Gregmal
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Posts posted by Gregmal
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I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I don’t sell my time by the hour because it caps my potential. You want something done, you pay for it. Not some idea of how long you own somebodys time for.
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The pre COVID and post COVID housing markets are two totally different things. The fact that builders didn’t built and younger people put off homeownership is why we’re in a market where the only way out is incentivizing building. Builders aren’t building more than they need to right now, because of rates. If rates drop and demand spikes they’ll lose all discipline
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The Fed and many elitists will argue that the answer to that person being disgruntled about not being able to eat out, or it being more expensive to do so, would be to make it so that more people cant eat out and less people work at those restaurants. I dont even know how this shit flies. Well, I do, and again its because they can just say "inflation" and 90% of people dont question it or dig any deeper. But its crazy. As Ive argued before, by far, the biggest and most problematic inflationary impact on everyday people is housing being so expensive, and that is entirely because of the Fed and their interest rate crusade. If the Fed dropped rates back to 2-3% you'd see so many houses built that we'd probably have a sizable housing market correction in the next 3-5 years.
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2 minutes ago, Santayana said:
I completely agree, but it *is* inflationary. Plenty of middle class people who used to enjoy a weekly dinner out at a restaurant are being priced out of that small luxury.
And thats fine. They've created certain words, like inflation, that people are conditioned to just accept. They say inflation, and people immediately think "ooh, bad"...If "inflation" is largely driven by expensive restaurants...so friggin what? No one is forced to eat out...I mean we act like its something that everyone is entitled to...but what about the people working at the restaurant? Theyre just trying to make a living. Theyre probably not going out to eat 2x a week. Its nonsense.
The majority of the wage price spiral theory is invalid because as we got more industrialized, especially at scale, you can pump out as many of most goods as you want for little incremental cost. Obviously you cant produce more chefs and bartenders like that, but again, employment is good, not bad.
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Uh huh. I mean its plain old manipulation and outright fixing the game by the ruling class when you get down to what it is at its core. Because who does what during the downturns? The lower end people have to complete for fewer jobs and often work multiple jobs. The middle class aspirer who's just able to afford the house or the car no longer can, and the rich people buy vacation homes and distressed assets like its Christmas...
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24 minutes ago, Santayana said:
Given how I interpret your general worldview, I'm really surprised that you're not someone who sees the wage increases as leading to ongoing inflation. I'll agree that it's good for a lot of people getting the raises, but it's just classical economics, more money chasing the goods and services will always result in price increases.
I know a number of restaurant owners who have significantly increased prices over the past few years, and yet they're still not making nearly as much as they were due to all the wage increases and wholesale food price increases. Which means more price hikes still to come.
When you mention the grocery store, I do see the prices there have finally stabilized, but just because someone can substitute eating at home vs. going out doesn't mean their cost of living hasn't gone up. Sure I can eat more cheaply if I spend an hour cooking at home vs. having an after work cocktail at the bar, but that's assuming my time is worth 0. I've always thought substitution effects and hedonic adjustments are just BS that lets the government get away with understating the real inflation that so many people feel.
Because workers have been getting screwed on wages for decades. Wages have not kept up with anything. So I think its total BS that a bunch of elitists now view wage grow as bad because god forbid its more expensive to enjoy the luxury of going to a restaurant or a bar...yeah, lets tank the economy to stop it...absurd. Its up there with them blocking the CPRI acquisition on the basis of people being entitled to $300 bags...where does it end?
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This inflation fear IMO is kinda easy to write off. First, $75-100 oil really isnt anything special now going back almost 20 years. However every time oil prices fluctuate up 10%, a whole crowd of folks start raging on about it being proof of inflation. I think not.
Otherwise, used cars prices seem to keep coming down. Ive noticed a TON of stuff at the grocery store, including the bellwether Pepsi products, all seeing price cuts. My insurance policies haven't shown more than 5% increases. Just not seeing much of anything to write home about. Housing seems stable. Inventory creeping up a bit should quell prices accelerating. Some people still getting raises? Good LOL. Seems about time people get on with their lives.
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Too many monkeys in the market. Frankly I have no idea who in their right mind would be fretting a rate hike here. Inflation is nowhere near the FF rate.
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Well, Mr. Mayor, looks like 8,380 dollars crossed the border into Checking Account today.
