Gregmal

For starters on the triple net stuff, O and NNN are basically the models. In regards to the questions on performance in a recession/bad market, look at the above two during the market swoons going back a few years or check the tape the next time we have a 500 point selloff. They largely resemble and have bond like characteristics and an important metric to observe is % of investment grade tenants. I personally hate replacement value as a metric. It’s bullshit and I get skeptical of management teams that tout it as an excuse for an acquisition. Go check out the massive Toy R Us headquarters replacement cost vs actually sale price. It’s on a beautiful piece of land, but what the fuck do you do with buildings of that size when your only tenant leaves? Burn a lot of money repositioning it, that’s what.

Theres ultimately a responsibility for people in charge to deliver. GM has not performed on the only metric import to investors, basically since its IPO. We can debate whether Barra could have done things differently, but the bottom line is that GM has resisted investors and preached the "we're a rock fundamentally" stuff kind of as an excuse for not doing things the way many have suggested that perhaps they should. So to now, potentially not even have THAT! which doesn't matter if the stock performs(look at FCAU for a while for instance), its pretty damning. When I go to a restaurant with a celebrated executive chef, I expect the food to be good. If it comes out terrible, I don't care what the process was, or how "we did everything the right way"...its about delivering a result and if you are going to fight your shareholders and do things your way, you damn well better deliver on what you're preaching. Which was a fortress balance sheet and long term value creation. Mary has done neither. Gregmal - I can understand your frustration as I'm guessing you've held shares for several years. I've only been a shareholder since 2018. I feel that the intrinsic value of the stock has climbed over the past several years versus the current stock price to a point where I pulled the trigger last year. I think she has done a reasonable job. I too would like to see an increase in buybacks, but it seems like you're basically saying that she has failed because the stock price has not delivered. I agree with you that the stock price performance has been poor but I believe that a re-rating is on the horizon (which is why I own the stock) - and probably more likely after a recession which will prove out and show the changes that Barra has made. I'm pleased with the strategic moves (ditching unprofitable international operations for example) and operationally what she has done. I'm hoping that she holds strong against the Unions since I believe in free-markets. Theres ultimately a responsibility for people in charge to deliver. GM has not performed on the only metric import to investors, basically since its IPO. We can debate whether Barra could have done things differently, but the bottom line is that GM has resisted investors and preached the "we're a rock fundamentally" stuff kind of as an excuse for not doing things the way many have suggested that perhaps they should. So to now, potentially not even have THAT! which doesn't matter if the stock performs(look at FCAU for a while for instance), its pretty damning. When I go to a restaurant with a celebrated executive chef, I expect the food to be good. If it comes out terrible, I don't care what the process was, or how "we did everything the right way"...its about delivering a result and if you are going to fight your shareholders and do things your way, you damn well better deliver on what you're preaching. Which was a fortress balance sheet and long term value creation. Mary has done neither. I agree I am overreacting a bit. I just have great disdain for management teams that get paid a great deal, and then don't deliver. My frustration isn't so much the share price. While its been poor, I can live with that if management is creating long term value. But assessing "long term value" is very tricky and hard to judge at times. My main gripe here, using the restaurant analogy, is if you have a guy in the kitchen, and he refuses to do anything other than bake cakes, but is known for making a heck of a cake, he better consistently deliver one hell of a fuckin cake. Barra has been all about solidifying the balance sheet and preparing for the next down turn. Just the other day I was laughing about Ford getting downgraded to junk. It would appear, at least to some, that we arent too far off from that either, and that's the issue. The one area where Mary has tried diverting our attention to, in order to thwart taking other obvious actions, is the balance sheet. So there shouldn't even be a debate about whether the company deserves a junk rating. Your disdain for GM is very much the stock price. That's been clear since day 1. Now, if you provided management guidance and actual results compared to consensus expectations (i.e. quantitative data for long term performance instead of qualitative thoughts), I would have something to go on. Even qualitatively such as capital allocation has quantitative factors; even so, I find it confusing how one could complain about how GM de-risked Cruise, spread management out to focus on distinct, yet Key business drivers, and how it has maintained a balance sheet to withstand two years of a harsh recession. But hey, again, it's "not" the stock price. edit: cleaned up last section of paragraph. If that's how you want to interpret this, be my guest. I'll play that game, with a few questions for you. As a long time holder of BX, or AAL, I can attest to having patience with underperforming shares if management is firing on all cylinders; even if the CEO is a putz on conference calls(Dougie Parker) or the company refuses to buyback stock(BX). The share price is in certain ways a function of capital allocation...Where have the buybacks been? Why even when the company was buying back stock, were they regularly paying high 30's and then all of a sudden refusing to repurchase meaningful amounts of stock when shares declined to the mid/very low 30's? EPS has increased substantially over the past few years; why no dividend increase? Tons of money has been spent on R&D. What IRR projections have they given on these investments? All Ive seen is "we're an auto company hardy har har and times are a changing so we need to have EV's"... Why if Ms. Poppins has been so dedicated to the balance sheet do we now have the credit rating stand at the mercy of a corrupt Union? What exactly is she waiting for to IPO Cruise? I agree Barra has made some great moves. But she's also been helped quite a bit by the macro situation and GM as a whole is largely in good shape because all of its debt was wiped out. Quite different than a company like Ford. If we wanted to own a junk grade auto company its a no brainer to just go with FCAU. By the way, remember this chicks response to the FCAU merger? We're merging with ourselves???? I was against the merger as well at the time, but in hind site both Mary and I clearly got that one wrong. And oh yea, when's the last time Ms. Barra bought a share in the open market? How much of the company does the Board own? Thanks EDIT: oh yea, and since day 1? I wasn't even a member here the day I first purchased GM stock. Bit I guess that was clear....

