BG2008

Midstream Is Kind of Like A PIMP You get a fixed fee whether the girls make money or not "Is Wayne Brady Gunna have to choke a bitch?" (Take or pay contracts) You stay in the warmth while the girls stay out in the cold (Cashflow much more stable than E&P) You offer a service that is highly desirable, protection from Ted Bundy (Moves the O&G out of the basin into the market) The relationship feels like it should not be sustainable, but it is sustainable, because sex work is the oldest profession and there will always be demand for the product (I just realized this while I type this out) In theory, the gals should not enter this profession and enter into an agreement with you. You have almost complete control over the gals. But there are lots of broken homes and gals who don't have other skillsets. Hence, new gals keep entering this terrible business.

+1! I was a bear when Jeff Rubin was predicting and writing about $200/barrel oil. People told me I was wrong then. Today, I'm watching people pour out of oil, and it has done nothing except to get me titillated and excited. If you think oil will be permanently at $40 or less per barrel, you are out of your mind. Cheers! Heading back to $40 per bbl! I was definitely an oil bull when prices were below $30 / bbl a few years ago. Too bad there's no good way for me to trade that other than buying actual oil future contracts, and I really don't know much about commodities trading to get into that. I looked at USO, USL, and OIL, and they all pretty much suck in tracking the actual commodity. Anyone know of a good way to get into the actual commodity without having to keep buying long dated futures contracts? By the way, Bethany Mclean came out with an awesome book on the U.S. shale revolution being largely driven by ZIRP and Fed policies of the past 15 years. I remember back on CBOF, people were looking at O&G shale / fracking companies, and I thought it was absurd that no one on here thought about the biggest glaring issue: if these companies can't make money at $100 usd / bbl, how the hell are they going to make money when oil prices revert back to mean, which is exactly what happened, and exactly where we're at today. I highly recommend her new book. I pretty much agreed with everything she said, and I believe if interest rates normalize above 5%, U.S. shale oil production will decline big time. From VIC's discussion of the E&P business E&P Companies Are Like Street Walkers (From a generalist perspective) They promise a good time (Look at those IRRs) You rent them (Have to trade in and out) You don't marry them (Can't really hold for long term) I won't touch them with a ten foot pole (Personal choice) You can't bring them home to your parents (Can't really tell your LPs that you own them, hard to justify unless that's your strategy) When the cops pull you guys over, it's a very awkward situation (If the stock price is down, you can't really back up the truck and buy more) They have very short careers (The assets depreciate and the street walker ages quickly) Totally supply and demand driven equal zero pricing power (Commodity price) They like to party and blow their money (Similarity is uncanny) Hard to find an honest woman in the house of pleasure (Not a fertile hunting ground for me) Surprises tend to be negative, they give gifts that keeps giving and gifts that can be cured with antibiotics (Have you been negatively surprised while investing in E&Ps??) Lots of liars, I'm doing this to pay for college (Right!!) Your ability to identify Julia Roberts won't improve over time (My ability to identify the right E&P has not improved in 10 years, luckily I have never owned a E&P company) Depletion is real for both youth and O&G

I'm wondering if anyone has breakdowns of S&P 500 performance YTD? It feels a bit weird that there are a ton of companies down 20, 30, 40, 50% this year. It feels like there are way more carnage than the nice 0% YTD performance of the S&P 500.

1. Start an asset management firm and charge incentive fees. Losses on LP capital are non-recourse to you, but you get a nice slice of the upside on any increase in value on that capital. 2. Invest in the equity of highly levered firms. Small changes in their enterprise value will lead to large changes in their equity prices, which would be similar to the effect on the value of your portfolio of levering your own balance sheet to buy unlevered firms, with the benefit that debt at the firm level is non-recourse to you. KJP, 1. In theory true. In practice you have to be very very good at sales to pull it off. Judging from most people on this board, we're mostly doers rather than sales guys.

Thank you so much for this feedback. It's certainly made the experience that much better.

Is there a way to unfollow the entire politics thread on this site?

I know someone who dumpster dive for fruit juice. While I like a bargain, I like my dignity intact as well. If you are serious, we can never be friends. Dumpster diving is where I draw the line of people that I want to be friends with. Because if you are financially secure, it is simply not acceptable in my books. What if I was to tell you that I wear a snorkel when I dumpster dive? Does that make it more acceptable? In all seriousness, the dumpster diving thing was just a joke. I actually obtained my collection of fine wines by searching alongside railroad tracks for bottles discarded by vagrants. Well a snorkel changes everything.

