Gregmal

modest adds to ESRT, JBGS, DPZ EDIT: also bought a starter in SPNVU

Good question. I'd like her to be nurtured around nice people, but they need to have common sense. There’s two kind of private schools. The catholic ones. And the none catholic ones. The none catholic ones can be a lot more liberal than the public ones. The catholic ones have their problems too, like half of the kids don’t have immunizations. I noticed some schools are called Catholic and some schools are called Christian. I wonder if they are different? Generally speaking a "Catholic" school is operated by Catholics, and a "Christian" school is operated by Protestants. If you have a religious preference between the two presumably you'd go that way. If you don't, I doubt the differences would be meaningful. You also have to get a certificate/sign off from your church to attend these schools. Your kids have to be baptized. This isn't true for any of the ones I am aware of. Plenty of Jews, Muslim, even atheist, etc go/went to the ones I am familiar with. Most of the parents, provided they have the money to get it, care about academics and/or athletics, that is it. And the schools, while having a religion class and for the holidays, mandatory mass during school hours, generally milk the athletics and academics as well. I remember having off of school after beating the rival Catholic school in football, and off again for the state championships. Further, there were boosters and even under the table scholarships/grants if your kids happened to be really good at football or basketball. The schools do have alignments, but also are run by intelligent and well connected folks who know where their bread and butter is. As a parent, if you know where it is too, use that to your advantage. Raising a student-athlete? That might be your cup of tea. Raising a rocket scientist? Dont pay up for athletics, if that makes sense.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/26/tampax-under-fire-after-tweeting-not-all-people-with-periods-are-women/ I did actually LOL here. Its a jungle out there. I think folks just want their children to be raised with a good head on their shoulders and I agree, sex, regardless of what the narrative and slant, doesnt belong in the classroom until middle school.

Added some more V and WM.

Good insight! My wife went to a all girl school and said the same LOL Mine too, and yea, has nothing to do with the education either. The stuff that goes on at all girls schools makes locker room talk at the all boys schools look timid. Could you elaborate on this? SD pretty much nailed it. For whatever reason, when you take a bunch of girls, many fitting the daddy's little princess title, and send them all to a school where there is no concern about impressing the boys, things can get very intense and viscous. Which is not to say its not a worthwhile life experience; for some it maybe, but its definitely not for everyone and probably not something every parent would be ok with, if they knew. Keeping boys and girls together has some benefits, as does separating them, but all in all, segregation, regardless of race or gender, can distort reality, which I dont think is good for development of teenagers.

Razer Blade is the best computer Ive ever used. Unfortunately any service issues require you to mail it in which takes 3-4 weeks. My backup is a MacBook. I travel locally a reasonable amount so both are tiny and lightweight and no problem to run off a hotspot from a car or at a restaurant/random meeting spot.

100%. I think its important not to promote the notion that one can not get a good public school education. This is entirely untrue. However, as muscleman originally mentioned, a lot of it comes down to seeking certain things and wanting to avoid others. When I told some family members that I planned to utilize public schools for K-8, and then do private school for high school, one of the funnier remarks I was met with, was "by high school they'll already have been taught about gender identity and all that rubbish!". And its valid. But having also seen the other side of the coin, its like "ok, but at Catholic schools they're taught gays and non Catholics are going to hell"?! So some of it is pick your poison. There will be pros and cons everywhere. My thinking is that by the time they reach high school they'll have enough common sense, and if common sense escapes them, they are capable of understanding biology enough to dispel the liberal nonsense, and at the same time, they're also capable of understanding that you may like chocolate ice cream, I may like vanilla, someone else may like both, and that the same applies to ones preferences for tacos or sausages and choice of readings when it comes to religious/holy books. No one is going to hell or less of a person for having different preferences or beliefs. The big difference, indisputably, is course content and discipline. If you are into athletics, its also a factor. If you are any good at (pick a sport) and play at Don Bosco, you're going D1. Hackensack High School? Possible, but definitely a lot harder. In a way, there is a pay to play element; a lot of the pros of private school is that resources make doors open. Its still up to the individual to execute and prove worthy. Good kids will do fine either way. But one path definitely makes things a little easier down the road.

There's some of those here too. We're likely not in too different of an environment. You have the Del Barton, Lawrenceville, Peck, Morristown-Beards of the world which are $40-60k a year but for mere mortals the Bergen Catholic, St. Joe, Don Bosco Preps are all reasonable at $15-20k a year, IMO.

What? Here in Texas the property taxes are insane because they are used to fund the school districts. I don't have kids but many of the public schools in local middle class neighborhoods seem very modern and well funded. During the recent pandemic friends with children have mentioned their transition to remote learning was smooth because all of the students already had standard issue: laptops, iPads, and hot spots from their public schools. I'm sure there are areas where they are high and schools are good. I'm speaking as a presumptuous Yankee. There's areas in the NorthEast where property taxes are lowish as well, but generally, if you're a tri-state area/New Englander, lets say you have modest HH income of $250k and a modest house, maybe $500k..you're at like 7% state income tax and 2.5-3.5%ish annual taxes on the value of your home...thats $30-40k in taxes; then you go take a peak at Florida or Texas and the same house carries 1-2.5% property taxes(or lower in some places) and state income is 0 and there's an epiphany of sorts. Now imagine if your income/house are more than "modest"...its a total money grab.

