Gregmal

That’s the whole thing, whether you want it or not, it’s largely lower income, city and rural folks who get destroyed by these policies. Just like with COVID restriction, the politicians and the elitists not only remain immune from the pain, but they profit off it.

Climate change is just an excuse to tax and allocate taxpayer funds towards utterly ridiculous stuff without having to be accountable. Even now, you have $5-7 gas across the country, and the solution supposedly is “why don’t you own an EV?”. Imposing sanctions on an ultra resource rich Russia was just too good to be true for these folks.

Nah it’s good. Just see what the elites are doing and go with it. Buy real assets, buy oil, and short everything else. Then laugh at those who are getting what they voted for and now don’t like it.

Production is only part of the equation. When governments do dumb stuff, it encourages people to call bullshit. As speculators bid up energy, there’s only one way to beat them, and that’s more production. If you can’t, then the animal spirits take over and you get a crisis. That’s what’s happening. Folks talked forever about the Fed put. In energy today, provided you don’t get stung by a turdco, it’s super low risk with high reward because of the ESG put. Low energy prices these dumb fucks shun investment and say “transition”, higher prices they suggest everything BUT the solution, which is more drilling. The US and Canada particularly it’s inexcusable. I think I’ve used the analogy before but what we are doing with energy is the equivalent of starving yourself despite having a pantry full of food.

It’s only getting started! Look at all the job cuts in tech! I love periods like this where there is so much data out there, much of which ultimately irrelevant, but good enough for the alarmists to keep digging themselves deeper…much of which is ultimately what allows these sort of opportunities to occur. Yet another solid jobs report today. Despite the elitists best effort to derail it, the train chugs on!

There’s no windfall tax on individual investors buying call options on the futures contracts….

Its structurally really simple. These guys have gotten by using windfall profits from a few quarters or years to fund many years of the down cycle. And thats still been shitty for the most of them. Now you have greeseball liberals taking a chunk of their windfall. It will 1) force better allocation throughout the cycle, 2) reduce investment in the space, 3) quickly BK those who dont get 1+2 have/are occurring. Higher prices, way higher, would be inevitable. Forget the fact that as prices go higher the pols will give people stimulus and subsidies too make it look like theyre tackling the issue, which just further fuel demand.

If they do this crude goes to $200 easy. The idiots just cant help themselves.

Underfollowed OTC stock that uplisted to Nasdaq few years ago. Super conservatively managed. No debt. Pretty much, but not quite a royalty company...they dont drill. Assets predominantly in Marcellus and operated by CHK. Latest update showed encouraging results in OK which should materially ramp the earnings. Selling from large shareholders putting a lid on stock. Company using this to repurchase shares. Large existing insider ownership. Current dividend yield is 3.5% which should only go higher. Check their May 31 release for latest updates but seems super low risk given the macro backdrop.

Quadrupled my position in EPSN yesterday and today. Nice setup there.

Toastin to Captain Jack Sparrow with some Diplomatico.

I was watching a documentary the other day and it brought up a period earlier in the 2000s where the US was fighting its Iraq/Afghanistan war. There was great outrage, constant "denouncing", and a general stink made about Pakistan "aiding" some of their allies(whom happened to be fighting the US) through providing weaponry. Interesting perspective now, given todays situation. Of course it was different because whatever we are doing is right and whatever we dont like or are fighting against is evil and wrong.

Look at what the Fed did. One day of QT and we're already plummeting!

not to mention carrying massive leeches in the forms of unions.

Nestle is an under appreciated consumer staples power house. The options are still cheap, yes. But I think they can grow earnings above inflation without trying too hard. So if you sit down and write up a list of all the shot folks are scared of right now, namely inflation and recession, Nestle becomes more potent and appreciated in those situations. Also, because of its size, there is international arbitrage opportunities for the company as far as labor and product sourcing goes. American sugar is a good example historically.

Bump. I think I’m the current environment, obviously adjusting for many years and now using a different date/strike, this is a wicked good trade to put on.

Some inflation is healthy, crazy high inflation is not. All inflation eventually ends up being transitory. You will never get hyper inflation in a first world county. So again you always have the “what if this happens” folks, who take the highest high, go out the longest tenure possible, and point to the lowest lows, and then assume nothing ever recovers. But these things always end up working themselves out. Then life goes on. Its why it becomes silly making the blanket bear predictions. Earnings don’t need to come down 50% or markets don’t need to crash 80% because rates or inflation are high for a few years. At some point you get past those few years and then those same folks go back to talking about how expensive everything is again. If you bought stocks in the 70s I’m pretty sure you had earnings growth and share appreciation for the next several decades….in fact, the 70s was the perfect time TO BE BUYING stocks, which is very different than the narrative being peddled today by folks about the 70s. Unless of course your goal was to not make money or avoid volatility/meaningless drawdowns.

