Gregmal

Isn’t the most interesting aspect in all of this that virtually none of this speculation about what the Fed will or won’t do matters or impacts one’s ability to invest or find companies of interest? You can always be short term wrong or right but unless that’s the entirety of your “investment” strategy…IE gambling or trying to get rich quick….it doesn’t really mean jack. Focus on fundamentals, buy prudently across the cycle or specific time period your investment calls for…that’s all there is to it. The process of compounding becomes so much easier once you reduce it to the simplest fundamental pillars. Eliminate the noise. Realize that unless trading catalysts or events that what’s in the news today is largely just a distraction. I see it all the time and find it funny how people get consumed with what the headlines are TODAY! As if somehow they know something everyone else doesn’t. Think of your process like a bell curve of baseball prospects in a random country. The upper tier will be the upper tier. Some countries are better than others for producing baseball talents. But whether it’s sunny and 85 or rainy and 62, the best players, the far right outliers on the bell curve, will do their thing better than the rest regardless of how easy or tough the current situation is. So just spend you time looking for those type of companies.

Oh those guys are the absolute worst. Chanos I agree is worth following, as is Einhorn or really any of the guys who you know are gifted. I just prefer the more ethical ones. Tepper is great. He is candid. But doesn’t pull that cheap manipulate the market crap. Buffett of course too. Whereas these other guys, and especially even some of the small time short focused ones like Muddy Waters or Grizzly….they know the impact they have, target companies, sometimes validly but a lot of times for little reason other than a bunch of technical factors, and then go out of their way to publicly wreck a company which is just scummy and a cheap way to make a buck.

Yup. The perma bears and perma short focused people are largely just pieces of shit. Pretty much none of them make money from the investments consistently. Chanos claims to be one of the best has from recollection lost like 3-5% a year since inception. These guys are cancer to the common investor in terms of how much money the cost them with the rhetoric. Of course, a lot of that also falls on the investor themselves, but not everyone is a professional. In this category are also folks like Jim or the Einhorn type. It’s one thing to think you’re outing scummy schemes. Sure. But guys like the above ones often target completely innocent companies who’s only fault is that they trade publicly and that some arrogant rich prick disagrees with their valuation. For no doing of their own these companies then become subject to these clowns engaging in public campaigns that often result in harming of the company, it’s shareholders and it’s employees, for no good reason other than the fact pencil dick disagreed with the “valuation” and thus felt entitled to lobby everyone else and get his profit. Fairfax is actually is a good example of that 15 years ago. I spent a good bit of time on the short side early in my career, and not only is it generally unproductive, but you also kind of also have to be content always just being a negative and miserable prick. There’s much better ways to live life and make money IMO.

Part of my skepticism on big tech stuff the past 6 months has been the lose lose situation they’re in politically. Which you’re starting to see big time now. Whether it’s something as big as Activision, as small as this $400m app FB wants, or something totally negligible and unrelated to your core business like the AMZN $4b med company deal….they’re getting major pushback. Acquisitions have been huge boosts to big tech. And that’s over now.

Like look at this loser. https://www.benzinga.com/amp/content/28122309 Guy blew up his fund being a know it all dipshit and then makes a couple hundred mill back, IE still nowhere near back to even, but yay! He got some publicity and can now take his victory lap.

Regardless of what’s going on, haven’t folks realized by now it’s a bad idea in general to make bets against basically everything blowing up? Essentially wagering that the powers that be will just stand by and let it happen? You’re already seeing it in the US….now folks wanna blame and be hostile that the bear trade is losing steam but bottom line is you should know better and when there’s intervention, like there always is, you don’t get to moan and groan about how you got screwed. Even more generally speaking, WTF is it with the bear people? Like there’s a million and one ways you can make easy money being long a whole variety of things. Yet for some reason these folks have this need to stand on a pedestal, screaming for attention, hoping to call a measly 10-25% down move? Which is not only challenging, but also difficult to time. So these experts and fund managers and doomsdayers aren’t even really trying to make money it seems, but simply get attention and walk around for a short while as “the guy who called it”….isn’t that kind of pathetic?

