I live in Hawaii, it is not as bad as it looks. For the Hawaiian Electric side of course. I’m not here to trivialize any loss that was done in Lahaina, I have friends there who lost everything, people are still in shelter, and now there’s a lot of confusion and landowners are being taken advantage of by vultures buying property far below value from the despearate. Sad. This is paradise. But let me be the voice of reason here from an investors point of view.

Yes, this was the greatest tragedy our state has experienced. It’s ironic it wasn’t by water. But now, its been a few days and I can’t stand how the media has been used as a tool to tank this company. Fingers needed to be pointed, and the logical place to point was at Hawaiian Electric. I read an article online titled “Should you visit Maui?” What? The residents in Maui definitely do not want people to shy away. I had a house-guest from Kahalui (Maui) and we chatted about all the facets of the event, and how they are desperate for visitors. Tourism is the island’s most valuable economic piece. Why would the media print otherwise? There’s a lot of sensationalism on the media because it sells, and to have it directed at Hawaii right now, it is so weird to finally experience it from the inside.

Hawaiian Electric is a monopoly. They’re so rich, they literally own the banks here- look up American Savings Bank. This is a classic case of panic. HE is trading like we are in the 80s, all from 1 event. It wasn’t a catastrophic failure of a product, like a Titanic maiden voyage, it was a freak event. The winds were insanely powerful and wouldn’t letup. Even here on Oahu I avoided the beach because the sands were just whipping my fragile legs. On Maui the invasive grass grew wild and was dry and flammable. Even if HE was the spark, (and I’m not even sure of that), there were a lot of bigger factors that came in to play. This was the perfect storm.

This is a black swan event. This is the 5th deadliest fire in the US, with the previous 4 from the 1800s and one in 1918. So this is quite an embarrassment to modern policy on safety and technology in electrical engineering. I just feel when tragedy strikes, the calm will prosper. If you’ve got speculative cash, this is one of those opportunities you want to at least try for. Next month, guess what, I’ll still have electricity in my house. I’ll still be charging my car. Hawaiian Electric will still overcharge us, rob the Hawaii residents of hard earned money, because we have to power our air conditioners when its humid. It’s a utility company. Everything will be business as usual in a month or so.

HE has been a steady dividend play in which a lot of local mom and pops from the baby boomer generation have banked on for years; and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was their weak paranoia kids that are forcing a lot of the sales when they hear buzzwords like “lawsuit”, “bankruptcy”, “restructure,” “deaths”. I’ve never bought HE because its so boring. Give me the adrenaline inducing CVNA short any day. Now, HE has gone from one extreme to the other and I’m willing to dive right in.

Anyway, I have a traget of HE to get back to the 20s in a few weeks. Of course the bids will be imbalanced, and the stock will probably see-saw 10%. I wouldn’t short here because the gap to 16 eats up the risk-reward appeal.

I’m a biased bear, and I’m long HE. I’m very picky. Very very picky with longs. You might think I’m biased because I’m from Hawaii, but I would defintely not short HE here, so I’m playing the contrarian move.

Some Maui memories. Shout out to Lahaina Pizza.

And a relaxing time at our hotel on the Lahaina coast. Best night life on the island.

Aloha!
-Gio

HE Long @13

Added @9.80

Added @13.02