Gregmal

I heard all you need to do is follow the science and wear a mask!

Yes, and a good one. Showing how humans inhabited the Americas 30,000 years ago, despite the “scientists” telling us it was only 15,000 years ago because half of America was covered in ice.

Not a big tv guy but watched Ice Age America, which was very good. Also made me really what a hoax so much of this climate change stuff is. Earth has been going through these shifts, hot and cold phases etc, for millions of years lol. Leave it to humans to monetize it though.

All week I was reading this sensationalism from all the usual outlets about how Wednesday was quite possibly "one of the most important trading days of the year". How everything hinged on CPI and Fed. Not seeing any relevance to either I decided to spend the trading day....taking my daughter to the zoo. I just got back, and whew, it doesnt look like my life changed despite missing these super duper important events.

Reminds me of during the 2021 boom when there were screenshots of people ripping Robinhood for their orders not getting filled...on Saturdays.

Yea from several different angles that interview is informative. I’ve said it so many times that people always ask me about Bruce and accessibility during the AGM. And they think I’m kidding when I’m like yea just go talk to him. Or wait for him to come say what’s up and introduce himself. Guy is a people’s champ. He’s totally checked out from the institutional game. And yes, as John noticed, it’s bizarre but he’s so friggin humble. Someone asked him about his success with banks in the early 90s and he was just like “ya know, I still don’t know whether or not I just got lucky”. Compare that to the answer someone like Ackman would give, or heck even Buffett whom seems to have some swagger talking about how obvious his ideas seemed to him at the time, and it’s impressive. I wish he’d fix the Fairholme situation because it’s clearly putting a bit of a lid on JOEs stock price, but at the same time it’s hard not to admire how he’s doing things on his own terms and even with keeping Fairholme going, seems to be doing it for the right reasons, ie “for those that want to be with me”. He s a unique guy for sure.

This is actually a tremendously honest and overall amazing interview with Bruce on the subject. I watched it when it came out originally but after talking with him and some of his friends and even his wife at the St Joe meeting really appreciated rewatching recently. Just a lot of wisdom both in relation to investing and life.

Early on I was very active, hyper active trading, and with ease could do 30%+ a year “trading” and speculating. Eventually though I got to a point where I didn’t need to live and breathe a terminal or SEC filing. And that’s just the issue. Doing this short term shit has soooo many hurdles and that’s why 90% of people who do it, suck at it, and 98% who do it, can’t beat an index. And on top of that, it’s incredibly time consuming, you need to be plugged in 24/7 and at least 6 days a week. Because the trades that you need to be putting on are constantly evolving. The only framework you have is largely gut feeling based. Instinct. All things that are useless if you aren’t plugged in. After that then you run into the fact that even if you’re doing it reasonably well, you’re giving back 40-55% of your profits bc of short term trading tax rates. So when you add it all up, to me, it’s so evident that risk/reward x quality of life factor, there’s only really one way to invest. And it’s not this short term macro guessing bullshit.

Yea in a way that’s why for most just owning the index is fine. Things eb and flow. There’s cycles. Every year we hear whining about “all the returns only came from xyz” and it’s like, well, that’s the point of indexing. Similar to how energy killed it in 2022 after years of sucking while FANG got pummeled. Then next year FANG comes back. This year it takes a breather and it’s something else. It’s funny how this stuff drives people crazy cuz it’s simply doing what it’s supposed to.

He'll get investigated and banned from trading platforms but Andrew Left goes on CNBC to do the EXACT same thing, just in a more polished and slimy institutional speak way.

We ve had people fixating on every little datapoint imaginable to justify recessions and reasons to be pessimistic for years. The yield curve is just one of many of those datapoints. This just fundamentally misses the point of investing. Imagine Buffett dumping Apple on every China scare or monthly economic print below expectations since 2016?

Yea I feel like you have to be an idiot to short something that already has 10%+ short interest. On top of having to be a scumbag to short something at all in the first place. No sympathy here.

I think the real nut jobs here are the fools who are again shorting this stuff? Why in the world is there 25% short interest on GME? Just greedy nerds trying to capitalize on the hardships of others. Let em burn.

All recession forecasts take time. The key is to just be a broken record and eventually you get to say I knew it

Its a pretty simple thesis. Its a mediocre version of Rollins. Great business thats got a lot of room to improve operationally. Thinks its bound to either get it together or likely gets bought, probably by Rollins.

Been buying a good chunk of RTO this week.

LOL yea almost certainly.

Yea my wife and I were 100% content with 2. Third was not expected but happened. Wouldnt change it for the world but does kinda delay the whole getting your life back to normal phase. Basically the 9 months before and after birth the wife is a nut job, and then til the kid is 2 years old or so theyre totally helpless and time consuming. So its a lot of sacrifice. Mine are 3/5/7 now and life is good.

He once told us he is retired and was previously the CFO of a major public company lol But I agree. He once said something about San Francisco mooning and I had no idea what that even meant and only after google helped was I able to determine it’s a slang term used by 15 year olds

Yea I don’t get the hostility. If you don’t like something just don’t pay it any attention lol

Yea that was one of the most bizarre exchanges Ive had with anyone. Guy tells us all we're idiots because we dont understand the future of investing. Says housing is going to crash big time. Says his top positions were Moderna and Tesla in late Q4 2021. Disappears for 2 years. Then comes back claiming he's been in cash and Im a San Fransisco real estate bull, which, out of all the things Ive ever been accused of, is probably the most headscratching LOL.

Perhaps part of the reason volatility has been lower now for years, and multiples higher than normal, is that the market has gotten more efficient as people finally start realizing stocks are by far the most superior long term home for cash. This sort of phenomena happens all the time. I recall in 2012 how everyone insisted the market was overvalued because “it should trade at 14x”. When asked why, answer was always “that’s the historical average”…then you just shake your head and reply “good luck with that”.

No ones getting to retirement on 5% returns. So if thats the game plan, one needs to really start increasing the amount of money being socked away cuz you sure aint growing the pile very fast at that rate.

Bottom line is if you’re considering 4-5% on fixed income attractive, you’re better off just putting in more time at the 9-5.

Biggest problem younger investors have is they study the typical books everyone reads and then try to find ways to fit current investments into those boxes. A dynamic market will often rhyme but rarely repeat and trends they wrote the books based on are often no longer relevant. That’s why all those high FCF yield companies tend to be value traps with declining revenues and huge debts but the value boys still love em.