merkhet
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Posts posted by merkhet
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Has anyone been reading through the Wall Street Bets forum on Reddit? It has almost 2M subscribers and almost every post is about more and more extreme gambling - putting everything on one stock based on random recommendations, meme stocks, Buying large short term options with most not fully understanding how options work and trading on maximum leverage.
There are a lot of survivorship stories of 100x and 1000x and 10000x returns - think going all in on OTM Tesla call options. There are also some stories of losing up to 100% but then it’s save more money and keep gambling.
Are we sure that folks on reddit aren't just... lying? I mean, it's the internet. People lie on the internet.
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I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye.
The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
There’s a reason the great american novel wasn’t about Detroit.
I thought the flickering of the green light across the water was the GM plant in the background. Oh man, this changes everything.
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^ Damn Merkhet, you were living large! Somehow I never envisioned you living in Des Moines anyway!
Haha, 24 year old me made... interesting... choices. My last apartment before leaving NYC was a block away from Union Square because it allowed me to easily stumble home drunk @ 3am. Also, it was next to a number of bars, and I could easily bounce someone from the bar to my apartment. (“My apartment is just a few doors down.”)
Des Moines may not be the best comparison to NYC (LOL)...though I have visited it on work, and it was rather pleasant...except for the weather.
how about Atlanta? Nashville? Austin? Boston? Denver?
know personally a young couple who got a 3 bedroom in Atlanta overlooking Piedmont Park for $1K/month less than their prior 2 bedroom in NYC (chelsea).
NYC is not going anywhere (one of the attractions of investing in RE is that it doesn't go anywhere), but I see it losing its financial services industry dominance, and that is an important driver of NYC wealth. OTOH, I do see a lot of life sciences buildings going up in NYC (albeit in marginal neighborhoods), which is an important trend to follow. so net net, I see NYC becoming more like boston in terms of the strength of its financial services industry (and perhaps even approaching boston's academic/research strength), but a NYC that looks more like boston is not NYC...
Fair enough! I would say that even compared to Austin (or even Dallas, where I live now) there’s a huge gap in terms of things to do, cultural aspects, etc. The fact that there’s only a $1k/month difference between Atlanta & Chelsea is probably bullish NYC IMO.
But, of course, this is all dependent on life stage! 37 year old me has a wife and a kid, so Dallas is great!
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Why don't people talk about biology? Why don't people talk about the fact that if you are 22-35, single, horny, and promising, you want to be in NYC to meet others just like you. If you are 25, Asian (East and South), and can code or build complex financial models or just trying to revolutionize the world, you want to be here. Your odds are slimmer in Wichita. If you are LGBTQ, this is a great place for you. If you want Dim Sum, this is the place for you (although capacity leaving the market temporarily). 50% of my thesis is that this is the deepest liquidity pool for dating. I will continue to bet on biology.
not to mention the pricing from a consumer standpoint is starting to get super attractive in my view:
https://streeteasy.com/building/360-east-57-street-new_york/10b
this apartment (well one a few floors up or down) was $5100 when i lived there in the early 2010's. it's now $4200. rent down 20% from almost 10 years ago, while salaries/all-in comp for elite fields is probably up 20% (or more in some instances, I'm honestly not as in tune with entry level comp for banking/consulting/tech)
the living room can be a 3rd bedroom, that's $1,400 / month average for 3 dudes to live in manhattan making like mid $100's 1st year out of college (finance/tech/whatever), or $2000/month for recently graduated big law types making $250K (you get your own bathroom and a full living room for having to deal with law school). i'm sure this apartment is not the cheapest/most expensive, i just picked this one because i have a great sense of comparability and know what it's like to actually live there (it's nice, doorman building, perfectly acceptable). it's not a hip spot, the neighborhood's kind of boring, but you're a walk away from the offices in midtown and a wasted cab ride away from lots of night life.
people make a lot more today than in the early 2010's, the disposable income of the yuppie crowd. rents down = massive increase in disposable income for playing and getting ahead in the greatest city in the world and that applies at all levels.
think how cheap its getting to share apartments in outer boroughs. sure that's bad for near term NOI, but it also creates an attractive pull. you can say "well ya but you could get a house or your own apartment for that in XXX", sure, but it's not in NYC.
rents are skyrocketing in the places people are leaving to. like in south Florida for example.
the NYC premium collapsing should help buffer the "exodus"
EDIT: for context, the 2BR I shared in the south immediately after my time in NYC is now $2000 up from $1500. So the spread went from $3,700/month to $2,200/month.
