Gregmal

Forgot to add another one of the Feds “preferred inflation measures”…the SPY….Jpowell still having a drink and touting 3000 SPY? It just keeps changing. All that’s left is moving the goalposts.

Because we keep modifying the whole thing. CPI, PCE, unemployment rate, core, super core, super duper core, ultra core, ultra super duper core….anyway you cut it we are in restrictive territory and cheeseburger and bartender salaries ain’t taking us much higher on rates.

I generally just tend to focus on smaller or more obscure stuff. That way I don’t need to do anything special. Just make sure I know what I am buying because more often than not the rest of the market doesn’t. I look at some of my holdings over the years….PCYO, JOE, HTL, APTS, the MSG stuff, CKX, OMG-L, AIV, ALCO, CTO, FRPH, NATH, FIZZ, probably a few more I’m forgetting, ex MSG I’m not sure there’s more than a handful of analysts combined who’ve covered those and that’s on top of the fact that analysts aren’t generally respectably knowledgeable to begin with. So it’s really just on me; to know and be confident in what I own, and that’s how I like it. When making buys or sells in a trading manner, inverting is crucial. Understand the supply and demand characteristics and psychology behind it. First thing you need to do is take what you’re feeling, and get on the other side because most people are feeling and acting the same way. IE when I feel like I’m the best investor ever I need to be leaning towards reducing my exposure and when I feel like a total fucking loser who can’t do anything right, double check my work, and then load the boat adding.

No, but that’s always the argument. Speculative excess is never referred to as professional folks short selling regional banks or high beta tech stocks. And it’s never the little guy calling the fund manager out. It’s something the pissed off underperformers blame for getting it wrong. It’s always saved for when stocks and typically stocks short sellers think they deserve profits on; when they go up. When you look at what’s rallying, yes, it’s super high short interest stuff, and stuff like RCL that the recession bros bid down on this never ending recession calling exercise. Stuff is indeed rebounding as last years stories prove to be greatly exaggerated which is hardly speculative excess. Much of it is short sellers throwing in the towel or perhaps just the market starting to realize these things. Same phenomenon happened in summer 2020 which also had people stunned that “how in the world are we only 5-10% away from all time highs”….As I’ve pointed out plenty, look at homebuilders. They lied all last year about an housing crash and drove these into the dirt. Turned out to be nonsense and the stocks went on a tear. When people, media, and fund managers of influence drum up these stories, they either play out or they don’t. What we ve seen this year is that they were largely fabricated. Earnings have normalized, not fallen off a cliff. The consumers and jobs market remains sound. Inflation is behind us. The world isn’t ending.

Yea CVNA has 65% short interest. Tell Chanos to give it a rest. And stop blaming Joe Six Pack for taking away your god given right to make money shorting a $10 stock that’s already declined 90%+. These guys have no one to blame but themselves but still shamelessly point fingers. Guess the Fed needs to hike more to bail them out, yea?

So on names like CVNA, it’s all because of speculative excess? Not the bozos who recklessly shorted these things and overstayed their welcome? Surely CVNA has very little short interest? Talked with @changegonnacome about this last October. Some of these things are off massively. Still stupid crowded shorts. What genius is still hanging around for the last few bucks on the short side? Perfect example of why sometimes it’s better to not be a hero and just do nothing.

Yup. Started DG today

Surprised no mention of this. Wonder what if anything from this will be an actionable investment opportunity. Haven’t seen a Yankee game cancelled for smoke before. Same with all the outdoor kids stuff. Gregmal played golf today and will nightfish tonight, but all mere mortals seem to be quite impacted by this. Many have even whipped out the N95s again.

You know Drunkenmiller is a great trader. He has to be. Because he’s pretty much always wrong about his macro calls lol.

I THINK a Ferrari is “too expensive”. So I’m going to spend my whole life refusing to own one until they reach a point where I can get one for the price of a Honda. Maybe once every blue moon I do get to buy one, but more often and frequently than not, by a huge margin, I don’t get one. Conclusion? A Ferrari is not a Honda. And maybe Ferraris are not for everyone. Because more often than not, the price you see is what it costs to own a Ferrari. The price is right and I am the one who needs to mentally get with the program. As far as what is a satisfactory return? What’s a year of your life worth? Definitely not 5-10%.

Also recall in January we had like a 5% up move or so on the indexes and it was an ultra popular idea to lock in your yearly gains and go grab some “juicy” 5% treasuries…. I still don’t get out of bed for 5%. Even 10 is hard to get excited about.

