lnofeisone

That's damn impressive engineering undertaking. If I remember correctly, the longest high voltage line is about 2k km.

I saw the same trend here in DC. Lots of availability in the high-end market. Few of our friends are now playing hardball with management companies because they are not getting amenities that were originally promised. Mid-market seems to be doing a bit better. Had friends rent a basement in about a week with plenty of qualified applicants.

You read my mind. I, too, would be interested if anybody has thoughts on a good hedge. ASPS?

+1 and will definitely take you up on the beers in DC (Big Board seems appropriate. "As co-owner Eric Flannery explains, the fluctuating beer prices come from a special algorithm which “changes depending on how many people are here, what day of the week it is, what type of beers are being ordered.” But the bottom line, he says, “is the more type of beer that somebody orders, the lower the price goes.”)

Yes, PGR is a LT winner. They have increased their revenue growth going into property insurance (they used to do only car) and it’s not clear if they have the same advantage there. It’s trading a bit above its LT valuation baseline. I would buy it if I can get it below 1x EV/ sales. PGR doesn't write its own property. They offload it to the likes of Homesite and First American. This is the reason for their wildly inconsistent policies and pricing across the markets, interesting complaint rates patterns, and varying agent experiences. They are very strong when it comes to auto/motorcycles though I'm not a buyer at these valuations. On a personal note, we switched from Progressive to Erie (home/auto/umbrella) because the quote was about the same but Erie's coverage was substantially better.

I'm selling bear call spreads going out to Jan 21 with bottom leg anchored at 10. E.g., 10/16.5 today is selling at $5.10 so lose 1.40 to get $5.10 and you only need 25% decline to break even.

Don't we compare vacuum tubes to transistor when we look at progress in computing over time? We certainly put them on the timeline to see computations per dollar spent but I've never seen them compared (Maybe if I search EE papers circa 20s-50s.). It's hard to compare the two due to technological discontinuity. That's the primary reason why Moore's law (rule of thumb) starts with the invention of a transistor. I'd argue going from Alexnet to ResNet-type of architectures is a similar discontinuity.

Thanks for sharing. This is not an easy problem and they definitely have an interesting take on things (that I'd call very directionally correct ;D). Few things I'd look for them to resolve/discuss: 1) AlexNet and VGG are serial networks and comparing them to ResNet (which is network-in-network architecture) is, in my view, like comparing vacuum tubes to transistors. 2) EfficientNets are super powerful but rely on the baseline network (really excelling with transfer learning) which really means they are specialized and can be challenging to apply broadly

Added to WFC, CLMT, started PGRE

I feel like you and I live exactly the same life except I'm at Eastern Market and my park is Kingman Island/Anacostia bike trail/with an occasional Arlington loop sprinkled in. Having visited DC and done lots of tours of multi-family rentals, I have to say that I am incredibly jealous of what a $3,500 budget gets you amenity wise in DC vs NYC. Of course, I live and work from a pre-war apartment for $1,800 in Queens. The value guy in me can't pony up $6,000 for a NYC apartment. Do you recall the areas? I found DC to be very area-specific (for rent and buying) and a lot depends on metro access. Having grown up in deep Brooklyn (taking a bus to L train) I had to make mental adjustments. Also with new developments in Navy Yard and Mt. Vernon, you can get very interesting rentals with very serious amenities.

I feel like you and I live exactly the same life except I'm at Eastern Market and my park is Kingman Island/Anacostia bike trail/with an occasional Arlington loop sprinkled in.