+1 to both -- if you're a young and single person, you will almost certainly be back in NYC in a few years regardless of whether you can do your work from Des Moines -- because then you would have to live in Des Moines.
thepupil inspired me to take a look at my old apartment in NYC. https://bit.ly/2IMTBJ8
The gross rent is maybe two hundred bucks north of where it was when I moved to NYC in 2007. As a 24 year old newly minted lawyer, I was more than happy to apply part of my $160k salary (now $190k for anyone starting NYC Biglaw) to a nice crib. Y'all are crazy if you think people won't want to live in NYC again.
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I think if we are honest with ourselves we would admit that these political discussions are eroding the online friendships and civility that are required on an investment board to allow people to debate investment ideas and to disagree with the idea but not the person - and not belittle the person expressing the idea. That becomes hard to do when you are attacking each other’s politic views over on the politics section.
It’s perhaps a microcosm of America but in a very small way it can start the process of destroying what was built here and that needs to be taken seriously
That is about the best post I ever read on this subject. Parsad is doing the right thing.
+1 agreed on all the above
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I suppose it depends on the reason behind the thumb sucking. Was it fear of the unknown, inattention to what was going on, greed because of wanting to wait for an even better deal? etc.
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Also we’ve had a bit of a rally the last few years so there are fewer names that appear cheap...more time to talk about other topics I suppose.
Bingo.
I joined this board in 2012/13 when the financial system had recovered; yet market prices were still under 2007 highs.
What a great time for investment discussion! Systematic risk had largely been removed but prices were still depressed.
Over the following 6-7 years, we have seen prices rise, and even outpace earnings. Market price was driven less and less by individual company earnings and more by macro policies. Therefore (to me) it is no surprise that the conversation has shifted to those macro factors (including politics, which impacts these policies).
Additionally there is some nostalgia you may be experiencing. When I went back and read some posts from 2012-2014, the quality was not as good as "I remembered". Usually we just remember the good stuff, and ignore the mediocre.
I think the signal-noise ratio was much higher. There are a lot more Harry Longs these days. It was once mentioned that the next time we have a crisis, the really good posters would come back (similar to what you’re saying re too many years of rising prices meaning not much to talk about) but March passed by and I didn’t see folks return. (Maybe stuff wasn’t cheap long enough.) RTF is right though — increased popularity of the board + Gresham’s Law has had an effect.
I don’t mean this to sound too much like a criticism. I just started re-reading Poor Charlie’s Almanack, and he mentions that it’s no great tragedy for someone to bemoan that Berkshire gave them 50 years with Buffett at the helm, and then they’ll get someone who isn’t quite as good. I feel similarly about this board.
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Unfortunately, politics leaks from the politics board onto other subjects all the time. I have found this board less and less useful since around 2013 or so -- many of the old posters are no longer as active as they used to be -- but that's just the nature of the beast.
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Thanks cherzeca & rkbabang. Will log this in the parental files for the future.
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I have dealt with late teen suicides, thankfully none in my family, but always a tragedy. as best I can tell, many of these kids come to what they believe is a "no way out" position, they have done something that turns out bad and they develop huge shame and guilt, and feel they cant talk to no one, and even worse, they cant talk to the people they would normally be able to talk to (parents), and so they do an act that cannot be retrieved. I am not discussing teens with drugs addictions or mental health issues, they are a whole other problem, but I am talking about the healthy lovable and sometimes frustrating teen in your house. I have come to believe that you need to "premortem" teenagers, tell them in advance that NOTHING is not redeemable, that there is no no way out position or end point. the kids will look you in the eye and wonder what is wrong with you, but just tell them this nonetheless and that you love them
+1
My wife and I are expecting our first child in October, so this story hit me pretty hard. We spent a good bit of this week discussing how we might make sure to impart to our child that there is always a way out. I can't imagine what those parents are going through.
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Good luck with the new job!
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I've posted this elsewhere, but IIRC, someone else runs the public equities portfolio these days. I think Klarman focuses on private stuff, credit, and real estate.
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In aggregate, this forum has gotten worse since around 2013 or so. I remember there were people talking about this back then and the response was that it would get better when markets tanked again because the old posters would come back -- that hasn't happened, but, as bizaro86 said, post-COVID, there have been some great posts by a few folks on here.
I agree some really good posters have reduced or eliminated their activity. However I was reading some old threads from 2011-2014 (or so) and was expecting the dialogue to be at a higher level - but actually I found it very similar to recent years. I was surprised to be seeing personal attacks, political bickering, faulty logic (your returns sucked last year, your analysis must be wrong!), etc.
I think perhaps there is some nostalgia at play :D
That could be true! I recall thinking the signal to noise ratio was better back then, but I could be wrong!
