Gregmal

https://www.yahoo.com/news/youre-californian-state-wants-cover-160016223.html 1st inning. Expect a long runway and plenty more crap like this...loosening of lending standards, homebuyer programs, etc.

After looking at the chain, I sold some more of these and then shorted some slightly OTM puts expiring 6/18. Real fat premiums on those.

LOL on the Portnoy stuff. Very true.

Took 150% of basis off the table. Letting the rest ride. Go make it a MEME now Reddit.

@RichardGibbons, earlier you had mentioned that people who talked about the lab leak back in February of 2020 were rightfully outcast as conspiracy theorists? May I ask why you concluded that? There is and was a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting this. Whereas, can you tell me what facts there were at the time to support the notion that it came from bats at a wet market? Because I am not sure there were ANY at all, and the only things we relied on were sources who have turned out to be liars. I believe @hasilp89post was spot on. It was commendable in that he owned up and basically admitted, "yea I got fooled because I took some of these people and government folks at face value"....he also IMO hit the nail on the head in stating that basically the ONLY reason the lab leak theory was immediately dismissed, is because Trump said it, and everyone as a result immediately had to take the other side and became invested in discrediting it. Do you feel otherwise? While I can understand why someone like @jurgis is averse to these types of conversations, you've always come off as center left but intuitive and capable of seeing and applying fact and deducing what is likely. Why the knee jerk reaction to just label and dismiss such as in your post earlier today? What is the point in that? Is that not basically the root cause of what lead to this entire mess? People just slamming a label onto things they have an interest in manipulating and then the masses fall for it? If you just say "conspiracy theory", "far right/left", "Russian asset", you immediately and successfully condition people to ignore the content? Is that not dangerous? Do you not think there would have been significantly less confusion here if in February or March of 2020 there was a coordinated effect by these same folks to basically admit that hey, it is most likely this is a lab manipulated virus? All this same thought process and deductive reasoning skills are helpful in life as well as with investing. Should people just immediately write off investments because an analyst says its a sell? Its purported to be a pump and dump? Its a Portnoy REIT! or conversely just buy because so and so said its good? Of course not. So I dont understand why we wouldnt apply the same critical thinking lens to other areas of life as well.

Quick idea I thought I'd throw out there....I know Ive already discussed over the past few weeks with many here, but might be worth a thread to brainstorm names or whatever. SPAC warrants are IMO a really simple way to be a contrarian, a speculator, and a value investor all at once. You can size the positions modestly creating a bit of a barbell approach. More or less SPACs are currently toxic. Thus you can now take your pick of the best quality managers at the same prices as the worst ones. Regulation and SEC inquiries should make deals going forward much more conservative Business combinations will likely be on better terms. Companies seeking a spac will prefer a quality sponsor. You can buy warrants which give you a 5 year call at 15% premium to deal price on pretty much whatever you desire for a fraction of what they were trading at months ago and just in general, what I consider a very attractive price. Some examples, Softbank SPAC warrants can be had for $1.50 vs a $6 high earlier. Boston Omaha's Yellowstone can be had for $0.65 vs $2.30 earlier. I think there's definitely bargains and multi baggers to be found as the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. Cheers

Hi Rat Clown, If I may ask, what part of seeking the truth or seeking accountability is politics? Are you not recalling how many people hastily dismissed the lab leak theory for the past year? I specifically recall several folks here even trashing another member for posting a Hedgeye story about this last March. Otherwise, if you wish to revert to old habits of trying to get me banned or censored, please just be forthright. The lame attempt above to pressure and manipulate @Parsad is cowardly and in poor taste. I have told Sanjeev on several occasions that I am fine shutting the covid thread if its too controversial however the thread remains open and the lab leak, as well as the behavior and active cover up of many is disgraceful and worth discussing. Otherwise, I appreciate your contributions here as do many others. Your actionable investment ideas are second to none. Thx

Its amazed me how throughout this thing, the "science" guys seem so personally invested in this not being a lab leak. I know part of this is self interest...they love being celebrities and viewed as experts(rather than the nerdy putzes that most of them are), and they probably also fear the funding they rely on would be jeopardized....but its just another example of how many of the people who have played a pivotal role in how this thing has been handled, act out of self interest.

^ Yup. Its one of the purest exercises in trading and market psychology Ive ever seen.

