What are you buying today?

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Bought back some of the FRFHF that I sold a couple of weeks ago.

 

God it's tempting....

 

Are you willing to sell all your holdings and wait for the bottom to put all your net worth into FRFHF?

 

Not a chance in hell.

 

I've learned hard lessons about extreme concentration and being wrong. My largest position size is now 10% and typically takes years to build to.

 

Though, as mentioned in the other thread, if credit spreads blow out Fairfax may just have a chance to deliver 10-15% ROE even without higher rates...and that would be worth paying the repurchasing all of the shares I sold back in the $500 USD range.

[orthopa]

This may have been discussed before but anyone looking at buying puts on the vxx? I know the implied volatility is very high but looking out to this summer and a realization that the virus is not deadly as well as general calm in the market should cause a huge fall in the vxx.

 

Thoughts from those a little more versed on this?

[RichardGibbons]

Over the last couple of months, I've bought calls on the VIX and sold puts on SVXY, all profitably.  The problem with the VIX calls is that they're European exercise, so I ended up selling them for less than I could have because there was still a few weeks of time value left in them.

 

The issue with VXX puts are that when the VIX is high, the futures flip from contango to backwardization, which basically means that until the VIX gets below, say 22, there will be a built in upward bias to the VXX (kind of like the VXX is short something that has time decay.) So it's harder to make money there than you might think.  Also, the return of the VIX to sub-20 will likely be slower than you think.

 

Recently, I've been limiting my options bets to 1-2 week options on SPY.  They've also all been profitable, but I think my overall strategy would be unprofitable, since I've been flipping them for small profits before I get massive wins (and one 100% loss would wipe out all my wins.)  Still, if I believed the virus were to be proven no big deal in 3 weeks, I'd buy at the money calls about 3 weeks out.  (Because with implied volatility skew, the price you pay right now for 3 weeks isn't that much more than the price you pay for 1 week.)

[sleepydragon]

Web has said: it’s hard enough to guess which direction the stock goes.

 

If you are more right than wrong on the direction you can make a lot of money.

You don’t have to know when too. And “when” is way harder.

 

 

[orthopa]

Over the last couple of months, I've bought calls on the VIX and sold puts on SVXY, all profitably.  The problem with the VIX calls is that they're European exercise, so I ended up selling them for less than I could have because there was still a few weeks of time value left in them.

 

The issue with VXX puts are that when the VIX is high, the futures flip from contango to backwardization, which basically means that until the VIX gets below, say 22, there will be a built in upward bias to the VXX (kind of like the VXX is short something that has time decay.) So it's harder to make money there than you might think.  Also, the return of the VIX to sub-20 will likely be slower than you think.

 

Recently, I've been limiting my options bets to 1-2 week options on SPY.  They've also all been profitable, but I think my overall strategy would be unprofitable, since I've been flipping them for small profits before I get massive wins (and one 100% loss would wipe out all my wins.)  Still, if I believed the virus were to be proven no big deal in 3 weeks, I'd buy at the money calls about 3 weeks out.  (Because with implied volatility skew, the price you pay right now for 3 weeks isn't that much more than the price you pay for 1 week.)

 

Great explanation thanks!

[CorpRaider]

BOMN

[ASTA]

Bk, wfc, schw, bkng, usb, bac and brk.b  small portions

[Spekulatius]

GOOGL and TRV

[Castanza]

GOOGL and TRV

 

Couldn’t resist and picked up some TRV also. Patients is difficult...

[DocSnowball]

VOO, VOO, and VOO all day long

[Gregmal]

Not I today, but had some family up and after some general market small talk helped my 22 year old brother make his first ever stock purchases. 1 share of GOOG and 5 shares MSG.

[jgyetzer]

IAC, TIGO

[LightWhale]

 

 

Ericopoly, this is an extinction level event.

 

 

"Extinction" of what?

 

Common sense.

 

Thanks. made my day.

