March 2, 20232 yr Nifty little Cleveland company Preformed Line Products is up $21.40 to $110/share today. They released good earnings yesterday, $10.88/share for 2022. So, they're selling at ~10x earnings. Big but not a huge volume. Remember: It's the Year of the Snake
March 10, 20232 yr There has been a run on Silicon Valley Bank. It was shut down today: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/investing/svb-bank/index.html When I went to OU, I used Hocking Valley Bank. They're still standing: https://www.hvbonline.com/
March 11, 20232 yr 7 hours ago, Lazarus said: There has been a run on Silicon Valley Bank. It was shut down today: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/investing/svb-bank/index.html When I went to OU, I used Hocking Valley Bank. They're still standing: https://www.hvbonline.com/ When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
March 11, 20232 yr ^I really don't care (so far) they and they alone have failed. The fact is that the tech crowd thinks they're smarter than everyone else and that the rules don't apply to them. Pride before the fall.
March 11, 20232 yr First Republic is going to have a rough week. It's unclear how far the contagion is spread. Regardless, say it with me, NO BAILOUTS!
March 11, 20232 yr 25 minutes ago, TBideon said: First Republic is going to have a rough week. It's unclear how far the contagion is spread. Regardless, say it with me, NO BAILOUTS! I think it's important to draw a clear distinction here - people and companies who had their money in accounts at the bank absolutely should be protected in full. I'm totally fine with equity investors being wiped out, but protecting depositor accounts is critical to making the overall economy work. Protecting depositors is a very different kind of bailout than protecting equity investors. (And it is important to note that this IS how the FDIC will be handling the situation.) It would be extremely inefficient for people and companies to have to split their depositor accounts across multiple banks for risk mitigation. The situation at SVB is a good example of why banking regulation is so important - the Trump administration's decision to roll back regulations on smaller banks is a primary cause of the current mini-crisis. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
March 12, 20232 yr 10 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said: The situation at SVB is a good example of why banking regulation is so important From what I'm reading SVB was willing to do things that other banks wouldn't because...they're risky as s**t. It goes a long way toward explaining why tech has continued to physically concentrate in this physical area - they had easy access to a ridiculous bank. I'm not buying that crap from the people saying that this is going to "set back innovation for 10 years". These people don't care about "innovation", they all just want to get super-rich and they know that tricking people into thinking their piss-poor idea is "tech" is the way to do it. Dr. Squatch is not "tech". It's goddamn soap. They didn't make payroll on Friday.
March 12, 20232 yr Why even have FDIC insurance ceilings of $250k if the argument is taxpayers need to compensate retail depositors at greater amounts? If this bank and inevitably others need help from this contagion, then nationalization or some kind of equity-based relief should be the remedy. If any business is too big to fail, then the private sector is no longer the appropriate market.
March 12, 20232 yr 11 hours ago, Lazarus said: From what I'm reading SVB was willing to do things that other banks wouldn't because...they're risky as s**t. It goes a long way toward explaining why tech has continued to physically concentrate in this physical area - they had easy access to a ridiculous bank. I'm not buying that crap from the people saying that this is going to "set back innovation for 10 years". These people don't care about "innovation", they all just want to get super-rich and they know that tricking people into thinking their piss-poor idea is "tech" is the way to do it. Dr. Squatch is not "tech". It's goddamn soap. They didn't make payroll on Friday. Any kind of boundary put on "tech" is supposed to be the apocalypse for innovation. Yet think about the kind of boundaries the people who did things like the airplane, automobile and harness electricity faced.
