Sportgamma

And at the same time, the prefs aren't moving.

Here in Iceland there have been tests made by random sampling of the population. Based on random sampling, around 0.3% of the population tests positive. Obviously, this is not representative for other countries or populations. In Iceland most of the effort has gone to tracing infections and quarantining people who have been in contact with infected people. By now, over 50% of people who test positive are already in quarantine when tested. https://www.covid.is/data Yeah, Iceland seems to be doing well, but a small country with a concentrated population in a small area (like Singapore) would be much easier to manage w something like this. The random sampling showing only 0.3% infected obliterates the "this disease has been widespread for a long time" thesis. Makes you realize how impossible achieving herd immunity will be (without having large magnitude of deaths/healthcare overload). That's excellent. From Iceland link: Confirmed infections: 1417 Total samples: 23640 (1417/23640) * 100 = 5.99%. How are you getting 0.3%? Assuming your random sampling comment is correct, 6% of Iceland being infected with a swab test that does not even tell people who are already infected, nonsymptomatic and cleared of virus in a country we dont consider to have Covid outbreak is pretty high. The Iceland data is really interesting for testing (understand the virus and compare testing strategies globally). There are two vectors for testing: one is targeted and looks similar to many countries, the other is "random" although the methodology does not reach the pure random definition. At first, for the 'random' part, people self-selected and more recently people can accept to be tested after a random call. In the 'random' group, the positive rate has recently been reported at 0.9% and it may be around 1.0% now but is unlikely to be too far from the 'true' number related to the prevalence in the population. There are limitations: sensitivity and specificity of the test, a negative test today does not mean a negative test tomorrow. Although they report a large number (about 50%) of asymptomatic people in the 'random' group, they may catch the disease before the onset of symptoms. However, this (and the age group profile they show) suggests that most people who get CV have mild or no symptoms, especially if young. The 'random' sampling is done by a genomic sequence entity and the analysis is revealing potentially very potent analytical aspects: -the virus mutates to a degree so that it becomes different from other CV virus elsewhere once it has reached a country or a region -the genetic makeup (and possibly previous exposures to other or more benign forms of CV) of the individual appears to be a key independent variable vs risk of becoming really sick -the virus mutates relatively slowly (good) but it's spreading quite effectively (bad) which makes it quite 'unique', in a way. There are actually three vectors for testing if you look at the self-selected group and the random sampling as two separate ones. If you take the self-selected testing out of the Decode data, the infection rate of the random group is around 0.3%, although the latest published numbers are only from a sample of 950. https://www.visir.is/g/2020139435d/slembi-ur-tak-is-lenskrar-erfda-greiningar-synir-0-3-prosent-smit-uti-i-sam-fe-laginu

Here in Iceland there have been tests made by random sampling of the population. Based on random sampling, around 0.3% of the population tests positive. Obviously, this is not representative for other countries or populations. In Iceland most of the effort has gone to tracing infections and quarantining people who have been in contact with infected people. By now, over 50% of people who test positive are already in quarantine when tested. https://www.covid.is/data

https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files/doc_financials/2020/Fairfax-Financial's-Shareholders'-Letter.pdf

Upwork

True, and perhaps a bit ironic given the fact that they are expressing their concern that the online tech companies might become an ever-increasing size of the S&P500. The earliest writeup that I have seen from Murray on TPL is from 1996 I think, but he's probably been in it even longer. I would think that a fund like a Paradigm fund has a very low-cost base on their TPL position.

I'm not really sure what a bear-shitter is but I don't think that Horizon Kinetics are particularly bearish in the traditional sense. They are bearish in the sense that they hold high cash positions in their funds, but it's not like they are short these names they mention in the commentary. I think you also need to consider what their objective is with an analysis like this. Who are they talking to? They are talking to high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors. They are talking to their clients and potential clients. They are talking to people who manage portfolios. The commentary isn't really a call on the market, it's a scenario. The point is not that this is how things are going to play out. What they are pitching here (the same applies to last quarter's commentary) to their audience is that the S&P500 might have a concentrated exposure to certain events, whereas the HK products will give you very different sets of exposures. They are saying that they have products and strategies that fit well as an allocation option into a portfolio. In recent years we have seen AUMs move from active mangers to index-based alternatives that are structurally cheaper. Closet indexers will not survive in this environment and HK understand this very well. I think many active managers have gotten burned simply because there is nothing that distinguishes them from their direct competitors (value, income, growth, etc). Take Manning and Napier for example. What sets them apart? I can't for the life of my figure that one out. In my opinion, HK has done very well in developing investment products and strategies that differentiate them from other asset managers.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong or maybe it's because I'm Icelandic and a little bit scared, but I don't think one should include the banking operations if we are going to use free cash flow as a metric. Also, isn't a comparison between the cash hoard and market cap omitting a bunch of liabilities, such as €800 million of deposits? A pretty interesting situation nonetheless... https://relatoriointegrado.ctt.pt/media/f4sjdnka/07-consolidated-and-individual-financial-statements.pdf

