Gregmal

https://ir.ayrstrategies.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/26/ayr-strategies-granted-final-license-approvals-for Wholesale gets the green light to expand production ~250% "Additionally, Ayr will be the first licensed cannabis company in the state to resume vape cartridge sales for its dispensaries and at the wholesale level beginning today, December 19, 2019." Full steam ahead. Probably one of my top 2020 ideas

I would add this useless but fun supplementary note on the WFC trade, relating to a scenario mentioned in terms of theoreticals... something Ive done once or twice with similar situations... should the stock somehow blow up($45 as I mentioned is a very powerful support level) you can always run it back so to speak and then go short the long dated $55 puts as well. I like scenarios where worst case is you own a quality company. A lot of my MSG exposure over the years has been rolling very deep in the money calls and shorting deep in the money puts.

sold a little TPL at 765 into the closing spike

I would think, if one should be so inclined, using this mini melt up as a chance to ambush this turd over the next 5-7 low volume, retail driven trading days would be a wise way to start dipping in to a short position here.

I am in total agreement. I bought MO $52.50 Jan 2020 Calls in late July of 2018 (equity was at $58) for a premium of $8. They went up slightly after purchase & then plummeted along with the equity. If I would've just bought the equity, I would've been able to hold on for what will probably hopefully be a gain over the next few years. I also bought MO $50 Jan 2021 Calls in late Nov of 2018 (equity was at $53 BTFD) for a premium of $7.50. I have watched a similar but less drastic drop in these options & a slight recovery since. If I'm lucky the 2021 Calls will get me close to breakeven on the option debacle. I was trying to replicate my luck years before with Edwards Lifesciences Calls, where the options nearly paid for my equity. This was an expensive, but not debilitating, lesson & I believe that from now on I'll leave the long Call trading to the experts. Not every situation is right. Especially with a big dividend player like MO, with that type of premium and only a 6% floor(53 spx - 50 strike) puts you at a disadvantage. Ideally you want as little premium as possible. The $45 WFC calls are about $9 vs a $53.7 spx. If it goes up your pretty much getting 1 for 1 returns vs having to calculate for premiums and whatnot. If it goes down, then you still, and also beneficially, have some protection, IE if it went to $45 your $9 call would be greater than 0 assuming its a short term move and a longer dater option.

Not to sound like RuleNumberOne, but theres not too much to be high conviction on here, right now, when the market is going up .5% every day. I expect WFC to rally a few bucks into the January earnings. I retain the option to maintain a position thereafter via the calls, but have some flexibility in between without a big capital outlay. Theres worse things to own than a small bit of WFC

Hopefully the new CEO won’t do write downs, like many new CEOs like to do. Yeah, or set the future bar low, so he can easily jump over it. FWIW, I don’t like banks right now - potential for lower NIM and higher loan losses. Greg, why the 45s? Just leverage ? A few reasons, women similar to what Dynamic stated. First, it is leverage, yes. Second is that $45 is where you had all that support during the worst of times right after the account opening scandal. If it held there, then, it would take one hell of a meltdown to take it below there on a short term basis. It hasn't done anything the past month or so; my hope is that something will give. The big banks are still modestly inexpensive and reasonably high quality. So there could be some catching up to do, especially with Wells. I dont entirely anticipate holding it through earnings. We've got a nice runway until then. One of the easiest and most repeatable trades ever was buying Apple a few weeks before earnings and then flipping it the day of, between 2012-2014 it worked like clockwork. You could always still hold, especially if you get yourself a big enough cushion. So basically, with the $45s, I have enough leverage where a move of a few bucks up can work, but enough of a cushion where if it doesnt do anything or goes down a bit, I can always just exercise the call and hold the position. In which case I own WFC- theres worse things in the world. AND if there is such a scenario where the $45 mark comes into question, then it'll obviously be something extraordinary, in which case having the position on will likely prompt me to dig into the potential opportunity much more thoroughly than if I just had it on the potential watch list with a gazillion other companies, while at the same time still limiting my losses.

Bought a few WFC $45 calls. Looking for a run into earnings.

PACB, HHC, 700.hk

Just my 2c from NJ, but Fedex is typically lower quality 1099 people at a surprisingly high cost. UPS is premium, and USPS is reliable enough and cost effective. I’d love for this to be one of those once a year type blue chip panic attack no brainer investments...aka CVS, NXPI, AXP, JPM... but there's just so much bad about this business I can’t get there yet, nor am I sure I ever will. The only thing that allows these to work is the duopoly like market dynamic. And even with that it’s questionable and still resembles the bastard child businesses most of us typically avoid.

