Gregmal

I also think much of the need for office space frivolously comes down to egos. I spent a short period of time working in the city. I wouldn't ever underestimate the importance of the corner office or the tall ceiling office with a view of the Hudson. Its probably also underestimated the ease with which corporate expenses can be justified from the top down. Maybe with a privately owned shop, ala Bloomberg, your owner/boss doesnt want you wasting their money because its his, but with most big corporations, especially publicly owned ones, its just so damn easy to spend, spend, spend because it doesnt come out of your pocket and just about everyone involved in the decision making chain can find a way to reap a benefit out of those spent dollars. Then again, this can also easily be reconciled as necessary in the name of attracting talent. So who knows.

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/05/16/staten-island-reopening-rally/ Its funny, who'd have envisioned a scenario where the socialist politicians get to lockdown law abiding citizens but free jailed criminals? NY, NY...

I totally agree. Ive been quite perplexed, at least in REIT land, why office is not thought of as worse positioned for the future than retail. Even now, going out, you see that people love to get out, especially when the weather is nice. Go shopping. Get food and a drink. Be active. The other day I was leaving a newly built shopping center, and not only was the place packed, but even stuff like Jersey Mike's which neither serves drinks nor even has great sandwiches, had people everywhere. I would never look to run a retail business, but being the landlord is like operating a carousel. In decent areas, especially for dining establishments, there's never any shortage of people willing to set up a business. I still think tier 1 locations are gold. A class C mall? good luck. But a well maintained center next to high density/affluent residential and office? Good money. Maybe even great money. Now for office, you have an environment where few actually want to be there. Managers need productivity, and if they can get the same from home or outer space, most will. Especially if you can improve your bottom line by cutting costs. For a high percentage of businesses, everyone sitting in a centralized location is not needed. Of course, theres good areas here too. Critically important systems or defense contractors will always need the security of a central home office. But those are rare. Bottom line, no one says "I cant wait to go to the office". Its a whole unnecessary expense for most businesses that outside of a write off and maybe some deductions, will continue to be phased out.

Yea..... I truly hope this is legit, but this company, given its history and the folks associated... I'd bet we see a secondary real soon. Every biotech/pharma company in the world has realized they can raise millions at significantly better valuations simply by mentioning a potential COVID product. Not dissimilar from yesteryears "blockchain" and "CBD/cannabis" booms.

You are entitled to your freedom. You are not entitled to infringe on the freedom of others. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. A shop owner should be allowed to stay open. The individual will decide whether or not to enter. This isn't difficult. I would make the analogy: someone with a gun that is allowed to shoot the gun around randomly and if he happens to kill someone so what. One could make the case that if you don't like the risk just stay inside. There are essentially 2 realistic choices: 1. No Mandatory masks and many more people die and the economy goes to crap. 2. Mandatory mask wearing: and many more people live and the economy is much better. I don't think it's right that society is creating an unsafe environment for the vast majority by allowing people to just not wear masks. Also it is a very costly path to not have mandatory masks. Oh no, I agree. Im totally in the wear a mask camp. Was just referring to the forced business closures. Most of the businesses Ive seen that are open have mandatory mask policies anyway.

You are entitled to your freedom. You are not entitled to infringe on the freedom of others. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. A shop owner should be allowed to stay open. The individual will decide whether or not to enter. This isn't difficult.

Everyone got the memo but old Warren....

Yea I am not sure what to make of it. I am now reading about people flocking to bars in droves in Wisconsin, and restaurants in Arizona packed with lines of people waiting hours for a table and keep waiting for the dire warnings to turn into unfortunate realities...but so far, that doesnt seem to be happening. And as it continues to not play out the way many forecasted, it seems the behavior is quickly reverting back to normal. Which of course is great and all if this indeed was blown out of proportion, however if this happens to be premature, it would end up looking unnecessarily reckless. I am against the lockdowns and stay at home orders but also think common sense precautions should be taken when going about one's life. I'd certainly go to a bar or restaurant during off peak hours. At the same time I dont think I'd pack in during happy hour or $1 beer night. Some of the clips, especially in Arizona, are downright insane. People 6 inches away from each other, no face masks, waiting to get into a bar where its elbow to elbow crammed. I guess we will see soon enough.

So I do recall at one point there was a ton of talk about how "reckless" states like Florida, Arizona, Georgia and Texas were with their responses and in some gases, lack of lockdowns. How they were going to be major disasters. And so today, out of curiosity I swung back to the numbers and none of those states are currently showing numbers that fit any of the forecasted descriptions. Why do we think this is?

Hardly the deal of a lifetime, but I finally threw in the towel and bought a few shares of Costco at 295.

Been thinking about these for a while, and think they fit in here, but in our realm of the universe, JLL, MMI and CBRE do a fine job of collecting their pound of flesh regardless.

