Gregmal

Exited DDS, FIZZ. Trimmed MSGN.

Dickbag Newsome lifts covid restrictions in CA now. Even oh so dangerous indoor dinning! I wonder why? 5 days later than I expected and a week after Cuomo, but interesting timing nonetheless. Here's your booming recovery Joe! Primed and ready. Almost like we manipulated the figures for you!

Took some of this off, also sold another 25% of GILT, swung proceeds of both into more BRK.

Personally, Ive never quite understood how people make and then lose life changing fortunes to a degree that it significantly effects their life. There's few "essential" big ticket items in life. To me, house, car, boat....House you buy once and then need to keep reserves for the repairs/replacement...car figure 10 year life cycle, maybe 15. Boat, we'll leave that one alone. But how folks can make hundreds of thousands, let alone millions, and not check those boxes is astounding to me. How dont you cash out and solidify those? Because once those boxes are checked off, you could probably work at Chipotle and still maintain a pretty decent quality of life. Biggest other expense is probably healthcare, which you can now get even with a part time bs job at Starbucks or Home Depot. You dont need to be a genius to see that "no mortgage/manageable mortgage, no car payment, couple toys"....makes life 100x easier.

Yea my 23 year old brother, super edjukated, UPenn grad student in biomedical engineering, told me over the weekend that all his friends(of similar backgrounds) are on the WSB forums chasing options and making small fortunes in their Think or Swim accounts. Its always amazed me how the markets can seduce people of all intelligence levels. I remember having an SMA client some time ago, guy worked for a similar type of company as Edward Snowden did, was a US Navy Seal with a Harvard education, must have ACAT-ed in a half dozen accounts with clean energy themed penny stocks....intelligence does not always equate to one's success in the markets. Sometimes the smarter you are, the more the market can play tricks on you. In the case of my brother and his friends, these are all kids who are going to be making 7 figures one day so getting a school of hard knocks education now is probably a worthwhile investment, but I'd imagine that isnt the case for everyone. Definitely a sign of the times though.

Most people confuse safety with volatility(or lack there of), so right off the bat, no. Anyone with any sort of vision or understanding of the productization of WS fads...sees(or saw) the setup. But its still just a speculation. Miller saw this before most, so he deserves some credit.

Grabbed some DDS for a one night stand. After the GME fun, who wants to be short going into the weekend?

Politics is banned right? Supposedly. Which is why I found it odd Liberty posted a partisan opinion piece by a partisan clown...so I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the context. Thankfully, muscleman beat me to the fact check.

Heather is an oaf. Typical academic liberal elite hack. Otherwise, good to see we are getting excuses on day 1.

IDK but if "the markets"(to use everyones favorite term) go up 85% this year, why wouldn't it be reasonable for folks who are bearish to still do 30%(which accounts for hedge related drag) and then use a portion of their profits to hedge out next year?

Even Buffett admitted last year that the market may be cheap if interest rates stay low. We just don't know. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/06/warren-buffett-says-stocks-are-ridiculously-cheap-if-interest-rates-stay-at-these-levels.html The market means different things to different people. Berkshire Hathaway for instance, is 99% confidence NOT in the bubble. MSFT is possible, but not likely. ZM, most likely is. One can start there, and plan their allocations for the next 3-5 years rather than the next 3-5 months. 80% BRK, 30% MSFT, and short 15% ZM probably works whether the bubble bursts or not. The names and allocations are just examples, so if you disagree, dont get too hung up on them. The one big thing with euphoric markets is that there are too many participants involved that shouldn't be. Their money is there for our taking.

Saying you dont know is bullshit. You know in the sense that you can tell there are unsustainable things going on, you dont know if tomorrow is the day that it ends. Its the same in theory as how you know you need flood insurance when buying a waterfront home in Florida, know you need wind/hail coverage in Oklahoma, and know you are better off without insurance on the crapshack country home in upstate NY. Sometimes more caution is warranted than others. The more data you haver to support more caution, the more refined your insurance can be.

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-01-19/chinese-scientists-develop-gene-therapy-which-could-delay-ageing

Swung some SPG into BAM, bought a few MSFT calls, and got a few shares of FOXWU IPO

Sold some HHC

Eh those guys are boring. Where's my man Bill Chen? Jokes aside the RICK, BUR, and BAKKA ideas are interesting.

Sure there are valid points to that, but at some point, I would imagine a shareholder hope that they fire on all cylinders and run efficiently rather than giving everyone a perpetual discount to buy as a result of poor decision making.

Quarterbacking is the easiest thing in the world to do, until you actually are the quarterback. Then you hear all of the bullshit from the Sunday morning couch quarterbacks about what you should be doing. Cheers! Yea...that would be true if there wasn't tons of people doing live play by play during much of the timeframe in question. Except there has been. Look at the difference between this and Berkshire. People start salivating every time there's speculation Buffett might be buying something new. People hold the breathe every time Prem does the same and are basically just praying for breakeven with half of the portfolio. Thats a big reason for the discount in the market.

Leaving it up to the investment team certainly wasnt the right decision for the past decade. They should wind down the shitco investments and just repurchase stock or buy some Berkshire. If they can find away to remove the real dollar drag and market discount ascribed to some of the blunders, this will rerate in a hurry.

Bought a tiny, 100% speculative XRP position before the trading suspension. Dont give 2 hoots about XRP but I think I am comfortable with my understanding of how SEC related issues get resolved and and while there is always the risk its wiped out or never trades again on a mainstream basis(hence small position), if things go the way I expect them to this should open 3-4x higher than where it is now.

Sold some MX. Paid down some margin. Started GILT. Sold 2/3 of GILT, paid down some margin, added more BRK.

I think this is a great comment. I've long said that betting against the "exceptions to the rule" has been almost fool proof, especially right after the exception just occurred. I can name on probably 405 sheets of loose leaf paper the number of folks I know who have missed great investments because they were scared of "MSFT was a bad investment if you bought at the top in 1999". That said, this isnt really an endorsement of the markets. I think "the market" is a stupid and lazy term. A better approach is just really to use common sense. When you see a gazillion no/low revenue spac deals representing BILLIONS going up the way it has, you would be wise to use caution. Garbage companies with no path to profitability are not sustainable regardless of what market we are in. A clever story stock with a long runway? Well, thats a different story. A clever story stock thats already valued at $800B? A robust and durable cash cow trading at 15x? I mean sometimes the market is really simple. I think bubble is definitely accurate in terms of some areas. Being honest with yourself about what makes sense and what doesnt is key to it. How many stupidly academic smart guys over the years shorted things because "30x sales" while ignoring "new tech", "300M market cap", "respected founding partners/investors", "low rates", etc. Its really easy not to become someone who blows themselves up when the bubble bursts, and its also really easy not to become someone who generates dogshit returns because you're scared of the bubble. Just use your head and stay within your confidence zones.

Oh definitely. I was talking with someone last week about this, but BRK for a long while has been looked at as basically an index alternative. Thats a narrative that is about to be shattered.

The Arizona Coyotes have better attendance than the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Buffett has made plenty of mistakes, but so have we all, if counting things we missed is in there. The difference with most, is simply omission vs commission. Its largely why I dislike Fairfax but at various points like to load the boat on Berkshire. Buffett when he acts, typically gets it right or misses small. He'll drive everyone nuts doing nothing. But this is preferable to Watsa who is always doing something and screws up, big, quite frequently. Much easier to forecast the former than the latter. All Buffett needs to do at these prices is marginally buyback stock and let the businesses operate. If he gets anything else right, watch out.