Mephistopheles

Small % of my portfolio making sure there is ample excess liquidity. I tend to buy calls on stocks I already like and own that have multiple down days in a row for no good reason (recently CPNG and BRK). The idea being that the stock is already undervalued but also it may be due for a short term bounce regardless. The key is to also be aggressive in selling when it pops but also if it doesn't jump am willing to take a 50-90% loss and roll forward. Definitely don't want to play the buy and hold game. I've had multiple situations where I lose like 50%+ on multiple rolls, but then eventually one hits and am up 100's% and it makes up for all the losses and then some. United health this year and last was a good one. Loss, loss, loss, and then huge gain and overall positive return. You have to be willing to take big realized losses and have the guts to keep reinvesting. Sprinkle in some put selling when the IV is high which it usually is if the stock drops a bunch. Put selling I keep at like 6 months expiry max. Berkshire is a special case because the IV is super low as it generally doesn't move much, but then you have days with big jumps where you can sell. Also, it's the one exception where I don't mind selling LEAP puts. I've shorted a bunch of Dec 2028 puts (the furthest out at this point). It's a big hit to my excess liquidity, but am willing to take that chance because it's Berkshire and there is a countercyclical component to the stock, and it hasn't done anything in 2 years, big cash position, buybacks, etc.

I trade options routinely and it's easy to make big money as long as you have the cajones. But, to your point I have failed on the latter (shorting the market). I stick with long calls and short puts on stocks that I like

Over the last couple weeks sold a bunch of Dec. 2028 BRK puts ATM and slightly out of the money. $35-$40 at strikes between $460-480

The old lady part was a joke. Yes aware they’re the same age but she looks so much older and that’s fine.

Im glad im not the only one who feels cringe listening to him. How he claims to work all the time from the first moment he wakes up, to his smug self righteousness when he talks about how he’s cleaned more toilets than everyone else in the room that he’s usually in. And yea he’s gotta dump the leather jacket. It’s animal cruelty and also obnoxious. And why is he married to an old lady??

Berkshire rallying, to think all it had to do was hop on the AI train! Kidding. Hopefully, at the very least, this means Abel has also stepped up the buybacks to a meaningful amount. Weird that Buffett has commented that there is too much froth in the market yet Abel is going in on Google. Can we also assume that he’s going hard into Berkshire shares? Or does he think Google is undervalued relative to Berkshire? Hard to believe

1 month away from end of Q2. Ackman bump upcoming

Yes Trump has created enormous value (for himself). This is the political equivalent of a CEO issuing himself retarded amounts of stock options screwing other shareholders.

Well this is the problem with the left. They cared more about having a DEI VP vs someone competent and likeable. And this is why Biden was in a trap and didn’t step down in time. Just imagine if Biden’s VP was a competent person and politician. Say, Buttigieg, ignoring the gay thing for a moment. Biden would have stepped down earlier, and Buttigieg would have destroyed Trump in the general. So yea dumb lawsuits and constantly focusing on Trump’s sexist/dumb/politically incorrect stuff dilutes the REAL issues (authoritarianism), so everyone yawn’s out of fatigue with totally blatant theft. In a way I really respect Trump as he is a shrewd genius, going to walk out of this worth tens of billions more and never having to pay a penny of tax ever again, by taking advantage of the other side’s embarrassing dumbassary.

The wild thing is that every single person here would rather have Obama run Fairfax or JOE, or BRK, or any of their holdings, vs Trump. Obama as CEO and Garland as General Counsel vs Trump and Blanche. Be honest

We always throw around the word cult, but I’d say my buddy Greg isn’t one of them. Agreed he’s just on the wrong side of this one!

Very interesting to blame Dems for the Russia investigation when it was started by Trump’s AG. But facts shouldn’t get in the way of dogma. The investigation into the Russia investigation, started by Trump’s second AG, was continued by Biden. Routinely, US Attorneys tend to be political appointees. Biden laid off nearly all of Trump’s US Attorney’s except the one investigating the Mueller investigation. Imagine thinking the Dems (or any other republican in history) are nearly as corrupt? Agreed that NYC and NYS Trump investigations reek of political motivation. Still that’s a false equivalency, as is any routine act of corruption by any other politician vs. this blatant theft and free pass to never pay taxes again. But if the Trump folks shrug off Jan 6, they’ll do so for anything!

Maybe Elon musk can DOGE save us another couple billion Can’t wait to see the cult crawl out of Trump’s ass to defend this one

Not a peep about the Trump IRS deal! I’d love to be audit free for myself and my family and my business forever and get handed $2 billion on top. How do I sign up?? And I’m all for avoiding taxes as much as possible. What a lucky family!

Even Buffett sold Costco way too early and bought such little, despite his best bud pumping it from the rooftops!

That’s true!

I think higher oil prices are a net positive for Delta and United. Spirit is done. Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest and even American will suffer far more than Delta. You don’t need to outrun the bear, just need to outrun your competitors.

