Gregmal

I'm sure the British thought the Patriots/Rebels were lefties when they sought independence...thank goodness for lefties! Cheers! No one is stopping them from leaving and colonizing somewhere else!

Indeed, happy 4th and Happy Birthday! Proud to be an American, although not everyone is. Notice, not surprisingly, lefties are just fair-weather/bandwagon Americans... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/02/american-pride-falls-45-gallup-poll-all-time-low/1636428001/

$10 Sept calls on OSTK

Gregmal - between BX and HHC you're killing it. Sold FPF and bought back TLT puts. Thanks Lance Thanks. HHC was just a lucky timing thing on a gut feeling. BX is a longer term position for me and proof patience pays off. Now if only GM can follow suit... I am getting a little bearish though...

Trimming some CLF and probably BX too. What an under the radar monster BX has been this year. Even prior to the conversion announcement.

Picked up some MSG too this AM at~$271. I am not sure what caused the sudden downdraft , but noticed that MSGN is doing even worse, is this team related? I added MSGN in two slugs this am at 19.5 and 19.2, adding to my existing position. Knicks whiff on free agents is why they’re down. Dolan looks like an even bigger idiots after his February boasting. Fans are pissed. Hopefully this puts Jim over the edge and he sells the Knicks. Why MSG over MSGN or vice versa? I own both. MSG is a top 5 position for me. With over $1B net cash you are basically paying for the Knicks here, and getting the Rangers, Rockettes/Radio City Music Hall, The Garden, and the Entertainment biz for free. The lower it goes the easier it becomes to plow money in. Under the $6B market cap number, there really isn't a better risk adjusted security out there. These are one of a kind assets that always do well over time. Pick any decades and then scale out. The returns on sports teams are insane. Even the mediocre ones. Here you own the best in both sports. MSGN is pretty simple. Very simple and straight forward contract pricing with easy to project cash flows. They have, and continue to pay down debt, and buyback stock. You have about a $2.3B EV which is quite reasonable considering this is the only public RSN and easily the best one out there. The Knicks sucking also puts a bottom on the attractiveness of both, as it really can only get better from here. My rule of thumb with MSGN is its worth about $30 in a sale. At $25 its fairly valued as a public company, but under $22 it's an easy piece of paper to start building a position in. Under $20 its a steal. MSG is a buy and hold forever. MSGN you'll have to trade to get your returns. I get that Knicks is a more famous club and has much better fan base in NY area regardless of its dismal performance on court. But why do you think Knicks is worth more than $5b while Nets was sold for $2.3b last year? I've lived in the NY/NJ area my whole life. I am a Devils fan, and used to root for the Nets when they played in NJ. I can only tell you that the difference between the Giants and the Jets, the Yankees and the Mets, Rangers and Islanders/Devils, and Knicks vs Nets, is very substantial. Its not even close. Its like the Lakers and Clippers except the Nets are even less relevant(although maybe now a bit more so) and play in a poorly constructed, but newly built arena under a long term lease. One is iconic, playing in the worlds most famous arena, the other is the red headed step child.

MSGN is the entity the bears the most direct risk from continued sub declines, correct? Specifically, distributors pay MSGN a fee per subscriber, while MSGN pays MSG a fixed (and escalating) fee for the Knicks/Rangers media rights. On the other hand, MSGN seems to be the most immediate beneficiary of increasingly legalized sports betting. With respect to MSG, how do you feel about the Spheres? Yes, that is accurate. My take, and what's kind of been the case for the past couple years, is the pros and cons kind of negate themselves and while I expect the declines to continue, they should be moderate. Whereas if you get any number of things, such as the gambling, or a deep playoff run, stand alone streaming options, or say, the Knicks landing a decent player, you have some nice upside. If all else remains equal, at a single digit multiple, you'll make some money if nothing changes. I also think it is a when, not if scenario in which we see Dolan sell this. He doesn't want the cable company and my 2c is that the Disney/Fox RSN transaction needed to occur first. That is clearing up soon, at which point I think Jimmy pulls the trigger here. The spheres I don't care for. I like adding real estate/venues. I like the JV structure. I dont like the amount of capital it will require. That said, I am glad they are spinning that off. I would be supremely pissed if they levered up the sports teams to build new venues with unproven economics.

Picked up some MSG too this AM at~$271. I am not sure what caused the sudden downdraft , but noticed that MSGN is doing even worse, is this team related? I added MSGN in two slugs this am at 19.5 and 19.2, adding to my existing position. Knicks whiff on free agents is why they’re down. Dolan looks like an even bigger idiots after his February boasting. Fans are pissed. Hopefully this puts Jim over the edge and he sells the Knicks. Why MSG over MSGN or vice versa? I own both. MSG is a top 5 position for me. With over $1B net cash you are basically paying for the Knicks here, and getting the Rangers, Rockettes/Radio City Music Hall, The Garden, and the Entertainment biz for free. The lower it goes the easier it becomes to plow money in. Under the $6B market cap number, there really isn't a better risk adjusted security out there. These are one of a kind assets that always do well over time. Pick any decades and then scale out. The returns on sports teams are insane. Even the mediocre ones. Here you own the best in both sports. MSGN is pretty simple. Very simple and straight forward contract pricing with easy to project cash flows. They have, and continue to pay down debt, and buyback stock. You have about a $2.3B EV which is quite reasonable considering this is the only public RSN and easily the best one out there. The Knicks sucking also puts a bottom on the attractiveness of both, as it really can only get better from here. My rule of thumb with MSGN is its worth about $30 in a sale. At $25 its fairly valued as a public company, but under $22 it's an easy piece of paper to start building a position in. Under $20 its a steal. MSG is a buy and hold forever. MSGN you'll have to trade to get your returns.

