Gregmal

Been shorting a few PSTH Aug and Sept $20 puts.

Yea the same shit regarding a crypto bear case basically gets regurgitated every time there's a pullback. Nothing new. Its what makes a market.

Eh, personally I am pretty against seeking/being compensated for participation or content. I also agree with you and chuckle on the "10 year old book report" stuff. Sometimes thats all thats necessary. WS/finance people love sophisticated and complicated, detail oriented presentations, spreadsheets, and all that useless junk. Personally Ive found that quite often a 1-ft hurdle or really good investment is simple and easy to see. If you look at a lot of different stuff, you need to be able to filter it and take short cuts. So even then, you dont have to be precise...if something is trading at 65 and the focus is whether its worth 88, 96, 99, or 107, does it really matter the exact value or is "roughly 30-50% upside" all you need to know? Getting information out there and prompting conversation is what gets things moving and why places like this are great. If people want to get super granular, they can, thats fine too. If others dont have the time, that fine as well. If people think their thoughts are "too valuable" to waste here, who cares, fuck em. And if you really need the money, get a better full time job lol.

Nearly tripled my position in ALCO over the past few days. What do you do when you have maybe 10-15% potential drawdown risk and 10-100% highly probable, eventual upside? Especially with a hard asset play where drawdowns will just be temporary and simply add to the upside? Swing big. Worst scenario IMO is it continues to be dead money and pays you 72c a share(which they're about to start ramping). Cash is trash.

I would think in theory the Grayscales should all trade at discounts. And that the discount should increase as more products or similar nature become available to investors.

Thats definitely accurate if this plays out, however I personally dont have what I'd call a high conviction opinion on the probability of that. This run up was highly predictable. Where it ends, or if it ends, I dont know so the process really is about allocation wisely and managing the risk. Even something like XRP....I bought a tiny spec position the weeks and days leading into the delisting(or whatever its called for this crap) at the major exchanges. The thesis was simple. 1) The SEC case was either nonsense or would get settled favorably. The SEC doesnt kill companies. 2) I think XRP is worthless crap 3) I could be wrong about #2 4) 2 or 3 won't matter in terms of the timeline for the trade Ultimately it was easy for me to have higher conviction in 1,3, and 4 than I did in 2. Even after the big crash XRP has gone from 30c to 1.25 in a few months on favorable developments in the case and we have yet to see a verdict in the case and reinstatement of widely accessible trading. But the process was easy and the same was the setup just with different variables for the BTC run following 2017. Easy. Which is why I just think people who sit around devoting tons of time to bashing this or criticizing something without putting any skin in the game are fools. Theyre almost intentionally passing up free money. I am not a huge believer in crypto and Ive managed to cash out nearly 2x my initial investment and still have about 4x times the initial investment freely riding. You've managed to pay off what? Like 3 mortgages lol? Where it ends, who know? But it'll be fun nonetheless. As always, managing risk and position sizing is probably the most important element when putting money to work. But that won't stop plenty of people from sitting around whining and harping on the wrong stuff.

If you are into biotech, the Baker Brothers are probably as solid a starting point as you'll get.

I dont think you want to be a dip buyer. 1) It could be a bubble or whatever...who knows? If it is, this very well could have been the peak, there were a lot of markers that point to it. My theory was that 2017 retail was retail driven, then next boom would be corporate/institutional. Who is left? 2) Wait at least until there is stabilization and its not on the front page everywhere. Buy tiny amounts over a stretched period of time. 3) Since there is no real value here, only way to trade it on a price basis is probably irrelevantly significant numbers/technicals..IE Its YTD starting point ~$28k, previously breakout point ~$20k. Other than that no number means anything really. This moves hard in both directions.

Man's weakness has always been pussy. Dudes with money just have an easier time getting it. I dont know that this makes Gates a bad person.

added a bit more JOE

Here's another interesting story. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/eric-clapton-blames-propaganda-disastrous-212342775.html And I totally agree. Its almost sickening turning on anything from Bloomberg radio, to z100, and constantly being bombarded with pro vaccine propaganda. Seeing places like Facebook literally ban anyone from questioning the vaccine or removing people who post things like "my body, my rights" in relation to the shot, after having no problem with the phrase for ages. Force fed only one side of things...definitely not the democratic or respectful way to go about it. I have gotten the vaccine myself, but constantly hearing this sort of crap makes me completely understand and even sympathetic to people who are skeptical. Forcing views or jamming things down peoples throats just creates the opposite reaction. A classic, stupid government move. Better plan for vaccinations would be to encourage companies/employers to peddle them. Seeing the government targeting, big tech censoring, and campaigning like this is almost Orwellian.

So the CDC greenlights no masks outside...something everyone with a brain knew a year ago...but the worst offenders, ie NY, NJ, CA still require masks. What I want to know, is who's following the science, and who needs a new campaign slogan? Because both cant be correct.