Tit for tat my dinner is deflating again. Pre COVID lobster were typically $11-12 a pound. Third week of March 2020 I got a 9 pounder for $58. Late last year and early this year they were $18 a pound for the 1-2 lb which I don’t even bother with. Today I got a 5.5 for $48. Among the daily chore stops was Home Depot; 2x4s are now under $5 again, down from a peak of $11.

The 10 yr is 2.6 and headed lower. It’s range despite everyone making a stink, has never really left the range they were in the past decade. So I’d be a little pickier than normal but not by much. I still come back to Costco. I top ticked it perfectly, got I think 559 right before everything went down. Then we got the hooting and hollering and see it goes down like everything else but assumed it went down specifically because of rates and a high multiple ….and what do ya know…printing 540s again. I’d have been better just sitting on my hands. I think company valuations largely exist in relation to each other and all else equal the 5 pe stuff and the 40 PE stuff generally speaking will all move more or less the same. Amazon, General Motors, Nintendo, Berkshire…peak to trough during the decline, was there any benefit to the PE multiple being higher or lower? Not really.

Yea I’d still lean towards using 2018-19 numbers to safely handicap COVID mirages unless there’s a very clear body of evidence something material changed on the company specific fundamental side.

Yea immigration is perplexing. If done the right way it is the answer to everything. Between Eastern Europe and South America we have future Americans of great value and our politicians want to get in the way by either incentivizing people to do it the wrong way or simply shutting them out entirely. Personally I’m starting to lean towards thinking either some immigration crisis or something around the Hunter Biden investigation is going to give Dems an excuse to turn on Biden and get someone more appealing to the base on the ticket in 24.

The inflation trade was beautiful and money in the bank all last year because you had no end in sight to the COVID hysteria once you saw Biden go bonkers with the stimulus check and then the way everyone wanted to fabricate another crisis every time there was a new variant. However the sheer case numbers/size over Xmas plus mid terms eventually forced even the blue states to move on. Now COVID is a nothing burger and the checks have stopped. Those things drove the “inflation” trade. Why would it continue once they’re done?

NY area and West coast would absolutely drive it. If we opened up full steam in February or March as they did you’d expect probably a 2-3 month adjustment period where people go bonkers and distort the demand side(which is what happened) and then you also expect a lapse but eventual reaction to that demand surge with the supply chain…overproducing.. there’s you’re inventory glut. Behavior normalizes, inventory gets absorbed, then back to normal. It’s all kind of played out exactly as I’d have expected it to so I keep leaning towards the next leg of that continuing to play out.

It’s already occurring. A few months ago I thought probably July or so. Said it a few times in different threads. February or March is where it seemed everyone finally threw in the towel on the COVID crap. That’s where the 6-12 started. And on cue July is turning out to be where we start seeing overwhelming evidence of the widgets and gadgets and 2x4s reverting to more normal prices and availability.

I mean we wanna talk helping or hurting the labor market that’s already super tight? How dumb was mandating businesses fire non vaxxed employees? Almost as brilliant as shutting a baby formula factory and then wallowing about a shortage. Governments responsible for like 90% of this. Maybe 10% is corporate and individual greed. IE stimulus checks over working and price gouging.

You realize as recently as like January there were parts of the country still imposing restrictions and firing people over vaccines? This was the first summer where people have been free to live again.

Honestly I don’t know other than stupid cheap lending rates have been present around the globe for decades. The thing post GFC though was that banks weren’t lending. Now they are which is typically healthy for an economy. So again we come back to…if people want to take that extra liquidity and create a run on plastic spoons…it will be up to the supply chain to see if they can handle it. Of course it varies by item but most stuff can withstand demand gyrations. My argument on Ackman is that we all know inflation is not 9% so why is he using that number? We ve all seen it peak. Nobody can really point to anything that’s still “inflating”. So why is he pushing this so aggressively? If nothing else, signs seem to be pointing in a positive direction. Saying the Fed could have done something last year is dumb. Once the Governments chose their path on COVID this was inevitable and no Fed action could stop it. Like COVID, the only solution is bite the bullet and let time resolve it. In February and March 2020 everyone on the board was saying “supply chain will be fucked”. It was beyond obvious. Then it happens and we call it inflation! No. It’s stupidity. Answer? Open back up and let shit revert. 6 months, maybe 12 cures it.