Picked up some MSG too this AM at~$271. I am not sure what caused the sudden downdraft , but noticed that MSGN is doing even worse, is this team related? I added MSGN in two slugs this am at 19.5 and 19.2, adding to my existing position. Knicks whiff on free agents is why they’re down. Dolan looks like an even bigger idiots after his February boasting. Fans are pissed. Hopefully this puts Jim over the edge and he sells the Knicks.

Trimmed FRPH into that late day spike north of $55.

small starter in AYR.A

Same here. That went well. I pushed the sell button on this one a little too quickly this morning, which was an unforced error. That said, it's hard to complain about the results for a position I held less than 48 hours. I thought it was a little too cheap in the mid $90s, but I'm not nearly as bullish on HHC as some of this forum are. I also sold my small Bayer position this morning. Yea I bought this thinking if I could get a quick bounce to $100 I'd be thrilled. Did a little better than that, but not much. Dont care. Like you, I am not as hot on this as others, although that isn't to say I don't like it. When you trade, you have to follow your rules and be disciplined. While theres always remorse when something keeps soaring, you have to remember that pigs get slaughtered. I dont really ever sell my core holdings, and I trade on margin, so staying within the parameters I set for myself entering a trade, is a must.

HHC

Seth Klarman, one among many underperforming value investors, with a denigrating and condescending tone around his remarks, called Bitcoin a "trading sardine". In fact here is what he had to say: "There is the old story about the market craze in sardine trading when the sardines disappeared from their traditional waters in Monterey, California. The commodity traders bid them up and the price of a can of sardines soared. One day a buyer decided to treat himself to an expensive meal and actually opened a can and started eating. He immediately became ill and told the seller the sardines were no good. The seller said, 'You don't understand. These are not eating sardines, they are trading sardines.' Like sardine traders, many financial-market participants are attracted to speculation, never bothering to taste the sardines they are trading. ... trading in and of itself can be exciting and, as long as the market is rising, lucrative. But essentially it is speculating, not investing. You may find a buyer at a higher price — a greater fool — or you may not, in which case you yourself are the greater fool." Meanwhile, yesterday, Klarman got a life raft when Abbvie decided to acquire Allergan, a position he found to be more to his liking. Nevertheless, on his "value investment", Mr. Klarman is still said to have lost over $100M as his basis was significantly higher than the acquisition price. Prior to the acquisition, Mr. Klarman was likely down 30-40% on his AGN position. What I find hilarious is the premise that "OMG DONT BUY THIS ITS SPECULATIVE, ITS FOR MORONS, ITS A MANIA, YOU MIGHT LOSE BIG!!!!", when these guys then go and end up suffering the exact fate they snidely predict others will, buying "their own" type of investments! They underperform, then they need to make excuses why they are missing things. SO they disparage the people that are making money rather than say, "I didn't see that way to make money".They play the "sound and responsible fiduciary" card, but as a money manager, your job is to make money, not be a fiduciary. Give me all your money and I'll buy 30 acres and bury it in a fortified compound and have it guarded by people with AK-47's all day.. I'm not raising capital on that despite being a great fiduciary. Make money, or shut up. A good money manager is fine waiting for things, but also needs to be able to see what is working and what is not and how to capitalize on what is working. Sure there are a lot of idiots buying Bitcoin, and Tesla, and Beyond Meat. Figure out how to make money off the idiots.... Not sit there and whine and make excuses and disparage those who are actually making money...

Finally pulled the trigger on some HHC at 92.63. We should be nearing there bottom.

This is 100% spot on. It seems many are confusing a bubble in certain areas with "the market" being in a bubble. I don't think many people here are buying the bubble names anyway, so its a non event as I have no interest in shorting these. But there's always areas of froth in the markets. Nothing new here.

Good couple points on value investing https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/21/is-value-investing-dead-it-might-be-and-heres-what-killed-it.html At least the older fashioned version of it. Reading other threads, it just seems like people want to make excuses not to invest. If presented with a quality company that is firings on all cylinders, its "that's too expensive". If given something dirt cheap, then we get "its got too much hair/too many issues"... So it just seems like people don't want to invest.

IMO people are just using the bubble narrative to justify shitty investment returns. I remember Einhorn whining about a "bubble" and "froth" in like 2013...Marc Faber back in 2011... clearly they've just been WRONG

What I meant to communicate(poorly) is that writing something off because of the perception that it adds something negative, isn't always wise and really doesn't have much to do with whether one can make money in this situation. I am not a BTC expert and think its kind of gimmicky. The attraction I see for people is regaining anonymity. The government has gone so overboard invading peoples privacy, and strong arming foreign countries who used to have favorable banking laws, to the point where it is ridiculous. Sure, there is a criminal element that benefits from this, but as I mentioned before, there are criminal elements to everything, everywhere. So its not a deal breaker when making an investment.

Probably quite a bit less than when you fill your car with gas or pay sales tax to the state you live in, or federal taxes, or pretty much anything else you spend money on. Tip your waitress? Many do drugs. Your $20 ends up paying for dope. This is a stupid way to look at something.

I do find it amusing that the geniuses at the Fed take 2-3 quarters longer than even the average person to realize what is going on. I don't think we need a rate cut now, but I also dont think we needed nearly as many as these idiots gave us the last couple years.

MX and EBAY

CVS and MSG

I would just ignore the noise and buy quality companies while looking for the occasion speculation trade.

Jeez, I thought mine were bad at 3.7% of appraised value with a typical 3% escalation.