Gregmal

Further, largely because of regulation but other reasons as well, you're swimming against the tide here. When almost every company in a sector is cheap, Ive found you're most likely going to have to put up with underperformance because the cheapness is sector wide and unless you have a very specific, company related catalyst, you'll just move with the current. I mean C is cheap. So is BAC, WFC, etc, etc. In fact the only one that isn't really cheap is JPM, and thats arguably the one you'd want to own. Theres better alpha elsewhere.

Used all that analyst excitement as an opportunity to buy some PTON puts.

Off topic : +LLY 105 [<- Just sayin' [ ; - ) ]] -Back to topic. Back office topic! What position would you rather be in as a company? Having a product with a TAM of everyone, where they all love your product and many buy new ones at 35%+ margins every two years and then fluff your bottom line with add on purchases.... or...... having a product with a TAM of everyone but people hate your products, only need them when in dire straights or facing potentially deadly circumstances, and buy them largely through subsidizations and price reducing programs...all of which are currently, and likely to continue to be, squeezed. Interesting question. Not sure of the answer, but I'd rather be Apple than all the others combined.

I personally don't really see the point of looking at other CVR's, as every CVR is completely different in terms of setup. Even those tied to pharma deals are not all that similar to each other. Some are nearly guaranteed to payout, others are nearly guaranteed not to pay out. What would a general approach tell you? Potentially nothing. It's just data, from which you can perhaps draw some conclusions or get comfortable making a few assumptions. Biotechs are notorious for being quite liberal with their data. This includes big companies making acquisitions. I mean Pfizer did a $300M deal with Opko for completely useless stuff. All I know is I wouldn't be comfortable buying a perennial turd with a history of failure, share issuance, and although small, regulatory risk, for 5% and a small shot at a buck or two. CVR's in certain cases are just window dressing. In certain cases they are not. Given the above mentioned discription of ACHN, I'd be hesitant. I hope everyone makes money through. Pupil, now that is an awesome trade idea if the setup is there!

Not sure if this applies to your case, but often times with foreign securities, the broker will have to do currency conversions or cross exchange transactions, in which they mark up your securities. So if you put in an order at say, 11.02, its not going to work, vs 11.04 perhaps that covers the currency exchange, plus the purchasing of the shares(or taking from inventory) and placing an ADR in your account.

I dont think looking at the CVR's like that is the best way. From my quick glance, these are binary and non-tradable(correct me if I'm wrong there). I dont think this has issues with FDA, but I look at the $6.30 number as my expected return, and if you figure q2 2020, I'm not excited about a maybe 5%. But back to the CVR's, I dont know if it s available or not, but a better way of approaching probability IMO would be to look at other CVR's over a timeline, maybe the past 5-10 years. These companies know the probabilities better than the average investor, and would almost certainly nail down figures to a better probability outcome than "X out of 100 typically get approved". From my recollection(and its purely going off memory) not too many CVR's have really produced great outcomes for shareholders(so again, I'd be curious if there is any info tracking them). Typically, they are thrown in to a deal to help sell it better to shareholders. I'd be curious, and maybe over the weekend will look at it, but what type of packages do ACHN management get for change in control? Ive always viewed this as a semi floundering company that existed most for the purposes of getting investors excited enough to bid up the stock only to drop secondaries on them. So alignment of interests may also be a helpful gauge. Just my 2c.

Started a little TPL.

covered a portion of the NFLX short from yesterday

I dont necessarily think that is accurate. These things dont trade at discounts because people can't figure out a rough idea of what the aggregate pieces are worth; they trade at discounts because participants doubt that there is a way to unlock that value. The buck stops with management, for better or worse. Especially when you have this kind of ownership concentration. To that effect, if you look at companies that have worked on such types of transformations, you'll see that often it takes a very long time for this to bleed through. And then still, when you look at the total return, and compare it against what a plain old index or even peer group did during that time, its arguable as to whether anything was actually unlocked vs simply just doing what everything else did. The only two things Ive seen disrupt big discounts are either corporate actions, or, management making a series of undeniably shareholder friendly capital allocation decisions. Separately, I am curious as to why the have they Lexington Ave office? From the little Ive gandered, it doesn't appear to be a full floor, so its likely less than $100K a year vs $100K a month in expense, but they dont have any property in NYC or even close, so why is this necessary? Unless Im missing something.

