Gregmal

Yea I actually think they can grow them if they focus on the right places. I wouldnt make that as a base case assumption by any stretch, but its definitely doable. Ebay IMO is one of the most under appreciated businesses in the world. Its pretty much everyones pawn shop. Nowhere else can you reliably turn pretty much anything you own into cash inside of 3 days, without leaving your house? One of the biggest ticket segments has been items that requires authentication. So stuff like designer clothing, watches, etc. Stuff that Ive always thought "what kind of idiot would buy one on eBay as you're almost certainly getting a fraud"....these things have been opportunity for the consignment shops and places like Farfetched. But they've moved strong there and while I dont think its going to be an overnight success, no doubt their guarantee program will attract more buyers and sellers than before. They make consistent money and fees are not really challengeable. So if you take all this and then look at the bigger picture, its a mature biz and a financial engineering/operating story. If they keep earning and just blowing holes in the share count you dont need a whole lot to go right to make good money from here. If it came back another 20-30% Id happily make it a 10%+ position. Also has a shot at being acquired IMO. Just all around unappreciated when really its a different animal than AMZN and the other stuff people always comp it to.

eBay starter

Ive always found that stuff fun. Did a complete kitchen renovation with my buddy. Paid him in beer and a new PS4(yea this was awhile ago). Also did a demo on an entire floor of a Bank of America office that was being re-leased. These type of things definitely give you a sense of appreciation for those skillsets and workers. Also +1 on the fishing. No joke, after my kids, fishing is probably one of the biggest considerations for where or if we move. Im not really interested in mainland Florida. Lakes that are really just retention ponds with pretty much just largemouth bass and catfish dont really do it for me.

Haha. Yea I’m working on 30 acres in St Johns County right now. St Augustine area is beautiful. Buy, wait, build. Then get a vacation house in JOE territory. No more heating oil. Problem solved

It’s not just cars is right. Like I said earlier heating oil for homes? We typically fill the 550 gallon twice per year and that’s basically part time considering we spend 2 months in Florida during peak winter. Of course we are lucky. But 550 x 2 fills. Last year average price 2.15 now today it’s $4. That’s $2,000 extra a year not including the cars which for a family of average means…..definitely not irrelevant edit: meant to quote @rkbabang but quoted @KJP

Look what happened in housing. Its not necessarily whats going on right now. Its what is the gameplan for the future. And with O&G in USA we have surging demand and...well, eventually those wells that are producing right now won't and if you aint encouraging the E&Ps to do their thing...youre gonna have problems. Or I guess we'll all just ride around on electric scooters...

Listen to the E&P companies. Ive heard now several calls where theyre all saying the same thing. Big oil is not budging. Theyre paying down debt, issuing dividends, and buying back stock. They arent really interesting in new drilling right now. People see that, and its why the futures markets were woefully confused all of last year.

That’s the thing, even in states that have it somewhat right, the infrastructure is shot. There is really not a fix for the short term so you’re going to eventually see panic and more speculation and prices today will seem tame.

Call options right all the wrongs in the world LOL if they don’t, try puts!

Again true, buts it’s about controlling the narrative. It’s similar to the mechanics of a short squeeze. We all knew GME wasn’t worth $30. It went to $500. Speculating is about risk/reward. The actual numbers and fundamentals only play a part. If there’s no threat of drilling there’s no threat to being long as it then starts having characteristics of things like gold.

People also said US stigmatizing drilling here at home wouldn’t have meaningful impact on prices either. So while small, these measures encourage traders and speculators to force the hand which then creates imbalance which then encourages more hoarding and speculation ultimately pressing the issue til somebody can demonstrate there’s no longer money to be made from taking such a position. I don’t even think we re at the oh shit phase of the energy crisis yet. People still think it’s temporary. How you solve it? Change the narrative and encourage the shit out of producers to drill baby drill. How you make it worse? Basically everything Brandon’s doing.

