Gregmal

This was the crux of my Trump rally thesis. 2014-2016 we saw margins maxed out as in the years prior almost all waste was purged. The only two levers left to pull in 2016 were tax cuts and perhaps the pro economy policy ticking up growth a little bit. I dont see anything else now.

1810.hk

Given the divergence BRK has actually starting creeping up my list of "attractive" investments the last few weeks/months. I hate the inaction and cash build, but given the circumstance, if anything, I would adjust the lens I look through and perhaps see it as a way to maintaining a modest, but impactful access point to investing if reasonably priced equities. Even if they hold AAPL to eternity, the huge cash surplus balances out the volatility in the portfolio, should there be any. I do think the above conversation reveals one thing; it may be great that companies are paying out more. Definitely! But at around 100% payout for the average company, the things RuleNumberOne has been harping on, like earnings and revenue growth, will really start to matter. Given that the future valuations will be dependent upon this...it is hard not to argue that we arent getting very much if any margin of safety at these prices.

Maybe a hair out of the comfort zone, but I would definitely explore a for sale by owner type deal given what details you've indicated. Bay Area properties are as liquid as money market funds.... Run a FSBO with a 3% commission for the buyer agent. This way you save 3% yourself, but have a motivated agent. You can basically then have your lawyer handle a lot of the typical real estate agent bs and do what you can, yourself. If you break down the numbers, assuming you've got a $2-3M pad(just guessing based on BA home prices) you're talking about saving yourself like $50k. So even if you need to pay on the back end to get to closing, I guarantee it would still be cheaper.

Ive had a lot of luck working with middle aged women, who left their careers to raise the kids, and then once the kids left high school and went off to college became agents. You can absolutely ask for CVs when scouting agents. The above described agents tend to be focused, professional, dedicated, and while financially secure, doing something they are motivated to succeed at as its often a reinvigorating process getting back out in the field so to speak. I'd personally stay away from early 20 something agents...mostly enamored by "work for yourself and make lots of money" marketing... as well as the big name ones who have so much business that they dont really care about any specific transaction.

I had similar thoughts last night when looking at MSFT, which I posted in another thread. The only flaw I'd say is that some companies do fund these things with debt. Maybe valuations have permanently moved higher. Its the supermarket sale dilemma. Just last week your box of cereal was $2.49 on sale. Now its back to $4.99. Do you wait to buy it? More often than not, you get sale prices again, but theres no guarantee and sometimes the price ends up staying higher permanently. You can always just stop eating cereal I suppose.

I looked at CLMT a while back and continue to mess with it a little in terms of putting together some positions; although none of any significance in size. But whats attractive IMO, especially if you dont really need this to perform immediately and arent married to seeing the whole thing through....theres a ton of juice on the options. You could sell some $3 puts and then some the $5 calls for August and collect about .90-$1 in premium against a $4.5 stock. Should the stock take off you miss the multi bagger but I dont know too many who would complain about making $1.50 on a $4.50 stock in 7 months. You could do a similar trade selling May $4 puts and May $5 calls against a long position and take in 70c in premium for 4 months...

AYR I thought of but it's weird. I think its got a pretty high chance of doubling. But multi bagging even over an extended period time is tough because their big edge is currently wholesaling. Which should clean up for a few years but is very much endangered if federally weed gets green-lighted because one of the main reasons you have opportunities AYR is exploiting is because you cant ship state to state or lets say, outsource production to the most efficient areas such as South America. Growing dope at $1100 a lb and selling it at $2900 only works because they cant haul this shit in from Vermont or fly it in from Colorado.

I'll add Atomera as well. Kind of an interesting little company that has a shot to be a 5G superstar depending on adoption of MST.

Adding color to XPEL, it was a multi bagger from prior, but what really added the gusto to this thing was the 3m lawsuit that took this to $1. Ideas otherwise Likely HTL- growing organically at low-mid teens, uplisting probably adds 20-30% minimum to valuation PCYO- you've got $2B(in todays dollars) in "eventual" asset value, only question being how quickly they got monetized EDIT/CRSP/NTLA- you basically have the entire CRSPR play/theme rolled into 3 companies with maybe $5-6B in market cap. The opportunity is probably 100x that number. Granted, real revenue/profits are maybe 7-10 years away. But by then, if this works, well... Probably not but has the potential Northern Dynasty- Pebble Mine probably aint happening Definitely but you'll never get it Buck Hill Falls - Shares conservatively worth $75, trading at $14. Maybe 1000 shares have traded in the past 5 years... RSRV- the best play on oil that you'll never be able to take a real position on.

