Gregmal

Whats funny is a lot of what he's s saying WAS true, and the stuff I used to bitch about here all the time. What he's missing(or purposely omitting) is that these issues have largely dissipated over the past 3 years, or simply become irrelevant in their size. But I think it tells you everything when some jackass needs to "make an announcement" let alone go on TV to bash a company. Its as deliberate an attempt to move the share price as it gets. I would be shocked if he wasnt actively transacting in the stock in the coming days.

I do hope the old man comes out swinging given the history with short sellers trying to create problems here.

The reason many of these short sellers play the "accounting" angle is because most folks arent well versed in complex accounting and when they hear someone is an "expert", often just take what the "expert" says in good faith. Which gives some smash and grabber a whole lotta leeway to manufacture rhetoric.

What is “detached from reality” mean? For instance, with a 4% 10 year, to me this is equivalent to paying 25x for zero growth or inflation protection. I’d buy DEO all day at 17x or MSGE all day at 15-20x. I could justify paying 30-35x for double digit growth with a runway spanning a decade. If we re at 5% rates, that’s still 20x. So I guess that’s why I get confused at all the “expensive” talk, because it’s all relative. Some people still seem to live in a world where the overall market should trade at 15x, and I just don’t think that’s a realistic expectation.

When you look at what Ackman owns, it’s hard to conclude that he ll diverge significantly from the broader market in a bad way. If the overall market does poorly, he could do the same. During this time period though, he has proven to make great decisions either clipping the down move, or bottom ticking great businesses. Conversely, if the market does well, so will most of his holdings. So I just view it as the premier way at the moment to get market+ type alpha without having to think twice. Buybacks will work wonders over elongated periods of time. This is also something you can really crank up the allocation on during those drawdowns.

You folks need to visit Florida for a primer on both successful immigrant integration, as well as the productivity benefits of “the good kind” of immigrants. Go to Miami and talk to the Guatemalan, Cuban, Venezuelan immigrants. Then ask them what they think of the folks coming over the border from Mexico.

Don’t think it matters. Ackman is one who reliably outperforms and occasionally does something heroic. If there was no ego and no stock buyback; I probably wouldn’t own this. But take those two things and give it 5-10 years…you’re gonna make a fortune.

This is just more of the insanity. What in the world are these people making the policies smoking that they think such micro specifics are important like this. Not more than 2% but above 0? We for sure would have charlatans screaming about -0.5% a “deflation” in progress and we ve already heard “3% is massively, massively, 50% above target”….when the majority of it all is just inconsequential and irrelevant fluctuations that in isolation make cool story bits.

One of my best friends families was from England. Dad worked for Paribas. Mother a nurse. They came here after living in Chile for a bit. Took them 9 years, and over $150,000 to legally get citizenship. This doesn’t include the hours spent having to take US history exams and such. Imagine the rage if we asked folks to endure 1/10 of this? They whine about even having to get a valid ID. And it’s all allowed by certain parts of the establishment.

Immigration is not a one size fits all issue. It must be categorized and by each there’s different levels of usefulness or cost. On a specific date, about 3 years ago, there was a very obvious surge in the lawless and destructive type of immigration at the southern border. This is 100% the response brought about by the actions of politicians and the people that voted for them. Same as the wars. We went from mocking one guy for making peace efforts with our enemies while asking freeloading allies to step up and pay what they should to where we are now where you’ve got a new war popping up every year. The type of immigrants we want are the type that Canada wisely sifts through. The types tech companies and medical facilities seek out. The types in Southern Florida who came over from socialist countries and work 7 days a week. These are not the same types of people flooding NYC and SF.

Just think, all you NYC high earners…you’re paying 50% of you’re earnings to the government so we can let in illegals, have them bused to a city of their choosing, allow them to beat up cops, and then let them loose with prepaid debit cards….

I’d take getting thrown out as a badge of honor given those courses and their ideology ultimately breed the disgusting legions of academically oriented politicians and bankers thatve fucked so much of society. It seems pretty clear that everything has normalized. I don’t need some academic chart to tell me what I see in day to day life. Even the energy guys have finally shut up.

Yea but Jerry heard some bartender in Kentucky got a 12% raise so now he’s worried about a wage price spiral.

As I’ve said before I really don’t care if it is March or June or 3 or 30 rate cuts. It doesn’t impact how I invest. What’s perplexing is like Fauci, how this scumbag is basking in the spotlight, doing 60 minutes interview, etc. All his bros are placing wagers on recessions and he’s still talking about inflation lol. Both dumb and attention seeking. Same as the expert Fauci who totally made up 6 ft social distancing, told us vaccines stopped the spread, and enjoyed dousing himself in makeup prior to the television appearances.

Meanwhile Jerome Fauci just can’t let go of the spotlight.

