Gregmal

Got deez today as well

Yea whats kind of funny, in light of the content @LearningMachine mentioned, is that in the situation I shared with the fiber rollout at the HOA....the details werent exactly great and there wasnt much else given, but when people heard "fiber" it was met with a lot of "ooh, ahh, yes sign me up"... in relation to the current service, one word sold them on parting ways with $1200.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous eh? Could be worse. How many stories do we have to hear of these billionaire finance guys who abuse or beat the shit out of hookers in penthouse dungeons or secret mansions? Howie likes to play cops and robbers…to each their own lol

Am I misremembering or was Howard speculated to be part of some horseback riding border patrol group a few years back? Vaguely remember reading something about a wealthy guy and his buddies roaming around with night vision goggles and guns in Arizona or something like that.

I own a bunch of places within a community that was built in the 1980s. The area is/was very boom/bust. As a result there were literally only two internet options for decades. A shitty little local provider and Century Link. Both terrible. But people managed. A third company has started going in and soliciting down payments of $1200 which is refunded via first year's service credit once buildout is complete for the whole fiber network. About 1/3 of the community pre-registered(~150 population total). Interestingly enough, Optimum came in shortly after and bought out the local company that presented an alternative to CTL. Myself Ive lived on the shitty Sprint network for 15-20 years. Its not great but is so much cheaper than T and VZ that I have no problem dealing with occasional headaches from service issues. I need talk, text, and internet. So Ive never bothered to move and probably wouldnt either unless something severely drastic happened although Ive noticed over time Sprint has gotten better so theres that too. People talk about faster or cleaner service but I cant envision that to a degree that enhances my life enough to pay more for it. Maybe if I watched more TV but I dont.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3774056-average-monthly-rents-increase-slows-in-october-but-metro-areas-see-yy-jumps https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/october-existing-home-sales-hit-fastest-pace-january-81328263 LOL still waiting for those slow downs folks keep talking about. Seems when we say words like "stalling" or "lack of demand" we simply refer to month over month or year over year increases of mid single digits.....not real, actual lack of demand and/or prices cratering. These sort of trades are so fun because you know some folks have an agenda and an incentive to distort the narrative. Just like with inflation being transitory and oil prices having to come down, they lie, lie, lie, but the data is easy and obvious to read and the trades are often fish in a barrel.

@John Hjorth He basically lied/misrepresented/something-along-those-lines his having achieved such a silly qualification...

LOL The MBA fiasco! I totally forgot about that! Everyone fussing over whether its real or not....meanwhile in my head I'm like "wait, it says more to me in terms of his approach, that this guy thinks having an MBA is even worth bragging about in the first place!" Oh man.

Thanksgiving Bombergers

No opinion or anything to add on the above other than that its a great little gimmick, but congrats on the place!

Needham analysts Vincent Yu adjusts BABA price target from $330 to $230. Quite timely. Wonder how much this guy makes? EDIT: ZM too! Keybank $398 to $344, maintains overweight Guggenheim $370 to $300, maintains buy? Barclays $270 to $245 None of these guys had this "inkling"ahead of the stock falling off a cliff? Useless fools. Bet they all make over $150k a year too.

Agree with Spek. Having come into my investing heyday over the past 15 years, I was at various point quite fascinated by the idea of John Malone. Unfortunately, the ideas and stories are way more interesting then the current iteration. Is it another example of a guy who's process worked in one environment but not in another? IDK. He's a genius and deserves the praise, but I dont understand the infatuation from an investment perspective anymore.

ZM another predictable one goes down. And yes, there were people buying these last year because they were going to change the world.

Yea but then the question on the commercial and capital markets side is do you really need these dopes making mid 6 and 7 figures doing what is essentially advanced paper pushing? I’m currently working with a management company to secure a 7 figure loan for some needed projects at a planned community. Looking at 15-20 year loans. Spoke with a half dozen different banks and at each one I could write down on paper what their “commercial lending” guru looks and acts like. Not even the lame suits and purposely showy watches and whatnot, but just the predictable nature of what they’re all about. The “oh here comes the pitch in why this product is better LOL” stuff. And then thinking, this guy should be embarrassed to wear that watch. And OMG he makes what? And goes on 3-4 vacations a year? To do this? And the absurdity that 98% of people have zero shot at ever being considered for a job like his even though most would be able to do it just as well??? It’s one of the last remaining clubs out there but with all other margins getting squeezed I think it comes under pressure over the next decade. IBKR I also think does a good job highlighting how you can cut much of the fat on the capital markets side. Sooo much money gets wasted on fat and I think the reason so many of these places are so diametrically opposed to crypto and AI is simply because it Amazon’s their business and exposes how redundant most of them are.