March 13, 20232 yr 6 hours ago, TBideon said: Why even have FDIC insurance ceilings of $250k if the argument is taxpayers need to compensate retail depositors at greater amounts? If this bank and inevitably others need help from this contagion, then nationalization or some kind of equity-based relief should be the remedy. If any business is too big to fail, then the private sector is no longer the appropriate market. We're seeing the whole problem with low interest rates play out in front of us. Rates were low for many years before the pandemic, then they dropped even closer to 0% 2020-2021. When inflation appeared, the fed cranked rates, meaning all of the treasuries held by all of the banks, but especially those purchased in 2020-21, were suddenly worth far less than what they were purchased for. The higher the fed raises rates in 2023, the more perilous the position of banks become. The fed might be forced to do an emergency rate drop in order to improve bank balance sheets. That will send inflation off to the races once more. Edited March 13, 20232 yr by Lazarus
March 13, 20232 yr The lesson is "can it with the near-zero interest rate environments already". You lose the effectiveness of the interest rate as a tool if when you need to raise it it does things like make assets worthless. We know the Fed likes it when equities are the only viable investment vehicle but that makes it where there isn't enough choice in the entire investing realm.
March 13, 20232 yr Ugly morning for financials. I shorted some out-of-the-money puts on KEY and SCHW ADDED LATER: By 11AM the financials rose well off their lows of the morning. KEY got as low as $9.60, but is now back up to $11.45. Remember: It's the Year of the Snake
March 17, 20232 yr NY Times irrationally argues that higher Snap payments are necessary to compensate for inflation without recognizing that the pandemic increases to Snap benefits are largely responsible for the inflation. If we had student loan payments returning this month instead of in May (at last count) we'd have an abrupt end to people who ought to be living on a very strict budget regularly splurging on expensive grocery store food.
March 17, 20232 yr Companies are so bottom heavy today that working people on SNAP is often a large portion of shoppers at the supermarket/WalMart -- especially the ones with kids. If you go back to the early '80s, the way inflation finally subsided is by people putting their foot down and stopping buying stuff. The money was spread out far more evenly through the economy back then, though. These days, such a large portion of discretionary spending is done by Boomers and they aren't going to stop buying for anything. Since the supermarket/WalMart is driven by Not Boomers by this point I'd say there's a good chance if you cut SNAP benefits to pre-pandemic levels plus inflation that the stores will eat it and bring prices back down. There will be some short-term pain for the public as the stores try to find the price points they can get under lower SNAP benefits but you also have to wait for the effects to push their way all they way back up the supply chain which could take up to a year.
March 17, 20232 yr KFC just tried to get me to pay $3.49 to add a biscuit. That's the kind of stuff that needs to stop. People were just signing off on those kind of increases a year ago but no. Not now.
March 17, 20232 yr 13 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: KFC just tried to get me to pay $3.49 to add a biscuit. That's the kind of stuff that needs to stop. People were just signing off on those kind of increases a year ago but no. Not now. Gold Star is now charing $1 for a cup of water.
March 17, 20232 yr This is one reason I hold exactly zero restaurant stocks, even though I know many of them are up over the past 12 months (whereas many of the tech stocks in which my portfolio was, and remains, heavy are down over the same period). They've been able to pass on major price increases and more to their customers, increasing profits. However, I just can't see that enduring across the board and I don't trust myself to pick the ones who will be the winners when the tide rolls out. In my own house, which could absorb price increases, we're frequently choosing not to--I used to go out for lunch 4-5x a week, now it's probably 1-2, and we used to dine out as a family for dinner maybe once a week, and now we maybe occasionally go through the Taco Bell drive through because for some reason unbeknownst to science and civilization, my kids actually like that crap and I have clearly failed as a father, but I digress.
March 17, 20232 yr 21 minutes ago, Gramarye said: occasionally go through the Taco Bell drive through because for some reason unbeknownst to science and civilization, my kids actually like that crap and I have clearly failed as a father, but I digress. No judgement here. i'm guilty once in a while. But Taco Bell is STUPID expensive compared to what I remember back in college. I've the same thing for 2 decades and it's gone from like $7 in total to $23.
March 17, 20232 yr 11 minutes ago, Cleburger said: No judgement here. i'm guilty once in a while. But Taco Bell is STUPID expensive compared to what I remember back in college. I've the same thing for 2 decades and it's gone from like $7 in total to $23. I remember the combos at Taco Bell being barely over $2 in the 90s, and possibly less. A burrito supreme/cruchy taco combo was $3.29 in the early 2000s. Now it's upwards of $8. Cincinnati chili has gone through the roof. The coneys have all shrunk in size. They were 79-cents when I was a kid but are now around $2.50/ea, for a smaller coney. I also noticed that Cliff bars have shrunk.
