Gregmal

Its quite enjoyable seeing all the woke climate crusaders now being in this position. Only way way out. Can do it the easy way, or the hard way. Either way, I win.

The people I’ve met who make the most money in metals over the long haul are the brokers and traders.

Are you James Bond? Either that or the Most Interesting Man In The World.

One day they’ll look back on this whole episode and wonder what in the heck everyone was thinking. Government fucked it all up with ridiculous COVID handling, lockdowns, and stimulus money and then blamed supply chain issues and $15 a week higher grocery bills for killing the economy and pricing normal people out of housing. Pretty hilarious actually. And of course it’s the pee ons that will get hurt most, but that ain’t me and I didn’t vote for this so I don’t care.

Yea on an absolute basis I’d much rather own Google. But FB is like half the valuation and I am a little more optimistic about metaverse project than most. It’s almost like Sphere where everyone is so negative it’s more than priced in. Plus, again, not a popular stance, but I love the autistic founder hellbent on destroying anyone challenging him. Zuck is a warrior who’s demonstrated an ability to create tremendous value.

The real elites.

The Fed is just scheming to enrich the wealthy via more interest.

Only buying things right now that I’d hold for at least 2-3 years, PSTH aside. It’s a starter position at 174, if we get better prices I’d like to make it bigger. Feel like 174 is a great entry for a starter. Unlike the other fangs this is truly hated and truly cheap. Advertising has become a duopoly. So it should work under any number of circumstances.

Yup. Either some weird coincidence, or the definition of collusion.

Nah I painfully kicked it earlier in the year. It hurt so bad saying goodbye to the GOOGs, MSFTs, WMs, and COSTs, but thats part of the reason it was time for them to go. FB or EBAY gets you your cash back a whole lot quicker if we need to rely on real earnings and not multiple expansion.

Who cares about that. The Fed controls the stock market and they are.....JUST. GETTING. STARTED.

Finally bought a FAANG. Fuck Snapchat and Twitter, both bs companies. META is too dominant and too cheap.

Vacation home Florida Keys Vacation spots: Wildwood/Cape May/Stone Harbor, Hilton Head, Florida Keys Must see...dunno. Generally just stick with what I know and like Next adventure...really wanna check out Hawk Lake and those pig Walleye.

Yea this is a new media tactic Ive noticed over the past 3-5 years. Spreading the disinformation about the health of our "enemies"...Remember when North Korea was in the news? Every other week was a new "where's Kim Jong Un?" article or speculation about his health. They did it with Xi, and now with Putin. Lame and see through. Not really sure what the point is either.

Adds to AIV, JOE, VRE. Watch those rates. In 2013 I bought my first property. It was a big deal apparently that at the time the 10 year surged to a whopping 3%. My mortgage rate was 4.25%. So….spreads have a long way to come in. Or they’re pricing in much higher 10 year already. Should they come back in…housing goes nuclear. So much for the whole bear case on housing which so far has been…drum roll….mortgage volume decreases, second tier assets see maybe 10% price declines, and overall prices continue set records while class A stuff was unaffected and demand still off the charts….once again, they cry wolf and it’s a nothing burger.

All I can say, and I’ve made money on some of the names mentioned, is that the outfits you might have mentioned have in various points also been linked to stock promotions. I do agree though that there’s also likely not much legally nefarious being done here as much as simply taking advantage of situations that the public markets have ignored, and then using the mechanisms that the markets allows, IE gaining semi control or voting in a way that capitalized on poor shareholder assertiveness. I was involved with a few companies where insider control wasn’t in the filings, but through clever management, the passive vote manipulated and through compensations structure, a firm grip on the remaining float gained. Legal sure. But it wasn’t really ethical. However the market often doesn’t reward ethics.

I personally view this similar to the get $2500 for opening a Private Client account at Citi or whatever gimmick type stuff. I can park $250k in a brokerage or savings account and leave after a few months. It’s good for me, my wife, a few kids, etc. But annoying and not scalable. Risk free? I suppose. Not everything has to have a catch. You can open new credit card accounts and get $200 risk free as well for spending $500. I still do it if I need to, but I’m not doing it just cuz. So similarly, I have no use for ibonds, as far as I understand them. When people tend to think they’re great investment options is typically the type of market I want to be navigating for long term assets.

I don’t know how anyone gets rich on $10k. Even those massive Hassidic Jewish family with like 14 kids. It’s not meaningfully scalable enough to be of any benefit to real rich folks. Mainly just a gimmick for marginally rich folks to entertain themselves with.

Just look at some of these Buffett filings on OXY. Several times the dude is paying substantially more, mere hours after buying substantial amounts of stock earlier in the day. You think that’s someone who has a focus on the fundamentals? Or the fluctuations?

I don’t think anything has to be over or getting started or whatever the implication of worry is. You just have to realize that like life, the markets have ebs and flows and all you can really do is act reasonably and enjoy the ride. Don’t get too invested in the day to day noise. The past 6 months or so reminded me of the good old fashioned cup check in youth hockey. If you came prepared you’re fine, if not, you learned. No one goes into a supermarket and asks “what’s everyone else buying?” And then rushes over and pays whatever the asking price is for tons of said product. You go in and get what you need, maybe see what else you want, and at the end of the day, leave with what works for you and that point in time. Why is the stock market any different? Never in my life has there been an instance where there’s nothing you can find to invest in.

On whether it’s expensive or not, what were the thoughts when we were sub $3 and even sub $2 for a while? I always thought those prices were too good to be true. $3-5 a gallon is probably where the world works best, and I think once you start escaping in to that $5+ a gallon range for most of the country, is where it really gets expensive. $100 a barrel isn’t cheap but it’s definitely not expensive. What else can you buy at 2014 prices?

This entire episode has been a self inflicted panic attack orchestrated by folks who let the daily stock price influence their behavior and it’s been a Christmas in June and July for anyone who actually invests with a fundamental focus. That’s why above all else, the “cash is king” crowd once again proved to me why cash is trash unless you are 1) unable to bear temporary mark to market losses, or 2) simply unable to find investment ideas or lack confidence in your ability to do fundamental research. There’s been tons of opportunities all year. All last year. I think I’ve had like a half dozen holdings get bought out just since November, most even during 2022. I have had zero instances where I wanted to buy something and couldnt(the only argument really for holding cash) and what’s been demonstrated above all else is that institutions and real investors are as hungry as ever to take private good public assets. Some just never learn.

In other words the Fed may have done what they set out to do? Imagine that? When will people learn lol

Yea dumb dumbs living beyond their means isnt proof or anything but stupidity.

The bigger thing is that what a high price is, is subjective and almost always relative to expectation. $4 a gallon to me isn’t all that crazy and is hardly longer term out of line with how things in life go up in price. But don’t tell that to folks who planned erroneously on it being $2-3 forever and now feel like we re in the midst of a crisis.