wescobrk

Senator Warren and Congresswoman AOC are trying to push legislation to ban all M&A until pandemic is over. M&A is already down over 33%. The FTC is still reviewing each M&A case. The FTC commissioner commented that is black and white thinking and would actually be more difficult for some small companies. With poison pills so easy to invoke, small companies aren't forced to be sold unless the shareholders vote on it. Also, if a company is struggling and may not make it without an acquisition, this would harm companies. I don't even understand how Warren and AOC would benefit from this politically as this seems to be difficult to describe the specifics with voters. Anyone on the board believe this is a good idea and can explain why it should be law until a vaccine?

I still don't understand why Warren and Charlie and Ajit just dial in from home and have an audio meeting along with the other directors.

If it takes 2 years (vaccine)as Bill Gates said "1-2 years" then it appears we may not have another annual meeting with him and Charlie until 2022, if ever, sadly, due to their age. I hope they both live to 2022.

it isn't a safety issue. Charlie and Agit can talk over the phone. Very disappointing. I guess the Jason Zweig interview of Charlie from a couple of weeks ago is all we are going to get this year unless something changes.

Agreed, not even having Charlie and Ajit on speaker phone? Wtf?

Wow, no Ajit either. Very strange.

What is the quickest way to look up who owns debt in public companies? Also, the entire capital structure? This will be something that will be more important as we see more filings over the next 18 months until a vaccine is found for companies that we might want to own some equity in for the possibility it isn't wiped out similar to GGP in 2009. Thanks.

They should do a longevity study with the Berkshire board members in their 90's. There are 3 currently and will be 4 in August! I wonder if there is any other company in the S&P 500 that has ANY board members that are 90 and up?

Most of the board probably remembers, but a few are probably forgetting he had a 3 hour interview in late Feb on CNBC with Becky Quick. He talked about the virus and how confident he is about a vaccine (because of Bill Gates) and he would be buying stocks if they went lower (as he has for the last 78 years). True, this was before the "lock-down" but we have heard from him but not since then. Also, he has said in the past after he comes out with the annual letter and does his CNBC appearance that he wants to wait until the annual meeting to discuss questions about economy, Berkshire, etc, as he wants the shareholders to hear first. It really is only an 8 week time period that he is incommunicado. My guess is he did very little buying because it all happened so quick and also that he thought it would get cheaper. He has mentioned more than once if he would have waited longer after Sep of 08 he would have been able to buy a lot cheaper. As for all of his talk about not timing, I heard a lot of regret in his voice when he mentioned that he wasn't buying in Jan, Feb and first 8 days in March. Buybacks are probably de minimis but maybe his line in the annual report a few institutions took him up on that and sold him some cheap Berkshire stock. I would take the under if there is a bet of him deploying more than $15 billion of the cash and my guess is the Berkshire buybacks are less than $5 billion. We we will see in about 10 days and hear directly from him. I really hope he doesn't truncate the meeting as one board member intimated based on the comment from Carol Loomis to the board member. This will be the most interesting Berkshire meeting since he took over in 1965. We can't really count the 73-74 as less than 10 people were going to Berkshire meetings then. Well, the financial crisis was pretty damn interesting so this meeting and the 09 meeting are probably the most interesting to get his and Munger's take. Why would he truncate this one? Yes, everyone will be logging in from Yahoo but his audience, I'm betting, will be at record levels since most of the country (excluding Georgia and a handful of others) will still be on lockdown and won't have much else to do.

I bought a small amount near the intraday low in case the judge does enforce it. Agreed about it being a scumbag move.

Any risk arbs have a good background in "ordinary course covenant?" If so, do you think the L Brands deal will go through? The shares dropped more than 20% today. PE firm buying it is arguing L Brands violated that clause when it closed stores due to Covid. L Brands is arguing its behavior is consistent with other businesses due to the pandemic.

