Gregmal

Rents everywhere are going nuts. It seems natural that even the laggards eventually come back. The problem in NYC is twofold....1) Office continues to be...troubled, to say the least. That has ripple effects, especially on the higher end. And 2) while there may be a crazy demand rebound from renters, this still is totally different than being on the other side, which inversely is...do you want to be a landlord? There's still rent controls worse than most other places in the country and they're still carrying on with the eviction moratoriums. In its best case scenario, its like selling tickets to a concert/event where the pricing is fixed...You can have a million strong on the demand side at $100 a ticket, but if there's strings attached...IE no more tickets can be sold and regulation that keeps you from raising prices...does it really matter to the owner? Its kind of funny but in a way a lot like the Chickfila franchise concept. It looks great from the outside, but once you start seeing the details, its so much less attractive. From a bottom of the barrel investment perspective, I think DC stands head and shoulders above NYC and CA in terms of future prospects.

Found White Lotus to actually be quite entertaining. Only 6 episodes. Definitely does a good job of highlighting the world we live in. Folks with everything still find ways to manufacture problems for themselves and be petty and unappreciative and folks on the bottom just seem to go through life thinking the world is out to get them and that its everyone else's fault. The latter perspective probably being somewhat accurate but still just a losers mentality when it comes to overcoming an obstacle.

Deal dead. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/topps-spac-merger-with-mudrick-is-dead-because-of-mlb-trading-card-deal.html

Short MUDS warrants SPAC supposed to merge with card giant Topps. Topps for those that dont know, along with Upper Deck have basically held duopoly or even monopoly on specific sports for the trading card licenses...for years. Decades even. Despite this, both have on and off flirted with or filed bankruptcy protection, along with tons of others past like Fleer, Bowman, etc. Typical SPAC fashion they consummated this merger at or near a top of a generation boom for trading cards. In a vacuum, this seems OK. However this afternoon WSJ broke news that Fanatics had likely poached the MLB deal from Topps after like a 70 year marriage. Without MLB, Topps is pretty much worthless. There is NO WAY any right minded shareholder should vote in favor of this deal now. If they do, its almost certainly IMO a 0. Either way, the warrants IMO are worthless. Early bird gets the worm. They traded in 2s after news broke but due to holder base will probably have some value left tomorrow in the AM. Now life lesson for market speculators.....someone at Topps/Mudrick is probably VERY pissed this leaked a week before shareholder vote. But just getting back to SPACville, you better believe Topps, which has a 70 year relationship with MLB, knew this was real or even happening long ago. On the surface, shareholders, many institutions may have looked at this and seen the obvious..that you may be buying the cycle top if you participate, but the devils lurking beneath turned out to be far more ominous. And you just never know when its coming, but with SPACs its almost always there. Something to remember next time you think a SPAC looks good(and for those of you that know, yea, Im kind of working on a pre deal SPAC long idea right now but dont hold it against me LOL will post that here when I'm ready)

shorted a few CLF $22 puts for 8/27

One of the exercises I often try to do that Ive found helpful is to place things in the context of what the history books will say 10 years from now. As everyone above had already said, its easy to end up calling 10 out of the last 1 recessions over the past 3 years. You kind of want to avoid doing that or at least acting on it. However when within the moment you can extrapolate data and event sets in enough situations, sometimes the bells start ringing loudly and your trading sense begins to kick in. A great example of that was December-February of this past year. You had ETFS like ARKG gapping up 5% a day, spacs IPO-ing +20% and deal announcements doing 50-100%, you had short sellers crying mommy, and those short sellers brave enough to hang on got hung, drawn, and quartered in late January and February...enough for me to have as bearish a positioning as Ive ever had and its worked for a little bit. A lot of times it doesnt. I dont get a crazy sense of any sort of earth shattering event being at our doorstep, but if we get one... 5-10 years from now the stalling out of bull market darlings like AMZN, TSLA, NFLX, etc will certainly be pointed out by some as the writing having been on the wall. All are fine companies and I'm short TSLA and NFLX, but I wouldnt go crazy because you still need to respect the last 10 years of ass raping these things put on naysayers.

