Gregmal

That was pretty much all of 2021. Totally obvious, easy setups fueled by stupidity and people taking media and politicians at their word... Mr. Market was tipping his pitches all year long. So when they yell "boo, variant" or whatever the current Pavlovian dog bell is, you can either fall in line, or...

https://nypost.com/2021/12/24/cops-called-as-nyc-crowd-gathers-for-free-covid-19-tests/ LO-freakin L who’d have thought we get to a point in society where there’s riots cuz folks need a testing kit to tell them how they feel? My gosh it’s pathetic. imagine back in the day, going into work. me: Hey John, how are you this morning john: Good me: idk man, have you gotten tested lately? john: no, I feel good me: yea but how do you know, you haven’t taken a test lately… LOL again even Lebron is calling out the nonsense https://www.instagram.com/p/CX4GnUfP0um/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading

Weird how this whole stonks going up thing works. Almost like there’s some sort of rhyme or reason and thus predictability to it all….

Interesting. A lot of people(you can almost always pick them out of a crowd or judge them by their covers) make tremendous financial windfalls by finding the line that legally enables a fraud. Legally getting rich quick. Or at least, legally making a trade involving a small penalty in exchange for a big pay day. The financial world is filled with these folks. So is energy. The guys who pinch an extra digit selling energy to entities that pass through costs. Mortgage guys who know how to get a shaky app through or slip on an extra eighth. Stock brokers or advisers who know where you can offload those private placements...... Funny enough, my town, a nice, up and coming NJ suburban town, was developed in its early stages by two dudes. One had Enron money through a timely wedding, and the other part of a well orchestrated penny stock operation in the 90s. One never did a day of time, the other a small stint in the slammer and a lifetime ban but then emerged with enough wealth to buy and develop several dozen acres of waterfront land and never "really" work again.

Who doesnt love these headlines? https://seekingalpha.com/news/3783048-new-home-sales-miss-consensus-in-november-rising-124 Just like the Hedgeye chumps pushing their "sunbelt peak" thesis. Sorry folks. Gonna have to settle for 12% increases in sales and $10k increase in average price of a new home. Darnit. Time to buy some puts LOL.

Hahaha yea, no I agree theres some opportunity somewhere, I just have trouble seeing exactly the where and how of it, in terms of making money. These guys(pot companies) make O&G guys look like fiduciaries. Net lease cannabis REITs seem to have an edge, but even there, not sure I have the balls to do anything meaningful. IIPR has been a stand out.

LOL I dont EVER really buy these. Ive invested in two post deal spac in my life. AYR which got 4-5x out of before selling in high 30s and Fisker which was a quick momo trade. Otherwise the thought of owning these types of businesses disgusts me and I dont like to play with that sort of fire too often. Currently I have a few flyer warrants on YSAC. Otherwise, just stick to pre deal spac. Ironically there was a big group of Liberty shareholders who threatened to throw a temper tantrum because they thought the offer was unfair. They are lucky they got AYR stock huh? I just dont care for the "we need to grow at all costs" approach at AYR. For the exact reason now highlighted by the Liberty deal. Get your shit in order. Take your time. Execute. Allocate wisely with the focus on per share value. Fuck off with this "gold rush" sales talk. Gold doesnt grow with a few seeds, some sun, and a watering can.

I am not up to date on AYR but one of the problems I did have awhile, after selling out, was this….if you’re really executing on the business, and you believe your own numbers, you have no business making acquisitions instead of buying back stock. Everyone always has excuses, but it is very simple. If you trade at 2x EBITDA making acquisitions is a poor use of capital.

Merry Christmas and holidays indeed. Wishing everyone the best.

^thats why we're getting 2 caps in a neighborhood near you soon! j/k maybe, maybe not. wouldnt be shocked though.

Prem Watsa.

Pure gold.

There are a ton and many of high quality. Originally I thought of shit like ATUS but there is real solid stuff like PYPL, DIS, MSGE, and more. I actually like the idea @ERICOPOLY posted a while ago in another thread. Short puts on these and the use it to buy calls elsewhere. I've been doing some of that lately.

Yea so I was able to confirm if you bought a machine you get a full refund and get to keep it. Pretty sick deal. Only reason I can think of for this development is that perhaps the machine is massively defective and a warranty or repairs will cost more than just giving it to folks. The good news is if you still see one at the store, you can buy it and then get your money back.