USO will have 8 to 1 reverse split on April 28th. How will this affect puts and calls?

thanks for the idea. I told someone about this only buying front contract back in 2009 and I forgot about it. I was able to get a little in for my wife's account but I'm blocked to purchase or short or do options due to my current employer, ugh!

Article in FT today saying USO is taking (I believe) 20% of its fund and buying longer out futures contracts. Does that change your conviction always drawing?

Are there any other etfs that is doing what USO is doing? I started to put a order on USO 30 seconds before the close yesterday but I didn't get it in before close.

I don't usually post political related posts but I couldn't resist this one. AOC is loving this, too! She is cheering on the industry going up in flames (for other reasons, of course). http://archive.is/oNYR7

I wonder if it will not be 5.5 hours like the last several decades?

Nothing new but Marks is getting louder about how the market is overvalued https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/20/widely-followed-investor-howard-marks-says-the-stock-market-rebound-is-not-reflecting-reality.html

I feel like you are assuming everyone will go to a dallas cowboys game on april 27th. Removing the stay at home order does not mean people will just go back to their old behaviors and R0 will go back to what it was. A very realistic way these states will open is, Businesses will open but have a limit on the number of customers at a time. Everyone will wear a mask. Still no large gatherings but at least most of the economy will be allowed to restart. The R0 will be much much lower than it was in New York 5 weeks ago. Don't have a number, but it's just common sense. how do i know that's a realistic path? Because Europe is already doing it. I live in Poland, and i go for groceries wearing a mask (mandatory here), and keep my distance from people. I disinfect what I can when I get home. I consider the probability of me getting infected under my current behavior as quite low. the vast majority of the other people I see are practicing the same precautions and I anticipate the R0 rate in Poland to collapse in the coming weeks. America just hasn't gotten the mask idea, but they will. April 27 is still 9 days away. things move quickly these days. Well I'm speculating to some degree as even the medical professionals don't know the course of the pathogen. My point is everything seems to be priced for almost perfection in the equity markets. The probability is higher than the market is pricing in for a 2nd wave. It isn't pricing anything in for a more virulent mutation. Look at the 1918 pathogen. The 2nd wave was more deadly than the first. I hope I am wrong and the cases stay low and don't increase. I just don't see it happening unless a therapeutic comes out in the fall that is 95% effective. A vaccine is at least 18 months away.

Texas governor announced he wants to reopen around April 27th-May1st (in phases). This will be a good "test" case for the country. Great use of pun here as Texas doesn't have access to reliable testing. This will most likely result in hospitals beyond capacity in the summer causing Texas to close again in the summer. Maybe the market will decrease again once we see the results of Texas. The current market levels don't make a lot of sense to me. Yes, the latest drug from Gilead shows promise for those in the severe stage but it does nothing to limit the spread and it is far from conclusive.

My SPY puts the past couple of days looks idiotic. 2800 on the S&P doesn't make sense to me with the change in consumer spending going forward. The medical experts say 12-18 months at the very earliest. It seems the market is just looking at this as a 60 day pause. It over shoots on the way down and way up though.

SPY puts

Anyone on this board own their own RIA? If so, who do you use as a custodian? I've considered using interactive brokers but I have heard they are difficult to get the account setup and the assets transferred. The prospective clients that I will be contacting aren't very tech savvy, I don't want them just saying "forget it" out of frustration if it is a hassle. I'm thinking of using Schwab as I've heard even people that don't know technology can setup the account and do a transfer. I'm not considering TD as once the merger goes through they will probably push everyone to Schwab anyway. I've heard Fidelity is fine but not as easy to use as Schwab. Thanks!

How many are concerned about the amount of unemployment insurance is higher than a lot of jobs that people are losing their job from? Why would someone go back to work when we reopen and risk their life working at Walmart when they can stay home and watch netflix? Munger always talks about how important incentives are.

I'm going out on a limb and predicting a preferred deal with warrants by Berkshire in the next 30-60 days. Not a controversial comment. The interesting question is which sector? Airlines is probably near the top.