Very few futures are closed out with physical delivery. Even if there is physical delivery, all of the futures costs are settled daily (marked to market) so whoever bought the future basically paid up out of the required margin. Edited to quote the question. Still getting used to the new format. Thanks for trying but you didn't answer my question. Is someone going to take delivery at negative cost? Or is that not a right question to ask? But I see the WTI spot price and it is normal around $20, so do we agree that the spot price of oil is around $20, it will never be negative? Ok so I do trade Emini futures so I know how it settles everyday. But what would prompt a person to sell oil at -$35. I wouldn't. Suppose I bought a future on a barrel for $40, then coronavirus hits us and I know I am hosed, ok I'll get out by selling $20. But if it goes to $10 I won't sell, I know that one minute before expiry I can unload it for $20 (the above minimum price I gave). Now I imagine maybe I really want to get rid of a barrel of oil, so I have the "original" contract..... and no one has taken the other side of this contract. I need to get rid of the oil cos I have no place to put it, so I am willing to take a loss on the barrel. But if I just hold on to the oil, on expiry I know I can get $20 / barrel. So in what scenario will a sane person sell oil at -$35? Am I missing something? like a margin call? what? please help! So few things here. Let's start with the mechanics and then do an actual example because there are some funny quirks. If you hold futures contract on oil into the expiration and go into a settlement (let's stick with light sweet) you have to take the delivery. At Cushing, the futures buyer needs to have storage access that is connected to either an EPD or ENB pipelines. Let's say you decided to take the delivery and the price is positive. At expiry (price is at spot), the exchange will take money from your account and deposit it into the seller's account. You get to Cushing and the seller will likely have oil storage in Cushing or will contract it from someone. That's the normal process for physical exchanges. There are protections in place for everyone (this is important because I think this is what drove some entity to basically take any price). For example, if the futures seller fails to deliver, the exchange will find the oil or compensate the buyer. If the buyer fails to accept delivery, the exchange will debit the account to make sure seller gets paid. If the facility fails to load out, the exchange guarantees the buyer will get the full market value of content. You get the idea. Now if either party fails to live up to their obligation the exchange will consider it an act detrimental to the welfare of the exchange and penalties can be stiff (e.g., suspension or expulsion). Now, onto the quirks. In reality, very few accounts are allowed to hold oil futures into expiration. If you hold futures, a few days prior to expiry you get a phone call from the exchange to either roll your futures or close out the position. If you are EPD or MPLX and have a business need you'll get questions but probably will be able to hold onto your position. If you are big and sophisticated players (le's say GS) you can probably figure out how to hold on. Small retail, no chance. This is one of those small differences between commodities and e-minis. The bigger difference (the one that doomed our hero) is that the e-minis (if they weren't financially settled) would deliver a basket of paper that is liquid while taking physical delivery of a commodity is a process that requires sophistication and infrastructure). Next quirk. A few weeks ago this went out (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-28/pipelines-ask-u-s-oil-drillers-to-curb-output-as-tanks-fill-up). EPD basically now asking everyone to show that they have a destination for their oil (meaning that they have no storage to spare). This is the part where I am guessing. Some sophisticated entity had a large position going into expiry. I say sophisticated because this is very close to expiry for someone like me to be holding oil futures. Exchange called this entity and asked to prove storage/destination or unwind. Failure to do so would result in not so great consequences. The entity was unable to find storage so the trading desk had to unwind at the insistence of risk officer. As prices started to come down, there were probably others in the market that started getting margin calls, and frenzy ensued. EPD/ENB and others with storage were probably buyers at negative prices. Hopefully, not too much because that oil isn't going anywhere for a while.

Very few futures are closed out with physical delivery. Even if there is physical delivery, all of the futures costs are settled daily (marked to market) so whoever bought the future basically paid up out of the required margin. Edited to quote the question. Still getting used to the new format.

This. Someone, somewhere is sitting on a massive loss. I doubt it's USO but USO is very much a forced seller here.

Not shhughes1116, but hey here's my 0.02. Personally, I separate good managers and good leaders. Good managers are the ones who take care of the team. It's all cliche, but they are the ones who care that team members get responsibilities according to their strengths and weaknesses. And at the same time encourage team members to improve their weak sides. And care about team member personal and professional growth. Interface the team with higher management and other teams. Deal with politics. Build team spirit and camaraderie. Make sure the team is valued. Makes sure the team gets adequate support and renumeration. Good leaders are much less common. For me a good leader is someone who directs the team into new high value and/or high growth directions as they appear or even before they appear. It is someone who notices trends before others and gets the team positioned accordingly. Ideally it's Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but it doesn't have to be someone who produces iPhone. The leadership could be something less groundbreaking. It could be someone who first notices move to cloud computing and pushes company's product to be rewritten as SaaS on AWS. It could be someone like Munger who pushes Buffett to switch to moaty businesses. (Buffett himself is a leader in certain aspects too). It could be someone who noticed that ETFs are coming and converted mutual fund shop to ETF shop. Or just positioned the team inside the organization accordingly. This is a very subtle (and succinctly put) but one of the key differences between leaders and managers. This is one of the differences that junior staff don't connect when they complain that partners/senior leaders don't pay attention to them/their development areas/etc. This is also one of the hardest mental shifts to make as one progresses in the career (the other natural hurdle is going from contributor to manager). These shifts aren't time-bound and are very career and person-specific. Unfortunately for US Gov't, a lot of promotions occur based on time in service and once someone is promoted the support and training are barebones. Not an easy way to be successful or have a measured risk appetite (i.e., be innovative).

I don't even know what to say here. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/u-s-weighs-paying-drillers-to-leave-oil-in-ground-amid-glut-1.1422060

Curious what makes TYL different from Accenture Federal or Booz Allen? I think there is plenty of $ to be made in updating current processes and taking care of the legacy paper, etc., just not sure the best way to play it.

In many homes, internet goes beyond just browsing (think alarm systems, Alexa, etc.). In many locales tenants sign up and pay for utilities and cutting that off can be challenging (have to validate identify) and all. Long way of saying, landlords should stick to courts.

You have a valid point, but if it really gets to that level is there really nothing that can be done as a land lord? Especially in this high rise buildings, are there no options (cutting internet, for example) to at least force a conversation around ability to pay? It's one thing to not be able to pay, it's another thing to choose to not pay. So if one wants electricity or cable or internet, assuming they could be cut off unit by unit, why is a landlord obligated to provide that if the renter isn't paying rent? I'm almost sure turning off electricity would open up massive legal liabilities that landlords would lose in court. I know it is illegal in canada to turn off electricity or the heating source to delinquent renters. I imagine it is the same in the US, nevermind during this crisis. As for cable/internet...not sure how it works in US, but again in Canada, most renters even in apartment buildings have individual agreements with their telcos. yes, technically the buildings allow the telcos to run their hardware through common areas, but the rent is separate. landlords would have no legal right to turn off a third party service. Is it generally different in the US? Is the internet explicitly bundled with rent? Making unit uninhabitable by landlord is called constructive eviction and opens up landlord to civil lawsuit/liabilities. Depending on the state these could very stiff.

Job title/description: Data Scientist with focus on in-production models Industry you work in: Financial Services City and Country: Reside in DC with clients in the US and Int'l. Anything expected or unexpected from being forced to work from home: My work ramped up substantially with production issues daily. Coordinating with a medium/large team that's dealing with live drills is awful. I'm literally on Zoom/phone/email/skype concurrently while expected to review math and code that goes with it. Quality assurance is paramount and obviously nobody invested in automation prior to this. Upside - more work that we charge for. Downside - not all clients deal well with being overwhelmed and stressed out. My firm has a large contingent of people that's 1-2 years out of college. Anecdotally, I've had a few colleagues that wondered if their staff were either drunk/hungover/high. I've heard of requests that everyone be on Zoom for the entire day.

Few things here to unpack. 1) Many of the new buildings give 2 months free for a 13 month lease. They don't' advertise it but if you go to the leasing office it's the first thing they bring up. I have friends who are literally moving apartments every 1-2 years. One of them moved within the same buildings 4 times now (around Mt. Vernon in DC). 2) You hit the nail on the head. The premium here is metro accessibility which in DC is paramount. Getting a similar apartment, 15 minute drive/bus ride will be going for 50% off. Check out 7 corners in Virginia where you are 15 minutes to either blue or orange/silver lines. 3) Here is a fun little special situation right next to a metro - https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1111-Arlington-Blvd-APT-925-Arlington-VA-22209/2080716875_zpid/ there is a reason, of course. :)

Just curious why electrical engineering is more of a growth industry than mechanical? I worked at a HVAC shop back in the days and we had a couple electrical guys in the office. In the US (and I suspect these trends will hold in most developed countries), there are more mechanical (ME) engineers than electrical engineers (EE) - 55/45 split or so. It's helpful to split out EE field into traditional EE and computer engineers. For MEs and EEs, the majority are employed in engineering services (NAICS 541300) which is basically consulting and companies like Jacobs, Bechtel, KBR, etc. For mechies, the next biggest employment sector is machinery manufacturing, which, in the US, is very mature and is probably in a secular decline. Most mechies are employed in 1) Michigan (auto - declining), 2) California (electronics - growing), 3) Texas (O&G - declining. The growth area for mechies is aerospace but the industry isn't very large and is highly specialized. For traditional EEs the 2nd largest employment industry is Power Generation and Transmission (think utilities). This is one is also mature and stable. Most EEs are employed in 1) California 2) Texas 3) Michigan. Same industry profile as above. The growth area is really the computer engineering (which bundles everything from systems design to semiconductors). Most of these engineers are employed in California. This group has the largest job growth, highest salary, and higher salary growth (on y-o-y % basis). ANSYS is huge here making the end-to-end process smoother and once embedded, getting an alternative in place requires monumental will and effort.

Added KMI, WMB, WFC

EPD and KMI

Lucky I limped in (only because I was without the cash to take a larger position): VGELX -7% since then, -17% since the beginning of this thread. A little bothered that Howard Marks believes energy isn't a bargain (unlike healthcare, he believes it has an uncertain future), but still looking to take a larger position. The beatdown isn't pleasant but I'm continuing to (slowly and selectively) add. CAPEX cuts and restricted cash access will continue to forcing MLPs to focus on balance sheets. I'm watching the demand side and for now cautiously optimistic.