As someone who grew up in the food business and have been cooking dinner for my family since I was in my teens, I would say that the Instant is the highest return on dollar of any kitchen equipment that I have bought. It won't do everything well. It is very good for braising, soups, oxtails, and general wet cooking methods that would take way too long. By insulating heat inside a pot, it also means that you don't run a hot kitchen. It's utility is in the set it, leave it, and forget it functions. Many of the functions you have to learn and you need to experiment a bit. If you have a "general understanding of food deliciousness" (trademark), you can really use it to your advantage. You can't cook steaks in it. It won't get that nice browning. But it will turn your oxtail into a rich and delicious gelatinous piece of meat in about 45 minutes of cooking time. Some of the functions that I use it for are: 1) Making oatmeal - Set to delay start the night before and set to cook one hour before you wake up and you will have delicious oatmeal for breakfast 2) Oxtail soup - parboil oxtail and wash oxtail under cold water to clean off any residual (do this on stove top). Add carrots, celery, and tomatoes to Instant Pot and cook under high pressure for 40-45 minutes. It's a very hearty soup for the winter. Serve with some rice and you have a whole complete meal basically. 3) Chicken soup - parboil whole chicken and wash under cold water. Add carrots, celeary, and tomato to instant pot and cook under high pressure for 20 minutes. Shred chicken and eat. 4) Cook beans in instant pot and throw in a bunch of kale into the hot bean mixture. The residual heat will cook it. Now you've got beans and kale. 5) Steamed eggs - Beat eggs and add some water and mix well. Steam for 6-7 minutes. It's a great savory egg custard. 6) Steam sweet potatoes - 20 mins or so. Depending on size. 7) Sterilize baby bottles using steam function - 2 minutes (use this if you have a newborn, cut outs having to boil everything) 8) Pot roast, never made them, but apparently very good 9) You can cook rice and etc. But I am Chinese, so we have a separate rice cooker. 10) Quinoa - cook in high pressure for 10 minutes In general, any cuts of meat that is tough and require a lot of cooking time can be cooked quickly and in its own juice with aromatic vegetables. I have attached my graphic resume. It wasn't made in the instant, but you can.

I know someone who dumpster dive for fruit juice. While I like a bargain, I like my dignity intact as well. If you are serious, we can never be friends. Dumpster diving is where I draw the line of people that I want to be friends with. Because if you are financially secure, it is simply not acceptable in my books.

Since we are a bunch of value conscious investors, I figure that our frugal ways should extend itself over to the way that we spend our dollars as well. Wine is one of those things that I know nothing about and I think there are deep value in it. Anyone has any suggestions to start out?

I belong to a group on Facebook that shares recipes on Instant Pot. It's me and 100,000 other housewives. I cook a lot and grew up in the food business. My takeaway is that Instant Pot would not be the runaway success if Facebook did not exist. The speed that it grew and how quickly features and functions and most importantly recipes are shares is unlike anything that I have seen before. I think a brand like Hamilton Beach is being quickly eroded and becoming irrelevant as the search cost has dropped dramatically. Let's discuss. We can talk about the Peloton as well. Would love to discover other products that have an active FB following as well.

I had a conversation with someone about this recently. By using the 30 years, the results can get weird depending on if you go out 5, 10, or 20 years. As value that goes out further gets discounted less in a 3% scenario. So, you can kind of game the DCF by going out 20 years instead of 5 years. An alternative would be to set the NPV as the current price and look at what the discount rate would be. If you're getting a >15% discount rate by holding the NPV constant, you're probably onto something interesting. If you get a discount rate of >20% if you equate the NPV as the current price, you're likely looking at a very good investment. These things are "Garbage in, Garbage out" So if your assumptions are massively off, then nothing really matters.

