Gregmal

Finished Queens Gambit and it was excellent. Especially so if you have ever taken an interest in chess. Also recently watched The Company Men. Nothing great but good actors and a worthwhile watch if nothing else to remind oneself of where things were not too long ago and where they can someday be. Be grateful for what you have and dont squander it...side story in the movie was the number of people making good money who were living paycheck to paycheck.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-new-elegant-chemo-israeli-scientists-edit-genome-to-destroy-cancer-dna/ https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/47/eabc9450

Bought some LSAQ and sold a few puts on PSTH

Ideology is what you allow it to be, and in many ways its what you want it to be. For all the negative connotations, theres people in cults like Alcoholics Anonymous adhering to rhetoric that has legitimately saved their lives. Same is true for religion. Of course there are darker sides and uses, but thats true for everything.

Agree with all that as well StubbleJumper. The understanding of the investment philosophy is easiest conveyed through the dreaded PPM or form ADV. Many times people skip these with "related parties" or when dealing with friends and family....they come to you because you are viewed as the guru and they are not; which lends itself to having a very limited understanding of the gig...and also leaves you dealing with what is likely an average person with an average understanding of the market...which by default is often something involving "get rich quick" and "gambling". I dont know too many normal folks who are ecstatic about the prospects of a steady 10-12% compounded annual return....I was talking a couple months ago with my brother in law and he brought up investments. He asked what I like right now, and of course the majority of the stuff I mentioned is boring, hard asset with next to no debt names that I told him I think should be able to do 15-20% annually for a while. He goes "what about Carvana? I bought some in an Acorns account and its up 80% in a few months"...exactly on point with your statement about relative performance and expectation. Its just too messy over the long haul and unless you're desperate for a favor in the form of money and/or a job....youre better off taking your skills somewhere you can monetize them and cultivate business relationships without all the potential hazards.

Any upside you can make off your family and friends you can make off of building a real customer base. I get what you are saying, but its basically just a roundabout form of a handout. And yes, I know plenty of silver spooners who breezed through life, went to name brand schools, and then were "given" assets by family to earn a living off of without ever holding down a real job or gaining experience in the field. Wouldn't one rather build something real on their own? Without the risks of....best case scenario, freeloading off family, or at worst...blowing them up and being the moron at the dinner table every family gathering? Theres nothing "wrong" with doing it, but its not a very asymmetric bet. If its not a form a freeloading, then do it for free...And if you're doing it for free, whats the upside?

You can do off the books stuff, no issue just get creative. If you want something more official, IBKR has friends and family accounts where you can manage up to 15 accounts iirc, without any sort of license. Otherwise, you need either a 7/63 or a 65 and then a sponsor firm in order to conduct business. I'd agree with the above though...business and friendship dont mix. I do some lightly, but I dont charge family members anything and close friends I just kind of tell them what to do and how to do it themselves. That way between them listening to me, and then executing whatever it is they seek to do, they have a little bit of time to think it over.

I love it when i encounter this type of thinking when it comes to investing. It is like taking candy from a baby. Not so great when in the middle of a pandemic and the health consequences can be extreme. Effectively managing the virus is just a tad more complex than you are suggesting (my uneducated opinion). As i have been saying since March, the virus is in control (until a vaccine is available). Do stupid things and the virus will love it. Develop a fatalistic mind set and the virus wins. It is pretty straight forward. It is not black and white. Not go out or stay home. Not open up or lock down. Not left or right. Not Democrat or Republican. But just like thumb sucking when young i guess this is the easiest most comforting way for most people to think about the virus. Just like trying to play checkers when you are in the middle of a game of chess. Well in regards to both investing during this manufactured "crisis", and handling the virus, I am pretty certain I'm doing quite well in both categories....much better than most I would imagine. It isn't totally black and white, but in many aspects it is. If you run around chicken shit scared or impair your life, well, that sucks. If you choose not to, well, thats your choice. And then even in the worst case, despite the liberal loveliest for headlines like "he dismissed the virus and then he got it!"...most people, even who fall into the later category, end up just fine. Bottom line is if you're so damn scared of this thing, your only surefire way to avoid it is to sit in your house and avoid any contact with people. If you do that, you'll never get it. For the rest of us, its pretty reasonable to just go about living our lives to the extent that the corrupt and power-hungry politicians dont interfere. Not much more to it.

The only way not to catch covid with a near certain success rate is to avoid being around people. If you are going to be around people, wearing a mask helps to a certain degree, but your risks increase greatly. Why is this such a hot button topic for people? Seems really freakin simple. The more people you are around, the greater your chance of catching a cold, whether you have a mask or not...

Assclown in NY giving people one more chance to exit the WFH trade...

