Castanza

Exited RTN at 130. Have been buying pretty sizable positions the past few days from 117-108. Wasn't expecting this bounce back so quickly.

I think the coronavirus is giving everyone a glimpse into central planning. I'm not saying this is the end or anything. We will probably see massive bailouts, printing of money, and stimulus after stimulus to kick the credit/debt can down the road further. At the end of this I think we will see massive permanent government intervention as the Constitution gets tossed to the side. I'm buying though, I mean what else can you do? Companies and services will still exist after all of this. Cash cows are imo the safest place to put money. This is not the end. But I wonder if this is the end of the beginning. In English: There's a possibility of a long transition with a lot of movements up and down and that scenario can be challenging, in terms of defining entry and exit points. I'm trying to balance the "what else can you do?" with "there may be little place to hide". Time narrative is something that most underappreciated on the macro level. Historically speaking, it takes a long time for effect of first second and third order to play out.

I think the coronavirus is giving everyone a glimpse into central planning. I'm not saying this is the end or anything. We will probably see massive bailouts, printing of money, and stimulus after stimulus to kick the credit/debt can down the road further. At the end of this I think we will see massive permanent government intervention as the Constitution gets tossed to the side. I'm buying though, I mean what else can you do? Companies and services will still exist after all of this. Cash cows are imo the safest place to put money.

The middle was between 2009-2020

INMD RTN

China is defiantly restarting their economic engine, but who going to buy there stuff when the rest of the world is in lockdown. It would be kind of ironic if this calamity starting out in China and hitting it hard would actually show their resiliency while the rest of the world (ex Japan, Korea, Singapore) tumbled into lockdown that it can’t get out of. may not exactly play out like this, but who knows? Most of the off patent medication consumed in the US is made China and India nowadays. This situation is proving fruitful for the simple fact it’s bringing to light to the average Joe, just how cucked the US is by China. When the average Joe hears 90+ percent of our pharmaceuticals are manufactured in China, what do you think that’s going to produce? Nothing but animosity and more hatred for the government. Perhaps Paul is right, maybe we should forgo the bailouts to anyone and everyone and “burn the thickets” so you speak. A guy near me who runs a pretty successful Brew Pub wrote this. So the bail outs for big business will start already. Total bullshit. How about we help all the PEOPLE first? If a casino needs a bailout maybe we have too many of them? Maybe they are not spending the income properly? Maybe they are paying the board and execs too much. So in reality, they are not running the business correctly. They are overspending, not budgeting and not in tune with their own business model. Years ago after a few years in business they redid the intersection of wertzville and valley roads. Huge project, something like 6million with grants mixed in. It went way over schedule, the intersection was a mess and i was completely BANKRUPT. People stopped coming to the shop because they couldnt navigate through the construction. People stopped ordering delivery because they thought we were closed. Sales dropped 40% i had to run credit with every vendor. In the midst of it all i needed help, i had 2 little kids, mortgage payments equipment payments etc. I called the Apropriate authorities and companies that pay businesses stipends for situations like this while they are effecting their businesses. This is what the woman on the phone told me "Oh you are that little PIZZA SHOP in the plaza? no we have no programs that fit your needs." I was devastated, i needed help for something completely out of my control and NOONE was there for me. Long story short is that we adapted, closed our retirement accounts and went ALL IN with a new business model (right after the intersection was finished) and we came back and grew the business by about about 800% , paid back the debt and ran the business differently knowing that NOONE is ever going to be there to help. NOONE. I guarantee if these big businesses are not given the bail out they will magically find the means to survive. But why spend their own money if they can get it printed for them for free. ALOT OF SMALL BUSINEESES ARE GOING TO CLOSE BECAUSE OF THIS. ALOT OF SMALL BUSINESSES WILL CLOSE IN THE TOUGH YEAR TO COME AFTER THIS IS ALL OVER. OUR GREAT NATION WAS BUILT FROM THE GROUND UP STARTING WITH THESE SMALL BUSINESSES THAT ARE FAILING FOR REASONS OUT OF THEIR CONTROL. The answer prob is NOT sending people $1000.00 and giving a trillion to people who already have proven they cant run a business. But what do i know? I just have to make sure i put the cheese on top of the sauce, you know? Thanks for your time, AL Edit: Not saying I agree with it completely, just pointing out sentiment

Weather?

Out of curiosity is anyone buying gold?

Not a bad idea at all. What would this look like in practice? Lets say I own 100 shares of Visa, average cost is 170. Current price is 145 or so. Buy 1 Call, strike price 85, expiration Jun-2022, for about 67/sh. Essentially you're buying 100 shares for 152/share (85 strike + 67 call price). But you only need to put up 6700 rather than 14,500 in the market. So your cost here is 7/share premium divided by the amount of cash you are borrowing ie 14500-6700 or 7800, about 9% or so. Pricey, but again it depends what your expectations are for that freed-up-cash. Interesting, thanks for sharing. For some reason I was thinking it was more complicated than that haha

Not a bad idea at all. What would this look like in practice?

orthopa, this is exactly why widespread testing was, and is needed. If we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a real shit-your-pants pandemic, people will not say "fuck it". If we find out it's just, well, a really bad flu-like virus and there's not much we can do about it, well that helps us justify lifting some quarantine procedures. Screw everything else that has happened with Trump, he has put a crater in this country with how he handled this. Trump is probably screwed either way. If this is worse than expected and we see a lot of deaths his chances of winning are low. If this isn’t anywhere near as bad as we though he screwed because companies and people will be pissed they were forced to close over something that “could have been tested sooner etc.” Then again, he’s a “wartime president”. Don’t they always get re-elected?! :P It’s going to be interesting. People will vote with their “tip of the iceberg” wallets as they always do.

It looks to me like airlines, hotels, restaurants, cruise industry, travel industry, Boeing are all essentially bankrupt as of today. Most will not survive with no revenue if we do a soft lockdown that next 2-3 months. We know the government is going to try and bail some out. That is a tough thing for an investor to figure out (who the winners and losers are going to be). Didn’t work great for bank investors in 2008 (BAC and C); the companies survived but shareholders had their head handed to themselves. Shadow banking system might be the next shoe to fall... overleveraged companies. Oil and gas industry... Looks to me like their might be a real bifurcation in the market. A stock pickers market. 30% of companies weather the storm and 70% get shit kicked. Not great for ETF holders. Private equity would be my guess as a casualty. Another thing I noticed - treasuries were very weak today and interest rates have shot up. That rarely happens in such a down market. Is the financial system getting squeaky? If treasuries yields would explode upwards it would be game over, imo. Noticed that too - people have been saying even Treasury liquidity is off so people dumping what they can at what prices they can to get cash. Could it be the inflation scare of the House floating 2k/month payouts to every adult citizen and 1k/month for every child? If it passes, That's lots of f*cking money about to flood the system to a lot of people who don't really need it at a time when you dont have to spend it on the essentials (same bill allows deferral of ALL consumer and small business debt service like mortgages and credit cards and student loans w/ no penalties). I'm all for getting money into the hands of people who need it - but 4-8k/month for a household is A LOT and it sounds like it would be going to everyone regardless of immediate need. There has to be some amount of pain associated with handouts. I no more than 1-1.5k per household will cover rent for the majority of America. Anything else well, figure it out. I also think it should be some type of structured 0% interest loan with say 5 year repayment. 4K a month is massive raise for lower class, a good raise for middle class and 8k is a goddamn promotion for most people. That is insanity.

Why? What exactly did they do wrong? Let’s jack up the Capex on all of these companies so the already razor thin margins in the airline industry tighten even more and increase prices putting air travel back out of reach for the average American. The issue is 2008-09 is still fresh in many people's minds. Lots of ordinary people lost everything in the housing crash. Lots of big corporations got bailed out. Same thing looks to be happening again. Warren feels the scale is tipped too much one way. Lots of voters agree with her. I don’t disagree that lending should be sparingly and stringent. But you cross a line when you start mandating wages etc. There are simply better ways to structure this. They would be mandating wages if they take the offer. They don't have to take the offer. That's fair. The executives have "compensation consultants" to help them make more. Employees don't have that. You have to level the playing field. That’s not leveling the playing field. That’s straight up intervention and beyond. The business was fine before the pandemic. If you want to say “keep more cash on hand because next time you’re not getting a bailout” fine. Are you going to make that same mandate for every small business across the country? Ridiculous. A bailout is Intervention to begin with. I actually think the management should be booted in many cases. Heads on sticks do serve a purpose for a better future. #skininthegame. How can you mandate they pay a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage? That’s an attack on a specific industry and specific businesses. That’s not the function of government.

Why? What exactly did they do wrong? Let’s jack up the Capex on all of these companies so the already razor thin margins in the airline industry tighten even more and increase prices putting air travel back out of reach for the average American. The issue is 2008-09 is still fresh in many people's minds. Lots of ordinary people lost everything in the housing crash. Lots of big corporations got bailed out. Same thing looks to be happening again. Warren feels the scale is tipped too much one way. Lots of voters agree with her. I don’t disagree that lending should be sparingly and stringent. But you cross a line when you start mandating wages etc. There are simply better ways to structure this. They would be mandating wages if they take the offer. They don't have to take the offer. That's fair. The executives have "compensation consultants" to help them make more. Employees don't have that. You have to level the playing field. That’s not leveling the playing field. That’s straight up intervention and beyond. The business was fine before the pandemic. If you want to say “keep more cash on hand because next time you’re not getting a bailout” fine. Are you going to make that same mandate for every small business across the country? Ridiculous. The ordinary people that would bitch about a bailout would be the casualties. Retail/hospitality/airline/small business. Its not bankers and mortgage brokers this time. I’m all for the bailout of individuals with some type of temporary loan until the dust settles. I just think it’s disingenuous to use this as a power grab over “big bad business”. Airlines provide a shit ton of utility at razor thin margins. Not to mention they already operate under extreme regulations.

Why? What exactly did they do wrong? Let’s jack up the Capex on all of these companies so the already razor thin margins in the airline industry tighten even more and increase prices putting air travel back out of reach for the average American. The issue is 2008-09 is still fresh in many people's minds. Lots of ordinary people lost everything in the housing crash. Lots of big corporations got bailed out. Same thing looks to be happening again. Warren feels the scale is tipped too much one way. Lots of voters agree with her. I don’t disagree that lending should be sparingly and stringent. But you cross a line when you start mandating wages etc. There are simply better ways to structure this. They would be mandating wages if they take the offer. They don't have to take the offer. That's fair. The executives have "compensation consultants" to help them make more. Employees don't have that. You have to level the playing field. That’s not leveling the playing field. That’s straight up intervention and beyond. The business was fine before the pandemic. If you want to say “keep more cash on hand because next time you’re not getting a bailout” fine. Are you going to make that same mandate for every small business across the country? Ridiculous.

Why? What exactly did they do wrong? Let’s jack up the Capex on all of these companies so the already razor thin margins in the airline industry tighten even more and increase prices putting air travel back out of reach for the average American. The issue is 2008-09 is still fresh in many people's minds. Lots of ordinary people lost everything in the housing crash. Lots of big corporations got bailed out. Same thing looks to be happening again. Warren feels the scale is tipped too much one way. Lots of voters agree with her. I don’t disagree that lending should be sparingly and stringent. But you cross a line when you start mandating wages etc. There are simply better ways to structure this.

Why? What exactly did they do wrong? Let’s jack up the Capex on all of these companies so the already razor thin margins in the airline industry tighten even more and increase prices putting air travel back out of reach for the average American. Edit: either provide assistance with terms on the loan and let them handle it. Or don’t. You’re crossing the line when you try to dictate wages and all kinds of other political nonsense. Why not just buy out the airlines, convert it to a co-op and then handout copies of the Communist Manifesto? “Never let a good crisis go to waste!” Just another excuse to expand government control...

I hope she conveniently ends up on the no fly list for all the airlines.

Trading like a devil on steroids is the only thing that works now. BJ is up like almost 50% and their financials don’t even look that great. However, I don’t think they have to worry about renewals of their store leases all that much. Crazy times call for crazy measures :P

So much for the DAL floor at 45 :P

Same, was surprised it hit today.

He's like that about everything though. But I generally agree with what he was saying.

More infectious that H1N1 (24% global pop with .02% death rate) Less deadly than SARs (15% mortality rate compared to COVID-19 3.4%) Both of the above didn't receive vaccines or treatments for 8-9 months into the outbreak. SARs primarily was treated with antivirals and steroids. The vaccine was only available towards the end of the outbreak that was fizzling out on its own. For the medical experts on this forum. Why shouldn't we expect this to be somewhere in the middle? https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-deadly-is-the-coronavirus-compared-to-past-outbreaks#So,-when-will-things-calm-down-with-COVID-19?-

Exited UPS at 101

My view has shifted quickly as prices continue to come down. Cash cows are now at the tops of my list right now. BRK, GOOG, FB, TPL, etc. Airlines once we have more clarity and some of the medical device companies are beginning to look interesting as well. I also don’t understand this (imo) nonsensical argument that everyone will be permanently working from home after this passes. Office space is generally a very small fraction of OPEX for most companies. When this passes, people’s desire to “get out” will look like a champagne bottle blowing it’s top. If we avoid any type of major recession and job/pay loss that sentiment will remain high. Americans specifically are busy individuals. Cabin fever will begin setting in shortly and “Don’t shit where you eat.” will be the new religion a few months after this is over.