Gregmal

@Dinar you left out free prepaid debit cards! All in all I do agree though that literally once you get out of the lawless cesspools like NYC, these people generally contribute positively. One of the cool aspects of our annual winter break down the east coast is seeing a lot of cool places. We drive cuz its easier with the kids...do a few nights wherever, say Richmond, Hilton Head, Savannah, Raleigh, Knoxville....before going through Florida, which in and of itself is big and diverse. So much of the cool and happening places are an amalgamation of "people" coming together to make it work. Thats almost universal. Where things are gross? This shithubs like NYC, Baltimore/DC, etc....AND....cranky old rural white people areas where they think everyone is coming to take their....IDK what lol.

Did what I do when I ain’t got shit else to do…bought more FRPH

Like theres just always this NEED for some sensational story in the markets, on the news, on social media. Its gotta be an omg a recession, spiking inflation, stagflation, housing crash, mega bubble in progress...lately it seems to have devolved into even more head scratching and ultimately silly things like "braces for the CPI" and "frets over rate cuts" and "wondering if its March or June", "waits on Powell"....and IDK, if youre actually concerned with making sound investments, isnt it just kinda OK to be like yea economy will be solid but not spectacular, and inflation 3-4% with some noise month to month...and just leave it at that? I honestly chalk most of it up to underperforming fund managers and institutional investors who need excuses for why their sophisticated trades dont work, why they cant beat an index, and why they buy stuff that doesnt make sense.

How frequently does the analyst crowd change their positions or arrive at new updates? I don’t know because I don’t follow them because I’ve never found analyst to be good at anything investing related. If they were, they wouldn’t be analysts. The consensus is probably in the ballpark, finally. It was clear in 2021/22/23/and still 24, that like 75% of the peak CPI inflation was supply chain related and the rest housing and service related. IE fairly little has ANY relation to raised interest rates, and some, like housing, only made worse by it. Slowly it seems many have come around to realizing what should have been obvious from the get go. Where were all those analysts and what were the forecasts in say December 21/22/23? If there are still people forecasting recessions, when is their credibility totally shot? If there are people who were calling these vicious wage-price spirals or hyper inflation, when do we stop paying attention to them? So much of this nonsensical game has been rinse and repeated, just like COVID, to where it’s hard to imagine why anyone still falls for it. One uptick in COVID cases/inflation data and it’s “rah-rah see the boogeyman is coming” every time, just like clockwork. But the bigger picture isn’t or at least hasn’t changed. This discussion been going on in the random tops and bottoms thread as well as some of the inflation ones. Maybe the bulk of the market has finally gotten to where it should’ve been years ago, but we still have the people who have been wrong about recessions and inflation trying to drum up those animal spirits and it’s just like ok when will they get on with their lives? Bigger picture, does 3 25 bps rate cuts impact ones investing? 0? How about a hike or two? Because if one’s looking out at anything much further than the next few quarters the majority of those things are totally arbitrary and irrelevant but like in mid 2022, if enough of these people scream loud enough we can move the market a little, and they can do the “see I told you so!”s even though virtually nothing they forecast happened…no recession, no housing crisis, no hyper inflation. But when the market endures it’s "bullshit", and because of "mother of all bubbles", and "hopium", and "the election"…just seems like it’s awfully tiring and not too profitable playing these games when there’s plenty of ways to just sit on your ass and make money.

In order for inflation to get anywhere near 5% we'd need a "raging" economy. I think 3-4% is here and fine and they'll likely cut as they said a few times but I think rates in the 3-4% camp are fine. We dont need 0%, and we dont need, but can probably live with the 4-5% we are at now although thats probably benefitting savers more than necessary. In general though its just the constant noise, from the same folks. We were lied to about the recession that was "already underway" for 3 years. Now that seems finally abandoned because the "inflation is here to stay" crowd gets a couple prints that confirm all their biases....after those same folks told us we needed more than "a couple" down prints to confirm inflation was subsiding.

Even China seems to have bottomed and is undoubtedly cheap. The inflation screamers just remind me of the covid variant screamers in 2021. Like just let it go already lol.

LOL it just seems simple from a risk reward although Im not sure I am enticed enough to put it on because I dont really see a massive recession on the horizon. The futures options same deal except they kinda fall into the options category where I need to be somewhat right on the timing or the option is a zero. But generally, it just seems like a lot of the mouthy "gotcha" like talking heads are back with "there won't be...gasp....rate cuts this year"...and its like "ok, so we stay where we are, whats the problem?....to which we get some iteration of "the market is priced for perfection"...which I think to myself, "ok, but weren't you same people saying this 500/1000/1500 SPY points ago too? "...I mean even if we get another HIKE....uhhh...its not gonna be more than 25/50....and only if the economy keep raging...so who TF cares? Seems like everyone is trying to day trade their way into next week or months news...meanwhile theyre missing the old economy stocks that largely sucked the past decade...ripping. Citi is hot fire right now. GM dont look now, even that turd catching a bid. Energy is good to go. Entertainment is sound. Building stuff is blazing....but yea...it all comes down to March CPI....will they, or won't they? It all comes down to this! Some of this shit is so stupid. And oh yea, AI is a bubble!

