Sweet

Maybe the UK used to permit high skill immigration, and restrict low skill immigration, but definitely not recently.

Anyone looked at natural gas as a potential play? I’m probably not going to take any position but I have been looking at it. Reasons: - It’s at close to rock bottom prices with the excess storage and milder than normal weather - mostly in Europe. - It will take time for the the storage to normalise, but natural gas is in demand and that is likely to increase as we transition to cleaner energy. The trouble is how to actually make a play for this. Those products that try to tracks the futures are crap IMO. Many of the companies that produce gas are also oil companies so it’s hard to get a pure natural gas play. I remember at the bottom of covid you could pick up LEAPS on oil companies with premiums that were incredibly low - silly actually - and I wonder if such opportunities exist right now.

Lots of other countries have widespread gun ownership, but something about mass shootings, and murder rates in the USA that is sort of unique to Western countries. Plenty of other countries with much higher murder rates than the US, but normally countries run by gangs. I understand the pro-gun side, why should responsible owners give up their guns. But I also think that if they are to keep their guns some sensible restrictions are going to be necessary. Nobody with priors for serious crimes, or someone with certain types of mental illness, should ever own a gun. There is bound to be some laws that a large majority can get behind.

Scumbag. Plenty of them everywhere.

I see what you mean. So rather than a recession, just a period of sideways GDP both up and down. I think that’s possible and I fear it could on for many years.

I don’t understand the Nintendo thing either. For me that’s an avoid.

Q3 of 22, Q4 of 22, and likely Q1 of 23 have positive growth. I don’t think we should be trying to redefine what a recession to fit particular arguments.

It’s been considered a Russian disinformation org for a very long time, and I’ve ignored it for a very long time now.

I agree John. I had the opportunity to buy Visa and MasterCard in 2014, I was exposed to a guy who was as betting heavily on options on both companies going into earnings. They just kept going up and his bets kept coming off. I was fascinated by the companies, but back then my excuse for not owning them was because they looked expensive and I was waiting for a pull back. I had only been investing a few years so high PE companies scared me back then. One of my biggest mistakes was not buying MA when I had free cash to do so. The benefit of hindsight. I need to be more open to these companies and position size accordingly. I’m missing out too often.

Apple Pay. I use it almost exclusively now. If Apple had their own card I’d see it as a risk to both MA and Visa. I posted a topic in this a while ago: https://thecobf.com/forum/topic/19573-can-the-visa-and-mastercard-moat-be-bridged/#comment-480798 I don’t see how Apple doesn’t go after this segment of business eventually.

Agree but I see disruption coming potentially. I’ve always had a reason not to buy these companies and it’s always been a mistake. Probably no different this time.

I don’t think it’s possible to understand the traders. I’ve seen commentary that the futures market has increased oil price volatility recently rather than reducing it. Huge swaths of the market is just speculation and evidence for that view is large swings in prices despite little to no change in fundamentals. That’s also appears to be why the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank seemed to be correlated with oil prices, risk off means traders reducing their exposure.

Recently they started saying ‘could be difficult’ never stipulated before. I don’t think them buying right now would cause a large increase in price, currently oversupplied, and basically many future months are within their range. I’ll not be surprised if they never buy more, I think both parties were of the view the SPR was too big.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think it was obvious they were never going to provide oil a bid, especially because of the extraordinary measures they took to reduce price.

London prices are insane, so insane that I don’t think it’s sensible to buy a house there. Most would have a much higher quality of life moving away. It’s NYC level.

Yeh, I straight up disagree with that take. I don’t think I have anything useful to add that basically hasn’t been covered. I don’t see a duped or gormless Powell that you do.

Complacency I think is the best reason for banks not managing their interest rate risk well. There are some examples of managers of JPM and IB managing that risk very well. Part of this is messaging too, these banks got complacent because low rates is what they were used to. The Fed should have been warning against such complacency but telegraphing they rates will inevitably rise at some point.

Isn’t the real problem that the rates were at near zero for so long, and that some banks didn’t understand interest rate risk? And isn’t the cause the covid lockdowns and the Treasury writing a cheque to everyone? Powell is given a mandate by Congress, one of which is an inflation target, and he has only a few levers to pull. He sat on his hands for a few months thinking inflation would go away and it didn’t - and got criticised for doing so. Even after these supposedly historic rate rises we are only at 4%. Banks can be the safest they have ever been AND you can still have these problems, it’s not mutually exclusive. I don’t think Powell has done a good job and I don’t think he has done a bad job. He’s just done the job his role is mandated. He is responding to a problem largely made in by policy makers, although he should be blamed for sitting at near zero for so long.

Powell is getting a bad rap, but many of the problems are those he inherited. Policy makers and central bankers kept rates at near zero for nearly 15 YEARS. Some of those years rates needed to be low but not for 15 years. Lawmakers shut the economy down for covid, and handed out free money to everyone to just go buy whatever, a double whammy for inflation. Now everyone is freaking out because interest rates are 4 and a bit percent?

It’s like everybody just found out that banks don’t always hold all the cash necessary to cover every deposit, and that some deposits are not insured. None of this is new information but it has caused a freak out. It’s potential problem that some banks are sitting in large mark to market losses but that’s only a problem if deposits are rapidly pulled.

I don’t know the answer, but investopedia says: “public holders of option contracts must indicate their desire to exercise no later than 5:30 p.m. [Eastern Time] on the business day preceding the expiration date.” Which would indicate no they cannot exercise the option after hours on the date of expiry.

OK, which COBF member was this: ”I feel like a sucker’: I bought stock for $18 after an IPO. The underwriter’s brokerage house had a $30 price target. It fell below $1. How could they get it so wrong?” https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-feel-like-a-sucker-i-bought-stock-for-18-after-an-ipo-the-underwriters-brokerage-house-had-a-30-price-target-it-fell-below-1-how-could-they-get-it-so-wrong-2daa9e5c?mod=the-moneyist

Of course. I’m not referring to the quality difference between XLE and XOP and how that affects how oil companies track oil prices. Rather the belief that energy companies must move in lock step with oil. If companies are managed well, they should disconnect from oil prices relative to the companies characteristics. I think we are saying the same thing.

Yes, a new government may not be kind. As attractive as the yield is, I think it’s sorta of a too good to be true yield.

Never noticed this before. Is that even real? There has to be a catch.