March 17, 20232 yr Fast food found out real quick during COVID that elasticity of demand for their product was much less than they thought. People today hate cooking (and home food) more than anyone thought. The "back to health food" thing was all marketing aimed at Active Millennials to get them to pay more for ingredients and kitchen tools.
March 17, 20232 yr 7 minutes ago, LibertyBlvd said: Paying employees at fast food eateries $15+/hr has consequences. Yup. So does having executives make 1000x+ what an average worker at the company does. Capitalism is great.
March 17, 20232 yr Obviously these days are over. Of course back then there were no supersized items, and a Big Mac was the deluxe option (45 cents when first introduced in 1967). Several years ago I went into a McDonald's and was shocked at the prices! http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/
March 17, 20232 yr 10 minutes ago, LibertyBlvd said: Paying employees at fast food eateries $15+/hr has consequences. What I think everyone involved thought would happen is that the kind of price increases required to go to $15 plus an hour would make people stop buying fast food almost altogether thereby creating some sort of Renaissance where people started eating at home a lot more and spending a lot more money at independent sit-down restaurants. What happened instead is that fast food doubled in price in 3 years, sit-down food went up only 25 percent in the same time yet people kept lining up for fast food, opening a sit-down restaurant is just as risky as ever and home food got so expensive that nobody wanted to bother with it anymore unless it was really cheap like pasta.
March 17, 20232 yr I went to brunch at Pier W last Sunday. It was $59 each + tax + gratuity. Ouch! Edited March 17, 20232 yr by LibertyBlvd
March 17, 20232 yr Seems like there is little price sensitivity with brunch. Probably because the tables turn so slowly.
March 17, 20232 yr 33 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: and home food got so expensive that nobody wanted to bother with it anymore unless it was really cheap like pasta. Yeah but don't underestimate how much people center their lives around food, snacks, and expensive coffee. It's the last luxury that people give up. When you work at a workplace (not remotely!), you get to see crazy attitudes toward food every day. Almost nobody just eats a baloney sandwich & apple for lunch and drinks water. Many people eat and drink upwards of $10 worth of stuff before lunch. That's my whole day's budget, bruh.
March 17, 20232 yr I drove co-workers insane by doing the baloney thing at one unskilled labor job I had. A lot of them didn't drive but I did so they'd all be begging me to drive them to fast food and here I turned up with baloney or TV dinners every night.
March 17, 20232 yr 15 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: I drove co-workers insane by doing the baloney thing at one unskilled labor job I had. A lot of them didn't drive but I did so they'd all be begging me to drive them to fast food and here I turned up with baloney or TV dinners every night. I'm sure that a lot of Americans are now spending $1,000/mo on food between expensive groceries and restaurants. I don't doubt that many families with kids are pushing $3,000/mo. Plus they go to Disneyworld twice per year on top of their "big" vacation.
March 17, 20232 yr 37 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: I drove co-workers insane by doing the baloney thing at one unskilled labor job I had. A lot of them didn't drive but I did so they'd all be begging me to drive them to fast food and here I turned up with baloney or TV dinners every night. So you'd be brown bagging, and your colleagues wanted you to waste both gas money and also your lunch break driving them to an eatery? I hope this wasn't a regular occurence; they sound shameless.
March 17, 20232 yr I'm friends with a couple that only buys font food, organics, mostly vegetarian, lots of non-GMO and other health foods and they spend $1,800 a month on food. And they don't really eat out that much -- it's mostly cooking and lunch bag meals.
March 17, 20232 yr Just now, TBideon said: So you'd be brown bagging, and your colleagues wanted you to waste both gas money and also your lunch break driving them to an eatery? I hope this wasn't a regular occurence; they sound shameless. Oh they were. And they'd throw whatever food they brought with them right in the trash if I relented and drove them up the hill to fast food. The other problem is that the job had 30-minute lunches.
