Gregmal

Definitely agree with you on that Cigarbutt. I have been very impressed with the discipline here. I had long thought the next acquisition would be a big tell for investors. Planer was at worst IMO a 5/10 with the potential to be better. What they paid seemed to be more in line with market rates vs stealing a few companies like they had done prior. But I've gotten very comfortable with Mr. Wolf and think it's clear at this point he is not just some dimwit kingdom builder. This still remains a top 3 position for me.

I'm not familiar with this kind of company but the numbers look interesting. How do you evaluate the risk of leasees not paying? What do you mean by leasees not paying? They do not have the model that relies on leasing. IIPR, which is basically in that line of business and is actually quite interesting as a REIT but not something I own or have gotten intimate enough with the expel certain question marks tackles this kind of stuff. AYR has the bulk of it's forward guidance hinged to its wholesale buildout. To date they've been successful with this and there is little to see why this can not continue. Demand is easily there and they produce basically at a $1400/lb rate with the market somewhere around $2800-$3000/lb. So they have stupid margins on this stuff with demand through the roof and really very few viable competitors on that scale AND existing relationships with about 65% of the MA businesses licensed to sell. The stock is crazy cheap on an absolute basis for ANY type of business, including even melting ice cubes and cigar butt stuff but when you then put into perspective that this is a hyper growth market with surrounding states likely legalizing in the near future(especially if blue states get more blue next election), and I think it solely comes down to walking the talk so to speak. I get it, this is the most disgusting and vociferously contested optical investment known to man. The post deal SPAC. So it's absolutely astute of investors to heed that. And maybe this time it's not different. My one internal assessment of risk is that I attribute the expectation of certain traits...ie relentless volatility and price declines during certain expected periods, as things that support the "why the opportunity exists" question, but also, are characteristics of other totally unrelated but more malignant signs of a different thesis... but that's what makes a market. All I know is if they hit numbers next year, or even just top $100M in EBITDA, this should be at least a double. Whereas if they miss by 50% you still can kind of justify the current share price quite easily. I think it's really just about doing what they are saying and so far have proven that they can do. Once its been shown, fundamentals will be valued in a more traditional way. Until then it carries the skull and cross bones of the putrid post deal SPAC...

Bingo. I thought too that $17.xx's started seeing more resistance so lightened up a bit. I still have the position as core, and overweight, but there's nothing wrong with keeping yourself flexible. If it rockets up further, I've got no qualms about making that money. If it pulls back, I'm pleased to have made some very quick, easy money on the trade and will happily redeploy with a more favorable value profile. I've said it a million times. I'm just trying to make money. I think $17.50-$18 is still easy money territory but longer term, if there's some pullback or consolidation below that after a run from $13.xx... I'm happy with my money and you can keep the "buy and hold value investor" badge....

Getting perky again. Borrow rate to short has gone from 28% a week ago to now over 70%. Up 10% today on just 200K shares volume.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3501960-pacific-biosciences-illumina-extend-merger-deadline-march-31-2020

Almost doubled my position in AYR. Possibly the best risk/reward and margin of safety Ive seen in a very long time. Now trading at basically 2.5x 2020 adjusted EBIDTA. Buyback starts October 1st.

Sold the last of my FNMA common

McDonalds to the rescue right before lockup! https://seekingalpha.com/pr/17644408-mcdonalds-tests-new-plant-based-burger-canada

Timing is everything(see today). If you're going to trade, rule number one is never give up a profit. Rule number two, if you make money too quickly, take it off the table before you become the victim of mean reversion.

If a tree falls in NYC does anyone hear it? TIMBER!!!

Lance, Appreciated, but I'm just a bag holder in this name for now... Although I will say, this is the first time Ive ever seen a post SPAC company commit to a buyback this quickly. Mr. Sandelman, I applaud your efforts.

Glad you made money my man, took half off the NFLX short as I do agree short term this might have played out. Longer term its still in trouble IMO. Rolled the proceeds into a small OPK short. This one is terminally ill and there is little that can save it.

Agree 100% with regard to downside and being overweight much of the RE stuff. I do wish they'd continue the buybacks here though, especially if they do see a meaningful revenue inflection point occurring in the next few years; borrowing say, $75-$100M a year for the next half decade to annihilate the share count would create a lot of value for shareholders and hardly put the company in an onerous position.

https://ir.ayrstrategies.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/21/ayr-strategies-announces-5-share-buyback-the-maximum How bout that shit?

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4293121-msg-networks-music-stopped Good article and great primer for less familiar investors. A few thoughts on what the author gets wrong... MSGN has been rumored to have been for sale for a while, but in reality... they were not allowed, unless willing to risk tax free spin status, to sell for 2 years following the spin. Pretty much the entire time after that, this bounced between $20-$25. I've heard things ranging from the ask was initially a 2014 YES multiple, which would have been near $50 per share, and more recently that nothing under $30 would have been entertained. So to say, why wouldn't anyone pay $24 is wrong(especially when accounting for EV which consisted of about $300M more debt). The better phrasing of this is whether Dolan will accept market price...Its logic bending to suggest that myriad bidders would pay for shit RSN's but passed on MSGN at the same multiple. It takes two to make a deal and the guy who owns it is mandatory in his participation for that to occur. I've long thought the closing of the Fox/DIS stuff would be a catalyst to get a deal done as it indisputably made a market for these assets. In the meantime, every company Ive seen who is setting up for a sale follows a similar but straight forward pattern. Buyback stock and reduce debt. Let them continue that, and IMO its only further upside if the teams get better, sports betting gets legalized to a greater extent, or they get new content deals with any of the major streaming providers. I think a single game ticket option would be tremendous. I've reduced about 25%(~4.75% now) on this as the position is margined and cheap or not, no longer trading at $13-$14 anymore. But there is a lot going for this at these valuations and my belief is that many of the potential fears and disruptions are really just temporary problems. Often a question I like to present myself is "what if the worst case scenario isn't really so bad?". I think that's a lot of the case here but the fear and clouds hanging over the sector distort consensus and thus valuations.