ESRT and PCYO

Loopnet is a total waste of time. There is a massive public to private disconnect. I didn't see the NOI on a lazy glance, but thats a 7.5-8.5 cap property. The problem with the public companies is theyre all kingdom builders. So you're not getting anyone saying, "we're trading at a 10 cap but are easily a 6" and winding things down... The REIT structure is also sometimes heavily inefficient in light of the kingdom builder context. You cant tell a discount to NAV story and then issue stock, so it's leverage, leverage, leverage, then whoops.. CREXI is where its at though if you're looking to keep up with listings and get access to brokers. https://www.crexi.com/properties/314749/florida-silver-star-shopping-center

Theyre definitely more durable. But I think a lot of the issue is that value investors of a certain ilk just continuously get jaded by scripture. Falsely lulling themselves into being content being wrong, because under a certain mindset, value investing doctrine lets one think that when wrong, you arent really wrong but rather just need to be patient and buy more. A dangerous thing. Especially with bad businesses, which for the past decade, seems to have become a trend for even the best managers out there.

Have you read their research? If so, and you disagree with their figures / outcome, can you explain why? Everyone has their research and everyone makes bold claims. Motley Fool beats the shit out of the market too apparently. Financial Services firm research is mostly bs. Especially stuff done only for accredited investors. I'd even point out that unless they have additional disclosures, spamming Twitter like they were doing not long ago is a major no-no in the business as well. I think since they only market to exempt participants, they can get away with it, but its definitely sketchy.

Yea margin rates are the only reason I use IBKR. I have begun migrating some of my smaller cap names out though. Its a total waste of time for anything $500M market cap or under. Their margin requirements are awful for those. But if you can find $1B+ideas, its a beautiful thing.

https://www.harris.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Monthly%20Economic%20Crisis%20Support%20Act%20Bill%20Text.pdf This is the most insane thing Ive ever seen. Married couple with 3 kids who collectively earns $150k a year will be getting $10,000 a month from the government! Frugal folks like those on here could pray this pandemic lasts 2-3 years and then just retire.

This is all great and sounds cool, but what these guys do is effectively gamble away the entirety of your allocation with the hope that under certain circumstances, their wagers will result in a big windfall. Peronsally, I'd love to have a job where the expected outcome is that I lose all of your money, with no consequence. Actually scratch that.... with the expectation that next year you will give me more to do the exact same thing.... Why do these guys get so loudmouthed and boisterous during times where they hit? Because these schemes revolve around marketing.

Huckabee recently stated that any elected official supporting a shutdown, should not be allowed to take a paycheck until their constituents are allowed to get back to work. So simple, but yet so true. Why are these guys getting paid? Total scum.

Yea, IDK but it seems the narrative has shifted quite a bit over the years. Buffett is widely regarded as one of the greatest INVESTORS ever. Guy in his heyday used leverage and was trading like a madman. Its at best an excuse that now he is an operator. Or that he's actually not a stock guy, but someone who runs businesses. I thought this(below) was interesting and probably mirrored some of the chat that happened here in another thread regarding Buffett and Musk. Buffet is not an innovator or business builder(in the organic sense), he's a capital allocator. And one of the greatest ever. Well, up until maybe 15 years ago that is. Now, for whatever reason, he does so little investing that people seem to think he is something that he's never been. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/warren-buffett-may-be-one-of-the-most-admired-men-in-all-of-finance-but-elon-musk-isnt-buying-into-the-mystique-2020-05-07

Started a small position in SLB

Yea it is limited capacity but I'm more concerned, as a demand indicator, with "Sell out". This to me indicates they clearly have room to increase capacity and the people will be there. I'd be concerned if you're at 30% capacity and having trouble selling that. Such as the case with some airlines.

We have crappy diets, resulting in first world problems like high blood pressure, diabetes etc. In rural China and rural Africa, people have 110/70 blood pressure well into their old age. In the western world, with processed foods and high salt and high sugar, we have extremely high blood pressure and diabetes rates very early in life. Our bodies don't fight off viruses as well as healthy people. My view is it's largely diet based. All, the above and second and third world countries also have reporting issues, plus the epidemic has not run its. course yet. There are reports of bad situations in Ecuador (Quito) and Brazil but numbers are hard to come by. While these and other points mentioned above are all valid, I highly doubt they can fully explain the huge discrepancy between the developed and the developing countries. And especially considering the big factor that should make situations worse in developing countries -- their lack of good healthcare systems. I do wonder whether how some countries do not care much about this virus and this is being reflected in recognizing/reporting the COVID death numbers. My wife's coworker (they work in healthcare), who has families in Bangladesh, told her yesterday that while COVID is spreading there, people are more worried about going hungry than the virus. Suppose your people, media, and government do not really recognize this virus as anything novel or serious... In such countries, even if people die due to COVID or related illness, they might not warrant much attention and won't be tracked like some doomsday counter. In that sense, is COVID another "first world problem"? Yup. I think this is on the money. Media coverage and fear mongering have made this what it is. Its now widely recognized that this was here much earlier than some people thought, and guess what? Life was totally normal and folks got on with their normal business and the economy was humming along just fine. So yes, its a shame we manufactured a horror story and certainly did impair parts of the economy, probably unnecessarily. But, in other news. Shanghai Disney tickets sold out. RCL is reporting normal booking volume for 2021, guess not everyone is living under a table in their basement.

Good interview. I like Zell and he's got some insightful things to say. It is true, outside of the net lease market, there's not really any transactions occurring. It might be perplexing or scary at first, but I think the answer is relatively simple. Once a month the rent comes due. These assets trade on their cash flows. Until it is determined that the revenue streams are either a) permanently lower, or b) back to normal, most people, both on the buy side and the sell side, dont really want to take the risk of making a mistake.