Just as far as a trading pattern would go, the not moving for a year thing within the context of a multi decade run to one of the most valuable companies in its space(or the world) is probably consistent with what I'd expect with a so called "top". The long haulers passing the baton to all the geniuses on Sum Zero and VIC who now(after 20 years) "get it"...I think the same is even more true for NFLX. Classic case of the last remaining incremental buyers stepping in..whether its the top, who knows? Could also just be a long period of underperformance which would probably be more in line with what I'd expect of this market cycle and massive liquidity in the system. Housing I would kind of agree. Seems like just yesterday, although it was 6-12 months ago now where myself and maybe a small handful of others were pounding the table on housing and RE, amongst a sea of negativity and naysayers. Now its much different and probably more specific in terms of where you have to be. But housing in itself is unique and has a lot of secular tailwinds. A 30 year mortgage, a decade of vacuum in terms of building, and for god knows how long, lack of foreclosure/evictions will act like a boa constrictor for new supply. Especially in desirable areas. There's definitely a lot of areas that got a covid boost, pretty much across the board in commodities, but there's also market specific setups that can buck the trend of "temporary" for far longer than most think, steel is a good example of this. With the housing boom a solid example Ive used is CLPR vs APTS ytd performance wise. Or for RE in general retail vs office. There's plenty of markets within markets, which I guess was my original point...I dont really expect the entire market to melt down the way a lot of folks do. Just a stock pickers market.

If you are still worried about covid.....suggestion for ya +++++

Oh yea, CDC has continuously lied or at best misrepresented data to fill a narrative. See the recent FL case data. I as well know plenty of vaccinated folks with have gotten covid in the last 4-6 weeks. A few said it was brutal but none were in the hospital. Once again, there's people who want to mouth breathe about OMG 600k dead! but if you're healthy, and vaccinated...at this point its a nothing burger..if it ever was one. Find me a person who got the flu and was like "yo. second best week of my year outside of going to Disney World!"....its not ever gonna be enjoyable, but its no reason to alter your life. I have yet to see any data at all that vaccines haven't at least provided ample reason for folks to move on. Personally, I'll probably get a booster in November or so.

I agree with @musclemanto a certain extent. There is no better example of the cycle playing out than AMZN. Every last incremental buyer now thinks its consensus. However that is not to say the whole market needs to implode. I think its possible but more likely we just keep seeing rolling bear markets within sectors like we've seen for the past decade.

Yup. Major new fundamental development lol. Morgan Stanley says underweight. IF, you believe the Boyar Value rhetoric on MSGN, you're basically buying the entire thing for less than Boyar thought the Network piece was worth. Disclosure, I do not. I think Boyar was frequently wrong about the value of the Network...as Ive detailed several times in other threads. But I do think its both easy to justify the price action(poor sentiment, muddled merger financials, covid, NY, shit technicals, etc) and also hard to justify it(now arguably trading at less than the value of EITHER the Garden or the Networks)...personally I dont care. Its good to have something thats an obvious buy in a market full of whats largely meh...

More Z + MSGE

Ha I think @LearningMachine nailed the KR add. What a savage for detail. Well done. In other news, someone needs to tell Buffett KR is a dud because retail is dead.

Stuff like the MSGE selloff is why investing is really easy if your time horizon is greater than 1-2 quarters. Remember how a year ago covid killed retail for good, NYC REITs were going to zero, the Sphere was going to bankrupt MSGE, and SPG wasn't worth buying at $65.... Fast forward a year and retail is on fire with many names significantly higher than pre covid levels, NYC is still a shithole but you had 50-100% rallies on the back of just mediocre improvements, MSGE went to 120 and then bought $200M a year in FCF with stock, and SPG is crushing it and raising dividends every quarter. Now some idiots are selling because I guess we still think covid is going to put an end to sports and live entertainment(even though we already saw this notion destroyed last year)...... And on that note, tangentially related, rebought a 3%(fully margined) position in JBGS. Free money.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-street-firm-behind-wall-streets-fearless-girl-statue-is-vacating-new-york-city-offices-11629106200 See-ya!