There may be a value proposition here. Not positive but I believe they will be refunding the machine cost while allowing you to keep it. I’d totally dig that. Then just buy a few dozen sets of pods and be set. The big question is why? The machines sold like wildfire. Perhaps the pods were duds? They are pretty expensive. I personally thought it insane they sold beer and cider pods at $4-5 each when you could go buy a 6 pack for a few bucks more. Or perhaps some potential liability issues? Quite bizarre.

^very good and valid points. I would chip in that the difference is that those arrogant "value" managers KNOW that theyre right and that Cathy is wrong! LOL. Despite the fact that she's probably both made more money than they have, grown from the ground up a bigger business than they have, and also probably still, produced better returns. The finance world is full of arrogance little clipboard and excel warriors. Which goes back to your final point...being on the right side of the trade is all that matters.

https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/nyc-lockdown-in-question-amid-rising-covid-19-cases/ Sink or swim NY….your choice. Do you want to continue experiencing the robust recovery the lower part of the US has already experienced or you wanna be like those idiots up North who are now back to banning fans from hockey games? Make your bed, lay in it.

I don’t like being short anything more than 6 months out. Not even puts on shit I want to own at strikes I like. Respect the fact that short term the future is somewhat easy to predict but the long you agree to be on the hook for something the greater the odds are a black swan can bite you in the ass.

Yea I think you can be careless shorting the junk here. Top is in. Ive been putting on ITM puts with 12-24 months duration on some. Like $25 PLTR puts with 24 expiration, stuff like that. You have a skew where finally it seems it makes sense to be short because the momentum has shifted. I think simply maintaining current share price on stuff like ZM or TDOC is wishful thinking. Seems somewhat asymmetric in a non asymmetric way if that contradiction makes sense. One of the greatest fallacies in the market is that "its down 50%" means its a bargain. Could easily see some of those go down 90% from the top. Or completely bust. I'm also exploring triple A tranche type shorts more so as big crash hedges. Like higher quality Nasdaq 100 stuff. But the problem I see is that the FANGS are just really good companies and dont rely on debt at all. So the "inflation" argument doesnt really apply nearly as much as it does to these cash burning debt/capital market reliant turds. If AMZN or AAPL aint worth 40x then why is COST or WM? Thats an interesting question Im grappling with. I DO think 30-40x is OK for best of breed businesses because the world is going to be looking for places to put worthless cash and with the X-ing out of many crapcos, there will be even fewer legitimate options.

Totally. I love the lack of sales at Costco currently. Virtually none of the normal discounted items. Regular grocery stores are interesting too. The normally $4.99 La Croix are now “on sale” 2/$11. thanks Brandon.

And today markets the first day of buyback blackouts for anyone not running a 105 plan. Long month til earnings +2.

Right now kind of feels like that period of denial where folks are slowly realizing they need to get the rifle and bring Old Yeller out back. The sooner you put him down the better. Or you can wait and hang around til he bites you. Tech is done.

No idea lol. I just think Warren probably might have 99 problems with cash certainly not being one. And if he views AAPL as a big part of the BRK universe I would be shocked to see him sell anything material

I think part of Buffetts' evolution of the years has been with respect to valuation. If you paid too close attention to valuation you've basically missed most of this bull market. The metrics the market is moving to largely evade folks until they are obvious in hind site, AKA Amazon, Google, etc. I would imagine AAPL aint going nowhere in the BRK portfolio anytime soon. Nor should it. He trimmed last year and said it was a mistake, and exited Costco in the mid/high 300s which now looks dumb. You've got all the cash you need for buybacks elsewhere. Ive sold some of my BRK to buy DIS but still have it as one of my bigger positions. Top 5 for sure. If I was holding any cash I'd just throw it all in Berkshire without losing an ounce of sleep at night. The key is to just let it be and let them play the long game.

In an alternative universe I wish there were exit interviews for people selling stock. I dont know anyone who is selling MSGE here, but if I did I'd ask which category they fall into: I sold a potential multi bagger with virtually no long term downside because: a) Im scared of covid b) I'm scared of a temporary ~20% paper loss c) I wanted a pureplay with worse economics instead d) I didnt know what I was doing to begin with There's really no other category or reason for selling into the current situation. Mr Market is great though. Even in a rich market, always an opportunity somewhere.