To be fair, there are a lot of people in China who kind of just won the lottery and don't have much class or education (I'm Chinese). Yes, DG is very douchey

It's no secret that the Chinese consumer is a huge market for luxury items. Dolce and Gabanna just f'ed up big time with their cringe worthy promo videos. This is a real time public relationships nightmare for a luxury brand trying to win the wallets of the Chinese consumer. Holy F! What were they thinking? I think Dolce and Gabbanna should be renamed "Douche and Goombas" This probably will make the list of the all time top blunders due to cultural insensitivity. That Cannoli was very phallic and they called the chopsticks these little wooden stick like instruments. WTF??? I think people are generally over sensitive in the US. But the bar to offend people is much lower when you are dealing with your customers. It's how they feel what you perceive as appropriate or not.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-credit-crunch-ripples-across-wall-street-1542220488?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 This feels very surreal

LIC/NYC, 5 boroughs in NYC generally get poo pooed on by the value investors for being too expensive. But if you ask the best and the brightest 22 year old who doesn't have the 10, 20, 30 years of wisdom of the CoBF crowd, they would say "just get me to NYC and I will figure it out later"

We had a lively debate here on where Amazon should relocate. We talked about cost, infrastructure, etc. A few here mentioned that Detroit would be great and the U of Mich graduates are just as good as anywhere. At the end of a long process, it looks like Amazon is about to divide up HQ2 into Long Island City, Queens NY and Crystal City, VA. On paper, LIC would be way too expensive. NYC is already too congested. But the city keeps on surprising me. Since the early 2000s, we've had a terrorist attack, the failing of large investment banks (Citi, BoA, AIG, etc), the Trump tax cut was very negative for high end NYC real estate. Living and working in NYC creates such a tax burden, it's kind of crazy. Yet, here we are, Long Island City and Crystal City. Both locations to be confirmed. So much for coastal cities being too expensive and the huge brain drain (for now). I guess companies know this is where the talent is and the talent knows that this is where "it" happens. And the pretty gals knows this is where they can live the Sex and the City lifestyle and meet Mr. Big or a 25 year blonde boy toy. Because those pretty gals are here, the tinder pool expands and the guys flock here knowing that they have lots of attractive mates. Tinder pools are important. I guess perception is important. Yes, Detroit may have all of the necessary tools. But can you really sell a 22 year old Ivy Leaguer on Detroit? Yes, this sounds elitist, but it is also reality. The guys and gals who wind up perfecting AI, self driving cars, quant HF strategies, etc don't want to be in Detroit. I just hope the rumor mills are correct. If Amazon picks Detroit, I will sound like a huge douche. So, apologies ahead if the rumors are false.

Source, Jurgis? [ : - ) ] Source: firsthand experience. I'm not gonna post emails or their contents here. For those of us that don't know what you are referencing to, this is killing us!!

I figure I will get this thread started since the market has been volatile lately. I have a few cheap names. But I don't have a single one that is table pounding for 2019. It's getting awfully close though.

Is that 4x EBITDA, 4x FCF? I'm backing into the numbers and I just don't see the 4x valuation.

The wait part is the same for writing puts or buying positions outright. It is always better waiting for lower prices! What about the premiums that you collected while you wait versus the lower prices that you would've got?? I would not have gotten lower prices. Once I determine where I want to buy a stock it doesn't matter if I write a put at that strike price or put a limit order to buy the stock at that strike price. I own the stock either way at about the same basis. Edit: I didn't know the market was going lower. I was getting put to at prices that I thought were good values, which they eventually were. So if I was going to buy the stock through a limit order I would have done it at the same price as I was being put to. There was a fund that blew up around the 2008/2009 time frame. I think the key difference between you and that fund is that you viewed your position size as the amount that you would be put to as the total margin was only 25% at its peak. He had written puts that were 2-3x his fund's exposure. When he got put to in 2008/2009 and the positions subsequently decline, he was basically carried out on a stretcher.

The wait part is the same for writing puts or buying positions outright. It is always better waiting for lower prices! What about the premiums that you collected while you wait versus the lower prices that you would've got??

Any comments on how things would have worked out differently if you were to hold cash and waited for lower prices than the shares you were put to?

Boiler, Can you share what happened in 2008/2009? I guess you got put to on a lot of positions?

I have a silly amount of student loans that I need to pay off in order to qualify for a mortgage. Arr, such is the life of running your own business. The amount is a few thousand dollars. The interest rate was low and I kept it to help lower my taxable income. I am in the process of qualifying for a mortgage and the underwriting process requires that I pay off the loan to lower my monthly payments given that there is only 1.5 years worth. Navient is my processor and I have been to the website. It doesn't seem like the payoff process is cookie cutter and I have read that the pre-payment process can be kind of tricky. Has anyone had experience? Do I need to call them? These automated processes doesn't make it easier when you need to do something like pay off the entire balance. I have the same question for paying off an car installment payment through Honda Financials. If anyone has experience with this, your help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.