My take on the above is that yea, there are some noted similarities displayed with the industrial market vs the self storage market. Think of it as institutional self storage. So I wouldn't be shocked if there are periods of oversupply and exuberance with regard to building, and then subsequent market shakeouts or resets...part of this is why I dont really care for the idea of these guys going into Orlando. Stick with what you know and where you have resources. Dont become that incremental exuberant that gets in at the wrong time. But still, even if thats the case, I really dont care because you're not paying a whole lot anyway. There are a lot of instances with companies like this were the "what if something bad happens" scenario actually becomes a catalyst for something good. At 50% of NAV and a pretty confident inkling that downside in the worst cases in maybe 20-25%? I can live with this as a side piece in the margin account until dust settles or something stirs it up.

added back into NFLX short

As if the current business ventures weren't one of the biggest wealth transfer pits with regards to management teams transferring shareholder resources to their pockets, dirtbag seems to have found the only area in the world with greater potential for such wealth transfers! Oil and Gas!

I think Gabelli and/or the family overhang is overrated. Much like with Winters and his stake, when he sells, he sells. Its doesn't effect the IV, just the market value on a temporary and usually very brief basis; something those patient with with open time horizon can actually take advantage of. However the flip side to that is your risk of unknowingly transferring ownership from one shareholder with a very long holding period and mediocre IRR, to another future long term shareholder with a mediocre IRR---if you get my drift. Thats where there needs to be some caution. BG- if I were in your shoes in regards to position size(you never know, I may join you soon here!) I would press these guys very hard to at the least, withdraw the ATM. Its a very bad look and if they're not using it, why have this unsightly blemish? It's an easy way to make a goodwill gesture to the market. And yea, these things take a while, thats an understatement. Even the ones everything thinks will be quick, and by all accounts should be, take forever, cough NYRT.....thankfully I never bought it. Too much of a real estate value guy consensus it seemed, to me at least. I need some hair/controversy/uncertainty to get happy about something. GRIF has that.

True up to some point. I think there's a difference though. If you look backwards at Berkshire there is not only history of good returns, but also a history of solid decision making and closing on savvy deals. In hindsight you can analyse what Buffett did and conclude: his thoughts on Geico, See's Candy, Coca Cola, American Express, Bank of America, BNSF, his hedge fund bet, etc. were spot on (and, in all fairness, not so spot on with Berkshire, Kraft, ..). But I think all in all history suggests that Buffett is a great investor, which would suggest future outperformance is perhaps possible. You still have to judge for yourself whether he is getting senile or not, whether he can generate alpha with such a large capital base and what will happen when he dies. But I think there is some predictive value in his track record. And if he starts dry humping Becky Quick on CNBC you can think "he's losing his mind" and sell your shares (though did he really lose it? Maybe he's just faking it). On the other hand, if you look at a graph and say: "I could have bought BAC at $22 and sold at $24 a few times", is there any predictive value in that? Why would it work in the future? Why would it be a more profitable strategy than buying at $22.50 and selling at $23.50? Or, even more extreme, than buying at $22.90 and selling at $23.10? Or than buying and holding? If the strategy stops working after a few months, should you be patient or adjust your price levels? Can you explain when and why the strategy works? Can you explain when and why it stops working? If you make the roundtrip a few times, are you simply lucky or are you a good investor? Maybe there are answers to these questions, but I don't think Cardboard has them. I for sure don't have them. Not saying you can't make money the second way. Just saying that I prefer situations where I can explain beforehand why I expect to make money, and where I can explain afterwards whether my thought process was correct. That way I can hopefully avoid making repeat mistakes. And it gives me a (tiny) bit of confidence if something blows up in my face. I get what you're saying but its not really intended to be an endorsement of "its done this before so it will do it again". Its really just a way to enhance returns while remaining flexible with liquidity to fit a trading range or area high probability entry/exit point into a larger thesis. Its not really worth doing this sort of stuff if you wouldn't want to own the security longer term, for starters. From there, I suppose the best way to summarize it is that you're taking a position at a point where short and long term value converge and either a) looking to generate an above average short term IRR, or b) build into a position at a favorable long term valuation. So short term, $199 has proven favorable for BRK as a trading point. Longer term, provided nothing crazy occurs, $199 is a good value as well. This convergence dissipates probably around $210 for the time being. Viking does it quite often. A lot of people dont like this because its something you have to see with your eyes and then make a judgment call on rather than throw it into a spreadsheet at stare at it...

