Gregmal

No way he leaves the Board. These sort of status positions are what its all about for him at this stage of the game.

flipped some JBGS into AIV leaps

In my universe where you already have what you need to live life on your own terms everything else is just having fun!

Yea but it’s 5% and it’s call options, bruh! I’m with you though(just not on BABA, I don’t have a high level opinion there). A lot of times options are a better risk management strategy than stock. And 5% is not a big deal.

It’s possible for some here for sure. Personally I don’t really rely on the dorkazoid metrics for this. PE blah. I’m just going off price action which is more technical and easily verified. Taboo to the fundamental guys, but for sure, a lot of stuff is having trouble catching and holding a bid. Whether it means much, idk. But it should get ones ears to perk up.

LOL Meanwhile, a good percentage of folks are scared to go 5% on a single, non controversial STOCK! Not to mention the numerous financial literature and textbooks that tell you 5% is too risky. Just shows how the system is designed to keep people poor and reliant on financial services.

The confidence termites thesis is playing out almost exactly how you'd expect it to. I'm aggressively positioned quite conservatively, but if I wasnt, I'd be taking some BIG swings on the short side here. For now, I have sub 5% tech exposure not counting GOOG/MSFT...wouldnt want much more than that til things shake out.

^Haha Im not going in hard yet cuz Ive found when a new set pops up it takes a short while for the spreads and market for them to firm up. But these are absolutely, exactly what I want. Wish APTS had these. 2024 is the year the board de-staggers as well. Basically, by then the company will be up for grabs and free and clear to the highest bidder if shit does play out properly. Current NAV is likely mid teens.

Oh hello there AIV 23 and 24 leaps. I feel like we're gonna have some fun together soon.

Theres always exceptions but generally as a rule of thumb, forcing a company to evaluate strategic alternatives after a decade of misery would likely do way more good than harm. If you're public and just not making money for shareholders, your reasons for existing in the public form likely dont serve anyone but yourself. If nothing else it would throw cold water on(or confirm) a lot of the "well one day Mr. Market will see the value!" rhetoric. Because at least then you'd get an appraisal of the value. One can only imagine if they had done that with something like Sears. Instead a good many value investors went out in body bags. Cuz....eventually....

People have been clamoring about how cheap BABA is for $100 a share now. BABA as an investment has nothing to do with the company's PE at this point in time.

Actually, better example; DTLA. Theres certainly situations which gravity gets suspended.

I actually do think that there should be some rule that if the 1/3/5/10 performance looks like, eh, FFH's for example, that they should be forced to. Would definitely save folks a lot of grief with the perpetual c-suite cash grabs at companies like GE or GM(legacy GM). And the closed end funds...absolutely. If they arent making money what good are they?

You wanna team up and tender $35 for 40% of BUHF then? They own Poconos real estate, some golf and recreational/outdoors family assets. Easily worth $75 per share, has been for pretty much the company's existence. Mr. Market will eventually get it right, yea? Gravity?

For the record, I dont at all think Prem is out the "screw" shareholders. Its just very clear to me that he has very different priorities at this point in his life and maximizing shareholder value certainly isnt high up on the list. He knows the company isnt going away(IE facing any sort of existential threat) so at this point its really just about status, ego, kingdom building, nepotism, etc. It would almost even be easier as a catalyst if he was purely a greed mongering money whore trying to screw shareholders with tender offers, take unders, and purposely poor disclosure. Shits good from Prem at this stage in the game, what in the world compels him to change anything? Snarky analysts and grumpy small fry shareholders? I dont think so.

So I'll throw this out there. If Prem and Co are really serious about doing right by shareholders, why not do a strategic review and put everything up for sale? That would 100% create the best return for shareholders. The answer to the question is almost certainly also the answer to the question of "why does this trade like junk?".

Thats correct. There's different reasons for lots of things; investing is not static(yes tell that to the old school Watsa type value investors!) you have to be fluid and two situations that on paper look the same can in reality be very different. But over a 1/3/5 year period if you're not making money, you're wrong. Plain and simple. If your money comes from trading, thats not a good investment. Its a trading sardine. It literally been the same story with FFH since the day I joined this board. And all folks have to show for it is "if you bought the covid dip you got an outsized short term return" which even there, if you look into "outsized" is at best debatable and more likely probably wrong. The things I keep hearing about as the reasons for this rerating just arent gonna do it. You really dont think the market knows we're in an insurance hard market???? Or that FFH has Digit? Sure at times the market misses stuff, but this is just plain info thats out there. Its not hidden, there hasn't been an inflection. All that matters is that the same issues warrant a discount and in general, Mr. Market and its participants arent just going to roll over and say "hey, thanks for the reassurance Prem, here's 1.3x book!". Someone who's previously being a bad actor doesnt just all of a sudden get the benefit of the doubt because he said he'll change. Until those things are addressed, the poor multiple will persist, and none of the stuff people point to really matters all that much until then unless you're cool only getting 70c on every dollar going forward. Another way to look at this, is that Berkshire trades at a discount to its intrinsic value. So with that in mind, why do folks think FFH is worth anything close to that? I agree catalyst based investing should be complimented with other stuff. But thats what the Berkshires, Costcos, Waste Managements, and Mastercards are for. Honestly, thats probably what an index is for LOL. The only reason I can think of even considering touching this is for the catalyst driven momentum/rerate trade. Otherwise there's just nothing special about it. Sketchy financial companies trading at discounts are a dime a dozen.