Good insight! My wife went to a all girl school and said the same LOL Mine too, and yea, has nothing to do with the education either. The stuff that goes on at all girls schools makes locker room talk at the all boys schools look timid.

Education wise, even disregarding all the crazy indoctrination stuff, private school is head and shoulders above public. Ive attended both, and my public school was considered one of the best in the state/country. And even still, you're looking at differences as big as Earth Sciences vs Chemistry for 9th grade and Calc/Advances Stats vs no math/maybe trig in grades 11/12. The teachers in private school tend to be more rigid, and will push religion but IMO at least thats well intentioned but just misguided, vs some of the shit you're going to be getting in public school, as you've already mentioned. The opinion will largely also weigh on how committed you are to your area and its profile; if you live in a high property tax area. If you're paying $15k+ in property taxes and looking at another $15k or so for private school, its hard to swallow that you're effectively paying for school twice. Then multiply if you have more than one kid, although most private give discounts on 2/3 kids so maybe $15k+$12K, etc. However if you dont have to deal with high taxes, its definitely worth considering, and if you are not tied to the area, you'll see why a lot of northerners are heading to FL and TX and then just paying up for private with all the money they save on taxes. Public schools in the south are just as bad as the inner city NY/CA dumpster fires . The testing stuff is standard. Average intelligence or better and theres no problem getting in. Not sure what the equivalents around the country are but its similar to/easier than the NY Regents exams. If money is of no concern, then dont even think twice and just do private. This isn't even getting into how much easier it is to get into the really good colleges. My public high school might have had a handful of kids getting into schools that were respectable but not elite like Michigan, Miami, GW, Vanderbilt, etc. At private school maybe 1/3 of the kids got into Ivy/1A and everyone got into schools like Michigan, Miami, GW, Vanderbilt, etc. Networking as well, you'll meet a lot of really interesting and well connected folks at private which may be helpful for your kid later in life. A lot of wise folks have said similar to Buffett, particularly that kids really learn to think during their teenage years and that high school is arguably more important than college. College is just for partying anyway and ultimately just putting a "brand" on your first resume submission.

Yea I agree with much of that. Shorting is immensely time consuming and the payoff is mediocre over the long haul. I do screw around and make a lot of hyperbolic statements regarding covid but I do think caution was/is warranted which kind of led me back to shorting and hedging much more aggressively. I just dont like selling longs(core positions at least) really ever. Selling quality companies over the long haul IMO is a losers game. So giving up some of the upside in unique scenarios is how I try to balance that. On the investment(as opposed to trading/hedging side), I try to stick to only shorting frauds or failures as Jim Chanos put it. Fads are too hard to predict and a fad is a fad until its not and by then its ripped your face off if you are short. With SAM, there was no other way to put it than a valuation short, which is always dumb. The post mortem would simply be a self inflicted selection which wasted much of the long leg of my FIZZ investment. At the end of the day is it a wasted gain on FIZZ, a good trade and a bad one, or simply the cost of doing business? Same with the long CWH short YETI I had for a while, but the only difference was it became clearer to me anything outdoor related would have a tailwind and was able to cover at only modest losses...nevertheless if I am not short/hedged than I am definitely not as aggressively long so there's a case to be made that without the short/hedges I dont have some of the longs that did ok. If the netted out difference is, say +3%(just making up a figure) over a year...as you alluded to, was it even worth the brainwork? Even in the most dire times, it seems to continue to be evident betting against stocks is not wise.

If Biden doesnt win I'll start a GoFundMe for Dalal's Rainy Day. Dont you worry. I also wanted to acknowledge your success as well. At one point you tried a cute little "self tout" and claimed to be a doctor but then went back and deleted your post. I will assume this was a mistake and different from the many other times you delete or retroactively edited the content of your posts.

Wow, you sound like you know exactly wut you are doing--as always! Can you also calculate Black Scholes in your head? Maybe you can start LTCM 2. There is zero probability this could go wrong. You're on top of it Jersey Boy--Send Warren the memo and let him know he should margin up Berkshire! Well, everyone should do what works for them. Different ways to go about it. Buffett has his approach, I have mine. If you're good at shooting the basketball you want to take as many shots as possible and when you miss, who cares, just look for the next opportunity to shoot. If you miss enough you get pulled from the game. I'm financially independent in my mid 30s and you're padding the rainy day fund and hoping for a Biden bailout. Good luck. Being scared of everything always going wrong to the worst degree possible is a great investment strategy and surely you should be able to pay off the student loans and retire by 65 or so!

