What are you buying today?

[Spekulatius]

4 minutes ago, CafeB said:

AMBP -- beverage can pure-play -- significant growth investments with attractive returns

MDT -- pipeline delays limit near-term catalysts -- time arbitrage?

MSM

MSM looks a bit like a value trap to me. Gross profit has remained the same since 2016 and something starts to eat their relatively fat margins. I guess competition and transparency from online pricing is a problem for them and makes their business more competitive.

[boilermaker75]

writing JPM Dec 23 expiration puts, 147 and 152.5 strikes

[Red Lion]

Sold APTS April $15 PUTS. I'm already short the $15 calls and long $10 calls with the same expiration. I had thought about buying back the $15 calls for a loss and rewriting $17.50, but decided to take this approach instead to take advantage of time value decay. 

 

Put the proceeds from new options premiums into a few more shares of APO. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by RedLion

[boilermaker75]

On 12/16/2021 at 8:35 PM, fareastwarriors said:

more MSGE.

 

I wish MSGE traded weekly options.

[CorpRaider]

usb

[Broeb22]

23 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

MSM looks a bit like a value trap to me. Gross profit has remained the same since 2016 and something starts to eat their relatively fat margins. I guess competition and transparency from online pricing is a problem for them and makes their business more competitive.

A co. I know sells to all three major MRO distributors and the rep believes they are the least organized out of their competitors at growing our category. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Broeb22

[treasurehunt]

Bought a bunch of FRFHF and tendered the shares in my Fidelity IRA. The Fidelity rep confirmed that they will not withhold any taxes on the deemed dividend.

[Pelagic]

20 hours ago, boilermaker75 said:

 

I wish MSGE traded weekly options.

MSGE really has some wild volatility for what it is and premiums are surprisingly good. I've sold covered calls against my position opportunistically for the last few months and collected quite a bit of premium.

[Red Lion]

Bought BRK.B and APO in one of my taxable accounts. Both are now full position sizes for me based on cost basis.

[CafeB]

On 12/20/2021 at 4:01 PM, Broeb22 said:

all three major MRO distributors

I don't know how competitive MSM is with FAST and GWW outside of metalworking. Total market is large and fragmented. MSM management discusses "market share capture from the 70% of the distribution market that's made up of local and regional distributors"--toward a target of "at least 400 basis points of growth above the IP index by the end of our fiscal 2023"

[Kupotea]

Starter position in LMT

[NotSoWise]

More BABA, now a 4% position

[Gregmal]

Slightly ITM GLD leaps 

[LC]

2 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Slightly ITM GLD leaps 

What's the thinking? I agree it's looked cheap. Inflation + looking at crypto as the comp

[Gregmal]

27 minutes ago, LC said:

What's the thinking? I agree it's looked cheap. Inflation + looking at crypto as the comp

 Cliffnotes answer: so much that can go right and not a whole lot I see can go wrong.

 

Longer answer: money flow drives everything. people with cash and bonds will continue to get itchy and antsy as inflation becomes real and unavoidable. BTC and the like have shown people are fine with Kuppys project Zimbabwe toaster analogy. Gold at least has a few thousand years worth of human psychology backing its relevance as a store of value. Ive watched it for a while now and despite its poor performance, it does react well to inflation related data. Basically Bitcoin with erectile disfunction type trading though. To me it seems priced as though the expectation is that it will trade the way it has for the past decade. But then you look at other commodity related stuff. Nat gas, uranium, etc. The cycle of demand+speculators+predictable endings can be spectacular. 

 

So, something like the Jan 2024 $155 calls look good. IMO something has to give soon here and the next 12 months should let you know if the trade is good or not. Too much stuff in the space; iron ore or lumber for instance, the companies there are spring loaded and trading at 1-3x earnings because of the expectation this will dissipate but will have no choice to move soon if it doesnt. So your upside takes care of itself and if gold does 10% a year you basically double your money. You dont have think too hard to see a scenario where gold could double or do something nutty either. Gold has shown it can also do well in bad markets. So you have oh so many ways to win. Whereas downside wise? IDK, say it goes down 10% in the next 12 months you still have a good amount of time value on the options so there's some downside protection as well if you structure the trade right. Your skew is good and upside very levered. On top of this I'll disclose that historically I have absolutely hated gold and thought it was worthless. I still do kinda(as in Id much rather invest in other stuff), but the setup is definitely there if you connect the dots. 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Gregmal

[Longnose]

Opened a starter position in OESX

[kab60]

On 12/20/2021 at 6:27 PM, Spekulatius said:

MSM looks a bit like a value trap to me. Gross profit has remained the same since 2016 and something starts to eat their relatively fat margins. I guess competition and transparency from online pricing is a problem for them and makes their business more competitive.

Agreed. Don't they still have two HQ's? CEO seems like a joke.

[CafeB]

2 hours ago, kab60 said:

Don't they still have two HQ's? CEO seems like a joke.

Yes, Melville, NY (on Long Island) and Davidson, NC (outside Charlotte), the latter announced 6/2012 and opened 9/2013--presented as a matter of proximity to talent: www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/msc-announces-grand-opening-of-co-headquarters-in-davidson-nc-225069772.html

 

Would you be willing to elaborate on your impression of MSM CEO? I only know that he is a member of the family that controls the company. Thank you

[lnofeisone]

PTON starter paired with a sale of a covered call. 

[Spekulatius]

I bought some Jan. 2023 $50 Strike KWEB calls. Betting on a rebound for Chinese Internet stocks.

[kab60]

3 hours ago, CafeB said:

Yes, Melville, NY (on Long Island) and Davidson, NC (outside Charlotte), the latter announced 6/2012 and opened 9/2013--presented as a matter of proximity to talent: www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/msc-announces-grand-opening-of-co-headquarters-in-davidson-nc-225069772.html

 

Would you be willing to elaborate on your impression of MSM CEO? I only know that he is a member of the family that controls the company. Thank you

Been following for a handful of years as I like distributors but have been very un-impressed with execution (they've had a couple of CFO's) and hated how mngmt always tried to talk performance up despite years of falling margins. I think they could really use an external CEO to come in and take a hard look at everything. Two HQ's seems excessive, not least if you partly compete with frugal folks like Fastenal. Proximity to talent sounds like an awful excuse. Probably convenient for the CEO is more like it. But yeah, don't follow very closely. Take a look once in a while and things just doesn't seem to get better.

[no_free_lunch]

Sold AVB , apartment REIT, as it has run up 60+% over the past year and I just can't make the argument for it now.

 

Rolocated the funds to FRPH, so more real estate.  See the board posts on it but in short it appears well managed and at least reasonably priced.

 

 

[formthirteen]

1 share of HQI and SMLR (each).

Edited January 3, 2022 by formthirteen

[KJP]

Hill International

[formthirteen]

I bought back 9988. Let's hope Xi doesn't get too wild this time and that nothing related to 9988 upsets him or the CCP. I rate this stock as speculative because of the highly fragile egos and socialism. I also wonder why I haven't looked at the currency risk. Is there no such thing with HKD and China, maybe someone here knows? One china, one currency, long live the peg?

 

Added to EGBN and parked some cash in BANX.

Edited January 4, 2022 by formthirteen