How long does an ACH take? Why do trades still take multiple days to settle? Why do banks still take in some cases DAYS! to clear a check? Ever dug into the uselessness of the margins dept at financial institution? Why do wires take hours to even days? What, now? because they've finally bothered to provide us with the "instant transfer" and charge us 1% for it shit is solved? Chosing to look at the issue like you are above is being deliberately ignorant. I'm not really a huge believer in crypto. As I detailed here, in real time, I saw a trade I thought was outrageously easy and did really well with it. Bought everything with the highest basis being about $11k and have been steadily selling little bits ever since. I still own some, but in no way do I consider this stuff buy the dip material. If you didnt already have a position before it broke $20k I think you're better off waiting til things cool down. But applying some sort of narrow minded and silly ethical application to an investment case is just locking yourself into never making money. People rooting against crypto act is if theyre making money when it goes down(they call it "crashing" but if I had to guess, BTC has crashed its way to better performance than most of its haters have mustered up)...but most I would assume arent making money shorting it...and if you arent trying to understand it, its probably best to just move on rather than wasting time rooting against it for hobby.

Anyone else looking forward to this? May touch on a lot of hot topic subjects from the past year or so. Particularly, why experts often dont know what theyre talking about.

These are all pretty great businesses, or at least to this point in time, have been. I have investors who were Arthur Andersen Consulting(current day Accenture) and man, you want to talk about a compounder, Accenture is a total beast. Totally changed their lives owning those shares pre IPO; granted being an ACN partner means you're making like $700k a year minimum...but many of those dudes ended up with 7/8/9 figure fortunes. My understanding now is that growth is declining(almost negative in many areas) and also there's some cultural stuff as the older guys dont really carry their weight anymore. BAH has always kind of been the red headed stepchild. Definitely more government focused...pretty sure this was Snowden's company. Random small cap honorable mention would be to check out CRAI. Like that business and growth trajectory a lot although I dont own any unfortunately; took my eye off it for a bit and its run up. But still seems OK-ish in terms of valuation.

Eh 50% from its highs...still puts it at about +12% for the year. Plenty of people cant even do that yet they'll dance home calling it a "crash"!

Rebought some MX. ~21.50

If you like something and are passionate about it, it will come to you on its own through curiosity and exploration. There's definitely WAYYYY more value in $300 worth of classic finance/stock market books out there, ranging from Reminisces of a Stock Operator, to Market Wizards, and everything in between. Most can be had for under $20. If you arent passionate about it, dont waste your time and money. In terms of a style of investing, well...just my opinion, but everyone needs to find their own, and then let it evolve with the market. Trying to mimic someone else will leave you chasing your tail.

Yea...dont hold your breath. Its not really a secret Gates was said to be a sex maniac and that many firms, like the prestigious NY Times, purposely buried it. I'd definitely wager its the tip of the iceberg. Dont know if we'll ever get to see the iceberg, nor do I think anything comes of it for BRK...but the world we see is rarely the world that is.

Added a few shares of CPNG after hours. Still not really a material position and I still think tech has some ways to fall, but after spending a bit of time on it, I also think this is a very promising company and a reasonable proxy for SK growth. At the least its worth keeping an eye on.

The point is that the free markets are pretty awesome and that no one should be dictating to others what they can or cant do with their money. Ultimately, Robinhood was right about GME and right about HTZ. This fundamental issue, at least how I see it, is that the establishment, and elitists, are all fine and dandy with "free markets" their way. But then when they lose control they want to change the rules. Much like a casino operator once people figured out how to count cards. They are holier than thou but its an act because you cant be OK with gambling with asterisks when the asterisks are basically just conditions that allow you to prevent others from winning. "They" thought GME was worthless and then when others thought and wanted to buy it at $100 they said "no way". They "knew" HTZ was worth 0 and say "no"....and in both cases they were massively wrong. There doesnt need to be evidence it was a good or bad investment. Was there "evidence" TDOC was a good investment at $15 half a decade ago? Or Tesla at $40? At the end of the day people should be free to spend their money how they wish. A year ago you had no shortage of people lecturing from a pulpit about how everyone else needed to be doing things and the high majority of it has turned out to either be wrong, or at best, misguided.

There were a number of threads a year ago or so on the subject of Hertz, but I figured its worth revisiting. The main subject matter discussed here on COBF was the ridiculousness of Hertz being able to issue shares to retail investors while in bankruptcy. As was symptomatic of many things going on about a year ago, there was a tremendous arrogance with "the professionals", "the experts", etc. There was also this holier than thou attitude about how "immoral" and "unethical" it was. The underlying arrogance hinged upon a beyond a shadow of a doubt conviction that said preachers "knew" Hertz was worthless and retail investors knew nothing. And now it turns out that perhaps Hertz is going to be worth as much as $8 a share. And its just another reminder of how the experts and professionals dont know any better than the Robinhoods, despite the ruthlessness with which they mock and look down upon them. Arent the markets wonderful?

Covered a bunch of my ARK shorts. Added to APTS and been picking at ALCO last few days.

Trimmed more BRKB. Exited LIT(GB).

Over past week I converted some AYR to NVR+MSGE plus paid down some margin.