Gregmal

More AIV calls

Oh yea..the read has been spot on and the short term puts have worked, but part of me wishes we'd have one or two bad trading days so this can fully puke. Nasdaqs been up solidly this week and PTONs still down $7 a share. Would probably be down double if the market wasn't so strong. As such I think its also currently a suitable short term market hedge.

People rely on that?

PTON $95 puts expiring 9/10

I'd say it depends. First, the cool thing about investing, is you only need to get rich once. If you get rich and then blow it, you're an idiot. But outside of that...give me any person in the world and 10 of their top holdings and I can usually tell you right away whether they are competent or not. You can look at any number of things. Logic used in a thesis. Diversity of the portfolio composition. Quality of holdings. Look at Einhorn right now...GRBK...ok ive liked this one for half a decade, then...Chemours, Tech resources, danimer, Gopro, Brighthouse...like WTF are these? Paulson as well. Just loaded with crap. They reek of "I'm the smartest guy in the room"...Whereas look at some of the others, not just Buffett, but Ackman, Tepper, Loeb. Maybe not every pick, but Intel, AAPL, Google, PCG...maybe I dont personally like all those, but I can easily see that, ok these guys are buying quality names. Even here though, the thing is, maybe you dont need names that ring bells, but thats where you go to a track record. And when the track record is total dog shit....hmmm. Everyone is wrong once in a while its just part of the game. But you can over time look at people's stuff and take a combination of the things they invest in, what their returns have been, and how have peers done, and get an idea. And Paulson and Einhorn have straight up sucked for way too long to get a pass. I'd bring it back to Ackman. Even his "shit" investments. HLF made all the sense in the world. He was right. He just judged the catalyst wrong and sized it too aggressively. VRX too. Great thing until it got too much attention and then Congress shed light on a. bad industry and really since then, no one has made money in Pharma. Philador was big for sure, but that wasn't really what brought it down. The buy drug/raise prices model worked until it didnt. Same thing with Buffett, IBM, ok he tried something, didnt work, moved on. Tesco too. But the companies were solid and the idea just didnt work. Far cry from going off the board and coming up with duds consistently.

For sure. But most are at least semi decent investors. There s a few, like Einhorn and Paulson(I'll leave out some of the COBF favs to avoid controversy) who are just downright terrible investors.

Just closed on this recently. Ironically enough, more anecdotal evidence for the @BG2008 NY revival thesis...the seller was a PGRE exec who got called back to the office in Manhattan, starting in September. Fun times.

Paulson doesnt get as much credit as he deserves. Dude is a salesman. His investments since the GFC have been downright awful. Terrible doesnt even cover it. And what does he do? Laughs behind the scenes as he opens new "Paulson ultra advantage" and "Paulson super leverage credit opportunity fund IV" and all that shit. I wouldnt listen to a thing he has to say. He's been saying the same thing about gold since the GFC.

I wouldnt let John Paulson manage the rounded up change from my daily Dunkin Donuts orders.

Flipped the 105s which now pull the basis there and cover the majority of the outlay on the 100s. Basically a free play now.

Definitely turns your world upside down.

IB did implement a modest margin increase earlier in August. The 11th IIRC. Widespread rather than security specific.

Maybe, but there's more to it IMO. For every person on margin, there's tons of people with cash. I regularly run into folks who have like 20%+ cash or cash like equivalents. Additionally, whats the average Joe really able to margin? 2:1? Generally smaller sums. For every one of those theres an institution who can access significantly more in terms of % leverage and actual dollar volume. Its not irrelevant, just one data point that may or may not be helpful in a grand equation. I'd say you need to do way more than just look at this on a chart to get anything valuable out of it.

They've got an entirely different and scalable business model now than they did back a decade ago. But there is a bit of a risk that its a Delorean. Looks awesome for $40k but I guess if it didnt look awesome at the concept/pre sales phase then it wouldn't have a chance.

On the SUV EV side, anyone looked at the Fisker Ocean? Looks pretty awesome, deposit is not much, under $40k supposedly.