Interesting, but the more interesting tweet I found was a couple below posting a link to this. https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/community-development/research-reports/pandemic_flu_report.pdf Guess what happened next in the 20's? But again, I can see how it is human and market nature to always assume the worst and then work backwards. As a historian myself, my application of understanding in situations like this, has always been to bet against the worst case scenario. If nothing else, you have the entire populations of politicians and bankers and experts working on your side. Similarly, how many people, even in a scenario like 2008, bet on failure and ended up losing? Getting squeezed out of shorts. Having insolvent counter parties? Seeing the Fed take actions that wiped out their bets? People like Peter Schiff who "called it" and still lost 80% that year. People who bought at the highs in 2007 and held tight in fact, did better than most of the doomsdayers. The other arm of analysis, is, how far should this drag things down. People have mentioned a liquidity crisis, but as long as the Fed is where it is, I dont see that. Further, company profitability is not being zapped to 0, so couple this with the insanely low rates, and that debt markets certainly arent "closing". Demand in fact, should increase for issues from qualified borrowers, especially if the bond guys deem an economic seize up to be temporary. Basically just a bridge loan. If you are a shitty E&P or mining company, sure, but I'd gander 95% of S&P companies would have zero problem issuing debt. So if we can eliminate liquidity induced plummet, then we have what? Just a recession to worry about. Is it possible we see Great Depression type stuff. I suppose, but probably not. Quantify what a temporary recession should do to the broader market... maybe comparable to something in the 70's or early 90s... but, most of those were greatly enhanced by energy/oil related issues and inflation, neither of which are really on the horizon here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_market_crashes_and_bear_markets Which one prior haven't we recovered from? Most were really just temporary shocks, similar to this, and exacerbated by program trading. Further, at least here, plenty of investors prior to February, were cautious or paring down their exposure because of "valuation" concerns... in November, December, January, etc. We can call the recent rise a "blow off top", but I think thats silly considering that a 10% rise over a half year stretch isn't really a blow off top, nor did it take us anywhere that extreme compared to market levels back in 2018 or 2019. From late 2017 S&P ~2650. So from that point to today that "market" has blown off a whopping 5% annually? An 8% return would take us back to roughly were we were in January. Just because people have been crying about valuation for a long time doesnt mean it was true. Generally speaking, the "broader markets" are relatively efficient. I myself have had plenty of stocks where Ive pounded the table and said the valuation didn't make sense, but was ultimately just WRONG. Same can be said here. The biggest issue I see right now is that the smart guys cant really calculate/model the impacts here so they're just throwing everything away. Still yet, I haven't really seen any of the fear driven people say where exactly the market should crash to or what levels it should now trade at. In fact, dare I say the value guys now just sound like momentum investors because "the trend is down". Again indicative of the above, and that fear is blinding. LOL Dr. Dalal Rainy days! Also, just a pointer. You can utilize margin for risk management purposes too. You're never "selling to early" because its money you're making that other people arent and you can hedge out your risk and if you're wrong its already offset anyway. Dont teach that at University of Phoenix med skool do they? Hopefully things pick up for you so that you can earn your way out of needing a rainy day fund!

Yea, stopped out on this one. Nothing really to learn. Already knew valuation alone was a poor reason to short. Thought the VIC writeup was on point. Really just lack of discipline/looking for hedges a little too aggressively. Byproduct of generally being greater than 100% long. Risk management is simply done via sizing the trade and sticking to your entry/exit. Here it was 2.5% at risk in the worst case.

Sheeeeet man, people really think bad news will lead to stimulus? Wish I had known that in March, April, May, June....Bbbbbut Buffett is bearish, I know. What to do, what to do.

Lots of vegetables being eaten in Europe right now...

Starter in TSCO.

Netflix vs The World was pretty good.

Cool article https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenehrlich/2020/09/23/visas-crypto-strategy-is-driving-its-next-stage-of-growth/#10d4f26a5c4c Yea, Visa has a crypto division. Widespread acceptance has begun. Its happened slowly, and gradually over the past several years. But the table seems set and its hard to see what if anything can stop this. There is essentially no fundamental or execution risk that would normally be an issue with a company. Its all about adding users so to speak.

Sold trading position in TWTR

Its entertainment and not much more. Sanjeev already said its gone September 1. I assume thats been pushed back a little but should be happening soon. No need for people to get butthurt about it. I do see some get so sore they refuse to even engage on the investment side of things, but who cares. Its not like the ones Ive noticed doing that have much to offer anyway. To each their own. Learning to accept and be tolerant to differing viewpoints is a necessity in life. Nothing wrong with engaging them either. Echo chambers suck in both investing, and in politics.

More interesting narrative Headline: FLORIDA COACH WHO CALLED TO PACK STADIUM TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID footnote: Mullen, his family, and every UF player whom has tested positive is described as experiencing either "mild, or no symptoms"...carry on!

Yea as mundane as it sounds in the world of craft beers, Sam Adams Octoberfest is pretty reliably awesome. Like Spaten Oktoberfest as well.