I was looking at this stock for some year end dislocations, but there isn’t much volume. I don’t think their last acquisition indicates that management is selective about where to put their money either. Shopping malls in Jacksonville ? http://ir.ctlc.com/file/Index?KeyFile=401493134 The main driver right now, as you pointed out, is probably the volume. Any half observant investor sees that, yet Mr. Institution somehow just decided to blow out 250k+ shares in what seems to be a few days...genius. I wanted to double check my cynicism, but a look at the rest of the V3 portfolio was just as baffling and confirmed that these guys just have poor judgment. I am having a hard time reconciling the volumes, so perhaps the company took some of the shares privately, although Im almost positive theyre currently in a blackout, so not sure how that works. But what an idiot. They've been monsters repurchasing shares since Winters left and would have happily taken down those shares if this guy wasn't interested in packing up and going on vacation....I'm all for using 4% debt to buy as many shares $15+ below the low end of NAV. The Jacksonville purchase isn't totally out of nowhere. They already owned several outparcels at St Johns from another deal. Simon owns the other half and its a very upscale retail corridor. I can live with it at a mid-high single digit cap rate and their track record in Florida, which is very good. I'd rather they stick to Florida than try to be heroes buying crap like Party City and Joanne's up in NY and MA...I also think the property serves other purposes; mainly I believe it will be mortgaged in order to retire the convertible note in early March. Getting rid of that poison pill is huge and basically puts the company in play. Either way, at a $280M m/c and a few upcoming catalysts, its one of the few things not nosebleed expensive right now I justify chucking money at a little bit. So this obviously worked out on little basis other than just the stupidity of a "smart money institutional investor" guy dumping 5% of the shares inside of a few days...but on the subject of Jacksonville real estate, check out the attached flyer. I really dont get it. I would never in my wildest dreams pay this type of dollar for assets like this.....but plenty of people do. Theres also stuff like this https://wolferetailgroup.com/properties/7-eleven-4/ Pure insanity. But nevertheless compelling if you own a good chunk of this type of asset. EDIT: OM appears to be blocked in attachment, but property can be viewed here. https://www.crexi.com/properties/282906/florida-red-lobster?crexi_url_type=2&eblast_position=1&subtemplateId=15&templateId=50&utm_source=Internal&utm_medium=Retail_MarcusMillichap_VA_NC_IN_MO_MN_KY_OH_TX_CA_FL_IL_&utm_campaign=1_3_20_12_00 Red Lobster in Jacksonville- 5.5 cap RL32218.pdf

So..... obviously the market has been crazy of late, and Ive been notably bearish(although still more than 100% long), HOWEVER, did Mr. Buffett not long ago state something to the effect of "if interest rates are permanently lowers, then the Dow should be at 100,000"? Or something to that effect. I say this wondering, because Ive been amazed by the run in a lot of things like AAPL and MSFT. But at the same time, looking just moments ago at MSFT, I ask myself, is MSFT really out of place trading at a 1.25% dividend yield and a 3-4% earnings yield against the backdrop of a 1.8% government 10 year?

Per CNBC, both Tepper and Druckenmiller are still quite bullish on the market. Tepper is probably one of the few guys I drop everything to pay attention to, so there's that. But there's also the fact that I still cant find anyone but myself and maybe a couple folks here to pencil into the "bearish" column. Which continues to concern me nonetheless.

Ive lived in the city for a short period of time. Ive lived, my entire life, typically about 30 minutes outside of it and no further than I am now, which is about 40 miles(70 minutes). My observation is that the further you get from the city, the more considerate, and more friendly people become. I do not necessarily think this means city people are inherently more selfish, just that this is how one must conduct themselves in that type of setting. If anything my time in the city reminded me of college(as does the descriptions of events in this thread). Everyone is in a dorm, and everyone is crammed on top of everyone else. You've people cooking, smoking, blasting music, throwing parties, fighting, screaming, etc. A free for all. Ask someone to quiet down? You're likely going to have an altercation. If you're lucky they'll placate you- only to then immediately go back to doing what they want. While as a single 20 year old I had no problem dealing with that kind of stuff, as a married guy with a family I have no desire to.