Hmmmm, we got room over in Nintendo for em. They'll like the new Super Mario stuff about to drop.
Ah, another 13,899 made their way thru just before dinner, whats the plan?
Looks like theres some seats at The Garden available. But gotta be quick, thats been filling up lately, gotta move before its too late.
Overall, we are pleased with how we are filling out the population of Portfolio City!
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You just need to view your cash as migrants, your portfolio as a big liberal city, and yourself, the mayor. It comes in, and the first priority should be making sure its got a nice place to be housed. Dont worry too much about the exact room rates on the daily...over time it just evens out.
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5 minutes ago, Sweet said:
What are you referring to Greg? Are you talking about yourself or putting yourself in the shoes of a Ukrainian?In general? Imagine being in Ukraine or America or any country for that matter, and some politician picks a fight or gets involved in a war and now YOU have to pay the price for them? Or go to jail? Fuck that. I mean I’d be cool saying, “if you voted for XYZ and XYZ gets you into a war it’s mandatory you fight”…but don’t make problems I didn’t ask for my problems. Let alone let them dictate my freedoms. And no, I don’t need a politician or media outlet to tell me whether or not my freedom is at risk by the “war”.
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3 hours ago, Irv72 said:
In MANY countries, including the US and many European ones, leaving the country at time of war would be considered desertion, and punished with long prison terms. One wouldn't be denied consular services; one would be arrested on the spot.
The Ukrainian government is so nice it's downright populist.
Isn’t this disgusting? A war started by a politician I didn’t vote for and don’t support means I either risk my life for a cause I don’t want anything to do with, or go to jail….true democracy!
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The most “real” takeaway from 2022 imo wasn’t that inflation tanked stocks, it was already here prior, so that’s not it. It wasn’t rates, as we see now, market is expecting 1/0 rate cuts this year now and we re at 5000+ and we re cool with higher for longer. It was people gambling on a recession. When the recession proved to be just another scream and shout Fintwit product that never became real, markets recovered and volatility tanked. Further validating this was the peak in short interest in June/October 2022 and all those “fund manager surveys” which are great contras.
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It’s funny actually thinking about when the top was I recalled @changegonnacomeconfidence termites perspective in q3 2021. And it really played out. The crap went first and the last to fall was the darlings, but that also should’ve been a sign that the turn was near, along with the rate cycle peaking. The turn then happens in reverse, the darlings came back first, then the middle of the road stuff, then the poo, but there’s still a lotta stuff that’s got room to come back and then of course, we need the poo poo and the IPOs to get favorable again. I don’t think we re at any sort of significant top or bottom right now. There’s actually a good amount of value imo, which then leads back to the whole, “what the point of 5-7% in fixed income” and “why not just buy stocks”.
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1) because it’s not the 70s. There’s nothing comparable to what was happening in the 70s other than just blindly saying “inflation” happened.
2) I agree and thought the top for those not following the index was actually February 2021 when the spacs went first. I just get tired of seeing articles and reading about how “from Q4 2021 this or that” occurred. Or “negative real returns” in a vacuum when it’s like ok we occasionally have periods where everything stinks. It’s how the market works. If we wanna do “real returns”, bonds and cash from 2021 dindu nuffin either. Residential real estate is probably the only thing I’m aware of that’s gone up since 2021. And even there, it’s somewhat area specific although broadly safe to say done better than anything else.
End of the day, I agree actually from HERE there’s some optionality in fixed income that is interesting. But I just don’t think it should be an investment philosophy. I get there’s a degree of “other risks” that come if you work in a field sensitive to overall macro, for a second in March 2020 I saw a picture that was infinitely worse than anything I’d ever dreamed up with stocks and real estate. But for the average person, this sort of guessing game is a waste of time and especially brain space. The only people whom should have a sub 5-7 year timeline are either sub 30 and trying to buy a home, or 55+ looking to retire. Everyone else? Just sit on your hands.
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Yup. And then you look at the alternative suggestion which is to own bonds which over the same time period either got smoked, or if shorter duration, “didn’t have a real return” either after all the hatchet job adjustments and modifications to the gross returns based on false CPI data. But then you step back and say ok this is the result you get for stocks when you go super duper out of your way to try to make them look bad, they could easily perform better, which generally they do. Whereas fixed income? You get nothing. At best over the same time period you got the coupon, remember the starting point for stocks was “the top” when fixed income got you 1%, and at worst you got what you ended up with anyway by owning them. Or then we pivot to some super active, day trading type hindsite strategy where we guess the short term fluctuations, and that too, has proven to be both a suckers bet, and way less efficient tax wise, to….just owning stocks. I don’t get the point of this game.
