rayfinkle
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Posts posted by rayfinkle
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On 6/15/2021 at 7:58 AM, Gregmal said:
Hi Ray,
Thanks for mentioning the VIC writeup, I cant believe I hadn't seen it before but was a good read. I dont really think there's a specific writeup I can point to. I've followed the company for years and one of the beauties of a company like this is that its pretty static. Once you familiarize yourself with the assets there's not a whole lot of upkeep you need to do on your thesis outside of fairly simple stuff like listening/reading transcripts. What lead me to conclude this is now a good IRR type investment this winter and especially this spring was several things.
1) Its failed to participate in any sort of appreciation seen by most assets/companies despite the fact that there hasn't been any value destruction here.
2) Management now has a multi year track record of solid decision making and is now starting to do IR work.
3) FL and Sun Belt RE, especially land, has gotten so hot its inevitable that it starts bleeding into this valuation. Because of 2) you can get confident that it will be capitalized on.
4) All else fails you have such a margin of safety(even still at $34 IMO) that its unlikely you lose anything but opportunity cost..which in a fickle market isnt too much of a concern to me.
Thanks Greg! How do you get comfortable with the “control family” risks? Eg stagnation, lack of incentive in support of minority investors, etc.? In briefly going over the latest deck it seems like they at least talk the talk of closing value to NAV gap.
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Hey all!
Has anyone connected google sheets to IB API? If not gSheets, python?
im looking to automatically download my portfolio and history to do some bespoke analysis.
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On 5/20/2021 at 12:25 PM, Gregmal said:
Nearly tripled my position in ALCO over the past few days. What do you do when you have maybe 10-15% potential drawdown risk and 10-100% highly probable, eventual upside? Especially with a hard asset play where drawdowns will just be temporary and simply add to the upside? Swing big. Worst scenario IMO is it continues to be dead money and pays you 72c a share(which they're about to start ramping). Cash is trash.
Hey Greg- any chance you can point to a write up ? I checked out the May 2020 VIC already. Thanks!
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Does anyone know how to see insider purchases from companies like FLY and AER?
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Are you paying or is this some kind of choosing beggars type of thing?
HA! yes paid.
Sincerely,
Beggar and chooser
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Hi all- I’m looking for someone to do a few hours a week of google apps script work. I’m currently using someone from up work but the coordination is not great. Ideally the person is willing to go on zoom for 15 minutes 2-3x per week and sign a standard NDA so that I can share some basic info.
The work itself is pretty straight forward- mostly inserting formulas and sheets to summarize data. Needs to be somewhat efficient as it would work over a bunch of tabs.
PM me if interested!
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thanks all! will check skyscanner
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Hey all-
Does anyone know of a free or cheap source for airline bookings data? To be clear, I'm not looking for aggregations of revenues, etc., but rather third-party data for folks buying new tickets.
Thanks, and happy hunting!
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Is anyone familiar with DXC? Stock is tanking today. I've followed at arms length for a while but am trying to brush up quickly. Thanks in advance!
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Thanks everyone! Sorry for the delay, been a busy month. Here's where I landed, happy to provide more thoughts either here or in PM:
-90% LTV, simple weighted interest rate of 3.1% fixed for y years
-Interest only for 10 years
-$1,000 ish in total fees
-Executed via 75% LTV I/O 7/1 ARM + 15% LTV HELOC
Location = Norcal
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Hey everyone-
I'm in the process of putting banks in competition for a mortgage. Wondering if anyone has a line on banks that are particularly flexible, good rates, good structure, etc.
Buying well below my means, but also very interested in squeezing every last penny of financing value there is to be had.
I'm trying to optimize around:
-Rate--both lowest & locked
-Payment--exploring IO structures
-Flexibility--structured finance background means I'm pretty comfortable with "out of the fairway" stuff if there's value there
At this point my lead horse has a 20% down 7 year fixed IO at 2.75-3%.
Home is in California. Also would love any ideas on how to hunt for value elsewhere in the home purchase process! Done a bunch of corp. M&A but haven't bought a house before!
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Unrelated: I just finished the book "the Martian" in a 24 hour binge. It was awesome and I'm stoked for the upcoming movie. Funny part was- the one part of the book that struck me as curious is that they included nasa as the organization driving Mars exploration. Maybe spacex would have been more realistic! Anywho. Highly recommend the book!
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Pm me If you'd like to chat. I'd prob. Lease to get the insurance, maintenance, monitoring etc.
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If I was in non-snowy state, I'd probably get rooftop solar. Losing 3 months during snow cover and potential panel/roof damage in New England winter scares me so far. I'll be late adopter and see if solar tiles/slates will become cheap enough soon: http://www.solarcentury.com/uk/c21e-tiles-and-slates/
NY, NJ, & MA are some of the bigger markets for resi. solar. snow typically is not a huge issue for solar production (they price this into your rate typically, and solar irradiation is much lower in winter anyway, so you'll still save money).
Finally...typical solar leases come with warranty on roof penetrations. They won't install if your roof is too old/wrong material/poor condition.
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Actually, if I invested it securely in Treasury bonds I would need hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Treasuries in order to generate enough after-tax income to pay my solar bill.
Or, much more favorable, I just invest $20,000 in solar panels.
Solar is "capital light" in this regard.
Got it. I agree that if you're comparing solar to other investments then the return to you is tax advantaged.
