Gregmal

Two questions How many hacks have tried capitalizing on Trump fever with books? How many people/organizations have made a ton of money off of the business of riding Trump's coattails since he became president? Wasn't Trump highhandedly responsible for reviving the NYT?

Quite awesome. Only way it would have been better is if he took a knee!

IV has come out of the options a little bit, but there's still enough there to be worthwhile. You're basically trading against tards at this point. No one in their right mind is buying at these valuations. $2M contract announcement causes 900M market cap increase? Okayyyy. That and traders, which IMO are just speculations/gamblers, another form of stupid counter parties. Personally I don't think we've seen the top yet. IB had borrow at nearly 325% earlier, so being outright short is silly as well. Lot of different ways to play this.

It's something I've also noticed. It seems many here, and with value investors in general, there is some prerequisite for one to be so crippled by fear of "the next big one" that they spend all their time burying their acorns, however unlike squirrels, the events they prepare for are not annual, they're pretty much generational. Yet the next notion of the "value investor" is to act as if these generational events happen much more frequently than they do, and believe that they(the investor) will be waiting right there with a huge pile of cash to pick up all the great, cheap businesses when it happens. Historically, this is not how it works. Not only does this make them so frugal it becomes counter productive, but it makes it a miracle for them to even get within an earshot of beating a benchmark. If you are a half skilled investor, or simply put in the time, it's pretty darn easy to regularly generate alpha producing ideas. I think "being hedged" or crying about valuations became a clever institutional tool used to milk fees and justify shitty performance.

Not a value blog, but I've always found this one interesting https://www.stockgumshoe.com/

It's kind of a question to anyone who is playing this "rally". My trade, is effectively shorting the calls. TLRY for example selling ITM calls, IE $50 strike at least several months out(this is basically the best way to outright short while getting around the hard to borrow fees), and/or selling the far OTM calls for massive premiums(more or less betting this doesn't appreciate an insane amount further, plus also holds those insane levels).

In the marijuana space. Just depends on what side. Curious to see if anyone is playing this and how they are putting their ideas into action. Personally I think there are several money in the bank opportunities with to sell longer dated calls on names that have gone up 3-4x in the past few weeks, 30-50% higher than their current prices, for staggering premiums. Some examples, CRON has calls going out to 2019 at $25 where you can get $1-$2 share. TLRY you can sell the $115 March Calls for $12, which also happens to get you past the IPO lockup. Valuations were said to be stupid at much lower prices, this lately just seems to be a squeeze and the retail idiots trying to retire early, so I can't really think of a better and cheaper way to play it than above. Certainly better than paying 50-100% borrows or paying massive premiums for puts. Did the same thing with some of the Bitcoin plays like RIOT and also several of the other "fad" stories we've seen the past few years. Have found this to be effective along with selling deep in the money calls as well.

Shorted some longer dated OTM TLRY calls

IDK, you can literally make 10% a year without trying being 50% in cash and 50% in high quality US equities. Why screw around with Turkey?

https://nypost.com/2018/08/29/paul-singers-hedge-fund-values-sky-at-more-than-34b/ LOL he's at it again. And then tomorrow he'll agree to take less...This guy is so predictable.

Oh man. Good luck. Went through this nonsense is 2013. A year removed from college and self employed. The magic equation didn't work unless I got rid of my $700 a month car lease. The catch was I needed to show proof I owned a car. Ended up having to buy out the lease early and then buy a $5,000 used car so we could substitute to $700 with a $0. Lease buyout was $5,500 as well. Didn't have student loans but can relate to the bs of having to make the equation work even when you can clearly afford it. Normally I'm incredibly sensitive to making the right financial moves, but when it comes to buying your home, especially the one you plan to live in, and raise a family in for the next 20-30, just make it work.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/27/robot-hunts-lionfish/?yptr=yahoo Pretty darn cool here. Could help solve a big problem. It would be cool if they could then harvest the fish in a manner that maintains it's freshness. Lionfish is absolutely fantastic eating. AFAIK it's only available in south Florida currently.

We're all human and we all make mistakes - I think he had a costly anchor bias with Sears. Not sure about other factors. I agree but I mean all three are investments that just jump out as common sense speculative, to at worst utterly terrible. Sears he'd been wrong for so long he had enough information to can it several years ago, before his performance really slipped. FNMA I get, but it's entirely speculative, will consume a ton of resources, and is way to big an allocation. And JOE is just such a no brainer bad investment I don't really know what to say there either. The fact that ALL THREE of these made/make up the bulk of his portfolio is crazy.

Agreed with your sentiment. I've been another company with Ka-Shing ties lately, Razer. It was massively overvalued about a year ago at IPO. Lately you've been able to buy it for about a 1B EV which is half the price it was getting in private funding rounds prior to the IPO.

It's both. I am certain this guy takes more than his fair share in fees for "helping" homeowner meet investor.