How much NYC office do you still own? This is what makes a market. low teens % of portfolio and dropping. What was it at peak and how do you typically size? Pupil and Gregmal trimming their office REITs... Uh oh... Run, don't walk! To be fair, I have, over the past few months come across one of the most exciting invest opportunities Ive seen in a long time, and its not in the real estate space. Given my massive real estate exposure, my incentive to reallocate to a new and somewhat diversifying core position is large.

Theres few moments in ones life where you get a chance to showcase your skillset as the world watches. These are the kind of things they make movies about. Weirdo with an arcane talent gets opportunity of a lifetime and not only is the girl of his dreams captivated by his talent, but the entire universe gets drawn in, and usually it ends with said person being a hero and getting the girl. These scientists just had that moment, and not only made total fools of themselves, but did a great disservice to the credibility of science in the eyes of every day people. What a disaster this whole thing was for them. Scientists are very much like analysts. An analyst is good for compiling data and doing research, but should not be trusted to make and form final conclusions and take action. Because any analyst who is any good at it, would be managing money and not writing book reports if that were actually true.

I actually noticed VSAT in the Baupost 13F the other day. Another turd for Seth. I remember thinking he was clever for having such a big position in the name in like 2013...at like $65 a share. Dont think he's ever sold any of it either.

I guess they didnt want the $10 per share COST special dividend....

Back to lockdown losers! Except of course for Gavin and Nancy...Parties and hair salons are only essential businesses if you think you are better than everyone else....

That's surprising considering we are probably still in the early innings of the recovery for office REITs. Why now? Do you have higher margin than you like? No other income coming in? Lottaaaa margin on these. Leveraging underlevered public RE companies was something I thought compelling the past 6 months. Some of the stuff, like ESRT, MSGE/S, PCYO, JBGS, FRPH....you have literally zero risk of 0's or bankruptcies wiping you out because of the balance sheet strength. So I modeled out some extreme worst case scenarios and used that as the basis for my assumptions and then gradually bought the daylights out of them because at 1-2% margin rates it just kind of seemed stupid not to. But in some cases we're up like 40-50%+ in a week and change and I'd rather remain flexible and not ignore the possibility that we could retrace some of this. I'd rather add/subtract the noncore(maybe 20% or so) part of the position than be that guy who goes "Its worth $12 and I won't sell a single share for a penny less than that!"...The piece of ESRT I took off for instance, I added on Monday(of the announcement) at $6.40 and sold a few days later at $7.85...no need to be super greedy. Just greedy. With borrowed money its not yours to begin with so the gains are risk gravy.

Some funny tweets https://twitter.com/hkuppy/status/1326960220740972550/photo/1

Trimmed a smidge of ESRT on the spike to $8. Fought every instinct to continue being a total pig but ultimately settled on taking a mid single digit % of the position off to pay down some margin and free up some funds. Also sold rest of FSR as well as a few of the warrants.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30308543/golden-state-warriors-submit-plan-home-game-testing-allow-50-percent-fan-capacity Pretty interesting. Lets see if the bureaucrats listen to the "science" or continue to find excuses for their power grab. Joe Lacob is infinitely more credible and qualified than any of them, and probably even moreso than the purely academic scientists like Fauci, who have never been forced to make a living in the real world.

And before the whole "hospital capacity" thing comes up, China built a mega hospital in 8 days. The fools and politicians have had 6 months to make plans and prepare....but now they want their ineptitude to be everyone else's problem.

All I can say is that I hope people take measures to let politicians know how they feel. Folks have demonstrated that they are fine living with the virus. We dont need government and MSM drumming up stories and sensationalizing this thing for the sake of power grabs. I certainly hope that people hold these politicians accountable. It is nice when there are consequences. Cuomo for instance has spent months blaming Trump. When Trump is gone, what is he to do? Face the people hopefully.

Media is ecstatic. Corey Lewandowski will be dead in T+3 days....

Just in at Costco...

I get the allure to this and do agree, even as someone who hates gold and the arrogance of your typical gold bug...my question would be...does anyone have any really exotic trade or way to express something like this. I really dont want to waste a whole lot of capital on these things because I'd rather just play it safe and buy things that can do well under this scenario as well as a few others...but if the trade really takes off it would be nice to have a few lottery tickets. Any ideas? I personally think theres probably a few similar metals or commodities you could apply the same thesis to, while also maintaining a few more ways to win...but maybe I am missing something. Is there a specific reason for gold?

I am a little dense, please explain Greg? See you on the GRIF in half an hour? With many money managers, if they find a real cant miss trade they tend to be hush hush about it, exactly as Bill was the first time. Then there's the other type of trades where guys tend to make a lot of noise, hoping to perhaps create a bit of their own alpha. See you on GRIF!