K2SO

PM

Nothing unethical about "defense." Athough it's a bit of Orwellian wordplay since these tools are just as often used for "offense." And people die because of them. Personally I have no ethical issue owning the stocks, but other people do, and I respect that.

We're not really going to know whether a second wave materializes until late 2020 - even if things quiet down, the threat will be looming over us with the return of cold weather and flu season. So it's hard to justify a runup in the market on that basis. We've got 6 months to kill until then. But every day that ticks by we are one step closer to effective treatments and/or vaccine discovery. And we've already learned a lot about how to treat people and keep them out of ICU's, all of which is positive. At this point I'm seeing businesses closing every day, jobs being lost that will not come back any time soon, and investors that don't seem to care.

As a senior exec, I'm not sure I agree with that. I'm still missing the interaction with others at and above my level, and even more importantly I'm losing the ability to build a strong connection with those who report to me. Especially newer employees. And as those ties become looser, I think their ties to the organization as a whole will also fray, meaning that they will be more easily poached by competitors. Other great points here about the way work from home eliminates boundaries, etc. For any arguments that it's more efficient in some ways, it is damaging in other ways. I think every business is really a number of relationships, and relationships are best built and maintained in person. And this isn't a generational thing. My kids know this... no amount of video calls, phone calls, or texts with their friends is replacing seeing them face to face.

In my opinion this work from home thing is actually proving to me why we NEED offices. You can't form relationships over Zoom. You might be able to maintain them, but you can't form them. You can't truly build trust. You can't learn by watching how someone manages their day. You can't have spontaneous discussions by the coffee machine. Let me take something like Shopify as an example, and many tech firms are in this position. They are saying that in the future they will have more employees working from home. Now I've been to their office. Free food and drink, including alcohol, for everyone, all day long. Once you've given this benefit to people, it's hard to take it away. This is a "get out of jail free" card for them. A way to take away this costly benefit without the blowback from employees. If you have a job you can do remotely, and choose to spend most of your time at home, you are just a step or two away from having your job outsourced to India. Get in the office. Form and strengthen relationships. Learn. Mentor. Lead. You can't do this shit from your kitchen table on Zoom. Sorry, you just can't. Unless you have no aspiration other than to be a cog in the machine.

How about Iran? How long can the regime survive low oil prices and a virus outbreak?

The women disagree with you that it was consensual, including the 13 yr old girl that Trump allegedly raped in Jeffery Epstein's apartment: The number of women who have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault is at least 12 https://www.mic.com/articles/156669/how-many-women-have-accused-donald-trump-of-rape-or-sexual-assault#.KujVwb2jl Whoever thinks Trump was bragging about consensuel stuff, I have a bridge I’d like to sell them. Political discourse has now degraded to the level that we're arguing which sexual harasser is the least bad. What an absolute tragedy that at a time when we need strong leadership, there is none to be found.

Does Hoisington offer a short bond product? I always take their commentary with a huge grain of salt as if they don't call for deflation and ever-lower rates, there is no reason to invest in their asset class.

FWIW, The Turtle Creek US and Canadian funds were down 29% and 33%, respectively, in the month of March.

LOL I can see him in isolation at home, unable to get his FaceTime to work. Or maybe his router needs to be reset, and nobody there to help him.

This virus isn't going to magically disappear when we go back to work. It'll be out there, and there will be flare ups in locations all around the world which will be met by continuing shutdowns and social distancing. This is going to happen for the balance of 2020 and until we get a vaccine. In the meantime we can also hope that treatment options become more proven and that will remove some of the fear of catching the virus. But I don't see us getting back to "normal" for almost another year. We'll likely be in a recession until that time, but I'm expecting a strong recovery if we can prevent too many businesses from going under by various measures in the meantime.

Onex is in the eye of the storm. An airline, asset management (Gluskin Sheff), private equity, private debt. I'm holding on as they have shown themselves to be astute investors throughout several cycles.

Another one: will the Iranian regime survive the double whammy of coronavirus and an oil price shock?

SU

How deep? They seem to have many positions and not be *that* concentrated. Sounds like it could've hurt performance, but take the whole fund down? I'd need a bit more evidence or numbers to believe that against my priors that they have at least 15-25 positions at a time. Yeah, maybe I overdid it with the hyperbole, thanks for calling me out. There's no leverage in the fund so one big position that went to zero would not have taken the fund down. They own 25 stocks (always 25!) but this one position had ballooned. I don't have the exact info on holdings so I won't speculate. This is all second-hand info on my part. Turtle Creek sold to a lot of unsophisticated and pseudo-sophisticated families based on performance numbers. A collapse in HCG would have put a permanent huge dent in those numbers, and therefore would have done irreparable damage to the firm. I think that's what I was getting at.

Turtle Creek got in pretty deep with Home Capital group a few years ago. I would venture to say that if HCG didn't get the lifeline from Buffett it would have taken Turtle Creek down with it. They kept averaging down as the price fell and ended up owning a huge chunk of the company with essentially no exit plan. It worked out well for their investors but I'm not sure how many actually appreciated the risk at the time.

Another vote for Overcast.

Brothers Karamazov is possibly my favourite book of all time. Have read it twice and certainly will revisit again. Read C&P this past summer and it did not disappoint, although it was a heavy and difficult read, emotionally. Not a beach book! Currently reading Demons and while the other books are much more philosophical/spiritual, Demons leans towards the political/philosophical. It's really hard to keep track of all the characters as well. I'd say this is the most challenging of the 3 books. But there are some nuggets in there. I agree with clutch 100% on his comment. I feel like Demons, in particular, is just as relevant today as it was when it was written. I'm about halfway through but the "revolutionaries" are striking in their efforts to control, misinform, and exploit, using the same tactics we see employed by all sides today.

One day the economics and finance textbooks will look back at today's environment as one of pure folly and idiocy; yet another example of thoughtless, lemming-like behaviour. Glad to see this kind of commentary out of Pimco because the more it becomes commonly accepted, the closer we are to the end of this stupidity. If he truly believes what he's writing, I'd be overjoyed to borrow unlimited amounts of money from him at negative rates.

Most recent book that really impacted me is The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli.

Depends on the business. What if it is also highly levered? What if the estate tax comes due at a time when credit is hard to come by? I agree with the principle that inheritances and generational wealth transfers should be taxed at some level, but in a perfect world we would tax only passive assets. Actively owned and managed businesses should be exempt, as taxation could impact the business, employees, suppliers, etc.

http://www.mispricedmarkets.com/blog/

I am absolutely baffled by what Google is doing here and what is behind this change. The new site is confusing and unusable. Back to Yahoo finance I go.

They'll play a role in electrical charging stations that may take 20-30 minutes to charge up a car or truck's battery. Outside of cities - agreed. But there are too many gas stations around residential areas if you assume that people will be charging cars in their homes or work garages. Having said that, it will be interesting to see how these valuable, high traffic locations are repurposed.

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius.