Castanza

so just glancing at the financials over 2010-2019 years: Revenue / share: $30--->$25 Operating income: $6--->$4.8 NI : $2.7-->$2.4 Divvy 0.43 / q to 0.48 / q it doesn't seem to be growing at all, whereas utilities index (and of course Berkshire Energy) are actually growing. with an additional 10 mins of work it seems like the big underperformance is warranted. Any thoughts Castanza? Sorry, should have prefaced that this was a watch position. The 10 year low and RNG approval this July (Oregon SB98) caught my attention, along with their move into water utilities. But as LearningMachine pointed out, the share dilution (1%) yearly since 2013 (as far back as I looked) is unsettling. I think the affects of Seattle banning nat gas in certain new construction are still unknown. @LearningMachine, where did you find the info on interest rates and their lack of protection if you don't mind sharing. This area of the country is interesting regarding new energy regulations and hopefully it presents some opportunities. I agree that this is not great at current prices. Might revisit if this continues to go lower though. Latest slide deck https://s23.q4cdn.com/611156738/files/doc_presentations/2020/Sept-IR-Deck_Final.pdf?source=content_type%3Areact%7Cfirst_level_url%3Aarticle%7Csection%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link

NWN

Closed BATRK

PCYO

+1 He covered a lot of companies and provided solid analysis. PCYO, MSGS (E), AYR just to name a few.

There must have been a karma requirement or something because it kicked me and everyone I know out. It's back up and running First post I see “I MISSED YOU GUYS SOO MUCH!” Old salty hedge funds are just mad these kids are having fun and making a ton of money.

What crime? What crime is the average Joe committing? How can a participant in an idea with no central or governing body be committing a crime?

There must have been a karma requirement or something because it kicked me and everyone I know out.

I bought 1k shares...I mean, it's not trading that far off fair value so if I'm going to engage in any shenanigans this seems the least risky...

Interesting question. Keeping everything else equal and on a first-level basis, Keystone XL not coming through would increase demand for railway carload petroleum products transport for BNSF. But: -Coal transport is much more significant in volume (18% of freight revenues year 2019) and the policy 'intent' behind the Keystone decision would likely spill over into a more rapid decline in coal transport over time. Eventually, the intent would also involve moving away from natural gas, another accentuation of previous trends for the mid to long term. -Unlike coal, railway petroleum volumes are highly dependent on shale oil price dynamics. Fluctuating and hard-to-forecast demand is not ideal for the railway operator (logistics, equipment, etc). -Keystone not occurring is more likely to be marginally (and temporarily) beneficial for CDN railway operators like CN as the output related to tar sands will tend to go elsewhere than in the US and railways may play a role to reach export terminals. At any rate, the long term moat of BNSF relies on the fact that it will retain its comparative advantage to carry any of many potential products, from point A to point B. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s a dilemma of sorts because the opportunity exists, but as you said many dynamics make it difficult to forecast logistics. Does anyone have info on how these contracts are written? I’m not super familiar with rail transport, but I would imagine it’s not much different than container shipping where you have a range or “quote” of price and the contract acts more as a “we get the business” type of deal.

Another way to look at this -- they converted their long duration bond portfolio into a set of income producing real assets at BHE and BNSF. The yields are better and the risks are better than long duration bonds at this point in the bond market cycle. Further, based on Christopher Bloomstran's deep dive, they used the accelerated depreciation credits at BHE and BNSF as a secondary method of reducing tax payments and increasing cashflows. As well, based on Brooklyn Investor's charts, they have built up a large cash component in their portfolio to backstop insurance losses and to provide optionality for opportunistic acquisitions. This is not all black and white but the big asset allocation shift of the last ten years (see attached) has been the movement of funds from longer term fixed income to cash and equivalents. This movement raises two questions (the indirect one raised by wabuffo and a direct one). The indirect (and retrospective) one: Returns would have been better if the longer term fixed income portion would have grown proportionally to float. The direct one: Does the current (and growing) allocation offer potentially significant optionality value? (my answer is yes) Part of the decision in shifting from bonds to other assets (cash, owned income producing assets) is about expected future returns. The move seems correct, but the unexpected happened during the recent COVID panic -- government became a lender of first resort where normally Berkshire would have had its pick of distressed assets. A similar crossroads is appearing now for Berkshire. AAPL is starting to flatline in terms of its EBIT growth and topline sales growth, but it's priced for some large expectations out of the business. Does Berkshire exit, partially exit or hold due to the expected tax hit? In 1998, Berkshire was facing a similar question with very sizable paper gains in Coca Cola, Gillette and American Express in particular. Berkshire had an out where they turned a ~3x BV share price into General Re with a merger where they acquired a substantial amount of float and a bond-heavy portfolio that they turned into cash. So, giving up a bit of equity to acquire a cashable asset was enough to de-risk an overvalued portfolio without incurring a very sizable capital gains hit from selling KO, G or AXP. Do they interrupt compounding at lower rates going forward and take the sizable capital gains tax hit? History says no, but the new answer may be something creative just like the last time. IIRC he has said not selling KO at the peak was a mistake. I think he is an expert at learning from mistakes. Maybe a swap for like the deal they did with Graham holdings somehow? This was brought up when Apple was trading at $120. Apple is good as any investment at this point. If the market crashes and opportunities arise, he's got $100 plus billion to work with to make ample returns. He had his opportunity this last year though. This thesis still holds weight, but actions speak louder than ideas at this point no? BRK hit $162 and hardly any buybacks.

Careful, don’t break your own rules :P Jk jk, but I would suggest considering my idea! Would help everyone hold each other accountable and reinforce behavior if you continually get posts removed by an algo. You could even make it so the site has two “lenses”. One which filters politically flagged posts, and another that doesn’t. This could prevent or help mitigate some troll farm accounts from shadow banning tons of posts. I think the main benefits would be, not stifling content and allowing people to take it to their end. If it crosses a line then it’s gone by unanimous consent. And it helps mitigate the ban hammer for individuals who do contribute a lot of good ideas to the board, but decided to hit the whiskey early and post a night of political banter. Plenty of individuals on here have said their peace. But there is always the case for repeat offenders who get banned permanently. Anyways...fwiw ;)

WFC, BRK

USB, PNC, AAPL, PLNT

Cubs, Greg is gone now. You're next if you don't stop the political posts. Zero tolerance going forward for board members, so everyone else, pay attention! Cheers! I would argue to simply remove or archive the whole Coronavirus thread. Nobody on here is a virologist (that I’m aware of). There are a handful of doctors. Beyond that it’s mostly just political commentary regarding lockdowns, govt decisions, etc. If all that’s desired is some type of fact sheet for Covid-19; then people should go to their respective government website (CDC.gov). Zero tolerance is open to much subjectivity in my opinion. The above exchange amount between four users is completely political. However, Greg at least provides solid content on a lot of different threads. I would argue there needs to be some gray areas. Are we allowed to discuss policies regarding taxes if it’s based around investments? KMI and the O&G stocks will certainly have policy come into play, but what’s the acceptable level of discussion? The whole Fannie thread hinges on politics while walking that fine line. Can we discuss Fed decisions? I’m not sure if it’s possible for this website, but a tool which allows users to flag a post as political would be useful. And perhaps if say 5+ users flag it as political it’s removed automatically with automation. This would help filter out noise and keep conversations of value on track.

Anyone else contemplating how BNSF could stand to benefit from the Keystone XL closing? That 800k barrels a day has to go somewhere right?

One mans experience is not the majority’s. This is a bit fear “mongerish” and covertly political. My uncle a 65 year old brick layer who has had two back surgeries, one knee replacement, a heart stent and Rheumatoid Arthritis for the past 10 years has covid last month. Kicked it in 6 days with no lasting effects (known to him). Lost his taste and smell and had a migraine most of the time. He was a checkbox for many co-morbidities but seemingly wasn’t phased. I guess the scariest part is there is no way to know how it will affect you personally.

ATCO

Nibbled some WFC and ATCO

To your last point, that is what was leading me to dig in a bit. Thanks for sharing

ATCO, PCYO, PBCT, WFC

By all means dismiss it haha. I was just poking around in some random ideas to see what else is out there. Not a real estate expert by any means. I was hoping you would comment on this actually :P. Thanks for the insights

Has anyone looked at European REITs? Some of these seem really cheap still. Full disclosure, I am not familiar with tax implications of these as a US investor so I will defer to others on that. Example: GFC Gecina SA (Paris proper REIT) Quick Glance 9.3B mkt cap 52wh: 178.00 Current: 125.00 Book 0.7 P/E 8.7 ROE 8.5% D/E 1.6 EPSG 43%

33% (Switched Brokers so + or - a 1%) Sold a handful of positions way too early (UPS), but also had some great luck with options this past year. RTX, GOOG (options), PNC, TPL, and a few others were my top plays. I built up my portfolio with a lot of value (imo) so I'm hoping to see some benefit in the coming years.

Yes, recharge stations will be required, but possibly not at many as people think. For the typical guy who drives to work and back home every day, stops at the grocery store, and then drives his kids to soccer after supper, he already has plenty of battery capacity for daily use. When he gets home from the kids' soccer, he'll just plug his car in from his house electricity and he'll be ready to roll again the next morning. With this type of use as his primary pattern, his behaviour will change from stopping to buy gas once every 10 days or two weeks to instead plugging his car in overnight at home once every 3 or 4 days. The only time when range might be a problem for him will be on weekend trips out of town, or longer vacation trips. Instead of going to the gas station 25 to 40 times per year (ie, every 10 days or two weeks), he might only use a paid-recharge facility 10 or 12 times per year when he exceeds his car's range. There is, however, a group that will be dependent on paid-recharges, and that is people who are living in houses and apartments without private parking. The people currently using on-street parking cannot simply park their car in their garage or on their driveway and plug their car in overnight. In some municipalities these people who do not have private parking spot are not numerous, but in other municipalities such as Montreal, there is heavy reliance on on-street parking. With current technology that requires perhaps 30 minutes for a basic recharge, I don't view existing gas stations as a model that can shift effectively into electric. The better model would be McDonalds, Starbucks, Dunkin, etc partnering with some outfit to electrify their existing parking lot. So, if you imagine yourself taking a trip that exceeds your car's range, you've probably already driven for 4 hours and you need to take a break to drink a coffee, or eat a burger anyway. So you just plug your car in while you take your break. You probably wouldn't at all want to pull into a Shell station, plug your car in and then twiddle your thumbs for the next 30 minutes. But, all of this is a reflection of current battery capacity and current charging times....all of that could be drastically different in five years. However it evolves, the gas station/convenience stores are in a bit of long-term trouble. They make their money from the traffic of people buying gas, not from the gas itself. The price of gas is ridiculously competitive so the margins aren't great, but they just hope that you'll buy a pack of smokes, a couple of lottery tickets and a gallon of windshield washer fluid while you're stopped for gas (the margins *are* great for those items!). When they lose the traffic from the gas re-fills, are all of those convenience stores viable? I don't think so, but time will tell. SJ This is a pretty good framework. assume fewer, but longer stops reg cars and make sure it is worth it. It could see something like Cracker Barrel doing very well if they add charging stations in their parking lots, as ther restaurants are already destinations in a way. Same for McDonalds or open air shopping centers close to highway exits that offer a variety of options to keep folks entertained for the duration of the charge. Smaller standalone convenience stores may suffer loss of traffic though. Didn’t Cracker Barrel start as a gas station? Or they at least offered gas at one point in time.