Well, now the FTC... stick a fork in her.... continued government arrogance...Perhaps they could use one of these stupid green energy programs to buy PACB for $8.... since its apparently so friggin promising.

This is just another mousetrap with value investors as the target audience. Its basically PLUG but for more intelligent folks who need a little bit more effort to be tricked into parting with their money.

Ya but if I'm understanding him right thepupil's whole point is shorting bonds and shorting stock are two different games. Your downside is capped with bonds unlike with the equity. Thats probably the right way to play it. Perhaps even hedge a bit more by going long a small fraction % of shares relative to the bond.

And to boot, most the people shorting GME in 2012 or so were also likely shorting Best Buy. Like has been said plenty of times, shorting is not really a great game to play. The deck is stacked, and while I doubt anyone is ever able to put together an honest study, I'd wager you're better off going to the casino than shorting.

Good things happen when you go to the front of the net...voila

I'm in Northern NJ, so probably a little different than the Westchester/White Plains area, but similar characteristics. I haven't noticed or heard much about the rent control effects, but 10000% have seen the impact of SALT. Any home over $500K is impaired. Which is not to say it doesnt move, but you've seen a major slowdown with anything in that price range and up. Especially the McMansions. The machine looks like it will keep moving, but is taking time to digest the fact a lot of buyers are leaving the market. By me(Morris/Sussex/Warren Counties) you're basically able to buy homes that several years ago were $700-800k for high 500s/low-mid 600s. A $500K home in this area carries about a $17K+ annual property tax bill. Which for my rentals, works great, because its increased the demand for the lower tier properties. And also given me a speculative angle to acquire more properties with the eventual assumption that Washington repeals the $10K SALT deduction limit. Bergen County, for the most part, has slightly lower taxes, but that $800k-$1.2M range has gotten whacked. I would think the closer to NYC you get, the less obvious the effect, but its still there. And on a side note, regarding really low end, my brother in law was recently telling me about owning/operating trailer park rentals in Florida...the returns would blow your mind....

It all depends but Ill typically look at 15-20% LTV. My objective is to maintain a reasonable(and stable, meaning I keep buying semi regularly) allocation to this stuff but not allocate too much of my cash to it. So maybe in one instance I'll do 15% with a 15 year mortgage and after 12 months the PMI falls off and I get a favorable tax reassessment and year two my numbers look much better. Or in another I'll just do a traditional 30 yr knowing my payments will be nothing and eventually Ill get the taxes dropped 15% and a tenant in there on a 2-3 yr term and just throw the extra cash back against the principal. My first one I bought in my mid/late 20s was as follows $140K purchase price 20% down @4.875 rate, total nut about $1100 + $335 HOA 2 weeks to find tenant @1575 per month(first year I own the unit I try to stay 1yr or less on term so I can feel things out better and line up future tenants) appealed taxes and dropped assessed value from $165k to $145k 5 years or so later they're selling maybe mid $160s, rents are ~$1700, monthly mortgage is a hair under $1100 and HOA is $344. Typically Ive been able to find tenants within 7-14 days. Longest it ever took was about a month, but my pricing was aggressive. Ive found lowballing your ask on the rent is useful because it creates a rush of demand. You can then instruct your agent to either have a bidding war or negotiate a longer term multi year lease at the ask with higher quality prospects. But that is also out of the gate after taking ownership. As bizaro said, once someone is in there, its easy to show the place once you have 30-60 days notice. What I'd point out, as a born and raised Bergen County guy and life long NJ/NY area fellow, is that what Bronx/Brooklyn/Queens etc benefit from on a hyper growth scale, the suburbs do too in a much more subdued fashion. I remember playing hockey up by the Pallisades in the mid 90s and driving through Mahwah NJ. It was basically farmland and considered the boondocks. Today its multi million dollar homes. Oakland and Hawthorne were for poor people. Now they're $600K for a 3/2 1500 sq ft home. Its the NYC worker drift. That band of commuters to Bergen County and NYC keeps getting pushed out. Further down 80 and 287. I know people who commute to NYC from Hackettstown and even parts of PA. So the area I live/invest benefits from that and also having a great school system. Always buy the lowest cost admission ticket to the best show in town. People will always need a place to live, people will always aspire to live in nice neighborhoods, parents will always want the best schools for their kids, and old people will always want to hang around but downsize. I want nothing to do with traditional single family. The cost, whether financial or time wise of having to do something as simple as mow a lawn once a week is a major pain in the ass. Let alone the real shit. Roofing is a nightmare. So are many other major things that as a homeowner I dread and dont want any part of when managing my properties(Plus a good HOA manager will get community discounts for those services as well). Again, I dont try to do anything heroic; I started simply figuring I'd throw low 5 figures into something and hope it paid for one of my kids college tuition. But like anything else where theres money to be made I got addicted when I saw it work.