March 19, 20232 yr On 3/17/2023 at 6:04 PM, GCrites80s said: The other problem is that the job had 30-minute lunches. I worked at a warehouse with 30-minute lunches. The only food at that exit was a McDonald's. I ate at that McDonald's every single lunch break for six months. Here is the drive-thru: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.0001636,-86.5956246,3a,75y,215.35h,87.11t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4friNyL8YTosSzS8oaLX3w!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D4friNyL8YTosSzS8oaLX3w%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D222.38312%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
March 19, 20232 yr That happens with so many people these days. Food availability doesn't even figure into the equation when making warehouse decisions.
March 19, 20232 yr 9 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: That happens with so many people these days. Food availability doesn't even figure into the equation when making warehouse decisions. A lot of places have really poor break room situations. This often happens because the current company didn't modify the building at all, meaning the break room is in an awkward place, too small, etc. This leads to lots of people eating in their car. There is also the whole issue with people eating at their desks. On one side you have the super-healthy people, showing off how healthy their salad is, then on the other you have those shameless people scarfing down multiple breakfasts and lunches at their desk (4-5 meals per workday). There is a particular way a plastic spoon sounds scraping against an almost-empty tupperware container that manages to carry long distances through an office environment. Along with the smell of whatever crap they're eating.
March 23, 20232 yr Cathie Wood AGAIN is killing me. Block shares down a fifth. EXPLETIVE. Also, it looks like Glassdoor will be announcing mass layoffs shortly. BULLY.
March 25, 20232 yr Prices at the supermarket keep rising. So do corporate profits. Is it really inflation? Or something else? ...Tyson Foods, the largest meat company in the US, also more than doubled its profits between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. Packaged foods manufacturer General Mills, which owns a variety of cereal brands as well as food brands like Annie’s, Betty Crocker, Chex, and Bisquick, has raised prices five times since 2021 and indicated another price hike could be coming soon. At the end of last year, its profits were up 97 percent compared to the previous quarter, and up 16 percent annually. Conagra, which owns packaged food brands like Healthy Choice, Duncan Hines, and Reddi-wip, noted a 22 percent profit increase in its last quarterly earnings report. Grocery giant Walmart — the largest US corporation, bar none — has seen its profits grow for the past several years, with a 7 percent jump between 2020 and 2021. ... Transcripts of corporations’ recent earnings calls illuminate that they’re well aware of their power right now. Groundwork has been collecting highlights from corporate earnings calls on its website. “They’re saying a lot about cost increases and supply shocks, but they’re also saying it doesn’t matter,” said Becker. “We do have these higher costs that we’re paying, but we have so much pricing power, we’re so capable of passing all these prices on to consumers, that it doesn’t matter.” In November 2021, Kroger’s chief financial officer said that the company was “very comfortable with our ability to pass on the increases that we’ve seen at this point. And we would expect that to continue to be the case.” Tyson Foods’ CEO said in August 2022 that sales had increased 16 percent year-to-date largely thanks to “higher average sales price in chicken and prepared foods.”... https://www.vox.com/money/23641875/food-grocery-inflation-prices-billionaires
March 25, 20232 yr ^The article doesn't acknowledge the truck driver shortage, which is a very real and pernicious problem, the likelihood that the producers are themselves still having staffing problems, and that the increased SNAP benefits along with suspended student loan payments freed up a ton of money for people to buy more and nicer food than they usually did.
March 25, 20232 yr The trucker shortage is not going to be fixed for a long time even with an increase in immigration. It's a bad job that people don't have to take anymore since they don't have 3 kids by 27 now.
March 25, 20232 yr 12 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: The trucker shortage is not going to be fixed for a long time even with an increase in immigration. It's a bad job that people don't have to take anymore since they don't have 3 kids by 27 now. The resin shortage caused by that winter storm in Texas took two years to shake out. The one situation I know about from work is that the available resin was bought up by higher margin activities, meaning base-level stuff like poly strapping...stopped being produced in the United States for awhile. This forced people to switch to steel strapping, which is inherently much more expensive. This stuff: https://www.uline.com/BL_2751/Uline-Poly-Strapping Even after the plants came back online, the manufactures of higher-margin stuff boxed out poly strap, and the only poly strap being made was the highest-selling. This meant the people who used less-common sizes were still stuck either going with steel or risking it all with...twine.