I bought some Jan 2021's ranging from $50-$100 strikes. Its basically a 2-3 month trade idea. I think the lockup easily takes 25% off the share price. The thinking goes, yea... straight short you're paying 175% neg borrow which can be yanked at any time and the rate can and likely will go up. Shorter dated puts are insanely expensive and a sucker bet. 2021s that are out of the money that far are only pricing in time value. Ive got like 16 months til expiration and if 2-3 expire, there s still a whole lot of time value likely for those options which still have a good chunk of value whether the stock goes up, down, or sideways. But if I'm right, and we get a 20-30% or greater move down on lockup expiring(which really isn't much of a stretch given how some of these things trade, let alone if you follow what TLRY did)....we eat well.

Theres ultimately a responsibility for people in charge to deliver. GM has not performed on the only metric import to investors, basically since its IPO. We can debate whether Barra could have done things differently, but the bottom line is that GM has resisted investors and preached the "we're a rock fundamentally" stuff kind of as an excuse for not doing things the way many have suggested that perhaps they should. So to now, potentially not even have THAT! which doesn't matter if the stock performs(look at FCAU for a while for instance), its pretty damning. When I go to a restaurant with a celebrated executive chef, I expect the food to be good. If it comes out terrible, I don't care what the process was, or how "we did everything the right way"...its about delivering a result and if you are going to fight your shareholders and do things your way, you damn well better deliver on what you're preaching. Which was a fortress balance sheet and long term value creation. Mary has done neither. Gregmal - I can understand your frustration as I'm guessing you've held shares for several years. I've only been a shareholder since 2018. I feel that the intrinsic value of the stock has climbed over the past several years versus the current stock price to a point where I pulled the trigger last year. I think she has done a reasonable job. I too would like to see an increase in buybacks, but it seems like you're basically saying that she has failed because the stock price has not delivered. I agree with you that the stock price performance has been poor but I believe that a re-rating is on the horizon (which is why I own the stock) - and probably more likely after a recession which will prove out and show the changes that Barra has made. I'm pleased with the strategic moves (ditching unprofitable international operations for example) and operationally what she has done. I'm hoping that she holds strong against the Unions since I believe in free-markets. Theres ultimately a responsibility for people in charge to deliver. GM has not performed on the only metric import to investors, basically since its IPO. We can debate whether Barra could have done things differently, but the bottom line is that GM has resisted investors and preached the "we're a rock fundamentally" stuff kind of as an excuse for not doing things the way many have suggested that perhaps they should. So to now, potentially not even have THAT! which doesn't matter if the stock performs(look at FCAU for a while for instance), its pretty damning. When I go to a restaurant with a celebrated executive chef, I expect the food to be good. If it comes out terrible, I don't care what the process was, or how "we did everything the right way"...its about delivering a result and if you are going to fight your shareholders and do things your way, you damn well better deliver on what you're preaching. Which was a fortress balance sheet and long term value creation. Mary has done neither. I agree I am overreacting a bit. I just have great disdain for management teams that get paid a great deal, and then don't deliver. My frustration isn't so much the share price. While its been poor, I can live with that if management is creating long term value. But assessing "long term value" is very tricky and hard to judge at times. My main gripe here, using the restaurant analogy, is if you have a guy in the kitchen, and he refuses to do anything other than bake cakes, but is known for making a heck of a cake, he better consistently deliver one hell of a fuckin cake. Barra has been all about solidifying the balance sheet and preparing for the next down turn. Just the other day I was laughing about Ford getting downgraded to junk. It would appear, at least to some, that we arent too far off from that either, and that's the issue. The one area where Mary has tried diverting our attention to, in order to thwart taking other obvious actions, is the balance sheet. So there shouldn't even be a debate about whether the company deserves a junk rating.