The big airlines, namely Delta and United aren't really airline companies anymore. Most of their value comes from their cobranded credit cards along with the ecosystem. Here's a really good video on it: I would bet it was Buffett, not Abel

Yea that's what I was getting at. I asked AI what the largest tech/telecom companies by market cap 1999 vs. MAG7 in 2025 FCF yield and capex as a % of market cap: 1999 Dot-Com Tech Leaders 1999 FCF Yield (% of Market Cap) 2025 Magnificent Seven 2025 FCF Yield (% of Market Cap) Intel (INTC) 2.81% Apple (AAPL) 2.43% IBM (IBM) 2.19% Meta Platforms (META) 2.21% Microsoft (MSFT) 1.54% Microsoft (MSFT) 1.78% Cisco Systems (CSCO) 0.47% NVIDIA (NVDA) 1.21% America Online (AOL) 0.22% Alphabet (GOOGL) 1.00% Nokia (NOK) 0.17% Amazon (AMZN) 0.94% Lucent Technologies (LU) -0.74% Tesla (TSLA) 0.34% 1999 Dot-Com Tech Leaders [1, 2] 1999 CapEx Yield (% of Market Cap) 2025 Magnificent Seven 2025 CapEx Yield (% of Market Cap) Lucent Technologies (LU) 0.71% Amazon (AMZN) 4.89% Nokia (NOK) 0.70% Alphabet (GOOGL) 2.42% Intel (INTC) 1.24% Microsoft (MSFT) 2.21% IBM (IBM) 3.21% Meta Platforms (META) 3.60% America Online (AOL) 0.12% Tesla (TSLA) 0.51% Cisco Systems (CSCO) 0.11% Apple (AAPL) 0.31% Microsoft (MSFT) 0.09% NVIDIA (NVDA) 0.07% Metric (Group Average) 1999 Dot-Com Tech Leaders 2025 Magnificent Seven Average FCF Yield 0.95% 1.42% Average CapEx as % of Market Cap 0.88% 2.00% 1999 Dot-Com Tech Leaders: ~17.8% of the S&P 500 (Combined group market cap of ~$2.22 trillion against a total S&P 500 index market cap of ~$12.5 trillion) 2025 Magnificent Seven: ~34.3% of the S&P 500 (Combined group market cap of ~$20.97 trillion against a total S&P 500 index market cap of $61.1 trillion) [1, 2, 3, 4] So neither group has great numbers, but the latter group is twice the size as a % of the market. So if the pattern follows, the "market" should have a big downturn. Of course so many stocks hitting 52 lows, so by no means am I saying there's nothing to buy.

Perhaps I stand corrected, but just referring to say the largest 5-10 cos like MSFT, INTC, ORCL, etc vs the largest ones today. The capex was same (relative to fcf)? Didn’t realize CSCO’s capex was that high but it does make sense. I should’ve looked it up.

True but last time there was far less capex, at least amongst the largest companies

Mixed bag! You just need to be willing to aggressively trade the shorter term ones. Every now and then, Berkshire has a big up day, which justifies the low IV. And you can sell some puts, even longer dated ones, to help finance it. For the most part you’re losing or break even and then on any given day you make it all back and then some.

For fucks sake, why can’t he do this with FNMA/FMCC?

https://gothamist.com/news/lawmakers-plan-tax-on-nyc-cash-sales-as-hochul-details-pied-a-terre-plan So now the communists lowered the pied a terre tax threshold from $5 million to $1 million. And also a new tax on cash purchases of homes valued $1mn or more. And the tax is like 5% of the assessed value, which is about 45% of market value on average per Google. So if you own a $2mn 2nd home, assuming the tax value is $1mn, you will pay $50,000 per year in extra taxes, on top of property taxes. Do Hochul and Mamdani own shares in JOE or something?

Sorry for the blasphemy to all you value bros, but I’m thinking this is a bubble. There’s a misconception that bubble’s only exist when you can’t spot them, but that’s just not true. People saw dot com in 99, real estate in 07, etc. But what you never know is when it collapses, and it can go much higher in the interim. People say this isn’t like dot com because back then the earnings didn’t exist, whereas now the trillion dollar companies are selling for reasonable P/E ratios. However. as opposed to back then, there is hundreds of billions of capex and evaporating FCF. Are we really to believe that next 10 year ROIC or ROE for the the big tech firms will be nearly as amazing as last 10 years? Just, there are too many parallels to the tech bubble, but everyone notices that and therefore we assume it’s ok since bubbles are invisible. And yes we haven’t had a real stock market collapse since 09 and there have been many bubbles called since then, but that doesn’t mean this time it’s not the case. I’m not trying to short it because I can totally get my face ripped off doing so, but I did go long the VIX at 18. The semiconductor run up, the geopolitical situation, AI, and Trump, all seem to be potential matches that can drive the VIX to 30. But what do I know!