Gregmal

Just wait til the poor people get their $2000 checks! BTC to $40k! That guy Trump who is only out for himself seems to be fighting pretty hard for those losers to get their checks. Even though they hate him. Doesnt make a whole lot of sense. I mean, its not like they can spend them at Mar a Lago.

Royal Salute 21. Easily exceeded relatively high expectations.

Merry Christmas all.

Yea I think the opportunity(defined as a reasonable or better skew in terms of risk/reward) is almost gone. Its harder to find for sure. This stuff doesnt last forever so when you see it you need to act. Here it was/is rather no brainer. Sub 5% downside, cut and dry. Many cases 1% or less. All good things do come to an end.

You missed SQFT? j/k

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is probably one of the best stock market related books Ive ever read. Livermore was quite the case study. Fascinating fellow.

Yea there's definitely a bit of predictability especially in terms of pattern recognition to some of these things. One of the main reasons I like the spac trades. Almost every time it goes like this. 1) Run to big name/promoting sponsor (IE Chamath types), 2) deal announcement 3) transfer period between share owners from institutions to retail 4) trend on Twitter/stocktwits 5) to the moon. If you have a bit of a trading sense, its exciting and fun, but its also important to stay near the exit for when the music inevitably stops. I wasnt involved in the market during the tech bubble. But having studied it and just history in general, I never understood the "bubble" comparisons we've been hearing about non stop from many folks over the past decade. However over the past couple months, its basically everything they'd teach in a textbook on the subject. All the red flags are there. They are getting bigger and bigger. Rule in life in to never be the first or last guy at the party... EDIT: grabbed a few BABA today

The life science/biotech SPAC I like simply because thats a favorably viewed sector. LSACU was/is a double before deal close. The thesis is rather simple in that from 10.5/6 you will likely see some bounces up/down on just normal trading activity and on a deal announcement you'll almost certainly see at least $11/12. You dont need home runs here or even great deals. Just volatility and a deal spike. Which is close to guaranteed in this environment. I was talking with someone earlier about the Social Capital spacs, and the 15-20% premiums on those. And realistically, while I'm not a fan, you still kind of have favorable setups because the behavior of the masses has become predictable. Especially if you are a smaller investor, IE transact in sub 5,000 share lots, you'll almost certainly have an exit opportunity, especially if you are quick after hours upon announcement.

I dont actually think that one is too bad. It seems predominantly pre deal announcement, which is low risk. Much different than SPAK. Its basically what I do on my own, but I suppose not everyone has the time to follow all these damn things. And yea, 10.3-4 is the new 10.05-10.10. Got IIIIU IPO last week and already at 10.4. LSAQ, FLACU, are currently two I like. FSRVU just got a 40% bump on deal announcement so I've cut that one down a bit.

I decided on an experiment. Will help with my bubble project. Live like a RH rockstar for a bit. So before heading out to the supermarket to grab dinner, I figured, lets do this. Went to StockTwits. Top trending stock, XL. Lets buy 100 shares. Due diligence? Fuck it. #1 Trending is all the due diligence one needs. If its trending, it must be the shit. Entered market order. Cuz limit order are for pussies. Filled at 31.13. Shut the laptop...didnt want to work too much harder. Got in the car. Peddled around the grocery store acquiring items for tonights stuffed peppers. Headed over next door to the liquor store to get the nights beverages. Drove home. Kicked on the laptops. Sold for $33.17. Definitely a much easier way to make money in the market than all this other bs Ive been doing for years now. Heck, some of my value stocks only do 6% a year.

Been shorting some MSGE puts. Rotated a bunch of FSR warrants into some very OTM GM calls for 2022/23, added a bit more to BKEP, and picked up a starter position in some AAPL puts. Also tacked on a few more shares to ARKG short.

https://fortune.com/2020/12/21/ripple-to-be-sued-by-sec-cryptocurrency-xrp/ Probably why you dont want to pay for XRP if you are buying Ripple shares....

If nothing else hopefully the margin rate becomes a race to 0 as well.

I appreciate the kind words. How great or terrible I am of course depends on who you ask! Joking aside. I think the point being missed is that when something isnt working, a market participant who is looking to make money needs to ask themselves why? Relentlessly. I hate group think and find great value in the other side of the story, even when its contrary to what I think. Its why many times(like TPL thread for instance) people may call it "trolling" or whatever. Who cares what they call it. But I find that knowing the other side of the investment is more useful to me than loving my own thesis. So with this said, the problem you run into with some of these guys, is they have weeks, months, years of data points conveying that something is not working. And outside of just being arrogant, I cant really see any other justification for being so cavalier about it. One of the biggest flaws I routinely find in the "value investor handbook" is that there are plenty of aphorisms and excerpts that repeatedly reinforce bad behaviors and habits. No one says Prem needed to buy Tesla. But if he was honing in on Blackberry, was something like Apple really too far out of his universe? I use Apple because its a direct comp to the observation made by another poster about Buffett, who has fully admitted he doesnt know shit about tech.