Strolling through the grocery store today and noticed that now everyone has a plant based meat product out. Saw the news about Tim Hortons dumping BYND and didn't have a difficult time seeing others follow suit. This shit doesnt sell in a number of markets. This is Tilray 2.0, lockup expiration 6 weeks away. So I shorted the pig via buying some well out of the money, longer dated puts.

Thank you for your thoughts on this, very interesting. I do not know all that much about it, I'd love to know is their balance sheet not a fortress in your view? Why not? I remember her saying that and hadn't really tracked their balance sheet health. Look, I think GM's balance sheet is fine for an auto company. Definitely better than many peers. But it also got a reset with the bailout and has been raking in shit tons of cash and not really giving any of it to shareholders. The buybacks have basically stopped, and the dividend was last raised when? 2015? So I am not sure Barra deserves credit for this; rather, she and the board just use whatever they can point to as a rationale for doing things their way. Even if it was my opinion they had a fortress balance sheet... I would view it as a failure on her part if this was one of the few things she said was a focal point(while neglecting many others) yet there is still room for a company like Moody's to make this claim. You dont hear anyone saying Apple is on the verge of junk status...If the one thing she's preached is even disputable, and everything else poor(again, not to mention deliberately neglected)...what exactly has she accomplished?

Theres ultimately a responsibility for people in charge to deliver. GM has not performed on the only metric import to investors, basically since its IPO. We can debate whether Barra could have done things differently, but the bottom line is that GM has resisted investors and preached the "we're a rock fundamentally" stuff kind of as an excuse for not doing things the way many have suggested that perhaps they should. So to now, potentially not even have THAT! which doesn't matter if the stock performs(look at FCAU for a while for instance), its pretty damning. When I go to a restaurant with a celebrated executive chef, I expect the food to be good. If it comes out terrible, I don't care what the process was, or how "we did everything the right way"...its about delivering a result and if you are going to fight your shareholders and do things your way, you damn well better deliver on what you're preaching. Which was a fortress balance sheet and long term value creation. Mary has done neither.

So....Moody’s out with a note saying GM is on the verge of a downgrade to junk status... I’m calling bullshit here. On whom? I don’t know yet. But on one end we’ve put up with some horrendous performance, because Mary Poppins has been preaching to us how well run GM is and how prepared it is for the next downturn and whatnot. So you tell me, how is it even conceivable we re even remotely close to junk here? I’d wager Moody’s is wrong. But at the same time I think Mary deserves some blame here for it even being possible to throw out some kind of bullshit allegation like this.

https://nypost.com/2019/09/17/ex-overstock-ceo-planned-crypto-dividend-to-thwart-short-sellers/ Pretty neat. Kind of annoyed I missed that trade. Setup was definitely there.