Shorted some PSTH 6/18 $22 and 22.5 puts

Its not really about China anymore, at least in terms of holding them accountable. It can likely never be proven to a degree they'll cop to it, and even if it was, there's few realistic paths at this point. The point is to seek accountability from the scumbags in the press and the politicians who covered it up, who lied, who censored the truth. There also should be accountability from the shitbags, normal folks, who basically used this as an outlet for their derangement and created a situation where the politicians and media could do something like this. Isnt it insane that we had numerous politicians and publications matter of factly stated that the lab leak was "debunked"? "Fact checking it"? Are you kidding me! It was all an active fraud on the American people and a widespread politically charged aggression. Here's some new stuff: https://nypost.com/2021/06/05/trump-wanted-to-publicly-grill-fauci-on-wuhan-lab-funding/ Evidence China had a vaccine before the first cases were acknowledged. Evidence Fauci was scheming back in January. this gem: The meeting objective was to assess what data is needed to understand the evolutionary origins of COVID-19 and respond to “resulting misinformation”. Fauci gave a 10-minute presentation. By April, the intelligence community had concluded there was no chance that COVID-19 had been manipulated in a lab. “The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in the April 30, 2020 statement. The statement was false; there was no consensus. More than 30 internationally renowned scientists signed letters to call for an inquiry into a potential lab leak. So get this! The POTUS wanted to investigate it....THERE WAS ZERO BIPARITSAN SUPPORT! There was also the determination that it would be impotent because the media would actively undermine it! And then craziest of all, the second the new guy, who has rampant history and ties ton China...comes in and immediately shuts down any remaining inquiries into it and continue appeasing/covering up for China! And while we needed 3 years to investigate some bogus Russia conspiracy....he's giving this, which is immensely greater in significance....90 freakin days! Gee, I wonder what conclusion this "inquiry" will have? People should be outraged and holding these folks accountable. However many of them, the ones who expressed fake outrage a year ago, the ones basically just using covid as a derangement outlet...like many of this ones who were posting on this very thread...are long gone and dont care anymore. Its disgraceful. As I said over a year ago(to which many of these pompous chumps said was an improper and selfish statement) fuck everyone else. Take care of you and your friends/loved ones. When something like this can happen, and you have the government and media actively lying and scheming and so much of the country wrapped up in "AHH I HATE HIM!!"...that they too become complicit in it...watch out. Thats very dangerous. So much of this could have been avoided...especially all the skepticism around it if there's wasn't so much of an effort to hide it and paint a political narrative around it.

Just my opinion but I believe the US is also quite culpable in this. There's always finger pointing involved, but the truth is its typically for show. The US and China were hardly in the dark on this. We hear tons about "China covering it up" but nothing about our own public servants and supposed watch dogs doing the same here. Or the scientists who inexplicably chose self interest out of fear of potentially losing funding or getting a bad rap...lots of things were exposed and supposed checks and balances failed the American people. The media should be a watchdog and it says something that a "tabloid" as many people call it, like Daily Mail or NY Post, were the only ones doing their job. Whereas, even on these very forums, you had tons of arrogant people sneering those publications while linking to crap like the NY Times and the like, or "scientific" journals and sites, which were all either actively deceiving everyone, or willfully negligent and complicit. I recall posts here to respected scientists who were publishing shit(or tweeting lol) basically saying the genome sequencing proves its impossible for this to have been lab originated....something we now know is just bogus interpretation of the "science"... Imagine how much less confusing and controversy there would have been if in February 2020 they had just been honest with people? Hey, a lab manipulated virus accidentally got out of a research lab...its been tinkered with to be highly contagious...here's what can be done to take precautions? LOL instead they all lied and scrambled and made it a political thing and forced people to focus on Trump sucks/Fauci is awesome/hoax/mask/no masks.....and then wonder why people are all over the place with this! Imagine if the "respected" journalists and firms had put in 1/10th the effort into getting to the bottom of this as they did stupid tabloid shit like tax returns and fear porn?

I think there is little doubt much of the administration and tentacles of government were aware. Why hold top secret task force meetings in January of 2020, mere weeks after word of this broke? One so informative that there was bipartisan support for massive repositioning of said members stock portfolios! I dont ever recall such measures, certainly not to the same extent, occurring for Ebola in 2014 or H1N1... But "Kung Flu" was a great example of this coverup. Same for the travel ban to China. Rather than actually looking into why these things were being said/done...they(media and politicians) just redirected the narrative and called it racism.