I actually think, although haven’t thought too heavily, about how decent a hedge trade it would be to go long an obnoxious amount of like 20 year treasuries on margin. Right so buying puts is generally a sophisticated white collar guys way of throwing money in the garbage. Shorting as well is largely a fools game. But if I can borrow/margin at 6-7%, while getting paid 4.5%, what’s my upside and what’s my downside? The never relenting “inflation fanatics” who have seen inflation everywhere for much of the last decade or so still see it, and after nearly two years of monthly declines in the data we get an expected hiccup or two…no it doesn’t mean we re heading back to 5-10%…but it’s given us a neat setup as a few of the fringe participants start leaning on the very short term data because gee, if we can’t trade or gamble on every daily or weekly theme…whats the point? So really, if I go long a monstrous amount of the 20 year treasury, maybe I assume 10-15% upside risk if we run back to last years highs which were basically just a well timed Ackman pump? Plus the margin rate minus the interest so call it another 3? But if shit hits the skids….Fed drooling to cut. Could we hit 30-50% upside? Definitely think so. So a heads I’m hedging and not losing much and my longs soar on more good data, tails I have a hero trade on my hands at de minimus cost….

I think this is such an awesome underlying aspect that really helps separate and categorize a lot of market participants. One thing was so obvious this entire time and that is that the “raise rates to fight inflation” thing just wasn’t really applicable to the majority of the “issues” over the past 3-4 years. Rates had and have very little impact on anything, and it’s only the academics that kept thinking we needed another hike after every monthly CPI print. If nothing else, the reckless rate hikes just added probably 3-5 years to a housing bull market that was already due to run for most of the next decade. Otherwise, a monkey could see 3/4 of the “inflation” was really just supply chain related and then most of the 25% that wasn’t was housing related and only exacerbated by higher rates. Nevertheless we still hear the same old folks going off about hikes and cuts and the money supply and all these textbooky talking points and thankfully, much of the Fed falls into that camp and it’s why it’s been so easy to dance around this theme and exploit it. Basically the TLDR; so much of the market deeply desires the market to be predictable and fall in line with what the textbooks told them, and when it falls outside those bounds, they insist on still trying to quantify if within that framework, even though the new framework isn’t exactly that hard to apply…it just simply requires being capable of thinking outside the box.

Yea idk. It just seems so obvious at this point that the whole “what’s the Fed gonna do” and “how many rate cuts/increases” game is a fools game. Remember SPY 3000?

Yea, stocks are supposed to be volatile. Its a feature, not a bug.

NIce. Yea these guys are doing something incredible. Sports monetization is all about the licensing and Rubin has basically used Fanatics plus initial ownership in a couple teams to infiltrate that ecosystem. It started out as just apparel and now its basically in everything. This will be a royalty like machine on the Big 4 American Leagues. The key of course, is you need the teams and leagues to grant you the licenses...and well, he's allowed the Players Unions to be large investors in Fanatics....how brilliant. Its now in the Players interests to let Fanatics make as much money as possible.

Yea, thats why I honestly dont care AT ALL, either way about election interference. Everyone does it, if your people are too stupid not to be influenced then thats their fault. The problem I do have? Its with the people that sit here, either because they are stupid, or dishonest, and scream about election interference as if its a problem and isolated to one group or another.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-ukraine-hypocrisy

Look at what John McCain and the CIA did in Ukraine in 2014! Then see all the brainwashed Americans justify funding the war because "Russia invaded a sovereign nation!"....its just so annoying we have to put up with this kind of ignorance/stupidity in the general society.

Even this terror attack in Russia…see how obviously different it’s being reported/treated versus other mass casualty attacks? The Post even had an article rife with insinuation that the perpetrators were victims of torture afterwards! And then of course the conspiracy theories that “Putin did it”, just without the disclaimers warning you it’s fake news.

Is it not one of the absolute stupidest exercises imaginable as an investor to sit around trying to guess "this or that" in terms of "what will outperform"? First, many have a hard enough time as it is, just picking things that make money in absolute terms. 2) no one Ive seen, even amongst the greatest investors of all time, has consistently demonstrated an advantage guessing these things, they instead just focus on finding those one or two high conviction ideas....and 3) isnt it also doubly dumb from a simple logic point of view given that theres like 10,000+ listed investments out there and there will also be one that "woulda done better"?

