BG2008

Yes, that is why profit in commodity industries comes from having lower costs and sometimes other factors, such as regulations. To take your example, rocks are commodities, but rock pits are often great businesses because you can't economically transport rocks very far and NIMBYism makes it very difficult to permit a new rock pit in growing areas close to where rocks are needed. We all know that rock pits are unicorns, not blood sucking vampire commodity businesses

Sublet it to me. Not mine, I stayed at one. Awesome place, but reeks of weed!

Anyone has any suggestion for staying at an Airbnb where the place is awesome but it reeks of weed? This public/private message format is weird.

You can add United Rental and Sunbelt to the equipment rental business. It's a very good business and they are taking share from smaller mom and pop with less than 1% share.

Can you list more examples?

Same here, bought some more GRIF at a hair below $36. More thoughts on the GRIF thread

The issue with a REIT conversion is that it comes with a huge tax bill usually, as assets need to be valued to fair market value. I could be wrong with this and don’t know about CTO specifically, but that’s what I heard in other cases where a change in incorporation was discussed. May not be as big as you think. Not to rain on Greg's parade, but I just don't like the guys calling the shots at CTO.

Personally, the current bid of $17,000 is too rich for me. I don't consider myself enough of a high roller to bid on lunch with Monish. Maybe if there was an option for just coffee. Since this is supposed to be a value investor thread, I'd like to make a couple of points about what might be hidden value for some of you. First, I'd like to say that I am more impressed than ever with the wisdom of what Pabrai is doing with Dakshana. If you want your dollar to go a long way then Monish has found a very positive way of impacting the world. I also want to call out some people on this board who like to complain about the injustices of Hunter Biden starting life on third base, or the inequalities that the left concerns themselves with. Well why don't you put your money where your mouth is and give some money to an organization that actually does something about that sort of issue? Second, I think you could mock Pabrai for having this fundraiser and say that he is just copying Buffett. I might be tempted to do the same, but there's a problem with that. Buffett and Munger say that you can't pick and choose which parts of the system to copy. They say that if you want to adopt their system, you have to copy everything. I am guessing that Monish's interactions with Charlie, Warren and others in their universe have taught him something about that. There are too many people who say, "I'm going to be just like Buffett, except for the part about ethics" or "I'm just like Buffett, except for the part about living modestly, in fact I don't even want to live with my means, borrowing heavily to consume seems like more fun." Kudos to Monish for his efforts to copy ALL parts of the system rather than picking and choosing. It's probably better to risk being mocked for copying everything Buffett does than to leave out something important due to ignorance. It's probably also worth accidentally charging $8 dollars shipping or accidentally using your personal eBay account and exposing that your hobby is collecting beanie babies, either of which would obviously open you to ridicule. Finally, since I thought we were supposed to be analysts, here's an argument that the auction presents a bargain. Even if you don't think that speaking to Monish about investing or business has value to your particular situation, Monish has had the opportunity to spend time with Buffett and Munger and has become friendly with many people who are close to them. Even if you think the only value is that maybe some pixie dust fell off on to Monish, at 37 bps relative to the cost of lunch with Buffett, maybe it's not a bad deal? Even if you thought you should make adjustments for the relative scarcity of Buffett's time versus Monish's time, or maybe adjustments for the relative AUM amounts, etc I think someone could still make arguments that the lunch is cheap on a relative basis. Plus, I suspect we could learn something from Monish about marketing and self-promotion. Now Monish, I know you read CoB&F occasionally, and as a master marketer, I'm sure you check up on your online presence . . . so, about that coffee . . . feel free to message me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glide_Foundation Event number Year Winning bid (USD) 20 2019 $4.57 million[9] 19 2018 $4.23 million[11] 18 2017 $2.68 million 17 2016 $3.46 million 16 2015 $2.35 million 15 2014 $2.16 million 14 2013 $1 million 13 2012 $3.46 million 12 2011 $2.63 million 11 2010 $2.63 million 10 2009 $1.68 million 9 2008 $2.1 million 8 2007 $650,100 7 2006 $620,100 6 2005 $351,100 5 2004 $202,100 4 2003 $250,100 3 2002 $25,000 2 2001 $18,000 1 2000 $25,000 The first 3 guys who had lunch with Buffet between 2000 and 2002 belong in the hall of fame of value investing. What the heck ever happen to the 2019 lunch? Did that crypto guy ever had a steak lunch with Buffet at Smith and Wollensky?

For Clarification, I have owned both Berry commons and the $45 puts when it was trading about $50. I paid $1.45 for the puts and just sold a portion at $8.30. I can elect to buy more shares or LEAPs or both. I should just quit picking stock and start buying puts.

Sold more BERY $45 puts which means I am long the stock at $37. Looking to turn around and buy some BERY commons as well with the put proceeds.

A value buy it seems as you got in before the spike to $100/ bro that’s some doomsters predict. I think it will be more like $2-5$/brl and quickly reverse. I doubt there much supply impact from the drone attack. FWIW, so many oil heated homes on the East coast. It would be a great green energy plan to have them all connected to natural gas. Does this Gregmal guy ever get his timing wrong? He's on some epic streak!