$20 CLF calls a few months out.

I just dont get what the point is of owning a shitco if you dont have an exit strategy. And I say this as someone who is all for flipping the worthless or overvalued sardine to a higher bidder. But buying these type of things and then locking into a long term illiquidity issue just seems hard to understand. I mean we might not expert FFH to pull off clever moves like Mudrick did the other day, but expecting some sort of exit lever to get pulled isnt crazy, is it?

https://nypost.com/2021/06/03/state-dept-staffers-were-warned-against-probing-covid-origin-report/ Pretty stunning. As is a ton of the other stuff now leaking out. Especially little liar Fauci who knew all along and was colluding with China. Granted, this is America and there is no accountability anymore....but I think there should be severe fines, loss of licenses, and repercussions for any politician, scientist, or media outlet that had a role is covering this up or keeping it under wraps. Everyone from FB and TWTR to guys like Fauci need to be held accountable. It was obvious from the beginning...my favorite was all the "its so contagious/highly transmissible" statements...Hmmmm, almost like it was designed to be!

Ultimately the problem with this whole situation, the missing variable that once fixed will allow shares to rerate significantly, is Prem. People use the "fat pitch" analogy a lot with investments. The issue with Prem, is that everyone is lining up and T-ing off on slow pitch softballs getting lobbed down the middle. They're hammering them with massive aluminum bats. Meanwhile, by choice, Prem is on the sidelines refusing to participate, because he's waiting for the guy who throws 100 mph and goes up there not with a bat but a broomstick handle. Except when he gets up there and swings, its not like his average is .400....its like .150. Stop trying to be special or cute and just get back to basics please. At that point FFH will become investable for me. Until then, its just so much less headache owning BAM(who seemingly never has any issue monetizing whatever type of invests they've made) or BRK which is just stubbornly patient but ultimately gets to where it needs to go.

Xerxes is on the money. You dont often get a second chance at something like what happened late January/early February. Prem has made some absolutely boneheaded investments...and it is also glaringly egregious to me that its becoming apparent that they dont even have an opportunistic exit strategy. His response to the above question says it all.....just oozes arrogance and condescension when really, the analyst/speaker is right. There is no way to spin BB as anything but a failure of an investment and getting this miracle gift from the market and sitting there pretending its the right move to do nothing exhibits that making money/maximizing value is not the primary objective anymore. FFH has a lot of very good things going for it right now, but its also important to learn from mistakes and not let some positive developments all of a sudden become deodorant for a decade long stench.

LOL yea maybe tone deaf a little. Figure at least on sites like this, amongst investors there s a higher standard for "everyday guy". Lets say you have just a mil. $2500 into something you're genuinely interested in. If that forces you into a crash course education on that type of investment...I'd say its entirely worth it even assuming you lose every penny. Knowledge is powerful when investing. Or so Ive found at least. Tricking yourself into buying that knowledge while also having an investment to go along with it is a cool little way Ive been able to significantly expand my comfort zone.

Well said. I try to look at 200-300 investments a week. If I dont own it, I won't be able to follow it. Frankly, the cost, assuming one even loses money(I've found more often than not you end up making money/breaking even, even if you had no idea what you're buying just cuz the market is bonkers) pays for itself when you incorporate the research and knowledge you've acquired through ownership. Between the filings, internet sleuthing, occasionally chatting with analysts, other shareholders or NEOs, looking at peers...you're likely getting more value for less than it would cost to outsource the work to a subscription service or hiring analysts. Of course I am assuming you are sizing starter positions appropriately...IE 25 bps or less...which for the average person is like $5-10k....which again, if you buy it, look into it, and dont like it....what maybe it went down 30%....like I said, a few grand which is easily worth the knowledge acquired in the process, which also compounds, the more stuff you look at, and makes you a better investor.