For folks who are in middle income brackets and thinking about this as "solar vs. utility" the calculus is different, and I think the taxes are not as big of a factor.
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Yes, it makes some sense economically for most people and state and federal incentives certainly help, but there's also the fact that you get to say to your friends you've gone "green" and are doing your part for the environment.
IMO, there's a reason much bigger than social status -- taxation.
It's just as efficient for me to generate rooftop solar energy at a cost of 20 cents per kWh than it is to buy it from my local utility for 15 cents per kWh if the tax rate is 25%.
This is because the electricity generated from a rooftop solar installation is imputed income -- it offsets a bill that I otherwise must pay with after-tax dollars.
In California your income tax rate could be as high as 50%.
Paying 20 cents per kWh for rooftop solar is equivalent to buying electricity from the utility at just 10 cents per kWh -- if your tax rate is 50%.
So purely looking at economics, rooftop solar potentially is far more economically effective (for the consumer) than buying electricity from the grid/utility.
You have to consider tax rates in any of these decisions.
Solar generates tax-free imputed income. I can't stress enough how much this affects my thinking on this issue when I approach the cost/benefit of solar for my own home.
Hi Eric-
Can you explain this a bit more? My thinking is that the tax impact is not what you describe. Specifically, imagine you buy (not lease/PPA) a system for cash. This purchase uses after tax dollars. So a 5 kW system purchased @ $4 / kW would cost you $20k after tax, or $40k pre-tax @ 50% marginal tax rate. This means that your "avoided cost" rate for kWh, which is not tax affected, is created using a higher investment, which means your ROI is not as high as (I think) you're describing. Would love your thoughts on what I'm missing...
Separately, is there a website that shows when brownouts are scheduled?
Thanks,
Matt
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Oh man, this is depressing! For better or worse, living in SF means that my rent alone is more than the majority of posters' total spend. Married + 1 kid in SF, annual running $100k-110k
-$50k rent + utilities (crappy neighborhood even! wife can't walk alone at night). As an aside, rental market in SF / silicon valley is outrageous. friends of mine signing new leases now are paying ~$2k to rent a room in a 4 br house. Nothing fancy either. Every rental has competition, and bids to buy are all cash. Loco.
-$20k daycare
-$12-15k food
-$20k leisure (travel, etc.)--a lot of traveling for friends weddings...
We stick pretty firm to a fairly lean budget. The only way (without compromising physical safety) to seriously trim on the big line items is to move out of the city--but the 2-3 hour commute required to actually make the trade worth it is not worth it to me...
Could probably improve the after tax savings by moving to a more affordable part of the country (could buy a great house where I grew up for 4 years rent, for example)--but I love the work out here and there's a lot of exciting companies in this part of the country (not the stupid apps, and ones that no value investor would touch)!
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back down to earth-- blended for accounts I actively manage I returned ~0% this year. Net impact of a few wins and several (in hindsight oversized) positions moving against me. I think the latter category are cheaper now, but unfortunately may be lacking in catalysts. trying to gather some good learnings from this result. First take:
-Unreal busy at work + new baby = tough to give investing the TLC / thought space it needs. May be better to outsource...
-Need to set some hard rules for position sizing...after weeks of diligence on a company it's easy to get "deal hungry"
-Need more clear thinking on "time arbitrage." Much of what I invest in falls into the category of hated untouchables (to institutional investors at least)--too small, cloudy accounting / poor screening, boring businesses, etc. Very tough to be patient sometimes--especially if positions are oversized
Fun learning though! Thanks to the board, in particular packer, eric, oddball
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Good find!
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Google and Bing
Cable and DSL broadband provider
Duracell and Energizer (mostly)
I would not put ATT and Verizon in that bucket as TMobile and Sprint are a real threat.
htz avis
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I don't see how including debt can determine quality of business. It seems return on equity is the only measure of quality businesses. If a business earns high ROE due to debt, it's not due to the business quality but the leverage factor unless one condition is met - it can earn the same return on the debt which means incredible ability to scale up. This may be the case for the best of the best but most are just juicing the leverage factor at a much lower return than their core return.
Let's say there are two companies, the first one puts in $100 and generates $10 in earnings, a 10% return on capital. The second one puts in $30 in cash and $70 in debt and makes the same $10. You're saying that second business is 'better' because it's earning 30% on equity. I disagree with this statement. You need to include the full capital structure.
Slight tweak necessary though, right: an underlevered business is suboptimal (under-earning on equity) just as an overlevered business is suboptimal (required allocation of CF to debt service = fragility & reduced optionality).
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Thanks for posting your experience, ray.
What are the red flags that immediately tell you to pass? Part of what I'm trying to figure out is how to best filter through these. With public companies it is a bit easier because financials are usually spelled out cleanly and there is a lot of information as to industry dynamics.
It's tough. Here's a few:
-Is the owner selling for the right reasons, or is the roof on fire?
-Can you back into the "capacity earnings" of the business, and do they foot with your assessment (and the sellers representation) of actual cash production? If not, why?
-Does the business have a local moat?
*can amazon kill it
*coin laundries are great bc convenience matters a lot
*service companies often have serious key man risk
Just riffing, will think of more
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all of the above. brokers are tough but have deal flow. door knocking is tedious but can pay off.
What are you buying today?
in General Discussion
Posted
Thank you sir!