Dinar

Houses for $1.8-$1.9MM in Millburn and Ridgewood still get 6-7 bids within a week of listing.

I agree with you, with one caveat. Germany's military budget is $56bn, so if it increased aid to Ukraine to E 15bn per annum, then it is spending not a couple of percent of its military budget but more like 28-30%.

So what? Russia + Ukraine + Belarus would still be weaker than the European members of NATO. Again, Germany and France are NATO countries, so US is obligated to defend them and so is UK. You still have not explained why even if Russia wins in Ukraine, it can threaten NATO countries! What gives you the confidence that an average American will prefer to help Ukraine rather than have an extra $1000-$2000 in his family's pocket? By the way, again, please explain why Russia's victory in Ukraine is a threat to US interests? I do not understand why this is so! Just because something passes Congress does not mean man on the street supports it, and if the people do not support it, Congress will follow the people. @cubsfan Please explain how Russia can take any of its European neighbors even if it wins in Ukraine? All of them, except for Moldova are members of NATO, so you see Russia able to defeat NATO?

Why would they be nuts? They are all NATO countries....

I wish that you were right, but I am afraid that your support for Ukraine blinds you to how unpopular supporting Ukraine is in Europe and US. I cannot imagine for a moment that the French who are protesting the increase in the pension age or Germans who are on strike today would be willing to sacrifice E 100bn to support Ukraine for the next 3-5 years. What gives you that confidence? In the US, I have not seen any reliable poll done of what support for Ukraine is. I can promise you that the support Ukraine gets in my circle of Ivy League educated friends is matched by visceral opposition to helping Ukraine from far more numerous porters, doormen, supers, barbers and other working class folk.

you are subtracting interest twice, ffo is post interest

Under what conditions do you expect 7-10% financing rates? What do you expect to get them there? Why not 10-20%?

That's why Spain was an economic basket case for centuries

Greg, why do you think that prices will go up from here or am I misinterpreting your comment? Thank you.

Gundlach thinks that levered loans are a terrible deal right now.

They used to have a very large commercial real estate loan book, and they were considered not to be very good underwriters...

https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/notices/information-notice-020321 I think that you are mistaken. I think that options generally expire on a Saturday (following the third Friday of the month), so while many brokerage firms may have Friday cut-offs, if the OCC says that the cut-off is Saturday 4:30 pm CT, then you should assume that your option can get exercised on Saturday at 5pm EST. After all, if I am a hedge fund with $5bn at GS prime, I am highly confident that GS will accommodate me and exercise at 5 pm EST on Saturday, if news came out Saturday in the morning.

You should check with your broker. Because if the broker has to notify option clearing corporation by Saturday afternoon, then I guarantee you that for an important client, a firm will take requests up to last minute.

You can cut the host of college education by 80% without taking away liberal arts. Here is how: a) Get rid of government student loans, which will cost most universities to gut bureaucrats. Harvard has more administrators than professors. b) Professors at places like Harvard/Yale/NYU teach 3 classes 12 weeks a year. Divide the year into 3 12 week periods like at Stanford, and make professors teach 3 classes 36 weeks a year. Voila! 50%+ cost savings c) So suddenly tuition + room & board goes from $80K per year, to $30-40K. Also, now with 3 12 week semesters rather than two, college can be done in 2.5 years. So cost goes from $320K to $75-100K.

Well, that's unfortunate. There is something to be said for core curriculum and being well-rounded. I think physics majors should read Plato and philosophy majors should know who Emmy Noether and Paul Dirac were, as well as be familiar with Rontgen

They are clearly worse off than people in Singapore, as for China, I am not so sure. Something about arbitrary arrests and zero rule of law is not terribly appealing....

You just jealous cause Bruce is a creative accountant and you aint!

Yes, some. However, the losses on mortgages (actual, not mortgage backed securities) have not been recognized, and those are still carried at par. Also, I think the commercial loan book is very vulnerable to an economic slowdown and declines in the value of office buildings. If I were to back a horse, I would go with JPM. Dimon is worth his weight in platinum. Demchak at PNC is supposedly quite good. I would focus either on franchise - do they own a wealth management business, or insurance brokerage, or something like that, or whether you have a guy like Dimon in charge. Or may be one of those ethnic banks that lend to Chinese/Korean immigrants.

@Viking, why do you think BAC benefits? Sure, it will probably get more deposits, but I believe that the bank lost an incredible amount of money on long term treasuries, mortgage backed securities and regular mortgages. It's tangible equity on a mark to market basis divided by total assets is very low. I think that its net income margin will probably come under pressure due to consumers wising up to higher rates, and going after CDs & money markets. I also think that the commercial loan book is about to come under pressure as the economy weakens, and have you looked at their exposure to office loans? Same questions can be applied to Citibank and Wells Fargo. GS & MS are completely different animals, but have you looked at their balance sheet, particularly liabilities? What happens if credit spreads on their paper widen out 200 basis points, which is probably reasonable given CS?

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2023/03/how-many-banks-are-in-danger.html According to the academic paper this guy cites, $2 trillion of losses across the banking sector. I bet they ain't at JP Morgan! Also, losses may be understated since loans are not being marked to market, only marketable securities.

Just because you want the poor to stay poor does not mean the rest of us want to! I would be delighted if everyone around me prospered.

I think the key question is whether the business model just got upended? 39% of deposits here are non-interest bearing, and average interest rate paid on deposits was 1.11% in Q4. What happens if people realize that they can now get close to 5% on T-bills? If interest rates on deposits have to rise by 300 basis points, the bank makes zero profit. Normally banks fall because people worry about credit quality, a situation where the insiders have an edge. This is modeling behavior shift by customers, very hard to predict. Also, I find their credit quality to be mediocre. 1.86% of their loans are criticized loans, which in my opinion, is insanely high given the low interest rates they charge on the loans (5-5.5%) and the health of the economy. What happens in a recession? Charlie, what am I missing? You are not a dummy, what siren draws you here?

Have you marked loans to market? Being long a 30 year 3% mortgage is not the same as being long a T-bill. I think if you mark to market the loan book, the bank is insolvent.

The biggest risk to this country in my opinion, is complete disrepect for work and normalization of welfare. Welfare started as aid to widows with children during the Great Depression. It used to be shameful to shop with food stamps, now it is an accepted practice. I will gladly pay taxes so that kids from poor neighborhoods are protected from crime and go to good schools. I do NOT want to pay tax so that: a) Welfare, Medicaid, free housing, free phones, free food & other benefits are given out to those who refuse to work but continue to breed b) NYC spends $40K per pupil per year on education, of which $10K reaches the school, and $30K is consumed by central bureaucracy

Perhaps, is 445bn in VC funding only for tech, or for biotech as well? also look on the other side of the coin: a) All of these companies carry a lot of deadwood, Meta fired 13% of employees last year, and will fire another 13% this year. That's 20K employees, say at $400K per employee, that's $8bn in annual expenses just for Meta, holding comp per employee flat. b) Compensation is absurd, with 500K-1MM per year comp packages being a frequent occurrence, and many making even more - looking at you Salesforce. Say GOOG/META/MSFT/CRM et all cut 200-300K jobs, companies like Docusing/Wayfair, et all fire another 50-300K workers and comp per employee can decline 30% as well. So say comp per employee also get cut by 30% or $120K. So that's another $7bn for Meta. So Meta can cut $15bn of costs without much difficulty? Google's employee count swelled since 2017, why? What are those 50K+ people doing? At say $500K per head, that's $25bn, add to that savings on the rest of the staff, and between the two you have $50bn of savings?