From that, I'll just point out the following.... 100% of the outcome will be determined by these few things. 1. What boxes are checked on your investment objective profile you filled out? 2. How long did you hold the investments in question? 3. What type of trading arrangements(if any) do you have for the account? Did you consent to purchasing those securities? If you've been with this advisor for a while, had lets say "speculation" as your IO, held the stocks in question for several months or more, and gave the OK to purchase them, Im sorry to say, but you're wasting your time pursuing this. If you have Income/preservation of capital checked for IO, bought the securities a few weeks/maybe months ago, had a discretionary arrangement, and no knowledge of the purchases, then you've got a pretty good case. Usually things are somewhere in between. I'd also add, go to the firms compliance first. Dont go to FINRA. The reason is simple. The firm is 1000% required to disclose any written customer complaint to FINRA. And you can always go to FINRA later. But should they rebuff you, and then later on it is disclosed that they never disclosed the complaint to FINRA, thats just another instance of wrongdoing and negotiating chip in your corner. Quanitify the amount of alleged damages as well. Anything over $5000 they must update on their BrokerCheck profiles.

As follows 1br $1600-1700(towards the lower end you can take your pick of high quality tenants with 700+ credit scores), HOA $330-$350, taxes ~$4700, market value currently ~$160K per(pre 2008 sales where mid 200s) 2br $2200-2400(same as above wrt tenant quality) HOA $400 or so, taxes $6500, market value currently around $250-270k (pre 2008 300s) Here's the reason those numbers work though.. theres ZERO market for $3000 per month and up rentals here. So under $2500 and especially $2000 per month is super competitive. This is just a specific community I have multiple properties in, but by and large those numbers are in the ballpark for what I look for. Again I would reiterate that the way I am investing in the stock market, I need to be consumed by it and its heavily taxing mentally. So with these, Im not looking to have ridiculous returns, but simply have something simple that takes care of itself and does better than the passive 3-5% I'd get elsewhere putting in no effort. I also try to stay disciplined and avoid concentration risk. I'd like to get a few mil face value of properties; ie something that spits off a decent chunk of cashflow, but also something that is reasonable enough in size to offload to a local HNW investor if I ever wanted liquidity and found selling more attractive than the alternatives.

Gregmal, can you elaborate at all on this? Do you tend to buy homes, townhouses or apartment style condos? Do you rent the whole unit out or split it up? I tend to stick to condos. Its incredibly useful x-ing out many of the traditional home owner problems. Roof, siding, decks...not my issue. Everyone pays in and then you also get the added property manager benefit. It also helps when you have relationships within the community(for instance I had the old, underperforming property manager fired and brought in my choice for a replacement). For me, it is a must to have knowledge of the area and reliable vendors. Good HVAC people are money in the bank. A sub $50 an hour handyman; gold. Perhaps I'm just biased because of where I live, but Ive found the sweet spot for renting in being in an area that is fringe. Closer to big cities you have rower rents relative to purchase price. Too rural and your rents are a tad higher(on a % basis) but you won't ever really get appreciation. So stay in between. Sweet spot IMO is 1-2br floor units in good areas. Good for old people with accessibility issues(ie stairs), great for divorced people in transition, and good for small families looking to get into a good school system.

Stealthily this has basically traded to the 52 week high(incorporating the 50c dividend). There's no shares to be had under $40...Ive been fucking around with bids and outside of a few tiny odd lot fills there is just nothing to be had. One tiny little spark should get this into a new and higher trading range. As far as investments go, this is one of maybe 3-4 things still unequivocally attractive right now IMO.