I've been following Steven as well since FIAT. Clever guy and great at pitching stuff. If he is on the board of a listed company, then there must be some sort of publication. That publication is likely to include "steven woods" "greenwood" and "board of directors" or "board member". Et voilà. What confused me is his claim that they have "obtained a €100 million cash flow stream for free". Hard to see that from the latest annual report...

http://www.payshop.com.pt/ctt-e-investidores/a-empresa/governo-da-sociedade/orgaos-da-sociedade/conselho-de-administracao/steven-duncan-wood.html?com.dotmarketing.htmlpage.language=1

I think their options were very limited. Their need to preserve liquidity is way higher... https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/03/28/1788027/0/en/Dundee-Corporation-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Year-End-2018-Financial-Results.html

"F#$k the government, I got my own deficit" - Don't remember if it was John Malone or Frebby Gibbs

Guys, I think we should leave it at that. This is turning into the Corner of Wisteria Lane and Melrose Place...

AngelList: https://angel.co/

As a father of an eight-year-old, in my experience, a kid is going to observe how the people around him behave. How those people behave will have a formative influence on that kid. The rules that parents formulate around how the kid should behave, less so. Particularly if there is a large discrepancy in the behaviour of the rulemakers and the rule they impose on the kid.

Haha. Well, they have been very clear about building up the merchant banking unit, so it should not come as that much of a surprise. Nonetheless, it is disappointing that there aren't actual clients participating in the placement with them.

https://finfeed.com/small-caps/mining/mine-development-focus-zinc-ireland-secures-cornerstone-investor/ "After emerging from a trading halt this morning, Zinc of Ireland NL (ASX: ZMI) reported that Dundee Resources Limited, a subsidiary of Canadian based Dundee Corporation (TSX:DC.A), has become its cornerstone shareholder with 19.9% shareholding. ZMI has successfully completed a placement to Dundee, raising A$2.425 million at $0.005 per share — an encouraging 25% premium to the market price." [...] “We also welcome the in-house knowledge and expertise that the Dundee Goodman Merchant Partners (DGMP) team bring to the table. DGMP is a division of Goodman & Company, Investment Counsel Inc. (GCIC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dundee. DGMP finances and provides M&A advice to mining companies through all phases of their development cycle. The DGMP team has a respected corporate finance team with deep technical backgrounds in engineering and geology.

What is value investing anyway? This term has been so widely defined that it wouldn't even surprise me to see two renowned value investors at the opposite end of a trade. I also have a limited understanding of the discussion on value investor performance across cycles. If an analyst underperforms for a decade, I doubt that he underperformed because he is a value investor. One mistake that I think we here on this board repeatedly make is that we tend to get drawn into these public situations that have loads of coverage and data, but were we have no edge whatsoever. If Walter Schloss was 29 today and investing, what would he be doing? My guess is that he would be dumpster diving somewhere in the OTC markets and he would do perfectly fine across market cycles. But hey, I think Warren Buffett already laid this to rest 27 years ago. There is no value investing, only investing: " But how, you will ask, does one decide what's "attractive"? In answering this question, most analysts feel they must choose between two approaches customarily thought to be in opposition: "value" and "growth." Indeed, many investment professionals see any mixing of the two terms as a form of intellectual cross- dressing. We view that as fuzzy thinking (in which, it must be confessed, I myself engaged some years ago). In our opinion, the two approaches are joined at the hip: Growth is always a component in the calculation of value, constituting a variable whose importance can range from negligible to enormous and whose impact can be negative as well as positive. In addition, we think the very term "value investing" is redundant. What is "investing" if it is not the act of seeking value at least sufficient to justify the amount paid? Consciously paying more for a stock than its calculated value - in the hope that it can soon be sold for a still-higher price - should be labeled speculation (which is neither illegal, immoral nor - in our view - financially fattening)."

What about the Venezuelan bolivar? I think if you try to find hurdles lower than that, you'd have to start digging. Same argument applies to Bitcoin Cash. I agree with that 100%. If I were to use Bitcoin Cash as a bar for my own investment performance over the last year, I think it is safe to say that it would make it look somewhat rosier than it actually is.

What about the Venezuelan bolivar? I think if you try to find hurdles lower than that, you'd have to start digging.

I also noticed that Horizon Kinetics had acquired a stake through the Renn Fund (see filing). It's a tiny stake but seeing as Renn is just a fraction of their total AUM and since they took it over they have only added positions that they already hold in their other funds, it wouldn't surprise me if they are Dundee elsewhere in their portfolios.

