Gregmal

That’s IMO what kept things in check with Trump. He just might have been crazy enough to hit the red button if Kim Jung got out of hand. And that had to be considered. And the majority of Americans agree, even amongst democrats, that Putin would not have pulled this if Brandon hadn’t been elected. Not coincidentally, the last time he did this was….under who’s watch? The establishment politicians have no surprise factor. You know exactly what they’ll do and respond and to a mad man that works in their favor. Some get why they voted for, and others just have to live with it unfortunately.

That’s the whole thing, you can pretend to forget what you are but you can’t reasonably put yourself in the shoes of something you know nothing about. As much as you may want to envision living in Ukraine or Russia you can’t. Nor can you envision living in South Africa and a black person, or a white person, and trust me, there’s a huge difference there too. Your “vision” will still be skewed by western bias. Plenty of Eastern Europeans who come to America love it, and still keep ties to their home countries. And it’s not cuz they’re forced to. Interesting side note a friend of mine was looking at Ilya Kovalchuks old NJ mansion which is current up for sale; an absolutely breathtaking place. But that’s besides the point. Kovalchuk has been in the US since a teenager. His family has homes in NJ, and CA, in addition to back in Russia. They in fact, prefer to have their kids go to school in Russia. By choice! Imagine that. There’s different ways of life and cultural values and it all doesn’t fit in a box. War is an unfortunate and ugly part of life. But it’s known to the inhabitants of those areas as a possibility. They can stay or leave or whatever. It sucks, but the people make choices. As others have mentioned, the US and EU have done tons to destabilize Ukraine. They deserve lots of criticism. But hey, now Brandon has his excuse for higher gas prices and fucking up the economy! Great success! Poke the bear enough and eventually the bear creates a gigantic mess. Then euthanize the bear and say it was cuz he was a violent threat. The western way.

Yea, thats EBAY to a T. The forgotten about internet commerce giant. Maybe one day it surprises some folks.

Man that reads like an OP-ED from the Washington Post, written by a gender neutral Czech, who's grandparents and parents both grew up in the US, Viking. While there are certainly people there that want the American way of life, theres others that dont. Meanwhile in America everyone thinks the rest of the world is envious of our way of life, and frankly, that just isnt true. All these "oligarchs"(aka private citizens and individuals being persecuted simply because of their nationality) that are being hunted like witches have the resources to be wherever they want, as do the numerous athletes from old USSR and current Eastern European nations. Many of which still call these places home, and by choice. Trump or Biden doesnt reflect everything about me, an American, nor does Trudeau(hopefully) represent you. But today we have no problem casting blankets on the Ukrainian and Russian people like its a Yankees/Red Sox game.

LOL in tandem, move over covid, the call options on XLE and the like are the new "exponential growth"...

DIS/EBAY adds and PDD ATM leaps.

Yea well that’s the beauty of these highly asymmetric trades. You only really need a handful to work to justify the strategy. One works well and the rest are essentially free plays at the casino. Now if only my CLF leaps could get going.

China will seize this opportunity to come out smelling like roses, IMO. They'll clean up on the economic front but also not take sides and then when convenient play a little bit of a peacemaker role. They are ultra savvy and opportunistic and very easily can take this situation and make both the US and EU look like idiots and Russia look like the bad guys. Its part of why I think theres a window on Chinese stocks starting to emerge. The market is saying "theyre Russia" but its more rational they utilize this to say "no, we are not". But they'll wait til Putin has tired himself out first.

My wife the other day was like “isn’t this awful. How high do you think things go?”. And I just thought “not if you own call options”. As we blast through a family road trip encompassing the entire southeast and meander back to NJ. Probably did 3,000 miles of driving the past couple months. Cheap hotels were like $350 a night and in some areas triple that. Inflation made it cost way more than the year before. But “spend” as a percentage of worth declined significantly. And that’s the thing, writings been on the wall long enough for people to murder this trade. If you’re not even benefitting from higher energy and inflation you’re doing it wrong.

China as usual is just being smart/opportunistic as dumb ass western countries and companies dump the assets they need most for little reason other than virtue signaling. If you want to make a point to your enemy, you don’t throw them Berkshire Hathaway or Exxon shares are 30% fair market value. Chinas just doing the obvious no brainer move and taking advantage of this.

We can’t secure our borders because it’s racist, or make NYC safe again with stop and frisk but holy shit look at North America and Western Europe go! Blanket discrimination against anything and anyone Russian and certainly throwing in those evil Chinese too is fair game. Woke is a joke. Basically just a dumb political colors game that can be traced to the amount of votes available. I’ve heard more blatant bigotry the past few weeks from MSM and the twitterers than I would have probably anywhere else on earth. Individuals being targeted simply for being Russian, forced to give up assets, entire teams banned. Then these are the same people who want to talk about inclusivity and equality. Fuck them.

Those things are real for sure but thats always going to be a risk with any platform. They've been going back and forth with AMZN forever with poaching and stealing customers. However I think a good portion is amazon proof. Amazon has a much bigger issue with authenticity and quality than Ebay. Additionally, many "power sellers" are just simply stores that sell basic shit. Thats a great cash cow but not sustainable and I find it somewhat miraculous eBay has been able to keep that going as long as they have. Other areas though are apples to oranges. Amazon is basically a dollar store and Ebay is a pawn shop. Both can easily exist. Theres certain items that one buys on eBay that they'd never buy on Amazon. And vice versa. I also think they've got room to redo and monetize better the payments void PayPal left. Ebay itself, is one hell of a unique piece of internet real estate.

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