Oh yea, the hypocrisy is crazy but nothing new. Its hard not to at first get mad at it because it makes no sense and will ultimately lead to a worse situation than we have now. Then you think about it, and slightly more than half the country supports this utter nonsense which is even more amusing. But I think Kuppy hit the nail on the head when he says "my job is to examine the world and figure out how to profit off human stupidity. "...Which is how Ive tried to go about these things. Green energy and climate initiatives have NEVER made money(unless you bet against them). But they always become popular fire pits for other peoples money when we have a Democrat in office. The shitbag fee gatherers now see a tidal wave of money pouring into ESG, and as the blog post linked says, they see an opportunity for marketing and increasing AUM(and subsequently their fees)...they have no concern over performance, which will undoubtedly be terrible...and little concern for the money of others they are using. This is why institutional money is really the dumb money. These retards dump stocks because they get kicked from an index. They refuse to own sub $5 stocks. The sell spin offs because of genius logic like "its too small to move the needle" or it "doesnt fit into the portfolio"...They refuse to buy things that have hair or are "out of favor" and then dive in when its much higher.....but we've seen repeatedly this sort of theme play out and its a tremendous opportunity for the investor who is not bound by this bullshit or actually needs to make money with their investment dollars rather making money off the dollars they invest. Ill leave you with this: https://apnews.com/article/e098bc76b19743e7a1587b8681e4b6b3 Total fuckin retards many of these people and institutions are.....best way to deal with it is to leave your emotional baggage at the door and just profit off the stupidity of others. People can make it a red issue or a blue issue but Ive generally found that I like green better.

https://adventuresincapitalism.com/2021/06/02/esg-energy-stops-growing/ The retards are creating a time bomb. This is so fascinating to watch and I reached similar conclusion as the above pondering this quite a bit over the weekend. Particularly the XOM vote implications. I know @SharperDingaan has touched on some of the ways to play it. Who else is playing this? Like some other themes, there's really not much that can realistically stop this from playing out. I'm hardly an energy expert so right now my exposure is largely through XOP, XLE both shares and LEAPS and well as some SLB options. What stops this? As is the case a lot of times, the key risk is selecting the wrong investment vehicle. But energy/oil more or less has to go higher over the next few years, at least until 2024.

I think Alico is great risk/reward. Gone nowhere for a decade. New management has done a solid job over the past few years. Its got a good enough(not great by any means) operating business with inflation protection via the Trop contract. And its nearing(if it hasn't already gotten there) a tipping point where HBU for most of land is sales to developers. One of your faves BAC I think is also reasonably priced and soundly positioned. Berkshire is good enough if you cant find anything else. APTS I really like but its a jungle of a mess navigating that one and enough to scare off most. FRP Holdings is a monster thats well managed and under leveraged. Good MF and the mother of all royalty assets. Its potentially got 1/4 of its EV in hidden assets as well. Kind of a no brainer(still even after run up) IMO. MSGE/S are both in excellent shape and cheap. S is safer E is more upside potential I am a horrible energy analyst but thats been beaten to hell and sentiment sucks so I just own XLE there but if one knows what they are doing there I think its fertile ground for hunting. CLF/MSB too long a story but CLF is outstandingly managed and now kind of in oligopoly territory after consolidation and MSB is purely a royalty company who gets checks from CLF as they own the best positioned IO mine in the US.

Select RE, Energy/commodities, and banks. Interestingly enough, many of these were cheap on absolute terms(and some still are), destined to do well regardless, and trade at discounts to NAV. Oh how glorious it is owning reasonably priced, well managed assets that trade at a discount going into an inflationary environment. Some are scared, I say, bring it!

I am not unconvinced that the end of a big cycle is near. Rates cant really go much lower, the fanboys around big tech are now value investors thinking AMZN is a no brainer after a 3000x run, and that PTON is worth $100B...energy is hated and has been for almost a decade now, commodities were beaten to death for a nearly similar stretch, housing was dormant for a decade following GFC(now things go up 10-20% in a year and the novices are screaming BUBBLE! much like broader stock market in 2013)...banks are massively under owned. If I ask myself what allows the current long term trend and popular shit to continue producing returns, I dont really have an answer other than maybe rates stay around here longer than a couple years...but even then, I think they underwhelm. But it seems apparent to me that the table is set for a new chapter in the boom and bust cycle story of the stock market. As I mentioned recently somewhere else, I think yin/yang or equal and opposite reaction type stuff happens often with the market...which if anything, would imply a very long, and brutal downturn cycle for the stuff thats been fawned over for the past decade.