[ERICOPOLY]

WFC at-the-money calls (slightly out of, actually)

[Castanza]

BRKb at 174

[Agrippa07]

New small positions: ASML, CFR Richemont. Added to GLD and BP.

[LC]

Added a bit to ATT around 31 this morning.

[gokou3]

EURN (crude shipper)

[sleepydragon]

Put in my bid of brkb at 172, google at 840, jpm at 77.

None got filled!!

My wife says: you are so cheap! Lol

 

[ValuePadawan]

Little bit of Allied Irish Bank group and Svenska Handelsbanken

[alwaysdrawing]

Buying some puts on life insurers with large amounts of corporate debt on their balance sheet.

 

Also bought some bank puts.

 

[Uccmal]

Nothing happening so far.  I bought a few puts on Friday for hedging and/ or profit purposes.  Nothing special.  I have set sells on them ranging from 10 to 25 x my purchase price.  My puts on Bam that I got 3 or 4 weeks ago are only at 10x their value right now.  My sell order is in for 25 x p.p. With those. 

 

I have 12 or so companies with lowball orders in.  A lot of companies are still above their 52 week lows.  My bids are well below the 52 week lows: Sbux, Mcd, Hd, FB, Goog, V, Apple, Tesla (100), Costco, Msft, Bam, Bip.un, ema, cnr.  Everything is on autopilot to minimize me from over thinking. 

 

Markets are still irrationally high given the degree of the damage being done to Main Street. 

[Guest]

Al,

 

How are you positioned now? Any equities?

[alwaysdrawing]

If I weren't so heavy on airline puts as it is, think there is some value there.  Already out with the beggar tin for $50 billion....at BEST gonna look like GM and still go BK because they are structurally unprofitable at these levels of flying, or anything close.  We aren't bouncing back to "normal" flying for a long time.  LUV gonna have 47 straight profitable years then bankruptcy.

 

I would be thinking bigger anyway--there is so much bailout money needed, there won't be enough to go around.  Small business, banking, the oil patch, airlines, cruise ships, theme parks, Boeing, industrials, the car companies, junk bonds and their issuers, maybe the health and life insurers....plus all the people.

 

The employees who are getting fired are probably the ones most likely to get bailed out.  Maybe the airlines shouldn't have plowed 97% of their FCF into buybacks, and lavished executives with huge bonuses.  Good luck, even if you do get the bailout (which I hope they won't, regardless of my position). 

 

Not sure if the above poster is referring to me be "Al", but if so, I do have some equities, and they are doing terribly.  Down 40%+ in a lot of cases, and likely to fall further.  Probably should pay more attention to them, but focused on what I perceive are 5-10 baggers available now.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

If I weren't so heavy on airline puts as it is, think there is some value there.  Already out with the beggar tin for $50 billion....at BEST gonna look like GM and still go BK because they are structurally unprofitable at these levels of flying, or anything close.  We aren't bouncing back to "normal" flying for a long time.  LUV gonna have 47 straight profitable years then bankruptcy.

 

I would be thinking bigger anyway--there is so much bailout money needed, there won't be enough to go around.  Small business, banking, the oil patch, airlines, cruise ships, theme parks, Boeing, industrials, the car companies, junk bonds and their issuers, maybe the health and life insurers....plus all the people.

 

The employees who are getting fired are probably the ones most likely to get bailed out.  Maybe the airlines shouldn't have plowed 97% of their FCF into buybacks, and lavished executives with huge bonuses.  Good luck, even if you do get the bailout (which I hope they won't, regardless of my position). 

 

Not sure if the above poster is referring to me be "Al", but if so, I do have some equities, and they are doing terribly.  Down 40%+ in a lot of cases, and likely to fall further.  Probably should pay more attention to them, but focused on what I perceive are 5-10 baggers available now.

 

I meant Uccmal but glad to hear your perspective too, always, so thanks. If you don't me asking, what's your total equity exposure then?