He is a great investor and giving him a 30% or whatever discount to NAV, while he’s seemingly committed to repurchases, with an eventual US listing on the horizon….just seems to be too much of a head start if you have a longer term passive horizon. Even his “errors” I think people exaggerate. He was right fundamentally about Herbalife, it’s other stuff that got him in trouble. Valeant he was also largely right about the business model of acquire and then raise prices. So many fortunes were made with that model, it just got too big and became large enough to draw widespread scrutiny which toppled it and made the whole model flip. His hedge trades are great. I also think he has a penchant for bottom ticking great businesses and additionally, selling Netflix so soon IMO showed great humility and willingness to concede which is exactly what you want from a manager, independent of whether it was the right or wrong move. So I just think it’s too lopsided and he seems like he’s got 20 good years left in him which works for me.

Know we had a bourbon discussion going here awhile back….anyone ever tried Balcones? Tried a few from that line and it’s probably one of the most absurdly unique bottles I’ve had in awhile. Better than stuff 5x more expensive. Got me kinda interested in Texas Whiskey now.

For better or worse, I’ve been buying A LOT of Perishing Square last couple weeks. Tax stuff be damned.

LOL yea I ran into a guy once who was pompously boasting about how "I got fired for being too bearish" a couple years before the GFC. And all I could think was "weird thing to be boasting about. And obviously you got fired for not making money, which was the purpose of your job"....There's some bizarre bravado with the bear crowds. Never quite understood it. Then theres also this whole thing where you look at a lot of them, at least the ones who actually do manage money, and you find out that during the down years they didnt even make money, in many cases they lost just as much as the people who just did their normal investing thing...and its just like wow, WTF is the point of playing this game? If you cant handle the stock market, dont play in it. Plain and simple.

The simplest example of simplification is with Berkshire… I know Berkshire will exist. I know they will be profitable through the cycle. I know they will survive the cycle. My yearly earnings will vary but almost always be positive Capital allocation will be rational Thats it. WTF do I need to give two hoots about whether we get a rate cut in March or June for if I’m comfortable with the above? Lol it’s so dumb these games some people play.

The general concept is that the more things you need to correctly predict for an investment to work, the higher the payoff should be; obviously accounting for the complexity involved in predicting more and more variables. Much like a parlay in gambling. The issue with much of this scammy macro crap, is that people spend loads of times contriving these mega theories, often getting paid for content or seeking freeloading subscriptions, or whatever. The main thing is that they are benefitting from something not tied to the actual results of “the idea”. Even more perplexing, is the ones that do make their forecasts actionable, go through all that work, and often arrive at some simple, low payoff crap like “I’m short Amazon” or “long t-bills”…and it’s just laughable cuz it’s like what’s the friggin point? The solution in my eyes is to just focus on attractive and reasonably priced businesses that are durable and some combination of iconic, well capitalized, or structurally significant to some kind of tailwind driven theme. Then just stick with it and prudently invest through the cycle. The less complex you can make complex things, the greater the advantage you have.

Nah, the global macro guy would say "wages up means wage price spiral"...then look to cherry pick a tenth of one percents monthly fluctuation on some dataset and raise a textbook to support that claim.

Inflation done with jobs plentiful and wages actually outstripping cost of living increases.....clearly a recession is imminent. Thank god for the global macro guys.....

Man those macro guys are so smart. Really nailed it with the pessimism and caution advisory and it paid dividends in avoided that devastating 0.83% decline yesterday.

The general problem I have with the macro guys, much like with short sellers, is they can never just be honest or balanced...they ALWAYS need to misrepresent, or grossly exaggerate, or outright lie when they present their "thesis". And then when there's finally some verdict, there is almost never accountability. Its like OK, you predicted the market would crater at this rate level, and we 're at all time highs...."oh well thats because the Fed wasnt really doing QT"....or Oh you said we were already in a recession and the economy was rolling over....2 years ago....why no recession? "Oh thats because the government keeps spending"...Ok....well...you were wrong then, no? "Oh I was right the government just keeps propping up the GDP number"...Ok...so you predicted a recession and declared we were already in one, and then when that doesnt come to fruition its not because you were wrong, its because of all these excuses? Couldn't you have just predicted these excuses and gotten it right LOL? Anyway, on to the "market" and "rate hopium" or whatever the topic of the week is....So isnt it amazing, how the market is supposed to be "forward looking"...and generally, it is. But then, in a situation like this, where its practically a GIVEN, that rates are coming down over the next few years, folks are obsessing over "March or June"....like it makes a friggin difference. Gundlach has been out hoping and praying and cheerleading his lingering recession call...saying "The Fed killed Goldilocks"....I am not really opining on whether or not we even have Goldilocks...but does one or two months in terms of timing, and 25 or 50 basis points REALLY??? determine whether Goldilocks exists? So we're back to the top paragraph where these publicity whores just keep mouthing off, and being dramatic, and.....distracting people from the main objective. Fun, fun.