Yes, that was in 2008. I remember that time well. I had just started a short in WFC when a few days later the short selling bann was announced and the stock gapped up like 20% although it closed at a smaller gain that day. There was a long list of stocks on the do not short list that were considered financials and much confusion whether one needed to close these (one didn’t). I closed it at the end of the day, which cost me some. the whole thing just goes to show how shorting can go bad, even if the thesis is wrong - the whole outcome is extremely path dependent. I basically gave up on this at that point end just occasionally buy puts (mostly index puts) if I feel like hedging. That s basically it though. And just one of the many problems with shorting. Shorting isn't a fundamental trade. Fundamentals are like 25% of the equation. Theres a lot of other stuff that weigh more on the success or failure that many people dont realize. Look at Beyond Meat or Peloton and how many people mistake a crazy valuation for a no brainer short, short it, lose money, and then end up being right much further down the road. In theory, its a great tool to have. I still do short, just with a much, much, more narrow scope and set of rules. But it's such a tough game to play and you can be 100% right about your thesis and still get killed. I dont doubt there are some that are great at it. I know a few guys who are very decent at it. I just find it interesting to highlight Chanos, because he's the best, and even he struggles. If the best short seller on Wall Street cant consistently make money that says all you need it to. The guys Ive found have beat the odds are the Citron's, Muddy Waters, etc... who do their work and then go public/activist and then trade their own noise.

No I have never been a part of one, but as an advisor, I can tell you how to get it going. The easiest step would be to email compliance@ the firm with your complaint. They MUST document these when received in writing. What is the nature of your alleged complaint? In many cases, the firms will offer to settle if there is any wrong doing. If you can not agree to settle, then the arbitration process will be next. Although often arbitration is a pain and there s a lot of grey areas where you may think you were harmed but nothing happened that technically broke the rules. You also end up paying lawyers quite a bit of money. So it s important to make sure your case is valid, and that its worth pursuing from a time and money perspective. And like I said, often, the firms will just look to settle it. I know several dudes who own firms that describe paying fines as just another cost of being in the biz. Sad but true.

Theres always the sales spin...but at the end of the day -5% annually is -5%. Thats like saying the batter who hits .205 is an All Star because he does it standing on his head and swinging with one arm... Many of the comments, while initially you contesting what was said, confirm it. Such as... "Chanos's fund is sold as a short fund as part of an overall portfolio right?" Yes, its sold as a product. Thats basically how everything on Wall Street works. Regardless of its efficiency or value. Some snake in a fancy suit with a nice watch searching for OPM to charge fees on; and always a story to tell about the product they sell so they can upgrade to a fancier corner office...As I said earlier, institutions and hedge funds line up, because now they can market themselves as diversified long/short strategy...a nice gimmick. So to the parts earlier about smoothing out volatility. Who cares about volatility? Well, WS folks like to tell scary stories to their clients and if the volatility boogey man gives them an angle, they do it. But being scared of volatility while investing in the stock market is kind of dumb. Give me a zig zag chart that gets from left to right or a slow moving straight line that gets there but 5% annually less.... not sure how one views 5% less annually as more attractive. Im not saying short selling is pointless. But generally speaking its a bad idea and a waste of time and ultimately money. Its like home insurance except when your house burns down only get like 20% of the value of your home back. Look at all the short guys like Einhorn and how they did in 2008...or even the guys like Chanos or Paulson who beat the odds and made a lot of money, but then spent the next decade sucking wind and paying for their bearish. Idk but if you've ever shorted before as you indicate you have, you'd know this. Chanos's VRX bet for instance. He started shorting in the $60's...spent multiple years paying borrow rates that fluctuated between 10-50% annually. He likely had multiple instances of having to hedge or reposition his trade. And then years later, after nearly quadrupling! it goes to $20. How much money did he really make on an absolute basis? Probably not much. Certainly not enough to warrant all the research, trading, carry costs, etc. But good marketing material when it went down and now he could be labeled "the guy who called VRX"...very good marketing and good enough to bring in a new slug of fee earning OTM. Which is what its all about.

Everything you guys have said above is true. Shorting is just not a very practical way to make a return. It sounds great, and the truth is that most professionals who say they do it, do so because its a nice marketing sell. But the emotional investment required to do it, the time, and the deck stacking against you, just completely wipes out any benefit over the long haul. There is a reason Jim Chanos, who since inception has LOST MONEY ON A NET BASIS(IIRC he's around -5% annually) is still in business. Who keeps him in business? Other funds who want to be able to claim they are "long/short".... funny world.