Farmer Diaries

The Covid pandemic has been going on for some months now  It will be interesting to find out how long it will be (if ever) until I get contacted by health Canada about my Covid-19 test results.   Granted that I got the results at 1 AM so it's still a little early, and it would be insane if I already got an email from them So DAY 0: no contact... So DAY 1: no contact... Funny enough a friend who got tested in the public sector (96 hours to get results) was contacted by health Canada within hours of receiving his test results.  So I've now been free of ANY and all COVID problems for 5 days -- in fact, the whole thing was a bit of a non-event for me.  Taste buds were fine, no fever, very slight coughs, and half a day of sniffles. I've been very lucky in deed Still no contact from the government -- after 7 days with no symptoms (especially fever) I'm out of quantantine  

 Several years ago, actually shortly after 9/11 (so almost 20 years ago now) the US passed a law that forced additional discloser of operations when Americans were depositors in your financing institution.  In effect, America imposed its rules on banks in other jurisdictions. The intent had been to make it harder for terrorists to finance their activities -- and it worked, almost overnight the armed conflict in Ireland came to an end, as its massive "guilt" funding dried up from the US (there were other causes to -- but timing in life is everything). One impact has been to massively increase compliance costs for foreign banks -- their solution was simple -- if you are an American citizen your business is no longer welcomed!  What's interesting here is this occurred in 2002/03 and therefore Americans living abroad have found ways around the problem -- certain who were American because they were born there -- and had no further interest in the country simply could terminate...

Soooo! Got tested yesterday for Covid-19 had a little cough was feeling a bit under the weather; so a 1 pm went to a local clinic and got the test. At 1 AM I checked my email and got the bad news; I'm positive for Covid19 -- It's now 8:30 am and I am feeling just fine, cough is gone, sniffles are mostly gone, no temperature sense of taste still there, no tummy problems; actually as they say I am feeling great!   So now I am part of the statistics.  I am one of the half-million Canadians who got covid.  I'm not recovered yet still; it will be interesting to find out when/if my government gets in touch with me!   

So here I was in late 1990 sitting in my office (really more a desk in a trading room) when I get a call from the CFO of Thai airways.  They wanted to talk!   A few days later I was sitting down with the CFO and CEO and they indicated that they were looking to finance a large order of Boeing aircraft, and had seen the work I had done --- in producing a comprehensive information package for the potential financiers.  Since we were an investment bank they knew we had no interest in arranging the financing!   To be honest, producing these documents is a massive pain because they have to cover all aspects of the airline -- this goes well beyond SEC documents and is somewhat different than an IPO document because the disclosure and information is far more detailed.  Today it would be a data room, but that was not convenient then, since the bidders were all over the world...that was then, this is now! so I agreed to bring a team of bankers to Bangkok for a f...

 In the late 1990s, during the Asian Financial crisis, one of the oldest airlines in the region faced, like many of its neighbors' financial difficulties-- it needed to reorganize because its core business was being gravely affected and it had virtually no dry powder.   One evening at home (then in Singapore) I get a call from the head of US Eximbank's aircraft finance division, we didn't know each other but through my colleagues, in NY he knew I was "his guy".  I had at that time a long experience in dealing with airline bankruptcy, manly regional carriers -- still.   They were aware that Philippine Airline was about to stop lease payments on its aircraft because cash flow was severely depleted, caused by a sudden and dramatic reduction in its revenues -- mostly visiting friends and families that were at the core of its business model. The next morning, after a 4-hour flight I was in the offices of Philippine Airlines, with its CEO, president, and finance ...

 Yesterday Musk indicated that there was no good reason for Tesla's share to trade at their current valuation.  In fact, Tesla's share price is so out of the realm of the realist that it's almost certain that there will eventually be a backlash.  Tels is trading at US$ 567 today, dow from a higher of US$ 607 a few days ago (November 27) why is Tesla so expensive....because investors have decided that momentum trading is the thing, that once the shorts were covered (when the price rose from $100 to $300) there was pent-up demand for this most shorted stock ever. Short sellers still believe their theories, they just cannot afford to hold their positions!   The fact of the matter is that Tesla introduced something amazing, that will revolutionize the car industry.  I still expect a lot of great things out of Tesla, I still think its a very interesting company, but nothing in what they do can justify the company's current P/E of 1,124x which is simply idiotic....