winjitsu

Actually believe its the Chinese-Originated Viral Infectious Disease #19, meaning there have been 18 before it.

Appreciate the data-points. RE bottomed in '11 from the '09 crash, so it will take time for prices to come down (as is the nature of large, less liquid investments). If corona virus causes a longer-term recession, maybe this may repeat for the asset class as a whole. If the recovery is quicker, perhaps it'll only be forced sellers that are over-levered.

Can't wait to jump in. Saw another note on people with multiple Airbnb properties all on mortgages that may have to default soon. Without a doubt Airbnb helped fuel part of the asset price run-up and can't wait to see the prices come back down to earth.

Price range / budget? What type of applications will you be using (large excel workbooks? Photoshop or video editing?) How large of screen? Do you need it to be portable / light weight? If you have a Costco membership and credit card, I highly recommend you purchase from them. The price is fair, and you get a free 4 year warranty. I previously bought a Dell laptop from their website directly and it died after 1.5 years, and the original warranty was only 1 year. The cost to fix it alone was ~1/3 of the laptop value. Learned my lesson.

Went on a REIT / RE deep dive several years ago. Here's what I learned: AFFO is a better proxy than FFO (depends what they take out, but generally AFO is like FCF), so a good metric to look at is AFFO / Dividend to see how much they are retaining vs paying out to share-holders. For valuation, good to look at Price / AFFO and Price / NAV. You can build out NAV based on cap rate / valuation on each building or some type of replacement cost assessment. Think in terms of a per sq. ft basis (rents, cost to build, maintenance costs, replacement cost) -- learn the industry & class & geography averages What are the tenants like (industry, creditworthiness). Some Canadian reits w/ O&G clients got crushed w/ the energy downturn. How long are leases for? Is there a lease re-rating story (i.e. some tenant got a long 20 year lease and absurdly low prices < 50% market, lease expires next year)? What are the manager's incentives (grow AUM recklessly w/ debt? how is voting power structured?)? Internally or externally managed? The Portnoy family stands out for being terrible and self-enriching. I spent a good bit of time w/ the egress of Northstar Financial their management team as well Take a look at a great RE write-up from a hedge fund here posted on LAACO: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/laacz-la-athletic-co/?action=dlattach;attach=7008. Land and Buildings is another good HF w/ write-ups I'd actually suggest general RE investing books rather than REIT books like The Real Estate Game by Poorvu or Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur

This is really good to know, thanks! I tried this last Spring / Summer 2017, but since they filed financials + and have the pending merger, not surprised that things have changed. AFAIK Fidelity hasn't changed their rules though regarding pink sheet stocks w/ no financials (which in many re-orgs will be the case).

CNTWW was the stock that prompted some broker soul-searching for me too. On fidelity, you can buy CNTWW but not CNTE. They won't let you buy microcaps with no financials, though their warrants are totally fair game. On IBKR, you can buy CNTE but not CNTWW. CNTWW trades on some grey sheets that IBKR does not have access to. I think my only solution is to have several brokerages accounts open (I have Schwab and Etrade as well) and to shuffle around money to whichever broker will allow me to execute.

selling OTM puts and buying calls on FB

Klarman stated in one of his letters that he had a couple interns (or was it new hires) that were HBS with prior banking experience. I have friends that made to solid funds through the traditional process: investment banking -> fund or banking -> mba -> fund, which is really all about luck on who's hiring and what recruiters you're in touch with. Edit: I'll add a few more. Todd Combs cold emailed Charlie Munger for a breakfast meeting Tracy Britt brought Buffett some corn? http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/warren-buffetts-assistant-is-better-than-you.html I've seen Li Lu's Himalaya recruiting on Columbia University's job board

Julian's old mantra was to long the 50 best stocks and short the 50 worst. I think they're more traditional L/S alpha seeking [think pair trades, relative value, alpha shorts etc.] From my time as an allocator, I heard several of the tiger cubs used to have a conference call to share names / pitches, so you see alot of similar investments between funds. Now that we're on the 4th+ generation, no sure if that's true anymore.

Just cross validation during bull market years? I've played around with it a bit but never been comfortable enough with the algo [even worst with NNs]. I'm very scared of blowing up with these over-fitted models that have only seen rising markets... I think the main criticism against these "paper" strategies is you have 1000s of academics looking for signals and the winners publish a paper. The signals they find basically are the result of survivor bias. Do you guys have slack? Maybe its time we start a CoBF slack group

sounds like you need this calculator: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html

Option will get adjusted down w/ the cash, so effectively this will be a call on the new CPLG. I think its (1) undervalued (2) volatility (and iv) will increase drastically post spin. Mostly trying out the trade mechanics, so this is a learning opportunity for me, hence a tiny position size.

small position in LQ pre-spin calls in (h/t to clarkstreetvalue)

Loved it. Crazy thing is the math that they were using wasn't something super special ... just regression. I've been reading The Quants and it seems the theme was the first people to apply mathematical analysis to unique data sets (convertible bonds, options, stat arb... horse racing) made tons of money. The main guy in the article was worth over $800mm. I've read about wine funds, art funds, lottery ticket funds. Who knows how many unique markets there are out there.