I dont know why people would care. I mean AOC was a bartender and now look at her? Simply electing someone will allow them to enrich themselves. I'd only remotely care, and in a good way, if it was someone like Bloomberg, Trump, Schultz...who actually made their money in the real world rather than a Paul Ryan or Joe Biden who basically enriched themselves off the whole "elected official, public servant" schtick. But Im not sure its a huge deal either way to be like "oh everyone needs to know this guy is loaded"...

In a way you can’t help but believe that China wouldn’t mind having its markets be viewed similarly to US markets; if nothing else that would be extremely beneficial with respect to capital flowing into the county. You tell these listed companies to start paying out like 50% of operating earnings for a few years and the incoming growth from all the whores, especially US based funds, would be insane.

Yea Im almost there. I need them to universally kind of take order from Xi to spray everyone with a firehose full of cash. If they adopt Western capital allocation policies you could definitely see a 1980s onward type of multi decade bull market here. Going from the "all the profits are fake" mentality everyone currently has, to a "lets give them a decent multiple" is a life changing type rerating play waiting to happen.

Stop posting! You’re making too much sense and making me wanna buy some of these. Until now I’ve been very impressed with my discipline and limited but so far modestly successful quick trips to the Chinese ADR dumpster. In all seriousness though, do you really believe any of these are long term compounders or just trading sardines? Over the years I’ve had some luck with Baidu, Xiaomi, Tencent, PDD and whatever the Twitter knockoff was. But they all have their runs and then eventually give it all back. Almost easier to just use options and trade the ETFs.

Yea good point. There’s also a huge difference between “teaching” K-12 and college/university. My grift comment was 95% directed at the college/university crowd.

No, that’s perfectly fine. But what about the other 95%? The top percentile always gets treated well, however I do kinda think it’s ineffective to encourage the most capable to outright shun going into the real world, which is definitely occurring in the medical space because of all the consolidation and shifts occurring in that system. I’d also put an asterisk next to “just Ok money”…”just ok” for lots of vacation time, straight 9-4 leave work at home hours, probably your own private office, 100% job security, elite benefits and retirement? I mean I’d peg that as more valuable than making $500k-$1m a year for a few peaks years in other professions. Outside of the medical space….do we really consider a Literature or Philosophy PHD “best and brightest”? I’m definitely kinda dunking on academia more than I want to, but it’s crazy how easy it is if you do the 5-10 years and share in the politics. Nobody counts the summers and winter breaks. Or ALWAYS being home for the holidays unlike cops or firefighters or medical professionals. No one puts a value on the pension which is so awful a deal for the employers that even the worst private sector capital allocators have kinda just thrown in the towel on them. I think the mistake we make is looking at ourselves or a normal ambitious, half intelligent, and driven person and assume this is the HBU. It’s not. But if you’re not ambitious, don’t want to work like an adult, love being an authority figure, and want a guaranteed cushy retirement….I’d definitely recommend it. Especially if you didn’t exactly kill it grade wise in high school and college and don’t sport a Tier A college on your resume.

My other brother is white coat PHD....always wanted his own practice, did the whole run...lots of school then residency etc...he's now debating a "research" position at a major university because "private practice has gotten too challenging"...most of the people who he went to school with also went the "academic" route because it was easier. These are the cream of the crop. Theres no "free ride", but realistically, putting in 5-10 years of intense labor is fairly standard, except when you make it to the other side in the academic field you're unchallenged and golden. Whereas if you do 5-10 years as an electrician...well, then you can go off on your own a start your own business from scratch, likely competing against your old boss.... Sure theres also a huge difference between grade school teaching at public schools and say graduate stuff at university...but both aint nearly the torture we always hear about. I had a Spanish teacher in middle school who taught the middle school, high school, and then had classes at two different local colleges...guy would boast about his hobby of buying $5,000 bottles of wine, despite not even drinking. Its one thing to have these sort of gravy trains if youre a cop or a firefighter putting your life on the line and having a smooth exit after 20 years which could potentially be your early 40s...but the teaching/academic stuff? No lives are on the line yet they get a similar if not better deal than the cops/firefighters.

Right....but other anecdata....my little brother is currently in a PHD program for genetic engineering at a top school. Yes, he makes shit. Yes, he's overworked and semi abused(depending upon how tough you are mentally and how you define abuse)...yes all he gets is a stipend....BUT....once he's done he knows he has a cushy academic job if he wants it, or he can go private sector starting off at probably $200k plus stock options. But thats a real productive space he s in...one with private sector demand. Tell me where else...say, someone who goes to Rutgers or Penn State with 950-1100 SATs, parties their way into a 3.0...ends up with complete job security, elite health insurance, a pension, and summers+holidays off while making $80-120k a year in their late 30s/early 40s?