Ross812

We have been taking the lockdowns seriously since 12 March and are more than a little stir crazy. Fortunately we can both work from home and are in recession resistant industries. We have been getting take out and coffee twice a week and leaving a 50% to 100% tip trying to help out and show our appreciation for those still working semi public facing jobs. On the portfolio side - 401ks and IRAs are ugly at 70/30 stocks to bonds :'(. The money management side has been a lot better - I have about 25% of our money along with a small group of money invested for retirees and near retirees. I've been using a CD/Bond strategy combined with long term SPX options for a few years now. The options this go around were a bust (-4%) but the account is up 4% since January due to some individual bond trading and cycling some ETFs. It looks like I may be making a few small bets with DITM options and selling puts etc. I will say - I never appreciated the amount of time you will spend talking to investors when the markets plummet. I can't imagine managing 20+ peoples money.

You were right, the NAV as of the close yesterday was $48 and it traded between $44.5 and $45.5. It seems like a pretty low risk way to make 5 to 6% in short order as the price of the ETF converges on NAV once selling pressure subsides.

Yeah, I am really confused. I have checked every one of the bonds i can find and they seem healthy. I bought sold MINT and bought more NEAR at $44.8.

This is down 7.45% today... Is there a major bankruptcy I don't know about? I looked through the holdings and can't figure it out.

The news on this is not going to get better in the next few days. I have spent about 5% of cash on hand. I am waiting until S&P 2000 or when cases stop increasing exponentially. It is going to look really bad once they start getting more test kits. In my city, you cannot get a test even if you have flu like symptoms and a negative flu test. I have three friends in this camp right now.

I also cycled out of some USMV to VOO.

JPM, V, BRK-B, and KMI today.

So I've been buying SPX leaps and in CDs and MINT etc. for the last few years. I have been trailing the market by about 5%. So I've been 96-97% bonds 3-4% options. I started transitioning a little into equities today. Dipped my toe in with some JPM, KMI, WFC, and BRK-B. 3% total purchase. I think this has more room to go. S&P 2000 i'll be buying a lot more.

I use MINT in my investment accounts for cash. In personal accounts I used to use only Ally and Chase. Now I've switched to SoFi and USB. I like how SoFi has bundled savings/checking into a hybrid account paying 1.6% right now as opposed to sweeping money for yearly taxes and insurance etc. to a savings account at Ally. I am shaking my head a little thinking about the amount of effort I will go through to switch accounts to make an extra $250-$300 a year...

To be fair, the SEC yield is pretty meaningless for VTABX because the majority of bonds it holds pay annually in December. The SEC yield is based on the last payment of 0.0207 paid on 8/1 projected over the year. Last December's payment was 0.438. The SEC yield will be 20% plus in December ;-) .

6 inch metal ducting for the main lines and flexible hose drops. I used metal instead of PVC because I had some interesting turns to get through the truss webs in the ceiling and 6 inch PVC bends don't come in enough variants to make it work. Not having to worry about static is nice too. To add to the offtopic discussion have a 3HP cyclone myself. What HP is your dust collector? Are you sure that ducting wont collapse? Traditional HVAC ducting is typically too thin and will collapse. 3 HP as well with a thein separator ducted to the outside. I wanted a cyclone, but couldn't fit it in. I went back and forth but the heavy stuff from oneida is really expensive. I went for it after I found this: https://www.lumberjocks.com/topics/87690 I rotated my seams and used 30 ga straight, 26 ga elbows, and 28 ga wyes. No problems with collapse or even any ovaling of the duct with all the blast gates closed. I didn't try slamming the gates shut like he did though! I wanted to run 6" all the way to my table saw and used a semi-rigid flex duct for the final 6 feet and it held up fine through my first project. It was $13 instead of $50 but more importantly, was available the day I wanted to test my DC system for the first time. I'll replace it if/when it breaks. Nice Ok. I went back and forth myself but ended up doing 6" DWV PVC, A little more resistance but works well. And yes oneida is prohibitively expensive. Mind me asking what makes/machines you have? Happy or not with them? -DC is a 3 HP Grizzly. I like it except it trips the GFCI about 1/10 times when I turn it off. I think it has to do with the motor generating electricity when it spins down and poor grounding. My whole garage is fed with a 60A GFCI breaker to protect the entire subpanel. I have to get to the bottom of it. -Table Saw is a Delta 36-725. It is a good machine but getting the fence aligned perfectly from side to side has been a pain. -Bosch router and home made table works great. -Dewalt planer works fine -Miter saw - Kobalt 10 inch slider - awful machine. Its ok for rough work, but is almost unusable for the picture frames I'm making right now due to the slop. I sold a dewalt 12-inch (great machine) and bought the kobalt used because I needed a slider for the 8 inch trim in my old house. I plan on replacing it with the Hitachi or Bosch slider when I can find one second hand. -Orbital sander is a Bosch 3725DEVSN and was worth every penny. I've got a bunch of other smaller power tools but those are the big fixed in place ones. -I'm looking at table top jointers right now, I've been using my TS or router to straighten edges. I just finished a two story garage with my workshop on the second floor. I'm still "nesting" ;)