I could never do it myself but the idea you bring up is an excellent one. Part of the reason I ended up where I did was because I just didnt want to deal with going to school more in order to become a lawyer LOL. But if you are kosher with the tedious nature of all that, spending your 40s doing med school is a great way to transition into a high earning, mobile, largely work at your own pace career.

Money talks man. Not surprising. Like many, the PGA people talked moral higher ground and it was just a smoke screen meant to distract from a poor business model.

Well the underlying thing we see over and over again is a bunch of people thinking they’re smarter than the market. That’s never really worked and I don’t expect it to anytime soon. These people would be better off just admitting that they don’t know shit and just stick to their knitting. But humble they are not.

Yea I know a bunch of people where both work and both make six figures. It blows my mind. Why? More money lol? People have been trained to be defined by their money and it’s unhealthy. We solved the issue rather easily. My wife had an offer from a big 4 accounting firm. We just didn’t wanna go that route or be burdened by that sort of lifestyle. Family was always the main priority. So she found a job that had great benefits and super flexible hours/work from home options(before work from home was mainstream) for about 60% the salary. I had a ton of flexibility with my work as well. No nanny. But occasionally the mother in law lending a hand. My brother and his wife? He’s an MD and she’s a big 4 partner. Both do 80 hours a week and in their mid 30s claim they’re not ready for kids…..sad. Why? MOAR MONEY! Everyone has been conditioned that you must keep up with the Joneses. But you don’t.

Yea it’s amazing how some of these cities try to solve problems with solutions that just make things worse. And it’s not like a person with a 50 IQ or better couldn’t have told them that in the first place. Then they wonder why they’re in the situation they are. My favorite was only allowing criminals to open pot shops! Or grandstanding about the border and being open to immigrants and now whining when it’s now time to walk the talk.

All I know if Wagyu definitely ain’t healthy. It’s like 75% fat.

Still searching for impairments. Higher we go. Experts still puzzled by what sat in plain sight. Some of the dumb dumbs are still clinging to hopes of a housing crash. But we like roadkill so let ‘em be.

A nice, family friendly day at the park https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-city-rampage-captured-camera-171203964.html

Yea that is really what I think separates value investing from everything else. There are a lot of ways to make money in the market. They all have their pros and cons. But in terms of the most reasonably applicable and overall skillset required as it translates to actual results; value investing ranks above and beyond everything else because if you do it correctly, its very hard not to do well over the long run. Which leads into Buffetts quote about "no one wants to get rich slowly"....which answers the "if its so easy why doesnt everyone do it" question that will inevitably get asked. Even here, a place for value investors, how much bottom calling and top calling and "I just cant see how we dont go much lower" goes on? Its an irresistible siren song it seems.

So the Fed raising rates is making people “richer”.

I mean what I think gets lost amongst most people as well is that for the majority of the world, you only need to get rich once. So the guy above Frohlik or whatever who did a gazillion percent in 2020….or these younger kids following Sykes strategy…who cares? I listened to the Frohlik podcast and honestly didn’t hear a single thing the guy was doing as far as strategy that is anything more than individual gut feeling trading. Absolutely nothing replicable. Just a high level ability to read market setups which most don’t have. But again…he did it. Only financial world people sit around shitting on strategies because “I don’t think it’s sustainable” and “he takes too much risk” and “oh he did blow up that one time”….and ironically I’ve found most of those people who act as the Siskel and Ebert of other peoples portfolio strategy….mightily underperform themselves. I’ve studied and tried so much different shit because I’ve been fortunate to be in a position where I can over the years…and the truth is that most of anything at the highest levels of execution, works. So just find something that fits YOU, work your ass off at perfecting it, and let the rest happen.

At Costco this morning and they’re basically giving away appliances. Remember when appliances were proof of the sticky inflation? This has all been so predictable. Things that never were hard to produce didn’t become structurally harder to produce. Turns out the “productivity” of the factory workers at LG and Whirlpool wasn’t a big deal either. They just needed the supply chain to get fixed.

Yea I guess theres two ways to looks at it. Statistically like some do, sure. But also in terms of how one lives. Frankly, I know people with way more than me, who are slaves to their jobs and careers and stuff. Not talking business owners or folks who choose to immerse themselves in that stuff, but think EY Partners who make 7 figures annually who travel 5 days a week and cant even attend their kids baseball games. I'd hardly call that rich. Its sad.

What if you wanna live in Monaco or on Fischer Island?