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Think we ve had this subject come up before, but using one flimsy, kind of subjectively picked argument based on a timeline of “in 2022” doesn’t even remotely cover “how stocks do with inflation”. Inflation started summer/fall 2020(hence how we starting printing it on the CPI in Q2 2021) and there’s still modest albeit abating inflation. Saying “in 2022 they couldn’t raise prices fast enough to counter inflation” completely ignores the multi year runway they get for raising prices following it. Or the huge demand and profit boost most got from the wave of inflation producing demand. Especially when most inputs were supply chain. Fritos aren’t 150% more expensive to produce than they were in 2019. But the price hikes stay.
And then also “the returns aren’t positive in real terms”…why cherry pick the absolute peak?
It should be very obvious stocks are dynamic, flexible to environment because they have actual operators managing them, and have more than held their own through the 2020-2024 inflation period. They’re also tax efficient. Flipping through CDs and short term crap isn’t. The obviousness of the advantage is even more evident by the fact that we have to contain the counter argument to “if we take the date the index hit its exact top and then stop counting at the bottom, it’s clear stocks do poorly with inflation”…frankly I don’t think it’s really productive to force oneself to draw conclusions based on just 12 months, but nevertheless nowadays we seeing people doing it for mere days, weeks and months. That’s not “in an inflationary environment” and it’s not “evidence” really of anything other than a bunch of monkeys playing hot potato based on headlines.
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Curious as Ive noticed and been perplexed by this for a long time, and it again seemed forefront and center after the META earnings(just as a prime recent example). We see it all the time when folks talk "macro" and "the market"....ticker ABC goes on multi year run, then regresses. The regression needs to be analyzed and theres often talk of whether or not "its warranted". Index pulls back 5-10% and "its been bad" for investors. Or "thats why its dangerous to be in stocks". COST falls 10% from ATHs and now its obviously because it was priced to perfection(rather than the entire two decades prior when it was also expensive)...Seems stupid and Im failing to understand why most investors arent agnostic to this sort of pointless fixation/type of analysis. Or if Im missing something and there is a huge benefit to this sort of stuff?
If an instrument goes from $50 to $75 from January to September and then in Q4 from $75 to $60....my observation is that many investors, on December 31, would feel like they lost $15.
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Funny thing with Disney is after bleeding for years, the only reason people started giving a shit again is Peltz. He started making noise again in October around $80/81. And then what do they do? Vote for the status quo LOL. Think the stock is already off about $10-12 since the elections. Would imagine this continues until...next proxy season.
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Yea I grabbed a bit more Nintendo too. Really puzzling trader this one is. Fundamentals inflecting and stock drives to $15, and then sells off after a couple dumb hit pieces relating the the timing on new console, IE we are talking a few quarters, and now off $3+ from the highs.
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Everyones gotta find their own process. And then the work begins refining it and evolving as an investors. In a world of "this is what youre taught"...everyone runs to the income statements. Personally, the first place I go when looking at an investment is the balance sheet. Why? Because Im not interested in crappy balance sheets. It only means...bad things. Poorly managed, declining profits, interest rate/refi risk...and many more derivative negatives. Whereas Ive made an absolute fortune, finding companies with pristine balance sheets, and "nothing really going on"....playing inflections or event driven stuff. CKX a good recent example. Nintendo falls into this bucket as well. When the balance sheet is a fortress, you have time to sit around and wait to see the cards turned. You can also employ your own leverage to put on the investment. Whereas some crapco with a huge debt burden, you sweat more and more with every tick of the clock.
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44 minutes ago, Eldad said:
to me to base my purchase on someone’s guess.
Well why not base it on your own work?
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Both are a waste of time.
If Im concerned with the earnings power of something, I typically try to figure out what the next three years of earnings will look like. One year is such a small sample size; anything can happen in a year.
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Bet the teachers are still getting paid though.
What are you buying today?
in General Discussion
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If you’ve got a decade I like the warrants way better