That’s basically where I’m at. Higher prices relative to years past are here to stay. But I don’t see them “inflating” at anywhere near 5-9% in perpetuity.

The Ackman tweet is so disgustingly disingenuous, especially from a guy who everyone knows, knows better. Inflation is not anywhere close to 9%. Same way inflation last year was WAYYYY higher than what the CPI was saying. This year its significantly below. Most of the price increases happened last year, with a few more coming into play with Ukraine and China events but largely it already happened. The other problem, is most people I hear still dont even know what theyre talking about or even the definition of inflation. In the same sentence we are hearing folks say preposterous and conflicting stuff like "Inflation is rampant and prices arent coming down"...LOL WTF. Saying inflation is rampant means that prices are still going up! That is WHAT INFLATION IS! So if last year a gallon of milk went from $3.49 to $4.49. And today its ~$4.49...thats not fucking inflation anymore. So people keep saying we need to stop inflation, which has already occurred, but since they dont even know the definition of it, they're conflating "inflation" with something else, while asking for "deflation"...If something goes up 100% one year and does nothing for 3 years after, these same folks after year 4 will still be talking about how inflation hasn't stopped LOL? Maybe someone should ask Ackman why he thinks inflation will be 9% several years down the line...cuz if he doesnt, why in the world would 9% be "neutral"?

OMG lol

Well, is it really that surprising given all the other words they've redefined?

Like what a laugher the last 12 months have been. Economy needs help cuz of COVID, OMG! Oh no, new variants!!! Ah we need to kill the economy because it’s tooo strong. Inflations stealing from us! Ah! We re trying to kill the economy and now the economic outlook is bad! Stocks need to go down another 40%! WTF are we doing? Always something I suppose.

I have an older friend who a few months ago mentioned he met Grantham while at Goldman in the early 80s. Said he followed him because the dude was interesting and unique but he’s literally never been right about anything. Anyhow, totally agree. Folks continue to find 101 reasons not to invest when they’re all mostly irrelevant. It’s not hard finding something you like that will take care of the money you put into it. You just gotta stop finding excuses to avoid looking.

The continuous obsession with drawing comparisons to the 1970s is simply leading folks to the wrong conclusions, over and over and over. This is nothing at all like the 70s. It’s just so easy and lazy cuz “oh 70s was the golden age of inflation! Must be that! Let’s start forcing comp and using 70s lingo”. I also agree the economy is in better shape than a lot are saying, but it is slowing. We have people saying 2008 style stuff is right around the corner. At blatant lies and misrepresentation has been off the charts? It’s been so rampant in so many areas of the market the past couple years.

Ok so then how do we have inflation right now? Inflation doesn’t mean “wage growth”. The crazier part about all this is people running around shouting off snippets and catch phrases made popular on tv like “inflation coming in hot” and rampant inflation as they literally watch everything around them DEFLATE! And then what do they do? Point to some dumb backwards looking metric comparing last month to last year. COVID made people do all sorts of crazy shit and this whole manufactured inflation crisis seems to be a fitting end. Today basically seemed to confirm we get one more in September, maybe, and then most likely, it’s right into elections. It must be easy taking on jobs where the outcome is independent of your actions but you get credit anyway. But that’s politics. They need to solve problems and the easiest way to do that is to create the problem.

For sure. Just pointing out how misleading and bizarrely negative on the narrative side stuff is when really it’s nothing worth fretting. The inventory is a great example. A housing bear will proclaim “soaring inventory. Up 60%!” And then use this to support doom and gloom. Then you ask them if that’s up 60% from pre COVID levels or some stupid cherry picked metric from after that? And they predictably shut up or change the subject to another misleading headline.