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scorpioncapital

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Posts posted by scorpioncapital

  1. what is considered too long duration for an insurance company's bonds? I am not entirely sure something like 4-5 years is so long but neither is it 0-2 years. presumably they will miss some delta between <= 5 years higher bond yields but on the other hand they are owning these bonds on a leveraged basis. So the loss, short of unexpected massive rate rises that are not expected, the loss should not be so huge.

  2. For me the higher and higher ownership of stock by the middle class either direct or via pension funds somewhat ensures a desire not to tank the market. What's the right balance and will an accident happen are the questions I am not sure about.

  3. There is a huge living arbitrage with work from home. Imagine someone being paid in USD by a US company for work done from their living space in say Thailand where their cost of living is 1/3 and they get 3x the luxury apartment. I think this is the lure of digital nomadism but also even expatriation abroad. 

     

     

  4. Main street can do well while capital markets go nowhere for a generation. It happened before. That's what pulling forward demand means.

    If you didn't make a killing since the Great Recession you will need to go to Main Street to make some money, not Wall Street, in the years ahead )

     

     

    Btw, a very good article explaining why Munger's BABA bet is very good one - https://themarket.ch/interview/louis-gave-a-hawkish-fed-could-provoke-an-equity-crash-ld.5727?mc_cid=429e1f79a0&mc_eid=93647a64ab

     

  5. Thank you. That is really inside intelligence!

    I guess in the USA and some European countries there are 20-30 year mortgages. I know in Canada they don't have it. Smart..because in a way the bank is a major loser if they have to fix by law 20-30 year mortgages. I do not know in the USA if a bank can do the same 'you do not qualify' gimmick..but then you have no loan volume growth and as I understand it banks in inflationary environment are somehow eager to lend? not sure why since they will get clobbered if they fix in a 20-30 year rate not knowing where things are heading.

  6. 8 hours ago, Kupotea said:

    Take VC investing. The average investment may be at 10x-100x sales or whatever but at the correct growth rate an investor can still make huge returns. To Gregmal's point there is no multiple too high and no multiple too low depending on the specific company in question.

     

    https://future.a16z.com/entry-multiples-dont-matter/

     

    Now the better question is can you reasonably forecast for massive growth? Many value investors would say that's too hard and so they stick to cigar butt investing. There's nothing inherently wrong with either approach as long as you're good at it.

     

    This is too extreme. Neither VC nor cigar butts are desirable for me. What's wrong with being balanced and doing GARP? Garp has been very successful for me with low risk. But my question was more about estimating IV and how wide a range it can be to trigger a purchase today. If I do a range analysis and it comes back $2000 to $4000, and the stock is at $2700, I should not expect a great return no matter how Sexy a business it is. I would have to be massively wrong.

  7. I am very confused about one point. Say you calculate the fair value (intrinsic value) of a stock to be $100. This incudes a discounted guess of future cash flows.

    Does it mean that I MUST buy the stock BELOW $100 if I want to receive *any* return at all? Or does it mean if I buy it at $100 I get only the growth from the profits based on ROIC? In other words, do I have to buy the stock at $50 to get a 20% return over 3.4 years (assuming it re-rates to IV in 3.5 years) or I can buy it at $100 and get say the 10% rate of return that is implied in the IV calculation?

  8. They say commodities do well in inflation because the commodity sale price goes up. Thinking oil. However I never see a discussion of the capex to get it out of the ground. Is the cost of the commodity going up so much higher than production costs? If not, all the claims that commodities do well in inflation seem misguided. I wonder if this is the case for all high capex businesses. It does seem to be true that commodities , metals, etc.. did well in the 70s-80s high inflation but did low capex stocks in fact do even better? Perhaps the issue is the price paid. Commodity stocks always seem to be cheap, so the risk is small to buy them even if they are bad businesses almost always. low capex stocks while superior might have been so expensive that no amount of buying them at a high p/e when p/e was compressing would give you a return? I see such a risk today. Great businesses but can't get into them so as to ensure a return. So maybe cheap high capex stocks are the next best thing?

  9. 14 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

    Yes, inflation and especially accelerating inflation is a really bad thing for insurers. It is even worse I’d interest rates remain suppressed and they can’t make up for more expensive (due to inflation) claims with higher investment income.

     

    Perhaps it differs with the insurer strategy? I know for example AIG has some equity and real estate and non government bonds in their portfolio. The majority is however government bonds which are leveraged say 2-3:1.  I imagine this means that to pay their claims the net levered investment income must be equal to the inflation rate but considering also the leverage and cost of float. 

  10. 18 hours ago, spartansaver said:

    Go through the 70's letters. Inflation wasn't great for insurers. From what I remember, they had a tough time keeping pricing up with claims. 

     

    I've read some articles that suggest it is sudden, unexpected inflation that is the problem for insurers. If the inflation is gradual, then the companies can price properly. A fast inflation increase can even bankrupt an insurer. But I do not know how rapid...for example is the current increase very rapid? Also it depends I suppose how long you've fixed your investment assets (duration of bond portfolio) and how much inflation you factored into your underwriting as a potential surprise.

  11. Ok, so why he owns such huge amount of high capex investments if inflation will clobber those businesses? Also is insurance considered high capex? For example, take something like Intel, a high capex business too but without government guarantees of profits. In the order of things I suppose utilities are better, or even telecom but just wondering why he owns these businesses at all if what he says about capex and inflation is true. Is it a case of he has set it up to win as exceptions to the rule due to some special ways he has figured out to go around this idea? I read he said inflation is a tapeworm that consumes capital just to maintain flat earning power. Doesn't sound like its something he would want to own.

  12. Watch this video 

     

    around 6min 30 seconds he says best inflation protection is your own earning power and a great business. He says NOT business with huge capital investment as you will get killed in inflation!

    Yet berkshire owns HUGE capital intensive railroads and utilities!

    Isn't he afraid he will get killed if inflation hits?

    He said it himself. you will get killed with high capex businesses!!

     

  13. would love to see a more in depth exploration of 'change in non-working capital' section. This is a poorly understood area of cash flow statements and can give clues to the quality of earnings . It often can cause substantial differences between the reality or fiction of some measures of free cash flow.

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