I for one would like to point out that people talking about previous BRK performance are talking about things that are backward looking and based on hind site. Which is funny because Cardboard just posted "The Perfect Trade" topic(which wouldn't you know it, just worked again) and there were a bunch who took issue with it for the same reasons.... Personally I think looking backward and using hind site is incredibly relevant to forward assumptions, so I'm not sniding that...just the inconsistency amongst some, which frankly I think comes down to people differentiating trading(taboo) vs investing(THA ONLY WAY!), or failing to do so...IE its not ok to be backward looking and base a trade off hind site, but if you are investing, it is;...FALSE. If we dont learn from history, we are bound to repeat it. Patterns repeat themselves, the trend is your friend. Theres a million sayings similar to those that correctly deserve to be heeded. Its also important to note that trading patterns based largely off of psychological factors and purely technical market forces and a certain security, BRK for instance, outperforming, are probably more closely related to each other than many realize.

HTL

ESGR

Little more GRIF. Feeling like $36 is the new $35.

Just like real meat, its bleeding red! Relevant to investing, it amazes me how often(in the last year or so especially) so many of these types of companies hold their obscene trading prices until just a few weeks before the lockups expire. An odd inefficiency of the market. Perhaps also just a sign that short sellers have been burned out by the raging bull.

Greg, what's your time horizon here? -If you think carefully about it, really! - what does then matter -real long term? John, I like to think of my time horizon as forever....however...forever doesn't last forever. I could wake up tomorrow and not need the cash, I could wake up and need the cash, or I could not wake up at all. Thats true for every day for the rest of our lives! I think as investors we need to be realistic about what we expect but also mindful that consistent returns are better than inconsistent ones, and that compounding early and regularly do more for us than later and greater in amount. Ive owned a little BRK since January because I see the value, but I also cant help but think of the security as a product at this point, more so than a business like BAM for instance. Its probably a lower beta SPY or something like that, which is good. If your investment objectives are preservation of capital and probably willing to take on risk somewhere between a junk bond fund and an index fund, I think it's great. You're not going to lose your nest egg here, but if you're looking to compound at an average to above rate with consistency, I just dont see it here. I also think if you have certain rate hurdles or expected returns, it might leave something to be desired for quite a while. I've detailed my thoughts on the Buffett overhang, and at this point, I'm mainly just a fish swimming by a feeding frenzy to take a look, rather than dive in to the crowd. I'd like to see certain things happen first, which I've also detailed prior. I just dont think people are being intellectually honest when they derive some of these excuses when at the same time, we're talking about a guy who was so obsessed with making money that he neglected his wife and kids in ways he now regrets, BY ACCIDENT! He still buys food from the MCD's dollar menu! So to claim he's willfully leaving dollar bills all over the street is insanity to me. I wish he would still go with his gut. You can tell he still has it to a degree. But I dont like thats he s obviously holding back, and that he hasn't really been forthright about why.

Ive long wasted my time investigating the same question. Ive settled on a simple answer. Divide your allocation by two and buy both. The only relevant fundamental info Ive heard against BX is that you aren't exactly aligned with Schwartzman and the original partners through the BX security. But Ive heard many make similar argument with other securities as well. Both are compounding machines capable of being what Berkshire once was.

Got my 50c in a few weeks out of JOE, so back into GRIF. Also sold 80% of my MPC from May

Fireworks in the warehouse today huh?

Thats why I used Costco. But its not about a specific name. It s about the oddity of, his macro outlook has actually been pretty spot on, but his investing style has been flaccid and completely contradicts what's he is saying. If he thinks what he thinks(ie at worst fairly valued and at best wildly undervalued...) he really can't find ANYTHING! to invest in? Especially companies he's pointed out as having missed but admires, like GOOG which was at $1000 not to long ago or Costco? Let alone myriad others? Theres something off. IMO its because he's selfishly invested in the idea of one last giant elephant hunt. But thats just my opinion and it could be any number of other things, which as a shareholder I dont like.

GRIF