^ I haven't really been in touch with what grade school and above kids are doing bc I dont have kids that age. But I was shocked to learn from a tenant that these kids legit are sitting in front of a computer from 8-2 everyday. Personally, I never would have made it through grade school if I had to do the same. Would have lost my mind listening to all that boring stuff with no interaction or break.

Yup. The firms are definitely not your friends. Or even allies. If you are still with them and producing, they'll play ball sometimes. But if you leave, they can be your worst enemies. Have heard more stories than I can recall of retaliatory U5 filings, marking of peoples licenses, phantom "complaints" popping up after the fact, and fight to the death type stuff over who gets to retain the "clients"...which the advisor does all the work with but the firm believes are theirs. Compliance anywhere sucks. Its all CYA crap from people who only have an elementary understanding about what they think the regulators want to see. Most have never been producers so they have no appreciation for the various aspects and difficulties of certain tasks. Ive gotten into full blown fights with some of these idiots over shit like "you cant buy XIACF because its a pink sheet penny stock! The regulators arent going to like this!". And its so aggravating explaining, "no you retard, its a $50B company that trades on another exchange and has US listed ADRs"....its also hard to do so politely when the response, regardless of content presented is "yea but it trades on the Pink sheets and its a $2 stock!". End of rant...

Moar EDIT

I'm generally just having some fun with this. I do think the politicians are pieces of shit. But you most certainly take this much more seriously than I do and with that said, dont think you should get too worked up over anything I post. My only contention is to highlight how from top to bottom the government is a joke and nobody's gameplan should be contingent upon them. One of my best friends growing up texted me the other day about possibly meeting up in Boca Raton and informed me that whether he would be able to or not was dependent upon the vaccine availably. He readily admitted that "perhaps I've gone overboard, but at this point Ive done nothing and have barely left my house since March, so I'm just going to play it safe"...I am totally cool with that and those who feel the same way. Sure I'll kid about it, but we should all be entitled to do and act as we are allowed by law and constitution. We should also be able to have a sense of humor, even in dark times. Congrats on your daughter too.

Looks like the NJ nursing homes won't get the vaccine on time. Bureaucrats had too many other, more important things to do and missed the deadline....

Bought some BKEP premarket on the big announcement. Swapping this in for the preferred shares I own and will sell during the day. Transformation is taking shape!

Need more reasons why this has become a joke on everyone? Just this weekend.... AOC, 30 years old....getting the vaccine despite a current shortage and not being at risk. Why? Cuomo, who has banned everything from dining to working out, wants to attend the Buffalo Bills game! Oy Vey, eh? And....Deborah Birx traveled with family out of state over Thanksgiving weekend! despite telling everyone else not to. You dont say!

Sorry to hear all this. There's a very ugly side to the business that most people never see or hear about. There's few other places or jobs where you can make the same type of money with such "freedom", but it definitely comes with costs. Hopefully things turn out OK for you. More to life than the next 10% portfolio fluctuation. Also, I dont know Roark at all. But I would just generally say that 95% of the folks Ive met in this business arent good people and be careful because most of the people who act like "friends" will quickly forget your name the second they no longer benefit financially from you.

Almost every time I can think of, where something was supposed to either be a total train wreck or the next greatest thing, often the end result was something much more in the middle and quite boring. People adapt, often on the go, much more cogently than when they have forever to plan. When you sit around planning for the possibility of touching fire, you still dont really have a clue. When your feet feel the fire, its hot.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/barrons-10-best-stocks-for-2021-51608337138?source=content_type%3Areact%7Cfirst_level_url%3Anews%7Csection%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link Outside of AAPL at 32x earnings....pretty solid list. 4 of which I own, GOOG, BRK, GS, MSGE.

Just one more data point for the bubble. But, generally speaking, if they want to gamble, why not play house? I've done really well over time feeding the gambling crowd. This year selling puts to people who dont understand the greater details or simply judge a book by its cover has been the best way to take advantage of the option premiums. Good if not great companies that get swept up in rhetoric or false narratives where premiums are massive. Just mentioned RICK a couple days ago. Few other favorites would be FIZZ, DDS, SPG, PSTH, shit even Tesla a few months back, around the time of the split, I was able to short some (split adjusted) $4 puts for 30c with a June 2021 expiration. People often think of the dumb money, and its wise to enter that into your underwriting equation, but I've found it much more lucrative to feed to dumb money that thinks they're the smart money.