March 30, 20232 yr Man wins $200,000 on scratch-off ticket, plans to buy he and his wife "new vehicles": https://www.wcpo.com/news/state/state-ohio/ohio-man-wins-200-000-from-scratch-off-ticket-second-time-winning-kentucky-lottery-prize Maybe this guy has no debt and a ton of $ sitting in retirement, but that's statistically unlikely.
March 30, 20232 yr Boring $85k pickup truck that only fits on US-52 and US-23. Hits everything on TWP RD 892 where he lives
March 30, 20232 yr Of course, we all know what he's really going to buy. More lottery tickets. Because hey, it worked last time!
March 30, 20232 yr 5 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: Boring $85k pickup truck that only fits on US-52 and US-23. Hits everything on TWP RD 892 where he lives And he will complain about gas prices and that parking spaces aren't big enough
April 3, 20232 yr At my last job, a guy who retired making maybe $80k was still paying many of his 30 year-old daughter's bills, despite the fact she was in sales and making upwards of $200k (far more than he was). Phone, car insurance, whatever - he still paid it and even tolerated her not answering the phone for days at a time. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/amid-inflation-nearly-1-in-3-adults-get-financial-help-from-parents.html
April 3, 20232 yr 1 minute ago, Lazarus said: At my last job, a guy who retired making maybe $80k was still paying many of his 30 year-old daughter's bills, despite the fact she was in sales and making upwards of $200k (far more than he was). Phone, car insurance, whatever - he still paid it and even tolerated her not answering the phone for days at a time. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/amid-inflation-nearly-1-in-3-adults-get-financial-help-from-parents.html I'm generally OK with parents helping out adult children financially. However, if your kids are making $200K they don't need any help.
April 3, 20232 yr 3 minutes ago, Lazarus said: At my last job, a guy who retired making maybe $80k was still paying many of his 30 year-old daughter's bills, despite the fact she was in sales and making upwards of $200k (far more than he was). Phone, car insurance, whatever - he still paid it and even tolerated her not answering the phone for days at a time. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/amid-inflation-nearly-1-in-3-adults-get-financial-help-from-parents.html That article at least did some breakdown within the over-18 age groups, but if you add all the different age groups it covered together, it covered ages 18-34. I was still definitely getting financial help from my parents at age 18. When I was in law school, typical student age range would be 22-26 and a lot of them were getting help from their parents--I guess technically including me in the sense of getting to use the family station wagon (I was so cool in law school). Many of those students had $185k+ entry-level jobs waiting for them (standard BigLaw rate at the time was $160k salary and $25k minimum bonus). But parental support still made a huge difference, because some would be graduating with $350k in debt, others with none. I'm sure your $80k retiree supporting his daughter earning $200k+ is the more anomalous case. Very few 30-year-olds make $200k.
April 3, 20232 yr I went to college in Portsmouth. The poverty was so bad that it was very hard to get even a part-time entry-level service job there since you had to compete with full-on adults with more experience and completely open schedules. And if your folks made more than $50k you weren't allowed to work on campus.
April 3, 20232 yr 1 minute ago, Gramarye said: I'm sure your $80k retiree supporting his daughter earning $200k+ is the more anomalous case. Very few 30-year-olds make $200k. It was the sort of situation where the son or sons are lazy and into video games/drugs, the one daughter or daughters graduates and gets a good job right away, but the dad still has it in his mind that his late-20s/early-30s daughter is still the 7 year-old who held his hand at the circus. There are a lot of people in sales who make six figures almost right away. Any woman who enters sales in a dull industry right after college has a big advantage because there are all of these purchasing guys who get excited to talk to a 25 year-old female for the first time since Clinton's first term. These guys spruce up their offices and get dressed up like they're on a date on the day when the young rep is scheduled to visit. These girls know how to get the guys to blush and buy, buy, buy.
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