait 3 days after an earnings announcement as a start. Then you also have to consider 2 weeks before the Q ends, up until you announce. Obviously there are ways around this, but if you want to see what the most aggressive scenario here could be, it is that. BRK did all of their repurchases between May 6, and June 16th....

Well, when we excuse protests because "theyre protesting", this is the other side... https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-claims-members-golf-005822741.html These people are hardly protesters, but theyre also not using BLM as an excuse to have this decades Woodstock moment...nevertheless, you make excuses for when/where the rules should be followed, you get blatant cases like this, where people just say "fuck you, I get to do it to"...

It is indeed very thought provoking. Theres a few things to look at and wonder. -Buffett said, in a not so veiled way that BRK was effectively "more cheap" at 225 in Feb than it was at 175 or so in early May at the time of the AGM. -Buybacks had stopped -His tone at the meeting was death -He sold airlines and WFC -BUT! Bought back a record number(in absolute terms, and in terms of pace) shortly thereafter -Has been adding aggressively to BAC If we eliminate the idea that he was laying it on thick, and trying to scare people into selling their stock...all Im left with is that he basically came to a radically different conclusion than he had previously, (big thing for some here)---->Admitted he missed the big opportunity in March/April, but also, seems to believe there is very different potential outcomes, even within similar sectors...IE WFC is so rotten its not even worth holding but BAC is still steaming cheap....And that, BRK is in pretty damn good shape....There's more too, but all in all there is a lot to process here but it does seem compelling in terms of garnering insight into how the man is thinking.

So I am sure WEB wasn't lying, or doing his best Billy Boi Ackman impression, but given the figures....he'd have to have started buying back a more reasonable chunk of stock....right around the time of the AGM. Which, given what his tone was...is surprising.