Again, come on man. The length you guys are going to rationalize this garbage is crazy. CLF 1 yr 193% 3 yr 58% 5 yr 252% FFH 1 yr 33% 3 yr -4% 5 yr -28% See the difference? Management change at CLF made the difference. Why not give it a try here? And yes, if you are content with 30% TTM given the opportunity set presented by covid, thats on you. IMO its pretty poor. You could've even just bought plain vanilla BAC or JPM and done more than double that. But whatever. I'll come back in a (insert timeline) and people will still be talking about "any day now, Mr Market will wake up"...

Come on man, this is so awful and literally setting the bar floor low. First, I would say the encapsulation of the above highlighted in a more practical way is the following..."only if you've engaged in very short term trading over the past 10 year period, but more specifically, the past 12-18 months, have you been able to make money on FFH"...the same of course can be said for pretty much any security that exists on the market. Second, 30% year over year from where things were last fall is pretty awful. Without specifics I would just say my overall portfolio is up multiples of that on a TTM basis; its a useless stat given the context of what happened in the world. It would be amusing but would anyone care to put together a list of all companies publicly available that have done greater than 30%? This is hardly an achievement. Overall, Ive backed off the commentary here because I was getting a bit redundant but its still the same thing. Whats you're catalyst? Pointing to things the market already knows and saying "eventually Mr. Market will realize it" or "next earnings" isnt a catalyst. People have been saying these things for years, or even more recently pounding the table hard all year and the stock hasn't gone anywhere. That means that those things arent your catalyst. Ive stated the catalysts before, and @Spekulatius began touching upon them again a few posts up. Until those things start to happen you're wasting your time here and at best should be angling to trade 10% fluctuations.

Ive long thought that the office as we know it, especially in terms of functionality, is very comparable to the shopping center and malls in terms of the type of evolution that will take place. Class A in either space won't miss a beat and will remain premier assets and even increase significantly in value. Below that, its very dangerous. Hybrid is definitely going to become standard. But I do believe people, generally speaking, like the experience of the office. One underrated aspect of the office is that its basically where people without the ability to traditionally court a mate seem to find partners, fuck buddies, and replacements for their existing partners. If I had a penny for every person I know who found their spouse or current bf/gf at work(even though its supposedly not allowed in most places) I'd have a few thousand extra dollars. The youngsters like to work in a nice playground, and yea the older ones like it to get away. But its also for most people a place where they can be a different person than theyre stuck being at home. How many crazy, egomaniac mid 40/50 somethings proudly run around playing bossman at work with their subordinates...only to punch out at 5 and go home to the wife and kids and be the subservient, somewhat disgruntled yes ma'am guy? Its perplexing to a degree NYC government is making the shift back so challenging. I do think people want to go back. I've been through several major southern cities and the offices there arent full but still like 70/80% and you can just feel the energy. It isnt rocket science to see how badly a city(especially one with the density of NYC) needs the return. Think about it....putting several thousand, employed, well paid, and generally ambitious folks on your block for 6-8 hours a day(maybe 10-12 LOL), 5 days a week, is a massive economic stimulus to the surrounding businesses/area. It virtually impossible for it not to spark productivity all around.

Yea I definitely agree with a lot of that. But its also why Im not, and haven't been buying the NYC recovery story. A huge part of the Big Apple relies on offices filled with people and the ripple effects of that. The street carts. The Broadway shows and sporting events. All the way to the happy hours. Even the hotels. Housing is a different story. Not only is NYC unique, but frankly, everywhere in the damn country rents and home prices are soaring, why wouldnt NYC eventually do the same? But with regard to office, its screwed. The vax passport stuff is a burden/tax on businesses and another example of unfriendly business environment. So if you can outsource work to someone in a lower cost area, or simply pickup and move to Austin/Miami/Atlanta...thats what sensible businesses will(and are) doing. If you're a big, price insensitive powerhouse looking for a trophy office in the city(like a Google or Facebook) you can pull the trigger and sit on it vacant for 5 years. Most other companies....not so much. So while it doesnt make sense, the office has always been a big part of the city vibe because of the people. Whether its efficient....thats another story. I've been working from home with the side piece 800-1000 sq/ft 12 month office lease since 2013. Its never been more efficient to work from the office. But it is more fun, especially when theres people there.

This might be true but one of the things I think some people forget is that when you are a w2 a big part of your job is just simply doing what you're told. It doesnt have to make sense, you dont have to agree with it, you just have to do it. Thats the tradeoff when you decide to rely on someone else for a paycheck.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/inside-americas-broken-supply-chain-204628616.html Transitory. Eventually it'll come down...

https://nypost.com/2021/10/02/nyc-hypocrites-scared-to-return-to-office-reveling-in-nightlife/ Sooo spot on. There real NYC recovery hinges on jobs and folks returning to the office. Many of these scumbags are lying; doing what the government is doing...using covid as an excuse to do whatever they want. If I was an employer and folks said they were afraid of going back to the office I'd cut their salary. With the savings I'd hire an employee conduct manager responsible for overseeing "stay at home" folks. And if I found out these people were going to bars, clubs and concerts I'd fire their asses.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3747287-apartment-reits-recovery-shines-in-q3-while-other-pandemic-hit-reits-lag Let the cash rain down upon you.