… just do the opposite of whatever I’m bullish about.
Me: Two-thirds full airline idea (12/23/2019)
Me: Coronavirus will breathe life into my two-thirds-full airline idea? (3/23/2020)
“What Delta’s Big Bet on Blocking Middle Seats Means for Flying” (Wall Street Journal, 2/10/2021):
The last U.S. airline with this policy has lost fliers to carriers with looser rules—here’s why Delta is holding out for now
The grand experiment of blocking the middle seat on airplanes has proved what we have known all along about air travel: More people care about a cheap fare than comfort, or even pandemic safety.
The bottom line for Delta during the pandemic has been bigger losses than rival airlines selling all their seats. Delta was the most profitable U.S. airline in the final six months of 2019. That flipped during the pandemic. In the last six months of 2020, Delta had the biggest losses, with a net loss of more than $6 billion, greater than United and Southwest combined.
Even with state governors telling people that coronavirus was so dangerous that we should close schools and have children stay home to get fat and stupid, close society and have adults stay home to get fat, drunk, opioid-addicted, and stupid, and imprison/fine people for breaking a variety of rules that were apparently in conflict with the First Amendment right to assemble, consumers decided that coronavirus was not dangerous enough to be avoided by paying a little more for an airline ticket (and getting a much more luxurious experience as well).
One of the harbors in Hilton Head, South Carolina where you can keep the yacht that you buy after acting (after reversing the sign) on my advice:
So the author of this blog told me that the ramp at his local general aviation airport was the busiest he’s ever seen it just ahead of Xmas 2020. So we can safely assume that Robert Kraft had jetted off during the pandemic either to Florida or to California (where his love child and erstwhile girlfriend live) or similar destination.
Around the same time, I was reading that Sir Mick Jagger had spent lockdown mostly at his château in the Loire Valley, and had also gone to Italy several times in recent months. La Fourchette is close to small, sleepy airport of Tours to fly south to Italy.
https://www.videomuzic.eu/mick-jagger-becomes-a-great-grandfather-2nd-time/?lang=en
His bandmate Keith Richards was interviewed in October by the WSJ. He noted that the Connecticut climate was getting a tad cold for his tastes, so he would be headed to the tropics soon. (Turks & Caicos apparently, although perhaps Jagger’s Mustique island estate, since it’s near-private). NetJets has been busy, eh?
Bill Gates has a knack for investments, and the blogger separately told me that Gates bought into a general aviation service co, which has likely done well based on private aviation being hit much less hard than commercial aviation. Gates’ one bad investment of which I’m aware is buying his daughter an Upper East Side apt overlooking Central Park in 2017 ahead of her matriculation at a Manhattan medical school — probably has plummeted in value due to COVID.
Interesting that Ted Cruz flew on board United, on what looked like a jam-packed flight to Mexico. But he was vaccinated. Was his wife Heidi Cruz also vaccinated, even though she’s far younger than 65 yo? Their daughters are middle-school age, so not really at risk. Only surprise was that Cruz didn’t manage a military Gulfstream flight at taxpayers’ expense.
You were largely correct about COVID making the suburbs cool again, though. My “moles” from the real estate business in suburban New Jersey are reporting that it’s the craziest time they’ve ever seen and the best time for people to sell a house in their careers. More buyers than they can handle, buyers engaging in bidding wars, and a general feeling like someone just marched a couple of cows into a river teeming with piranhas. So anybody reading your blog back in April of 2020 who decided to spruce the place up and get ready to sell was well-advised.
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/04/17/coronavirus-will-make-the-suburbs-cool-again/
So even if you have a big brain like Phil, the market has a bigger brain and whatever you have thought of the market has already thought of and priced in to the price of the stock. So your ideas are already priced in — and the chances of earning an excess return are just random.