Like take analysts for example, do you really need a high level education or a stupid CFA/MBA to wait for something to make a big move AND THEN use some elementary DCF based model to "Adjust" a price target to basically +/-20% of where the shares now trade? Does doing this really need to pay $150-200k? to do this? https://seekingalpha.com/news/3773445-hedge-funds-walk-away-from-peloton-amid-post-covid-decline-and-52-week-lows Short low, cover high, buy higher, sell low.... This shit is the biggest scam secret out there and its largely been hidden because its how friends/family in the gold old boys club keep wealth circulating. Like most family offices are basically wealth transfer schemes. Desk jobs at local banks are basically where the local RIA guys family friends work. Once the veil gets removed your aspiring college kids realize a 4 year education to ultimately do paper shuffling and deal with complaints about $35 overdrafts fees for $55k-65k is a joke. They are going to have to either start letting the burger flipper types do it or theres not going to be anyone left to do these jobs. To make up for it they're going to cut the absurdly paying boy's club jobs. Same is true with insurance agencies.

Thats probably more than enough for a lot of finance jobs in general LOL. I have never really gotten along with the finance professional types. Mainly because they are egomaniacs(or also lifelong dorks who now seek revenge on the world for not recognizing their master of the universe status until they started making big $$) who think that because they make a lot of money they are more important than everyone else. Take themselves too seriously and have a sense of entitlement through the roof. And for me, one of the first things I learned is not to respect someone just cuz they have money(or make a lot of money). Realistically, if you opened the doors to people without the "elitist" qualifications, you'd solve a lot of problems. I am not even kidding when I say this but I would wager big money that even the dudes who pump gas, many 20-30% of them, with some modest training, could do most of the financial industry jobs. They'd do it for less than 6 figures for sure. Or you could pay them what the Ivy Leaguers get if you desire. But theres a certain floodgate you open by doing it. I believe its coming. The lower rung jobs are a waste for qualified people. You dont need a 4 year degree to do half the finance jobs out there, let alone work at a bank and open accounts. The higher rung jobs are guarded like a secret society. Big tech now is more appealing if you're going to get screwed with long hours. Financial industry is going to be forced to change.

Then again a proliferation of ads like the one featuring this piker everywhere..... https://investingoutlook.co/wall-street-legend-strange-day-coming/?cid=MKT579436&eid=MKT582603

Yea it’s all quite strange and a huge and ongoing exercise in mental flexibility. It’s one thing when I buy stuff with the PYPL example(or Z) where it’s like “ok I’m ready for it to go down” but with stuff like GOOG or MSFT or BRK for instance you expect stability. It really feels like I am in the Matrix and Morpheus is offering me the red or blue pill and I’m trying to take 3/8 of the red pill along with 5/8 of the blue but still torn and uncertain but apprehensive LOL. I do think this time is “somewhat different” so relying on historical evidence is dangerous, but there is also just a common sense element here as well indicating it’s not “ALL” sustainable.

Yea....Im becoming very convinced this is happening soon. The average or worse tech stuff is straight up withering. I still fear letting go of my MSFT and GOOG but anything below that type of quality seems downright dangerous right now.

Yea at a certain point though you can either get raped by the politicians or you can play ball by paying people more in wages while looking good for doing it, AKA the Costco approach. If Wells or MacDonalds tries to automate everything, they will be destroyed via taxation and reputational damage. So it cant happen too quickly. Separately, my own Wells story. Have one right in town. Went there to open a tenant saving account for one of my properties. Got there at 1 or so. Was told that the person who opens those accounts was over at her desk. After 5 minutes of watching her yap on the phone I am told that she is going on her lunch break and that I could come back in an hour. I asked if anyone else could help and was told the only other person who could do this was not in. Went next door to Chase and the private client lady did everything for me in under 10 minutes.

To me, the most interesting part of the NVDA story is that it, like a number of other companies, basically hid behind what was largely a false narrative about overvalued bubble tech stocks. For sure this is true for some, but for others, myself included, this sort of lazy fallback underpinning to some of my assumptions allowed me to completely miss something that with a little work would have been pretty obvious.

Rule number 1 when buying crap is to never forget that it is crap. A close second is to have a well defined exit strategy and stick to it. When it comes to stuff like Resolute or BB I think he’s forgotten both those things. Or is willfully bypassing them and in that case you just scratch your head and hope for the best.

At the least, I think we complete the whole array of coverage. Perhaps a little too optimistic on the micro and a little too pessimistic on the macro but a complete picture I think nonetheless. As long as everyone makes money who cares!

Getting a drunk to put the bottle down is the biggest challenge. From there, people are still going to be skeptical until trust is earned back and long term sobriety displayed. And if you are serious about staying away from the bottle, and care about convincing others you are too, not hanging out in the same bars/clubs will earn trust faster than continuing to do that kind of shit.

People can agree or disagree with the following statement but it’s certainly relevant. Prem Watsa has spent the most glorious decade in investing history destroying his reputation as an astute allocator and steward of shareholder capital. He s viewed now as a kingdom builder. The status quo won’t improve anything and even if he changes via subtle operational modifications, what does that matter? What? Over the course of the next 10 years people will slowly start seeing that he s not doing dumb things anymore? No, the quickest way to show you’ve changed is to do the opposite of what you’ve been doing. Let the kingdom builder show he’s unbundling his kingdom. Sell assets and buyback stock because it’s the best use of capital. I highlight the equity portfolio because my preference would be to sell the lowest quality shit first. But this is so cheap that any kind of asset sales and subsequent buybacks will do.