I just hate putting money into worthless junk and at a very basic level any car over the minimum is just a complete waste as they all eventually become scrap(except for the collectors stuff)...Most car purchases incorporate ego...I dont really care what folks think of me when I drive. If you do look down on me...cool. I may get out of my looked down upon car in a pair of sweat pants you also frown upon, wearing a watch thats worth more than your car...who knows? I just think theyre poor use of money so you want to get as much longevity out of it as possible. So the Toyota cars that can get 300k miles and then still because theyre so numerous/common can replace old parts with commonly available scrap or even a new engine for like $5k..awesome. The Lexus(yea the RX is probably the best car in the world SUV wise) is basically the best combination of value and ego satisfaction around. $50k for 15 years with minimum maintenance/high reliability is hard to complain about. On leasing, I actually used that trick on my Jeep. Never had a problem with the car other than a 3rd child didnt work with 5 seats...but you get a sick lease deal around the holiday blowout deals and then buy it out into a 7 year loan. Had a 2015 Grand Cherokee for $196 a month..ran the miles up without a care cuz I was buying it all along, and then financed it after 39 months into an 84 month loan at like $350 a month.

I bought my current Lexus in my mid 20s. 2014 brand new. Knew that 1) I was wasting money, 2) I was young so it wouldnt matter 3) it would make up the $55k on the front end by lasting a good while and being reliable on the back end. Everything, and I mean everything has gone as planned. Great car. Also had a Jeep but with the 3rd kid needed a bigger car. Over my dead body will a mini van be in the driveway. Got a Traverse Premier just off lease with 20k miles for $30k. All around solid. Also looked at the Highlander and longer term will probably regret not getting it or just go ahead and get it. Toyotas are great. Also honorable mention to Mazdas and Subarus. Top notch cars that often go under the radar but its basically the car of choice for people who aint total cheapskates but also dont want to waste money on the typical luxury stuff.

Aint you right over there on the panhandle? Stay safe.

Thats the beauty of the market. If you are right, you will be rewarded. If you are really right, you will be really rewarded.

If I had to spend even a fraction of this much time analyzing, let alone excusing this many blunders from a team I think I'd just immediately move on. Maybe I'd stick around for a little bit, if only to find out why that group/team hadn't yet been removed. There is an appeal to FFH now as kind of a product. I suppose if you wanted to put on a trade to capitalize on inflation and a commodity supercycle, this is potentially appealing as a basket/etf substitute type of thing.

What also interesting, is I could totally see one of those smash and grab firms like Muddy Waters or whatever targeting this now too. It would be the typically sensational, exaggerated, largely fabricated narrative BS, but all of the ingredients are there now for a bombastic short raid. If I was involved in the type of work I did awhile ago I'd probably spend the weekend creating a 30 page report about the Peloton Death Machine: Potential Bankruptcy Risk....with accelerating losses, major accounting concerns and potential fraud, goosed engagement metrics, huge price cuts on their keys products while still offering junk financing to anything with a pulse, and the botched recall with unprecedented liability. None of which IMO is really "that" dire, but you could absolutely make that presentation and I'd be surprised if some number centric finance douche doesnt try to capitalize on it.

The gift that keeps on giving. Another round of

^thats kind of the angle I'm trading here. I dont think anyone buying a stock like PTON really knows what theyre doing anymore than the folks buying GME and AMC type stuff, but having the ER Thursday into the Friday of Jackson Hole and market rallying perhaps props things up, along with the absolutely bizarre loyalty today from all the bullish analysts.... my hunch is the weekend pause and any sort of possible pullback next week maybe a catalyst for the bottom to come out. You can buy $105s for 2.70 and $100s for $1 and if it revisits some of the after hour prints from yesterday you make several times your money.

9/3 PTON puts. Somewhat surprised this was barely down following a disastrous report. Think the news flow over the weekend sinks in and the more intelligent investors outweigh the dumbasses next week.

Easiest way to invest? You have a kid right? Wait til he's in Jr HS and give him a $500 cash LOL Its the suburban entrepreneurial experience. Right of passage for ambitious teenagers. Just kidding of course.