I have been building a woodshop dust collection system with HVAC metal ducting the past 6 weeks. I went to homedepot tonight and the wyes I've been paying $14.50 each are now $18 .68. I went to Home Depot and Lowes to buy some black iron pipe the other day for a project. It was 2-3 times the price of copper piping. A length of pipe that used to be $3-5 a year or two ago was now $10-15. I even had some old pipe with price labels still on them that I compared it to for a sanity check. I talked with a guy in the isle who was also looking at the pipe (happened to be a part-time plumber) and he said he's never seen iron pipe cost more than copper. That $50 project quickly turned into $150 and I could buy what I was going to build for less. I remember last summer 2x4 studs hit $5. I think it was a combination of NAFTA renegotiation and supply problems. It seems like building materials are very sensitive to the tarifs and HD and Lowes are really quick to implement price increases. I am in the process of planning a solar array. Luckily, it is all US built and has actually gone down in price since I've been planning.

6 inch metal ducting for the main lines and flexible hose drops. I used metal instead of PVC because I had some interesting turns to get through the truss webs in the ceiling and 6 inch PVC bends don't come in enough variants to make it work. Not having to worry about static is nice too. To add to the offtopic discussion have a 3HP cyclone myself. What HP is your dust collector? Are you sure that ducting wont collapse? Traditional HVAC ducting is typically too thin and will collapse. 3 HP as well with a thein separator ducted to the outside. I wanted a cyclone, but couldn't fit it in. I went back and forth but the heavy stuff from oneida is really expensive. I went for it after I found this: https://www.lumberjocks.com/topics/87690 I rotated my seams and used 30 ga straight, 26 ga elbows, and 28 ga wyes. No problems with collapse or even any ovaling of the duct with all the blast gates closed. I didn't try slamming the gates shut like he did though! I wanted to run 6" all the way to my table saw and used a semi-rigid flex duct for the final 6 feet and it held up fine through my first project. It was $13 instead of $50 but more importantly, was available the day I wanted to test my DC system for the first time. I'll replace it if/when it breaks.

6 inch metal ducting for the main lines and flexible hose drops. I used metal instead of PVC because I had some interesting turns to get through the truss webs in the ceiling and 6 inch PVC bends don't come in enough variants to make it work. Not having to worry about static is nice too.

I have been building a woodshop dust collection system with HVAC metal ducting the past 6 weeks. I went to homedepot tonight and the wyes I've been paying $14.50 each are now $18 .68.

I would need about $65k after tax in 2017 dollars with a paid off house to retire the way I would like. $8k/yr taxes a maintaining the house; $15k/yr in groceries, dining out, and decent wine; $5k in autos/fuel, $37k for travel and everything else. $1.85M should do it. Canada or US? I'm totally flabbergasted how US based people don't account for significant medical expenses in their planning. We had that discussion on Money Mustache thread and I'm probably beating a dead horse here, but the costs are large. And if you or any of your family hit any chronic disease and/or require long term care, that can eat income from $1M+ by itself. Edit: +1 on what RichardGibbons said. US. I should have included that I have healthcare covered with 10k max out of pocket expenses each year. Long term care insurance is essential and i would expect to pay 4k per year starting at 60 or buy a lump sum plan for 200 to 250k.

I would need about $65k after tax in 2017 dollars with a paid off house to retire the way I would like. $8k/yr taxes a maintaining the house; $15k/yr in groceries, dining out, and decent wine; $5k in autos/fuel, $37k for travel and everything else. $1.85M should do it.

We have 2 cats that are both 10 years old. They have always eaten primarily dry food because wet food smells horrible, it's expensive, and the dry food actually helps their dental hygiene. The cats have been on a slow journey from whatever was cheapest at the grocery store, to taste of the wild (they both got sick from a bad bag), switched to natural balance until one of the two developed a very sensitive stomach. Now they've been on blue buffalo sensitive stomach for three years. The blue buffalo isn't the best for them by reading the label, but it is the only stuff that hasn't caused any vomiting or litter box issues since we switched to it. They also get an occasional can of tuna, weekly Costco rotisserie chicken scraps, and leftover fish from dinner. Just know they are like little pavlov dogs if you give them leftovers. They now go crazy if they see a can opener, we sit at the dining room table (we usually sit at the bar, but the dining table apparently means we are having fish), or we carry in a box that may contain rotisserie chicken. I always had dogs growing up and claimed I didn't like cats. My wife brought cats into the marriage, but I have to say, they are pretty cool little critters.