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In aggregate, this forum has gotten worse since around 2013 or so. I remember there were people talking about this back then and the response was that it would get better when markets tanked again because the old posters would come back -- that hasn't happened, but, as bizaro86 said, post-COVID, there have been some great posts by a few folks on here.
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There a certain age bias in this current situation , both on terms of health as well as financial risk. Zell has a lot more to lose than to win at this Point than let’s say a 30 year old private equity guy.
First, he has a much higher chance to get killed by this disarrayed, second with this being an unprecedented situation l he really doesn’t know how this plays out economically. So he won’t play until he sees it, plain and simple.
Compare this to a 30 year old private equity guy who probably is willing to roll the dice with other people’s money and if it doesn’t work out, he is just going to try again a couple of years later with a different shop.
The different starting situation and incentives lead to different decision making bias.
Does the 30 year old not have significant career risk in doing that? I think Buffett and Zell have been relatively straight shooters (particularly Zell) about the opportunities they see at any point in time. I don't think they would have any reason to waver now unless they truly saw a wide range of outcomes. Also, Buffett was about 78 when he went through the Great Recession, so taking his comments and assigning some risk-averse age argument doesn't hold water to me.
It's kind of interesting Buffett's comments about $137 billion not being that much in the context of worst-case outcomes. That is a way different tone than his "we only need $20 billion to survive even the worst catastrophe" , and suggests to me he thinks coronavirus will be a huge issue for insurers, not dissimilar to what Dupperrault and others have said.
Maybe these guys are simply operating in areas (insurance and real estate) where there is close to maximum uncertainty right now about how things play out. During 2008 perhaps Buffett could pick up bargains because he knew his insurance subs were not as exposed to 2008 risks as the current insurance business is to the fallout from the pandemic?
I’ve been thinking and talking to people about this a lot. If you look back a few decades ago, both Warren & Charlie groused a lot about what they called “social inflation” in insurance. Things that weren’t covered became covered because it was politically palatable to do so. I suspect they are worried about some pain sharing that the politicians might inflict on insurance carriers.
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Yes, the data the next 6 months will be very interesting. Regarding wages, if unemployment hits +15% and we do not get a V shaped recovery then my guess is wage growth will slow over time as expectations fall.
Currently, grocers are having to pay a premium to attract and keep workers during the pandemic. This will likely be true for all occupations where employees are put at a health risk.
I also see a scenario where business that re-open have to charge higher prices because their revenue is lower (due to social distancing requirements) and their expenses are higher (due to PPE they need to source for staff).
Crazy stew of unknowable factors right now. Business owners must be going crazy trying to figure out what to do and how it all might play out...
I received a survey from a theater that I like in Dallas called Alamo Drafthouse (it's like Studio Movie Grill, basically they serve food & drinks while you watch your movie) that asked how we would feel about things like (a) two ticket minimums, (b) a minimum guarantee on food & drink orders, etc. Basically making sure that it's worth it for them to open again.
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This plan is stupid. If your plan is to fix antitrust, then fix antitrust.
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Pretty stable myself around 168 pounds. I am on low carb diet since about 9 month ago.
Regardless of lockdown, why would anyone have a drastic weight change 6 weeks into this?
Possibly loss of muscle mass if you can't work out at home.
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I’ve probably lost about five pounds. 165 —> 160.
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IIRC, he used margin to increase the BRK position which is why it's so large.
I think that was a few years back. My understanding was that the fund was no longer levered the last few years, but I could be wrong.
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I think it's difficult to know how this plays out because it's path dependent on how/why we get past it. It's like a matrix. You have to figure out (A) speed of finding a path out, and (B) method of finding a path out.
(B) is somewhat linked to (A).
For instance, if we find a cure/anti-viral that works to treat it soon? Economic hit is much less hard. Fewer SMB bankruptcies etc.
If it takes us 12-18 months to find a vaccine, then the economic hit is different, and it'll be dependent on whether we can open up in the interim or if, somehow, we end up not being able to open up in the interim.
The cone of uncertainty is quite wide here.
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It's a blessing being locked up with the wife for 3 weeks now. We've caught up on everything I've done wrong for the last 15 years.
LOL
Gambling
in General Discussion
Posted
Yea, but the one-upmanship is sort of what I'm talking about. How do we know these people aren't just 4chan-faking it because it's fun to watch people think their posts are real?
(FWIW, there's definitely froth out there, but I don't know that r/wallstreetbets is where I'd go for a good representative sample of the market. Basically, I'm wondering about the possibility of confirmation bias in seeing/thinking there is froth in the market and then seeing r/wallstreetbets and thinking that it's more real than it is. It could all be kayfabe for all we know.)