wescobrk

The companies that have strong balance sheets and are in the cyclical sector have huge risk/reward right now. Anyone want to share any ideas in casino, food, etc?

Should have more opportunities this week. Futures are limit down.

Anyone know of a few good sites for intelligent analysis on the pound vis a vis the dollar for this year? I know a few people that have money in England that are thinking about bringing it over to the states due to their concern about Brexit. Thanks!

Does anyone remember during the financial crisis the lowest point relative to book value? I believe today we are only about 20 billion away or about 5% drop from here. Forgot the former metric of 1.2x book we are almost below book.

I think I'm reading Whitney Tilson's weekly email for comedy now. The man actually wrote yesterday the coronavirus is the most irrational thing he has ever seen. It makes me bullish of being able to profit from idiotic behavior even when someone graduated in the top 5% of his class at Harvard Business School and has been to every Berkshire and Wesco meeting for more than 20 years. This guy says Tesla will go below $100 (wtf?) and every week how more sure he is of Tesla to the coronavirus to the most irrational thing he has ever seen from how it is impacting markets. No wonder all of his investors left and now he is a writer.

We are still only around 15% down. More downside to go. At least another 10%.

I don't know if this is a stupid way of doing it, but out of intellectual curiosity, if one were to short the long treasury, is buying long term puts on TLT a stupid idea for a small position?

Tomorrow should be interesting. Futures down 4%. Should see Berkshire B around 197. Market is only down 12% from the peak so this takes it to 16% still not at a bear market. Prices should get even cheaper. If Berkshire breaks 180 then that looks pretty cheap.

I'm reading the book and Medallion was managing $5 billion I believe up to 2005 then it went up to $10 billion but Simons doesn't allow anything beyond $10 billion as it can't scale beyond that. I've heard the returns on all the other funds are average-ish (certainly less than Buffett). It hasn't been reported Buffett is being judged on a market cap of $500 billion whereas Simmons is managing $10 billion (he distributes the profits every year). How the hell can you compare $10 billion to $500 billion? Plus, Buffett's is after tax and Simmons is pretax plus all of Simmons gains are short term (the irs ruled that way as he only holds for a few days although Simmons did appeal it).

Any opinions on what strike price to start considering for S&P 500 puts? Maybe Nasdaq Q's as well? Instead of railway car loadings maybe a more important (obviously not most important one) is looking at consumer confidence and higher end spending once it starts to decline. Obviously, the distortions and false positives are the difficult part.

Next week should be interesting. Trump is the greatest gift for traders.

Buffett has said if interest rates stay where they are over a long period of time then stocks are very cheap. My question is if the 10 yr Treasury goes negative in the near future, for those that understand this bizarre world of people laying money out now to governments to receive less in the future, in this type of world would logic not dictate that equities are then ridiculously cheap? Is is that easy to answer the question, correctly?

I remember reading this a couple of years ago but I didn't write down the source. Does anyone recall the source? Is it as something small as 4 or 5% of companies contributes more than 90% of return for S&P 500 for last several decades? I did a quick search but couldn't find the source. Thanks.

Has anyone on this board seen the show Succession on HBO? These people are so disgusting yet I can't stop watching. The first few episodes were a little slow but it is definitely entertaining but half the time I wonder why I watch such disgusting characters, I guess it is the business talk that keeps me watching.

Anyone care to share their best ideas to profit from increasing volatility and a slowdown in the United States (and world) economy sometime in the next 2 years beside leaps on the S&P? Thanks.

"Note that Biglari has been buying BH and BH/A shares in his personal accounts recentl" Are you sure they are in his "personal" accounts? I thought the filing showed it was from Lion Fund 2 which is owned by BH shareholders.

At where it closed today, I think it is around 1.25 book reasonably projected for year end? It if closes lower again then we are pretty close to the 1.2. Looks like getting close to an all in on Berkshire?

I know there have been a million written already, but it seems as though virtually all of them quote Buffett and provide reference where they are quoting him, but they don't get permission to use his quotes except for the book from Cunningham. I suppose my question has answered itself, in that an author doesn't have to get permission to quote him as long as he provides the proper reference, right?

I watched part of the 94 meeting. I'm looking forward to watching all of them over the coming months. I noticed he was a lot more guarded in the 90's with stocks they are buying. Buffett talks about what he is buying and selling all the time now (Apple and IBM) whereas in 94 he wouldn't even talk about what he likes about Wrigley in case they might buy it in the future.

Has anyone ever been to an Amazon annual meeting? I'm guessing it is very brief and nothing like Berkshire?

Interesting, how much more did they buy in 2017?

What is best guess estimate of Berkshire's book value they will report in a couple of weeks?

me as well, thanks!

Anyone care to voice opinion on probability of CVS and AT&T deal going through for a risk arb play? Maybe 75% for CVS and 50% for Time Warner?

What is the closest thing to Fairfax back in 2007 to make money on the way down but not utilizing puts of the S&P? I don't want to have a clock running as a put would.