The biggest mental hurdle for many is to stop thinking like a little investor. If Icahn wants a company you think he’s afraid of tendering because it moves the market? What about entities that offer huge premiums for a full buyout? Typically you want to have the same mentality. In an illiquid security or market you have to make it liquid. If I have something at $17 trading for $5 who gives a shit if you pay 6/7/8? Of course like @aryadhanajust mentioned, be practical. Take a few weeks or even months to balance out your buy orders. If your fears are that you buy it at $7 and your brokerage statement shortly thereafter shows $5….play a different game then.

To me the biggest thing with these is you have to eliminate the idea that you're trading; you are making an investment. So with that said, you need to make sure your work is tip top. And then forget about this whole notion of "effecting the market price". If its illiquid and you think its worth 2-3x more, I could care less about moving the market, I want to accumulate the desired position, and over a specific accumulation period, get in at or below the highest acceptable purchase price.

Yea IDK but I followed it much more closely between 2014 and basically Jan 2020 threw in the towel with the name due to brain drain and lack of justifiable returns. They've always kind of touted that they trade at like 5-6x. I think they even briefly traded, supposedly at 4x during the big recall or shortly thereafter. At least on the "adjusted" metrics. Nevertheless, even guys like Tepper briefly went activist here, and got drowned out by the bureaucracy. I also got totally turned off by the board arrogance. Consistently touting their returns when anyone who owned the stock could tell you there weren't many, and certainly not ones that justify owning this type of business. @RadMan24always had a somewhat different and more optimistic take, so if he's still around perhaps can fill you in on the bull case today. I think Millers is too academic. GM is awful at executing and thats the problem even if the numbers are ok.

Added a little more Berkshire.

I dont think GM is worth owning. Look at what its done the past decade. The excuses, the questionable investments. They cut the dividend to be cautious and to my knowledge still haven't reinstated it. And even when the bulls though it finally was having its day, it essentially turned out to be a mouse fart meme stock bump, in its entirety of maybe 50-60% off its decade long range which is nothing to write home about. Just in general a terrible business run by bureaucrats who now want to be an ESG stock which....generally tends to be bad for profitability.

The media and hedge fund guys, not to mention analysts and pundits, have spent the last 1-1.5 months really drumming up and laying on thick the inflation story. The “1970s again” narrative. During this time the market began precipitously dropping. So, one, I think the claim that the market expects nothing but a transitory and soft landing situation to be clearly absurd. Otherwise, why the sell off? But overall, the talking and narrative control, fear mongering, by itself I think plays a role in how things and people react. The stock market the past month or two didn’t react to inflation getting worse, because inflation didn’t get worse. The stock market didn’t, or at least shouldn’t be punishing companies too much, on a go forward basis, for predictable difficulties faced last quarter. The Fed hiking to a whopping .75% doesn’t even create a hiccup on the valuation side so that shouldn’t be it either. Bond yields were basically where they were a couple years ago. Not it either. So if nothing else, I think what’s clear is that there’s always some kind of data or narrative floating around that will justify anyones conviction in just about anything, at any given time. The aggregate of data and circumstance combined with future expectation is really what can and does matter. May 2022 can likely be summer up as a storytellers circus. Inflation didn’t get any worse, Fed did what it said it would do quarters ago. Bonds were at 2017 levels. But the stock market had a correction and that’s because nobodies expectations changed? LOL…we serious here?

Yup. It’s the same mistake people make all the time. Like the “if rates go up real estate is screwed” arguments. And it’s just like nah. Not if rents double in 4-5 years. If an NBA team gives up 100 points a game, they’ll lose. Well not if your style is uptempo and you score 115 a game. In a vacuum anything, especially something like inflation, can sound scary. But one variable moves others and there’s places to exploit. For instance without inflation, there’s likely no wage growth. But that doesn’t stop people from wantonly claiming inflation is stealing peoples wages. It’s not. Not even close.

Maybe it faith in Powell, or more likely people just realize 8% ain’t sticking anymore than $35 masks were in April 2020. We continue to see signs everywhere of inflation moderating, but if we want to keep telling spooky stories….