Barbarians at the Gate gives a great overview of how the LBO industry was started and it's a fun read

Credit where credit is due, this is from a twitter user called Kong Ming. Old but still good. I'll probably delete this post soon. Commodities_Primer_-_RBS_2009.pdf Global_Mining___Steel_Primer_-__UBS_2008.pdf Global_Steel_Primer_-_RBS_2010.pdf Steel_Industry_Primer_-_Credit_Suisse_2011.pdf Valuation_of_Metals_and_Mining_Securities_-_Basinvest_2010.pdf

Big investments banks hold fundraising conferences + weekly events, but capital raising will come at a fee. I've sat on the other side of these cap-intro events, most are large funds or new funds with pedigree (former big fund partners launching their new strategy, new products from mega funds). Honestly, for a small fund, I don't think its worth your time and costs to institutionalize [get the right GP/LP offshore structure, get the expensive audit firm etc etc.... you set yourself to fail unless you get $50mm AUM+]. Sumzero has a database of LPs and you can put your fund info / write-ups on their platform waiting to be discovered. You can publish your quarterly letters on Harvest. You can cold email endowment funds. Tons of people with experience starting their own fund on twitter. Check out this tweet storm from Artko Capital:

Literally texted my friend yesterday saying that Hinkie is probably the best GM in the past 5 years. Wish more teams had the same long-term vision that he did. Looking specifically at knicks and nets.

MO, GOOGL, FB

Chess puzzles. I personally like chesstempo.com I'm big into meditation as well. It's incredibly challenging to keep focus and helps w/ several aspects of daily life as well.

https://hbr.org/product/hbr-guide-to-buying-a-small-business/10090E-KND-ENG Highly recommend the above book on search funds, basically tiny 1 man PE shops targeting companies with EBITDA in $1-10mm range. I can't recommend it enough. Book is based off a popular course at HBS. At the end of the day, it's all about access to deal flow. As some others have alluded, looking at websites [low quality] and working with a lot brokers is the best bet.

another one: https://www.seedinvest.com/ I haven't tried any of them. I am also biased against these platforms since I think the best rounds are over-subscribed anyways. Short answer to your question: Yes you can get involved, but it will take work since at the end of the day it's all about deal sourcing / getting access to deal flow. Are you accredited? A lot of the best start-ups are highly sought after by VCs and its the job of the vc fund professionals to spend a lot of time networking and deal sourcing. As a result, you'll won't have the same investment selection. Example: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-lightspeeds-jeremy-liew-invests-in-startups-like-snapchat-2013-12 Try something similar for a start-up you like? I don't think banks get any of the action till late stage [series c or later]. Your best bet is angel syndicates, getting in before a institutional seed round. You can probably attend a few pitches without having to make an investment to get a gist for what early stage investing is like. My city, Seattle, has a pretty cool club called Seattle Angel Conference which teaches new angel investors how everything works http://www.seattleangelconference.com/p/conference.html . Maybe your city has something similar? You could also get involved with an incubator or accelerator as a potential investor or mentor. It's a great way of getting access to potential deals. Universities all have startup incubators now. If you're vouched, you can probably get into the top pitch nights too @ ycomb, techstars etc Once you build a rep, people will come to you with deals, ask if you're interested in joining a round etc. Last option is go be an LP at some VC fund. There are alot of cool micro-vcs with sub $20mm aum. Basically one man vc shops with tight knit lp groups. Larger funds always raising money too.

Social Finance, aka SOFI, is one of the largest and hottest fintech start-ups right now (around since... 2012?). Basically started with the idea that not all students should be paying the same rates on loans. Their market entry strategy was to only refinance the loans of students that attended top colleges (literally only schools like Ivy Leagues, Stanford, MIT). Major specific loan segregation is also starting. I've seen lenders advertising to computer science majors, as well as dentists and medical students with lower student loan rates. Corroborates your research and I think its a better market approach.

Yes, you bring up excellent points...HOWEVER, let me add some counter points. A). I very strongly suspect that a 3.0 and a 140 LSAT is not "bottom of the barrel" for a lot of skools. There are rumors that many skools are just about open admission. Obviously, a skool is probably not going to let somebody in with 1.65 GPA and a 130 LSAT...but I know for a fact that skools are WIDELY letting in applicants with undergrad GPA's of under 3.0. And these are people in the liberal arts...not science, business, etc. B). People should absolutely be responsible for doing due diligence....no doubt. HOWEVER, many skools are outright lying about outcomes for their graduates. Even more are publishing highly suspect figures and heavily gamed that would be VERY difficult to suss out. The mainstream media is complicit in this. Best example is USNWR annual ranking. If a car dealership, or financial advisor were to do what the law skools are doing, they would be in YUGE legal trouble. So how exactly is student going to do due diligence properly? Trusted institutions are lying/gaming the system. The interweb is starting to have some effect...word of mouth is starting to work...but this has been going on for DECADES. The truth is only starting to come to light. Of course, there is a bigger problem than just the law skools... I did a bit of work on the for-profit school shorts from a few years back (Corinthian College, Strayer etc.). I think this is essentially the same thesis... Schools took advantage of unsophisticated [uneducated, dumb, poor] students and taught them to load up on federal loans. The schools get paid immediately by the government, while the students and government are left with the bill. Since revenue/profit is based on the number of students rather than the student's financial success, there is a perverse incentive to enroll as many students as possible. Several of the for-profit schools were charged with of making falsifying grad/employment data on marketing documents. A few ways I think we could improves the system: 1) Stricter government criteria for loans to schools with poor graduation/passed bar/employment. Non-profit schools may be the next wave. 2) Allow student loans to be discharged at bankruptcy. Creditors will be much stricter at giving out loans and students will be discouraged from making poor financial decisions. 3) Create some type of market mechanism where schools and student's future success are aligned. This seems hard and is pure speculation on my part, but an example could be less tuition up front, but a royalty on a student's salary post graduation. 4) Allow students to pursue professional degrees at undergrad (medical, dental, law etc.). The US college system follows the liberal arts philosophy that students should not pursue professional degrees during their undergrad. Its archaic and unnecessarily adds several years of schooling for doctors and lawyers.