scorpioncapital

sell aggresively if you have debt. sell if you think you were just lucky. sell if you find something better or to consolidate 2-3 positions into 1 high conviction, stronger peer. sell if you get bored by what you hold. sell if you don't sleep well.

seems Berkshire is a total play on unexpected inflation. short of some unknown relatively cheap growth at a reasonable price business they can acquire , what else will cause outperformance but a sudden event where money becomes valuable again due to rising interest rates ?

biotech is in a bubble just as big as ev and fuel cells..I've had some 300-800% gainers in less than 6 months which is obviously insane. "A lot of times, SPACs trade up on announcement of a merger not even the approval" even more than that , I've seen spacs trade to 11 or 12 from 10 IPO even before announcement of anything at all! (eg cmlf).

i had it, no problem, just 2 weeks of some bed rest, as i would do with any other cold/flu. your conclusion is way out of proportion to statistical reality.

Well the governments of almost every country has been subsidizing real estate with a variety of programs and benefits for decades, it's time for stock investors to get some of that love too right? )

where is the bulletpoint for "never"?

Is it? How can we separate low rates by growth rate? Would tech growth rate be reduced by higher rates enough to make a difference, since higher rates also reduce value stock business prospects? The only explanation I can think of why Berkshire would outperform in higher rate environment is just cash which will be more valuable and some businesses like financials or utilities that may make more money in a counter-cyclical kind of way.

The double taxation treaty does not reduce the tax to the correct amount. It just standardizes it to a flat say 15%. If your tax rate would have been lower , some may be recoverable on a tax return or maybe not. Usually you want a low withholding tax but I'm under no illusion that the treaty reduces the tax to the proper amount, just makes having to collect anything above a threshold much easier.

", a broke generation (Millennials), a" - and what do broke people do in Socialist countries? - steal your stuff! Expect taxes to rise dramatically.

Does anyone know where to find the cnbc Malone interview nov 2020 full length? It was on cnbc pro for like 24 hours after for free and then went paid. I wish I knew that as only saw a few minutes into it )

Unfortunately Canada is one of the few countries in the world with an exit tax at all and of those that have it , it kicks in at a paltry 100k canadian. As such they have locked the doors while starting the fire. It is crucial if you have capital to move residency before you are rich or before you invest. Or..alternatively when there is a crash. 2020 was an excellent year to take up residency in Europe , for example if you have an EU passport or take advantage of one of their programs. 1/3 of the EU countries have zero or very low capital gains tax in one form or another. The key is to do it before. And I see a high chance Canada is going to be desperate and go for confiscation

Quite a few 'aggregate' operations. the japanese stocks and pharma come to mind, and the airlines before that. It seems they do this when they think some area is interesting but are not 100% sure of the best name to own in concentrated form, yet think they know enough not to own a broad sector index.

The benefits of wealth inequality are exactly the negatives of communism. However when you get tyrants to capture the state as you see even today in eastern europe, even without communism you get a kind of very unequal crony capitalism/oligarchs.

why is he selling down financials? will they be depressed a long time? is it a view on chronically lower interest rates ?

Perhaps we are all wrong but it's possible the next shoe to drop will be massively jacked up interest rates and then game over for a lot of debt-model business model players - including governments. I wonder if this will happen in our lifetime.

Not if you renounce your permanent residency or citizenship. If you have permanent residency you 100% have a 2nd passport. If you renounce the citizenship you may have a 2nd one (e.g. European heritage). If your estate is under something like 2 million there is also no capital gains tax on unrealized gains.

And how did Volker erase decades and years of mistrust? I mean in countries like Greece or Argentina you have serial default for their entire history, one after the other but far enough apart that old incidents are forgotten. I would say a short memory does more to clear distrust (temporarily) than any action by a harsh central banker. Even still you would expect average rates to be permanently higher the more such incidents exist.

If many insurers own government bonds and the Fed promises to hold rates below inflation, the liabilities of these companies certainly don't have this guarantee. I see the risk of your 'run of the mill' insurer that they have escalating liabilities and declining investment income. This is why I see BRk and MKL outperform somewhat, they have far more equity like backup to pay their liabilities. There is also the issue of how fast you can release reserves that become part of your equity base and not depend on your 'credit card'.

I'm scratching my head because I think snowflake IPOs at 25-30 billion market cap? And the financials do not look to justify this price in any shape at the moment.

Excellent post. I would also say that for those parts of society/government that can go bankrupt or have no printing press there is a very real risk of reduced quality of life. Usually this creeps on through user fees, more aggressive 'penalties' for all kinds of daily transgressions you may not even know you had done. Sometimes higher direct taxation. In a crisis, how much can a government squeeze its residents before they start cheating? Actually you see a lot of black market and corruption in some countries because people have lost faith in the government. Not just lies or policy, but too high costs, low services, and insufficient incomes.

I like these articles - https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/this_time_is_different_short.pdf , https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/sovereign-bonds-waterloo Growth and innovation require investments (lately by governments because the state seems to have really taken over). Interest rates are low. These investments may reduce the need for full default. I feel it's unlikely some default to creditors of money won't happen as the debt is growing faster than the growth and innovations. Geography is often destiny. There are some real banana republics out there but they have great weather. They will always be desirable. Politicians and powerful people often tax labour, sales taxes, service fees first and at high rates and reserve privileges for themselves on business, corporate, and investment taxation. This philosophy may be changing but... In a global competitive world where capital is mobile and countries don't mind to perpetuate these anti-good for the human race economic structures (look at the regressive taxes and oligarchs in so many countries) what can one do? Capital controls, exit taxes, restrictions on travel or even living abroad (ahem, Covid )? Has debt helped more citizens of a country than in countries that don't spend so much on their people? Are some social goals for the vast majority (even if it doesn't affect you but costs you higher taxes actually) worth accepting? What is the right balance? Lots of interesting questions. I find it strange thought that governments have taken such a big role for debt and investment. Why is it individuals and private business aren't taking on the debt themselves? Or if they have, why is so much more public debt needed?

Throughout the history of nations it's been a combination of growth, default (inflation, financial repression, pension cuts), taxes and austerity (service cuts). I don't expect any difference going forward. A combination of all of the above.

a lot will depend on someone's age, job, risk profile. Having recovered from covid earlier this year I cannot say it was much different than recovering from a flu or cold in any other year , and I never got a vaccine before. Unpleasant? sure. annoying? absolutely. But unless you have a job or risk that is out of the wide spectrum of normality I see no need for it. I feel that covid vaccine is more of a 'stockpile psychological' situation. The fact people believe something exists, they will be more confident. It's almost like the Fed jawboning. Just threatening to do something often is enough to get the intended result.

6. Interest rates are not really that low. I mean they appear low for the government and perhaps for margin traders but have you looked at the interest rates for personal lines of credit, for actual company issuance of debt, and for mortgages? They are most certainly not 0 or 1%. I would say corporate debt is actually being issued around 4-7% (a large spread between golden borrowers and average borrowers).

"socialism + capitalism--clearly works better for things like healthcare" - disagree 100%. In the end, the issue is that there are lots of people with money. Not necessarily alot of money, like the billionaires using offshore trusts or protected by countries that don't tax them much, but just average run of the mill people middle class. That segment has enough money to want to pay for more than 'basic service'. Sure have the basic service. But I know socialist -capitalist countries that ideologically do not want any providers that offer service+. That would be 'unfair' to waiting in line and one year wait times. In these countries you often have to go to the USA or Europe that have an actual hybrid private -public system and don't take ideological stance about it. Large private hospitals and they even treat in public hospitals private customers.