To invert this, with CVET doing poorly, it seems that HSIC (from which CVET was spun off) dodged a bullet and ought to be a better business now. It seems reasonably valued too. I put it on my watch list together with CVET. I would be more inclined to buy HSIC here than CVET. Returns since this post: CVET 34.4%; HSIC 12.2%. To be fair, everything is up huge during this timeframe. Except maybe smart money hedge fund guys who are probably up like 1.5%.

The suburbs are calling

bought a little more MSGN

Curious if others have any thoughts on this. It is my feeling that there have been enough settlements now that not only is there precedent but enough clarity in these stocks to go long. The flip side is that most carry a huge debt load and there is the chance that they would have a hard time earning their way out of it regardless. But my 2c is that the death by opioid litigation thesis is dead. I only have a small TEVA position but am looking at restarting ENDP and maybe MCK

The top 5 trending stocks on Stocktwits are TSLA, SPCE, BYND, APHA, CGC.... one probably couldn't put together a better short basket. Just let the sheep and cattle lead you to the greener pastures. Daily gains for those, +11%, +9%, +21%, +11%, +12%... material news? None.

The end is nearing. Just look at what kind of junk is trending everyday. A few glamor stocks and FAANGs and then retail investor stocks. I would be almost certain a good amount of money will be made being short just about anything sometime in the near future, especially stuff like AAPL. Nothing goes up in a straight line and things that do almost always retrace much if not all of it.

Picked up a few DD as close to $60 as I could

Yea FCAU has long been a regret of mine. Its been the better investment, largely because Machionne was a world class manager. With GM, you cant be a growth company when revenue isn't going anywhere. You cant be a dividend play, when you cant even bump the payout a mid single digit % every year. You cant be a buyback machine if you refuse to buyback stock, and you cant be a conservative company with a strong balance sheet when you are teetering on junk status. So, I'm not an auto executive and Im not arrogant enough to say I have the formula for running an auto company. But what I do know, is that I would find an identity and just stick to that. GM has half assed everything which is why its gotten credit for nothing. They've gotten some push from shareholders occasionally, and like with Tepper, done enough to shut them up for a bit, and then revert back to bad behavior. Einhorn had a flawed presentation, but the right idea with the dividend shares, and then growth shares. I also think the ship sailed on Cruise. There was a huge opportunity to IPO that in Hong Kong, or even here, and they did nothing. Now its hard not to question that valuation, given it may be another Softbank special. The right move IMO, which would obviously never happen, would be to shut the sedans, sell/JV the truck lines to Toyota or VW(someone dying to get into the NA truck market) and then become a pure play EV/autonomous driving company with only modest exposure to the best parts of "old auto".

Don't forget pissing away money on Lyft, Maven, and probably Cruise. While Ive long liked Cruise, it is hard now not to view it through the tainted lens of Softbank being the main reason it's considered a home run... All the car companies except Tesla have been trading like junk for the last 12 month almost without exception. that includes Europe, and to a to a lesser degree Japan. They are like the c malls of the industrials. For sure, with regard to the sentiment, but 2019 was yet another record year for auto sales(in $ figures). The problem is they are terrible allocators. E&P companies are probably better peers than the malls. They make tons of money in good years but give none of it back to shareholders because dumb career industry folks run the companies based on out dated and inefficient theories for "what you're supposed to do". Then during the bad years... shit gets ugly. As my bearishness on the overall market has grown, GM has started to bother me more. If this is how they perform in a record market, I probably dont want to be around for when things stop going perfectly.

Don't forget pissing away money on Lyft, Maven, and probably Cruise. While Ive long liked Cruise, it is hard now not to view it through the tainted lens of Softbank being the main reason it's considered a home run...

Hedged out the bulk of my GM position. Lightened up in high $30's a few months ago and have locked into a trade that makes this now or never with capped downside. Incompetent management and naive shareholders are a recipe for basically what this company has been since its IPO. Things are not dandy when your stock has gone no where, dividend hasn't been raised in years, buybacks nonexistent, and ratings agencies considering your debt-junk. Yet some continue to tell themselves things are great; probably fueled by Buffett inspired "value investor" wisdom.