I'm traveling to Canada on Sunday and my passport expires in 10 days. I will be back in the US with 7 days left. Will this be a potential issue for me? I know that you can't travel to countries like China, with a visa requirement, if you have less than 3 or 6 months left on your passport. Thanks in advance.

Spekulatius, Do you remember what the degree of the revision is? This is a very healthy discussion of the risk factor. My theory on AM is that at a certain yield, 17%, a lot of this is actually priced in. AR is supposed to grow their production. AM is saying that they will grow coverage ratio and grow distribution in the next few years. The fact that they may be producing natural gas as an unintended byproduct is alarming. Again, this goes back to price vs value and I like that fact that you're getting 17% out every year. It is a bit like a bond investment. What is interesting is that AM is trading at 12x GAAP earnings. So this actually takes into consideration depreciation of these assets. As an investor of AM, we're receiving the non-cash depreciation as distribution while it acts as a tax shield. Maybe AM winds up being the equivalent of the B Mall mistakes that I will make. Look at the threads of CBL, Washington Prime, etc where I have been saying to stay away back in 2015/2016. But I think AM warrants another look.

Yeah gathering isn't the same quality as long haul pipeline and something like a Transco. At a certain yield, I think there is a cheap price for everything. Gathering is certainly a much better business than the E&P business.

Antero Midstream is yielding 17% Equitran is yield 14.5% Both are C Corps - Someone who is smarter in the E&P business than me, please tell me why this makes sense. I refuse to buy upstream companies trading at deep discounts to NAV because I don't believe that one will ever get that. But when you actually receives dividends, it's a different story. This is a sector that no longer has any investor interest.

Sold more of my $47.50 Berry Puts for $9.30 (vs $1.90 cost) I own shares as well. So I basically went long the stock.

Interesting! NYC is great. I was just there over the weekend (midtown). I am working on getting up there one day. I hope you make your way to NYC...just don't breath my fresh air

Just curious - what was the expiry date on that put? Jan 2020 - Not much premium at this point on that put because it is so far in the money

Berry Sold some of my $47.50 puts for $9.25 today (paid $1.90 for them). In short, I am going long the stock by exiting the puts. Looking to use the put proceeds to either buy more stock and/or calls.

I want to create a thread for interesting and thought provoking articles I'll start with this article that old school dealers for pot still account for a good chunk of pot sales. In Canada, apparently only 27% of the pot sales are via legitimate channels. I guess if you can save 77% on your pot purchase, there is incentive to skirt paying the excise taxes. This really isn't that different than people bootlegging cigarettes from Virginia and bringing them to NYC. The delta can be $7-8 a pack. Load up a van with $5,000 worth of cigarettes at $5 a pack, and your profit margin is likely 100% for a trip up I-95. https://www.wsj.com/articles/pot-industry-underestimates-old-school-dealers-11566214441?mod=article_inline

Manhattan, NYC - Anything over $2mm on the residential side is not moving, anything over $5mm is tough to sell Queens, NYC - 1-4 families, overall price declines from last year, we've notice there is more choices and opportunity to pick a potential bargain Overall, quite a bit of new supplies coming onto the market on the higher end. NYC over $2,000 a sqft. Queens quite a bit of supply in the $700-1,000 a sqft range. Flushing is full of new construction. New projects within 5-10 min walks to subway stations will likely still fare well. For developers, if they can't move the condo units, they can refi with the bank and lease it out and hold it for the long run. Long Island - Anything over $1mm is hard to move. Taxes, affordability, etc. With regard to what thepupil just said, I think anything that is under $1mm under 10 min walk to subway stations within a 30 min ride into Midtown will likely move well. I remember the 2008/2009 recession. Things got pretty bad. I was laid from Citigroup and there was a young lawyer who lost his job. We were all going to Renzo Gracies to learn Brazilian JuJitSu. I winded up getting a job in PE. The young lawyer winded up setting up his own law firm/consulting gig. NYC attracts a lot of talent and when rent becomes "affordable," it seems like people just flood into the city. The people who have been here for 5-10 years find ways to stay and start stuff. The look-through industries are not necessarily recession resistant, but the people are very entrepreneurial.

I would be buying more GRIF if it wasn't for the large position size already. Yea while I don't think its got much of a catalyst I still kind of ask myself Who TF is selling at these prices? Its one thing to look at a stock and pass. Its another when you already own it because you have to at least peripherally be aware of what's going on. I mean, even on a super short term, trading based thesis, $35 is still where'd you'd be buying, not selling... got another 1250 today. Gabelli has sold some recently. I think he manages SMAs and when clients redeem, they tell him to sell out of the stock which he is always very reluctant to do. That's why you see 40,000 shares sold from Gabelli. I think Gabelli and the family reducing their stake is better for the long term because it will improve the liquidity and the bid/ask spread of the company. Yes, there is no catalyst. But when you have a NAV that's 90-100% higher than the current price, good things happen. The same thing happened to HHC.

Does anyone use health insurance through WeWork? Can you share pricing etc? I got insurance through my wife but they are charging me over $800 a month which my wife did not tell me before I had the chance to switch to Obamacare. I was on WeWork's website, it didn't provide any quotes and mostly just talked about filing out some form and they will contact you.

I would be buying more GRIF if it wasn't for the large position size already.

How many shares did you snag? Just curious about your view on GRIF.