siddharth18

Anyone looking at bear put spreads on $TLRY?

U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani WSJ (paywall) link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-files-criminal-charges-against-theranoss-elizabeth-holmes-ramesh-balwani-1529096005 Bypass paywall link: https://outline.com/dUwMC4

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-30/theranos-fatal-flaws-were-in-plain-sight

Yeah I was surprised to see an article on CNBC about FinancialSamurai. Almost reads like a thinly veiled advertorial.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/theranos-movie-based-on-bad-blood-book-to-star-jennifer-lawrence

So according to you, he should simply "put an outrageously large one time payment together" (that likely represents a lifetime of saving+patience+discipline+foresight+risk taking+luck, that may or may not be repeated in the future) without thinking it through...just because...he's crazy smart and figure out to make money back in the future? And also because "kids are more important" ?

Agree with all of this. Realize that you're fighting an uphill battle; so the wisest way to "win" is to avoid turning it into a war. If this does turn into a war, then finding the best attorney has got to become a full time job because your fortune (literally) depends on it. I don't have experience with family law specifically but a while ago when I needed an attorney in a different specialty - the wisest advice I got was to find an attorney that is "familiar with the local judges and knows their biases." Your goal should be to find an attorney who has a solid history and reputation (with the local judges) as someone who's sharp, knowledgeable and won't hesitate to appeal an unfair decision. Basically - the judge needs to know your attorney's aggressiveness and his past actions in order for him to resist making a biased or unfair decision. This is because judges don't like their verdicts being overturned on appeal, so they are likely to be less biased in their ruling if they see a familiar attorney who has a history of appealing egregious verdicts/rulings. +1

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-deception/

So there's no honor among CDS traders?

Well I, for one, do not think he should be punished for raising the price. He played a legal game where the incentives rewarded him for raising the price so that's what he did. If I'm not mistaken, I think Preet Bharara or Eric Holder, in one of their interviews, is asked about this. About why no bankers during financial crisis went to jail. And the answer was basically that the burden of proof required to prove criminal guilt is very high. And prosecutors are reluctant to bring a case that isn't a slam dunk because the loss can set a dangerous/unexpected precedent and is very demoralizing to the staff. In some way, winning a case is less about that case itself and more about preventing 10 similar cases. This dynamic is especially exacerbated when the department is understaffed.

That's a very myopic way of looking at things. A world filled with Shkrelis and Holmes would be a world where executives would chronically misrepresent their firm's financial position for their personal gain. That would be a transmogrified world where distrust would be rampant, markets would be very inefficient and the cost of capital would be extremely high. It would place the honest executives at a disadvantage due to market's inability to discern the money-good from money-bad. The rising cost of capital and the opportunity cost of society's inability to fund innovation would be a lot more than hundreds of billions. I also reject the notion that Shkreli was somehow unfairly treated or picked on, merely because he opposed a candidate or insulted the regulators or hiked the price of a rare drug. Actually his case had nothing to do with the price hike or unpopularity with the politicians or the media. The feds started probing Shkreli long before media picked up on his price hike or made him infamous. Secondly, he refused to show remorse or admit wrongdoing until he a few hours before sentencing. He wanted to loudly vindicate himself and prove his theory that him defrauding his investors was A-OK. So for the regulators, it wasn't just about proving Martin wrong, but all the future wanna-be Martins wrong. Shkreli insisted on a high-stakes, ego-driven showdown and that's what he got.

So using your logic, you'd let a future Shkreli defraud you out of your money as long as he insists after defrauding you that he will ultimately make you all your money back and create a lot of value for society?

https://medium.com/@zemacedo/blockchain-value-investment-opportunity-rialto-8c8f8d4adf17

There's a big difference between selling a future dream/vision and lying about past and present facts. I think that's where Theranos crossed the line. If you read SEC's complaint, they highlight multiple instances of egregiously false statements originating from the top, just to keep the story alive. Theranos went beyond simply "highlighting the amazing stuff." It began fabricating facts that it knew didn't exist. For instance, Holmes told that Theranos’ technology had been deployed by the DOD in Afghanistan when that was never the case. I don't know if Bezos ever made factually incorrect claim, that he knew was false, to raise capital. Such lies are not the same as consistently overestimating future production levels because investors treat, or should treat, a statement of fact issued by a company differently than forward looking projections. There's a HUGE difference between saying "our company has $1B cash on the balance sheet today" VS "We predict our company will have $1B cash on the balance sheet by next year." I think the only reason Theranos' BoD were consisted of accomplished heavy weights (rather than experts in the medical field) was to keep the story alive. A BoD consisting of medical experts would smell Holmes' BS must faster than Kissinger and Mattis might. At the same time, having Kissinger, Mattis and Boies on the Board gives a much stronger aura of legitimacy which would then allow Theranos to fly under the radar for as long as possible. Textbook definition of a "con artist."

Do you have any thoughts on deep out of the money 2020 UVXY puts?