Yea I don't think too highly of Elliot. Too many scumbag incidents. The Alcoa or whatever the spin off name situation reeked. The whole NXP is worth at least 135 on a standalone basis and then a day or two later agreeing to 127... They're scoundrels IMO.

It is my understanding that MSG intends to spin off part of the company which includes it's Esports franchise.

This will just cause people to read way too much into the info when they do get it. Would imagine much more significant price moves. I would most likely never invest in a turn around story or smallerish company with large customer concentration again either. Bad idea.

I still like the auto's, with a preference towards GM, but at some point(like with FCAU) you either see the brilliance break through, or the incompetence rise to the surface. Bottom line, when you are trading at 5x for several years and your share price has gone nowhere, you are doing something wrong, most likely on the capital allocation front. Everyone highlights all of GM's investing in the future, and that's great, but there's also been a solid argument made that they are spending like crazy on all this during the good times, without much reward for shareholders, and should the cycle turn, there is a good chance we'll see that they've just pissed their money away. Hopefully this does not end up the way it has for many other companies who follow this path. IE Do it their way and piss away money on what they want to do, finally get enough pushback from investors to change their ways but unfortunately this is typically after SOOO much underperformance that the "cycle" is near a turning point, and then to appease neglected investors the company starts buying back stock at exactly the wrong time. Hopefully this isn't the case.

Ford = Dumpsterfire FCAU=Jesus just died GM= Barra and the board are still convinced they've done a great job TM=Tariffs In all seriousness, I agree they are undervalued. That said, automakers just naturally seem to have terrible capital allocators running them(the exception being Machionne). I'm convinced Buffett's next whale will be an automaker.

I agree. It's odd to me how one's style of investing can in and of itself be an excuse. Most things don't work all the time. However if you have enough evidence to conclude that something isn't working(ie your returns suck), I don't know why you wouldn't look to fix it. Only in the hedge fund world can awful performance be excused simply by drawing some nonchalant, lazy excuse like "I'm a value guy".

I'm pretty sure Buffett spent nearly a decade working as a stock broker and then under Ben Graham. I'm also pretty sure he's also said many times how much he learned from this experience. From his Wikipedia: "Buffett worked from 1951 to 1954 at Buffett-Falk & Co. as an investment salesman; from 1954 to 1956 at Graham-Newman Corp. as a securities analyst; from 1956 to 1969 at Buffett Partnership, Ltd. as a general partner" So half a decade. Probably more non "run my own shop" experience than Ackman, Einhorn, and Tilson combined. I say the above not to be derogatory but because I've noticed a certain mentality with these types of people. They are super bright, but too academic, mainly because that's all they know. They do what the textbook says is the right thing to do even though anyone who's worked in just about any profession after studying it in school will tell you that you learn very quickly out there in the field that the textbook isn't always right. You have to adapt. The tone of Einhorn's letters lately scream "but the textbook says I'm right".

August is off to a good start with Tesla and GM. I have typically been a fan of Einhorn, but this stuff from him is inexcusable. As things shake out, and guys like Ackman and Tilson do what they do, I'm beginning to wonder if that age of hedge fund "stars" was really just a result of being in the right place at the right time. It was impossible not to outperform as a value investor in the early 2000's. If you were shorting it you looked even more genius because we all know what kind of stuff value guys would be shorting during that time frame too. But longer term this period IMO just reinforced arrogance and the textbook teachings of "value investing" which in turn probably hindered these guys ability to adapt or change on the fly. I mean between Tilson, Ackman, and Einhorn, I don't think any of them ever had a real job or relevant experience coming out of school. They basically lived spoiled rich kid lives and then played hedge fund manager with family money instead of getting real jobs. To their credit, they were bright enough to run the gauntlet and become insanely rich and popular, but I don't think they have the same hardened mentality or intimate understanding of how things really work to be sustainable. Looking at the real deal guys, Buffett, Cohen, Tepper, etc, they all did their time on the street and earned valuable life lessons before striking it out on their own. In terms of "fight" I think this goes a long way in shaping an investor vs a rich kid who's always gotten what he wants.

At this stage in the game I'd add GOOG to that. They are so stealthily diversified in terms of future home runs and involvement in major trends its unreal. BRK to me, at this point largely relies on the glory of past decades and the auro of Buffett and Munger. 10 years, heck 5 years from now I'm not so sure it's profile carries the same luster. I'd even go as far as to describe it as a wonderful collection of great Old Economy companies. I'd be almost certain it doesn't beat GOOG over that time frame. Frankly I don't care if it beats the S&P as thats never been a metric I've found useful.

I had several vets from WW2 in my family. It was always one of those known but not spoken subjects. I don't know if it's part of the code, or just a biproduct of the experience, but I've never met a vet who openly wanted to discuss these things. And I think thats understandable.