Question for those that follow it more closely than I... Have they completely ceased repurchasing stock? I just started nibbling again under $17, same idea really as my first entry, good for a quick 50c-$1 pop and if it goes lower gets into a nicer area to buy in more size and then flip on the way up for a few bucks. Share count IIRC was around 61M last year. Now only 60M. For a while these guys were taking out 10% or so per year.

Flipped some GRIF around $39 for JOE under $17

There was supposedly some quadruple witching or whatever today. I noticed quite a few companies, particularly RE ones that got massive volume surges in the last half hour or so of trading. Just from what I had on the watch list I noticed similar price or volume action in JOE, FRPH, CTO, TRC, GRIF in the last 15-30 minutes of trading. Don't know if its related or not but we'll see on Monday if there is follow through. Which other companies had massive volume surges in the last half hour? Lately, it feels like value is actually working.

Well sure. Traditional media scale and content is not equal to what Netflix is. If Netlix stops adding new content the majority of their subs will leave. Especially if you keep raising prices. Comcast and DTV at least have live and consistently new and original/desirable, content. NFLX does not without spending more money. The fact that their competitors(ATT owns DTV and also has WB+HBO for instance, DIS has 21 Century Fox) can either cut them out completely or extort them is problematic. I agree the AAPL product will be garbage. The point is, AAPL which has been slow AF to bring anything new to market now is launching streaming. So are others. This is just more competition for Netflix. If some of the staples in the traditional space have seen huge declines in their value ascribed by the customer(and Mr. Market) it is naive to think NFLX would be an exception. Frankly, given how large the gap is between pay TV packages like Comcast and Atice vs NFLX, there's a case to be made that this is where they should be at near peak earnings. Instead they trade and 100x or whatever and guess what...after years and years of fighting fate and sucking out profits from the traditional model(FWIW this is where autos are going as well IMO), now the big boys are coming for this space and undercutting them...but yea...they'll raise prices...without adding content/increasing spend, and their direct competitors will just continue to give them content.... Like I said, easy short here IMO, although perhaps I'm wrong. But what exactly are people even betting on here? That this is a $250B company? $500B? LOL WTF??? At those valuations you're basically betting on what? That they own 90% market share for all TV after finding a way to incorporate advertising revenue? With NO live content? No sports? This isn't a winner take all market and the comparisons to the dynamics of old cable are just as shoddy and the logic used by the big boys to put off dealing with NFLX for so long. It all comes down to content and if it were just about pricing then HULU would reign supreme. Being long is basically assuming they are the most valuable media/content provider in the history of the world. That their current market share of 60M subs or IDK like >50% US market share of all people with a tv will increase to 60%? While every established player with ownership of better content and more resources just sits there and lets it happen?

Yea I just dont see huge tolerance for price increases anymore as there are more legitimate alternatives now than ever before, whereas previously this was as simple as "I'm cutting cable and getting Netflix". Youtube I'd say is easily superior and has massive potential. Then the usual candidates like Hulu, plus now the new entrants like DIS and AAPL. So add in all of this and the assumption that content becomes harder/more expensive to acquire which will in turn lead to a lower quality catalogue...and yea, I can't see people continue to put up with prices hikes like they've been doing previously. The numbers last quarter were atrocious. I was further surprised to see how much debt they've racked up as well as its been a while since I looked at it after owning it a long time ago. Things will get more expensive all around, while pricing IMO is capped, with customers becoming harder to acquire...and harder to keep. $200 is generous.

There was supposedly some quadruple witching or whatever today. I noticed quite a few companies, particularly RE ones that got massive volume surges in the last half hour or so of trading.

Is this not one of the most obvious shorts right now? First, market cap severely limits pool of potential acquirers. Next, you've got cut throat competition with now formidable foes going live. Some of these same folks hold some very valuable content that would likely put Netflix at a disadvantage. Further, for third party content the cost of acquiring this will likely only be driven up. What's left? NFLX will have to piss away TONS of money on original content or pay top dollar for existing stuff. Is NFLX really cheap anymore? They've raised prices so much they're basically on par with HBO and only a couple bucks less then some streaming options for live TV. What sub growth is really left? Everyone I know agrees NFLX has gotten pretty stale. Numbers last Q to me were an obvious sign of a broken growth story. Heck, this even got the proverbial and ceremonious VIC writeup recently. Something I've noticed is another sign of the shift; when growth dies, and prematurely jumping in are "value" folks...still paying 100x earnings.

Do we have any way of knowing whether this arrangement will continue? The leagues are governed by the owners. So I can't imagine they would be changing anything seeing as how the owners typically own the TV rights to their teams and a very important way of monetizing that is through TV deals. Last thing they'd want is to undercut that.

I think offering this to out of network people is a good way to give it a trial run. There's NYers all over the country. People who likely don't haver it now and their only option is paying like $150-$200 for the packages offering all the games.

To my knowledge, the NBA package blacks out local network games. I thought the MLB ticket or whatever was the greatest deal ever until I realized it blacked out(for NY/NJ folks) Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, and any ESPN/nationally televised game. I am pretty sure the other leagues do the same.