×

Subscribe Today

Get our free articles delivered directly to your email!

Continue reading

Contact Us
About Us
Subscribe
My Portfolio
My Account
Contact Us
About Us
Subscribe
My Account
My Portfolio

Inflation is Dead (According to Costco) – InsideArbitrage Friday Wrap

  • December 15, 2023

FRIDAY WRAP

Our list of curated tweets for the current week

Check out the wealth of information and tools we provide in our Plus and Premium plans.

Special Situations

Mergers & Acquisitions

$JBLU $SAVE closing briefs. In short, the defendants did better work here.

Lots of reading left to do in the $SAVE / $JBLU briefs, but so far my favorite part is when the government argues that JetBlue shouldn't be allowed to buy a maverick like Spirit

$ACI $KR - Albertsons falls as lawmakers urge FTC to block Kroger $25B acquisition

$ACI & $KR are discussing extending the Jan 17 timing agreement with #FTC to allow more time to review the divestiture package.

Excellent and in-depth letter opposing $SLGC / $LAB deal.

$OXY has agreed to purchase CrownRock (a Permian Basin oil producer) for $12 billion

$HOLI - Hollysys jumps on $1.66B deal to be acquired by HK-based Ascendent Capital

Eagle Bulk and Star Bulk merger $EGLE and $SBLK

$AZN announces the acquisition of $ICVX in a deal valued up to $1.1B, accelerating vaccine development for respiratory diseases.

Orrstown Financial Services $ORRF and Codorus Valley Bancorp $CVLY Announce a Merger of Equals to Create a Pennsylvania and Maryland Community Banking Franchise

Rain Oncology Enters into Agreement to be Acquired by Pathos AI for $1.16 in Cash per Share

Potential Deals

I'm with Citi on this Macy's call that a deal is unlikely.

Choice Hotels is officially launching a hostile takeover offer for Wyndham

$FOUR on my "best of best" list below | Spiking on rumors of a potential takeout by Global Payments $GPN.

PGT rebuffs latest $2.2 bln bid from Koch-backed Miter Brands

Insight, Clearlake close in on $5 bln deal for business software firm Alteryx

Stock Buybacks

Thanks to blockbuster accelerated share repurchase agreements - an aggressive form of buyback that requires sending all the money out of the door at once -from $RTX and $GM, ASRs are on track for their second-best quarter since the start of the pandemic.

Fairfax has reduced shares outstanding by 16.7% over the past 5.75 years.

Waste Management Approves Dividend Raise, New $1.5 Billion Share Repurchase

$PLYA Playa Hotels & Resorts 🌴Announces Authorization of New Share Repurchase Program that equals around 18.5% of its outstanding stock!

$CI The Cigna Group Announces Significant Increase to Share Repurchase Program of $10 Billion

2023 has also been a heavy Share Repurchase year

$TEL (+0.4% pre) TE Connectivity approves additional $1.5B share repurchase - SA

Their supposed "buyback" announcement is largely shares they issued this year to pay the dividend.

Spin-Off

Vincent Bolloré changes tack with Vivendi break-up plan

Management Changes

BlackBerry CEO John Chen will depart the Canadian software company by the end of the week after a decade-long tenure. $BB

 

Investing

This 2013 interview with former $WINA CEO John Morgan is an absolute classic.

Charlie Munger told me to read Les Schwab’s autobiography

Greenblatt's 1981 paper 'How the Small Investor Can Beat the Market' kicks off with a sharp dismissal of the efficient market hypothesis.

Remember when everyone was crazy for lithium and lithium stocks?

Probably still a bit away from a definitive agreement, but a second/third expansion Sphere would be huge for the company provided they aren’t paying for a large portion of the build.

I've never seen this before. $FTCH also has a really bad balance sheet, with ~$1 billion in debt and massive cash burn. Is it going bk?

After having one of the best years in pharma history in 2022, Pfizer is now having one of the worst. A rundown on the company's brutal 2023, from @AndrewE_Dunn

anyone still following $JD. the multiples here insane

By far the biggest thing I've changed my mind on since I started 5 years ago

IG non-financial issuers ex. big tech (AAPL, GOOGL, MSTF, AMZN, FB, META) spent $87bn on share buybacks in 3Q, up from $83bn in 2Q

This rally is so insanely strong that even $BABA isn’t down today.

Exxon, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies and BP gave $235 billion to shareholders (via share buybacks and dividends) between January 2021 and September 2023, according to Moody's.

You need bulls to have a bull market, but sentiment has gotten a bit frothy

The U.S. Economy

The market is now pricing in potentially 7(!) rate cuts next year, which would entail a cut at every meeting after a hold in January

The inflation data has massive lags and right now the lagging data will show lower inflation for a while.

Rahul Sharma Costco Inflation Tweet

The Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker was 5.2% in November, unchanged from October.

Prev Post

InsideArbitrage Event Driven Monitor – December 15, 2023

Next Post

The WeWork of Hotels – Insider Weekends

Looking for more premium content?

We have created a comprehensive group of tools that allows you to estimate the intrinsic value of investments.

Subscribe