[/size] I believe you have to be person of Indian origin - meaning either born in India or have some ties to India. If you have no ties, then I don't think you qualify. Not at all lol. You'd be putting money in the Indian version of State Bank of India, not the American version (which is FDIC insured). In that case, I guess you would have a Indian version of FDIC guarantee, which is worth INR100,000 which is less than $2000.So basically, you're a unsecured creditor of State Bank of India, if things turn bad right?My goal was to find State Bank of India's dollar borrowing cost in the bond market. Knowing what the market thinks about SBI's creditworthiness would be an interesting data point. Is there an easy way to find this?

So State Bank Of India is offering 3.15% fixed guaranteed return on US dollar denominated, 1 year fixed deposits of $100k or more. You're essentially loaning dollars to the biggest in India, that is majority owned by the Government and has been around for 200+ years. I was wondering if anyone has insights on how to assess the counter-party risk here? Is there a way to find out SBI's dollar borrowing costs in the international bond market? Would be great if anyone can elaborate on how to think about it in terms of the worst case scenario.

Wow...the airline stocks are getting hammered. EasyJet down almost 20% International Consolidated (parent of british airways, Iberia, etc) - down 26% LSE website (http://www.londonstockexchange.com/) is down.

To your point about throwing money at anyone who threatens the moat - it worked with Instagram but failed with Snapchat. Technology is such a fickle beast. Too hard for me to answer, FWIW.

With currencies you are always making an implicit bet on something, and it really shouldn't be called hedging because you are either long your home currency or long some foreign currency. It is not possible to have a hedged position with zero exposure. Well the bet that I make is that I'm too uninformed to predict the direction of currency, hence I only wish to benefit from the change in the underlying stock price without the results getting distorted by change in currency values...if that makes sense? I do not wish to add an additional variable (currency values) into my ultimate results. Because without hedging you have got to believe your home currency will weaken...and I feel like it's best to hedge if you have no view on the currency's future value.

The way I think about hedging is really simplistic (maybe too naive), but it's this: Do I want to bet on the things that I understand and can reasonably foresee (which would be the price per share of the company I'm buying) or do I want to make a macro currency bet? For those opting for the former, it should be straightforward. By not hedging aren't you implicitly betting that the foreign currency will either stay flat or go up in value relative to your home currency? I never want to make a macro currency bet, meaning I neither want to suffer due to the foreign currency weakening nor do I want to be unexpectedly rewarded if my home currency weakens - that is fine with me. The only overall benefit I seek is to gain or lose an equivalent % of change in the underlying stock that I purchase. And in order to do that, I need to hedge all the time. The only downside here is the cost of hedging and probably lose out on the upside if my home currency indeed weakens. But I can live with missing out on things that I never foresaw....

Oh man...a film about my hero Dr. Mike Burry - can't wait!! It must be pretty surreal to be Dr. Burry in the last 15 years....leave medicine, start a hedge fund, bet against the big boys, win big, get famous, get a book written, get a movie made...all because of his tendency to "think independently." Even more surreal is the fact that he is very shy, awkward and wants the furthest thing from publicity. I know films need the guns, hot girls, fast cars to appeal to a wider audience but I hope it actually shows that Dr. Burry and the other shorts went through during late 2005-early 2007 when the outside investors began questioning Burry, threatened to pull money out, made Dr. Burry physically sick. Also, does anyone know if Jeff Greene will be depicted in the film? He'd probably make a great and entertaining character for the film given his tendency to live large...plus he loves publicity.

It's a bit tricky to figure out what he's doing, and where the money that he ends up making, coming from. I actually got more curious about the person when he dropped Ben Graham's name...does it have anything to do with financing a quasi-company with convertibles? The only passing resemblance to what Graham/Buffett say and what he does is getting more in value than what he gives up, and he does do that. And that's based on what I know about Graham/Buffett, not what Sason says or what Bloomberg interprets it to be. As far as I can tell, he's offering loans to companies (which ought to be savvy counter-parties) and pretty much gets a guaranteed return as long as there's liquidity. His risk is not just repayment but also liquidity. And as far as I can tell, there is no such thing as an "unfair" deal if there's no coercion or deception. Maybe I read the article too fast...but can someone explain to me what part is "shady" or "manipulative" or causes a "moral dilemma" ? The companies do read the debt indentures right? And the shareholders who buy the shares do realize their company is not solvent right? Seems like Sason has found out a nice way to monetize the market's inefficiency (stupidity?) Or maybe I just read the article too fast...

Was going through some old Forbes magazines and came across this article on David Baazov. How does a 30 something old guy with nothing, convince Blackstone and other banks to lend him $5 billion to buy the biggest online poker site? It blows my mind what can be accomplished when you don't up. Seems like the way to get anything is to just try it a few more times. Read it here - http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2014/12/01/the-king-of-online-gambling-is-34/

The question is what will be it's net income, going forward... (I haven't researched the idea, but based off of your post, why should 10-year avg net income matter, given how the industry has been in a flux since the last few years...?)