Little add to MSGS and doubled my position in Z, now a bit more than 2.5%. Hoping to buy a lot more much cheaper but starting to push myself to stop being a cheapskate and get some more skin in the game.

Its amazing to me how obsessed people are with this crap. Nothing better to do syndrome. Folks are getting slaughtered in Afghanistan because of direct and deliberate American incompetence, 1,000+ people in Haiti are dead overnight but who cares....meanwhile flu+ comes here after ravaging India from February-May and NOW Americans want to pretend like its a game changer and make a big deal about it LOL.

I don't really have an opinion on some sort of crazy variant emerging thats fueled by a vaccine...however all I'd say is look at the incentives. There is so much incentive at every bend that there is ZERO way we ever get the truth if there is dangers from the vaccine to the degree @musclemanmentions. From the bottom all the way to the highest levels of the top, the arrogant, ethic-less, sleezeball pharma companies, the scientists, and politicians all have gone too far, all in on the "vaccine is safe" propaganda. If there's negatives, they've proven they will be censored or buried. So we're all just gonna have to live with never really knowing. When you get to a fork in the road, you have three choices. Left, right, or freeze up and smash into the concrete barrier in the middle. I got the vaccine and so far Ive had no issues and its been the right move so for me there's little reason to worry about it until something presents itself. Everyone needs to just get on with their lives and stop worrying about things they cant control, which includes other people...Its a virus, its here, get over it. The numbers, especially if you are healthy and vaccinated, are on you side. Others have rights and freedoms and ultimately those rights and freedoms, whether I agree or disagree with them, aint my business..nor my problem.

A spac and a shady financial business get together.....do we really need to watch the rest of the story?

Technicals to me are like 5-10% of the equation. The variables are always moving though and nothing is static. Good old fashioned gut feeling is the best trading indicator. Discipline and sizing matter too of course. You can take a starter and lose 100% and if its sized right, who cares? Agree a low $20s re-entry on a partial would be ideal.

tacked on a few BAM @55.6

^I do actually worry about something like that from time to time. Its never actually been explained to my satisfaction what the ramifications of that scenario are. However I ultimately fall back on the fact that I think this would be an unmitigated PR nightmare, and self inflicted, easily avoidable wound for the politicians as MSG is basically a NYC historical landmark and there's few things that NYers are more passionate about, to a non partisan degree, than their sports and entertainment.

Took 30% off CRBU today. Nice little move here.

I actually think this is your edge here. Same for a few other folks. Find your yo-yo/vehicle and turn it into a money tree. This is more an individual skill though. And I think many others who are just relying on aphorisms and cliches may have a rougher go of things. Or maybe they won't. As always, time will tell.

@Viking I dont disagree but a lot of that is externally influenced. Every insurance company(relatively speaking) is in a good place. Markets are at ATHs and even Robinhoods are printing big gains. Record earnings, record book value, big investment gains, it gets redundant, but thats fairly common place right now. So these things get priced in, for better or for worse. You follow Stelco and I follow CLF...do those valuations make sense? There is built in sentiment with most of this stuff and its preceded by sector or company specific expectation. And only until its proven otherwise, do those change. If the steel co's print another 2-4 Q of these numbers, the shares probably double. But again, within the sector, there are those that trade a premium valuations and those that dont. Out of everything you listed, numbers 9 and 10 to me have the potential if there's real follow through, to have a greater impact on improving the multiple. In a vacuum, when you have a great market for the insurance co's you want the company who's either best of breed, or undergoing a major turnaround(insurance just being an example). Anything in between is kind of a waste of time. FFH is not best of breed. And while some are saying theres a turnaround, I just dont see any internal effort. I just see results that are consistent with what everyone else is printing in those spaces and a valuation that is indicative of a deserved discount. Thats what I see as needing to change here. Or put another way, if the above results continue for another 12 months, are there not plenty of other companies who could boast those same type of results but get more credit for it? Or someone who is really undergoing a big time turnaround, IE levered to the tilt but paying it down/new management reinventing the company, etc?