My best friend right now. https://seekingalpha.com/amp/news/3807360-devon-energy-ceo-mystified-that-biden-has-not-asked-for-more-oil-output

Brandon now looking to ban oil from Russia. Still shockingly not encouraging drilling on American soil either. I just filled my 550 gallon home heating tank even though winter in NJ is basically done. Better hedge than waiting. Full price 3.97 per gallon up from 2.65 in December. $200 a barrel may be much closer than people realize.

ATM Baba leaps

Starter in WE

100%. You can completely ignore lots of stupid and improbably tail risk if you throw pennies at a few windfall type hedge plays.

Just my 2c but these kind of ideas suck. No offense to the author. The reasons are simple though. Its too macro. Too complex. Too many things that can go wrong that dont allow you to make money even if your thesis is right. And at the moment, too many people are thinking its a good idea too because of what just happened with Russia. Its like the people saying you should buy puts after the markets gone down 10%. You would have just just as well, if not better owning VIX calls or US index puts as you would have shorting Russian stocks before the Ukraine thing unfolded. Just keep it simple and stay in your own backyard.

I still don’t really get the point being made about cash. There’s plenty that is mighty green on a short or mid duration basis that was both easy and obvious. We talked a bunch about oil or gold futures. Among other things. So why would you pick cash over those things(or other things you fundamentally like)? If down the line big tech or some shit looks compelling to me I’d rather buy some tech with proceeds from multibagger energy trades or double/triple digit irr event driven stuff than cash that’s been yielding zilch and collectively sidelined through the entire opportunity set. I mean weeks ago we were pounding the cash advantage mindset cuz there were big intraday moves in some names. And sure though not long later that proved to be a sucker rally and spending the cash then was for naught.

Sold a few qqq puts and added to dis and joe at the open

Haha yea I saw the notification on my phone that you quoted me and the question was purely market related so I didn’t notice the thread. But anyway. Answer is the same. If you pay attention to individual stocks it was an obvious top. Scams, fads, spac, COVID beneficiaries, ARKs, meme stock, basically all the darling stuff. On top of all the people who got crushed shorting or who wanted to short but were too chicken shit scared harping on about “you can’t short this market”…That’s where it peaked. Most of those stocks probably never seeing those levels again. I ve never really used or followed the indexes as any sort of reliable indicator of anything. Who cares where they trade? Especially now where they’re all the same shit. If you’re waiting for them to go down some magic % as an indicator to buy…..individual stocks! That’s a poor indicator.

If you’re an index buyer then the last thing in the world you need to be doing is worrying about making macro calls and tops and all the shit. And if you’re a real investor or trader than you know exactly why it was the top.

Yea thats what I need to get to the bottom of. I actually dig the locations for the most part. But its the hair that I want to make sure I feel like dealing with. Complexities with tax/ownership/incentives/etc are like the worst things in the world to deal with if you dont fully understand, at least IMO. When all those become a problem its probably easier top just day trade pump and dumps LOL. But again, I dont know how this all fits in here. Its a very interesting situation for sure.

Anyhow, to avoid disturbing the peace or having @Parsad inundated with "please silence him" messages from the brittle, I will make this my last post in the thread. The thread fittingly called "the top is coming". After being one of the first folks here to actually call the exact top on the market back in January of last year. Right before the crying crowds got me a ban for calling Cuomo a liar and creep. Ahead of the curve there as well it seems. Cheers.

@KCLarkin The threading of politics and investing has been integral to excellent risk/adjusted returns over the past 2 years. The majority of people I know on this board have been able to capitalize on this. How have you done? I would just hate to have people who are bitter about being so disastrously wrong and ultimately part of the reason this current situation has been able to unfold stifle discussion relevant to investing. I mean even a monumental shift in regulatory scope applied to big tech has changed things. Such as with stupid shit like GOOG and FIT or now MSFT and ATVI. Would you suggest we censor talk about that stuff too? Cuz lots of people here are big time dip buyers on big tech...go look at FB....should we go back to the echo chamber? Or eliminate the people who have gotten it right in a big way and have the returns to prove it in leu of appeasing those that simply dont want to read or be accountable to I told you so's?

Appreciate the lead and input/head start on DD. Cheers