True. I actually have indirect exposure to both Bitcoin and mining operations, so I'm not arguing that the value isn't there.

Oh it is a feature, to those in power of influencing the monetary supply. It's detrimental to everyone else. Due to that asymmetry it undermines the free market (and is therefore by definition bad in my opinion as I consider the free market to be the optimal system). While I can certainly sympathise with the libertarian stance, the money-printing-is-100%-evil-argument just doesn't seem that convincing to me. Sure, the moral hazard is there, there is no free lunch and with great power comes great responsibility. I think most will agree to that. However, turning it into good vs evil dilutes the discussion and turns the focus away from discussing the actual trade-offs of different monetary policies and systems. Let's, for a few seconds, assume that the central banks of the world are not some nefarious actors trying to transfer wealth to a select few, but rather trying to use the tools at their disposal, in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the payment system. My first question would be: Is a central bank necessary? The US was relatively late compared to Europe to establish a central bank. Prior to the Fed, banks would issue their own banknotes which were backed by each bank's gold reserves and there was a very limited secondary market for the commercial loans that the banks would make. In times of pessimism, the banks would reduce the supply of money, which in turn would have a deflationary effect on the local economy, much to the detriment of all affected. I think it's hard to argue against the case that the adoption of central banks by the monetary systems across the world was not only an improvement but an absolute necessity. The second question would be: Is infinite supply of money detrimental to the actors within the system? The most common argument I hear against a free-floating fiat currency revolves around the "seniorage as illegal taxation" argument. In short: the government can dilute the purchasing power of others by creating money and spending it before the market has adjusted prices to the new denominator a.k.a. "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output". Personally, the stance that I have come to adopt as I have delved deeper into the topic is that the monetary base does not really play a causal role in the determination of the money supply and that the money multiplier (M3 / M0) is not that useful as an analytical framework. In the words of Claudio Borio: "In fact, in systems without reserve requirements, the multiplier is practically infinite; and nothing calamitous has ever happened. Increasing bank reserves (the means of payment) beyond what markets want simply pushes interest rates to the deposit facility or, in its absence, to zero. Increasing the monetary base is like pushing on a string and could result in loss of control over interest rates. Bank lending reflects banks’ management of the risk-return tradeoff they face, and bank transaction deposits the non-bank sector’s portfolio preferences. The ultimate anchor of the monetary system is not the monetary base but the interest rate the central bank sets." It's not that I think the lunch is free, I just think the crypto-punks and libertarians overstate the actual cost/detriment of the lunch.

Wow, that wasn't very good. His main research question is the wrong one (store of value is the right topic here). His first limitation is both irrelevant (doesn't matter if not solved) and very likely solved or at least mitigated by second layer solutions. His second limitation is actually a much stronger limitation of the current monetary system. I do admire your conviction. If, as you say, the store of value thesis is "the correct topic" when it comes to crypto, would you then also say that crypto should be seen more as an asset rather than money? If the first limitation has to be mitigated by second layer solutions, would that not entail that the finality/settlement of the cryptocurrency (the second limitation) would start to resemble the current monetary system? What do you consider gold? I consider that primarily an asset but it can be used as money if needed (but not very efficiently). Bitcoin is an improved version of gold. That is the whole thesis. The current monetary system doesn't have a finite but infinite supply giving the monetary units marginal value at best. Secondly the control of the monetary system is highly centralized giving these actors the power of censorship. Thirdly the current system isn't very secure (balances are simple entries in databases that can be altered by people with access to these databases). Edit: To clarify: you are asking questions about crypto here. I'm answering them with Bitcoin in mind. Most of this doesn't hold for the vast majority of altcoins. I would consider gold a scarce asset. As money, gold has pretty severe limitations. In fact, I would think that one of the key reasons why gold did not survive as a medium of exchange was due to the inelasticity of supply. The infinite elasticity of fiat money that is often so bemoaned by crypto proponents is, in my amateurish opinion, not a bug but a feature. In regards to centralization and lack of security, I don't think that it would be relevant to compare Bitcoin to monetary systems if Bitcoin is an improved version of gold, as opposed to a form of money.

Wow, that wasn't very good. His main research question is the wrong one (store of value is the right topic here). His first limitation is both irrelevant (doesn't matter if not solved) and very likely solved or at least mitigated by second layer solutions. His second limitation is actually a much stronger limitation of the current monetary system. I do admire your conviction. If, as you say, the store of value thesis is "the correct topic" when it comes to crypto, would you then also say that crypto should be seen more as an asset rather than money? If the first limitation has to be mitigated by second layer solutions, would that not entail that the finality/settlement of the cryptocurrency (the second limitation) would start to resemble the current monetary system?