Ross, can I ask how you stablished that Valueact paid an average around $118? I'm just curious here because my crude estimate would be a lot higher than that $118. Dataroma: Q1 '16 - 540k shares - $200 - $220 say $210 Q2 '16 - 2.8M shares - $195 - $230 say $210 Q3 '16 - 1.7M shares - $205 - $230 say $215 Q4 '16 - 250k shares - $225 - $235 say $230 Q1 '17 - 620k shares - $230 - $250 say $240 Comes out to about $215. I eyeballed $218 earlier. Edit: I see! sorry i mistyped $118 should have read $218.

No mention in the 2015 or 16 AR that I read. Here is the excerpt from the '16 report: I don't like that FICO scores are not disclosed. The Citron report calls this out as well. http://www.citronresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ADS-final_a.pdf The CC industry as a whole see charge-offs of about 2.5% so it seems ADS is sacrificing credit quality for growth. ADS is in the loyalty card business and the other company that targets that business is Synchrony Financial. SYF's charge-off rate is 5.3%. for 2016 rising from 4.7% for 2015. The Citron report argues to value ADS as a bank similar to SYF and assign it a P/B of 2.0. This is pretty disingenuous though as SYF has a ROE of 17% and ADS has a ROE of 36%.

I sold out of Bidvest (held for 8 years) and trimmed AXP. Added to TJX and bought a significant position in ADS. Short pitch for ADS: Alliance Data Systems runs credit card and private label loyalty programs for brands. When a brand signs ADS, ADS handles the digital marketing and is responsible for customer service for those card holders. The card holder's are the brand's best customers so outsourcing these tasks, the loyalty program, and credit servicing makes switching costs from ADS extremely high. The major risk in ADS is credit risk from defaults on store cards and the company accesses credit markets for funding to finance card purchases, so their is interest rate risk as well. This is balanced by low available credit limits and low average balance of ~$600 on their cards and high interest rates that make paying the store card more advantageous than paying a bank issued credit card first. Citron issued a short paper last year that argued the company should be valued as a financial company rather than a technology company. PE contracted from 30+ to 20. Forward PE of 12.4 and expected LT YoY of 18%. More of a GARP investment. ValueAct is a 10% shareholder (13.5% of their portfolio - $1.3B position) and has a board seat with an average purchase price of around $118. Glen Greenberg established a 10.5% position last quarter in the $230s.

A 25% drop in short order will have to be from some sort of shock. Perhaps a housing crisis 2.0. As rates rise, people will start to get stuck in their houses and prices will edge down. Those who purchased on ARMs and or bought with a small down payment could default. Longer term, I think we are in for stagnation. The "Better Deal" campaign on the left has legs as evidenced by Sanders popularity. Breaking monopolies, controlling medical costs, and forcing corporate profits to go to workers as opposed to shareholders will lend to the stagnation or PE compression as growth prospects are curtailed.

TJX has been following a similar trajectory to Costco lately. I think many of these brick and mortars are falling on the fear AMZN will replace them. AMZN has a long way to go.

You have AZO and ORLY. AZO is more focused on the DIY market where ORLY is split between DIY and auto repair shops. I like ORLY more as repair shops are dealing with other peoples money and are not going to be price sensitive. I think the threat from AMZN is a bit overblown as well. Many of these parts are already available on Ebay and AMZN, but as another poster alluded to, there are always more things that come up and need to be repaired when getting into a project. Drive through very rural America and the one stoplight town will have a dollar store, some type of small grocery, a gas station, and an auto parts store. I ended up starting a small position in ORLY at $173.

Several of these companies have been compounders for a number of years. It seems the adoption of the electric car is causing the price of these companies to contract because maintenance cost is expected to go down. http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2017/07/05/Photos/NS/MW-FP692_AutoPa_20170705141802_NS.png?uuid=4840e3b8-61ae-11e7-98ce-9c8e992d421e Do you think the multiple compression is justified? I understand the electric drive train is much simpler and does not have near the number of moving parts, but surely there are still plenty of wear items on electric cars to replace. It seems like the all electric car is still a years off from mass adoption due to their limited range right now and we have a long way to go from their 2% market penetration to mass adoption that will hit the auto part companies' bottom line.