Bought some AYR from suckers who needed liquidity and thought a stock with a 15% spread was the way to go.

Debt and dilution +1031s

This is funny. Not every day you see the smartest guys in the room buying really high and selling low. Good for those assholes.

Two young kids are expensive enough and when your home runs on heating oil, you're always kind of "short" the market for that. Half of timing is just paying attention. A quarter is luck. The other quarter is overcoming that "voice" in every investor's(every sensible investor that is) head that says trading is bad. Or so I tell myself....

NVTA

I think a key piece of the larger picture puzzle would be for Sinclair to acquire MSGN, and then offer a sports bundle; something mimicking or serving as a hybrid of the WWE/UFC model. Ive paid $5 a month for things like NHL Network(on their own) and plenty of sports fanatics would easily drop their $75 a month cable package in exchange for just a sports network at say $20-30 per month. Or bars/restaurants... how many currently pay for Optimum/DTV packages PLUS Sunday Ticket or Center Ice? When all they really need are the sports channels? There's an opportunity to capitalize on this disruption, or so is my belief. Something else Ive also been considering, is perhaps politely suggesting at the next AGM that the company consider collapsing the dual class share structure. While I 100% get why its there, it makes more sense from Dolan's perspective with MSG, or the entertainment company; where he knows they trade at a discount but wants to run those his way and have creative flexibility. But here, everyone knows he's open to selling, the company does already act in the best interests of its shareholders, because of these things, I think the optics of removing this negative overhang if nothing else get this a modestly more generous public market valuation. The things the Dolans would have to worry about when removing the dual class at the other entities just simply isn't a concern here...what is someone going to do? Go activist and push for a sale? Or a large buyback?

Im not sure this serves a purpose though. I am aware of a few sites like Tim Sykes Profitly that supposedly allow people to publicly display their real portfolio moves. But doing so with an artificial portfolio is an absolute waste of time unless you happen to be a gifted trader/investor who likes to waste time and doesn't like to make money.

In some games, average is not enough to get you any points. In Investing, you can even win with average if you live long enough. But performance without a large population size of who is trying and what they are achieving in the aggregate is meaningless. And I don't think in investing this statistic is so easy to gather like census statistics. One of the greatest and most underappreciated pillars of investing is the notion that the most you can lose(generally speaking) is 100% of your investment. While the amount you can make is often many times that. The key to this is proper risk management, but its a truly powerful and liberating thing once internalized.

COBF helps make everyone money! Including bloggers seeking click alpha!

250 gallons of heating oil for the home.

I think that should work as a macro hedge, although I wouldn’t go too big because (a) there is the risk that a certain group of people will just keep funding the company no matter what, and (b) given the how crowded the short trade is it may take longer for the stock price to plunge than one might expect. Also if you think the underlying stock’s upside potential is limited, you may want to consider pairing the bet with something like a bear call spread. Yea I was looking at the sizing and I mean dedicating a couple percent gross, gets you 2 years or so, that's not terrible IMO. Its just handicapping the correlation between an economic seize up, and Tesla going bust. I think its very close to a certainty, but I could obviously be wrong. Are there any realistic scenarios where there is an in between? I say this, because we all know that being right about something(say predicting a housing crash) and making money on it are not mutually exclusive. Look at jerk of Peter Schiff(the gold is going to $20,000 guy, not the pencil neck politician whining about helicopter noise). Guy supposedly "called" the subprime crisis, and still lost like 80% for his investors. Ive got a few things Im working on, but this one is one of the more promising and unique. Its not really a "Tesla is going to 0 bet either", although that could work as well even if the economy doesn't tank. Its a "how do I most efficiently hedge an economic slowdown/market crash"....

Ive been thinking about the best way to put on some trades that make money if the market does get shaky as pundits have been predicting forever. Outside of the debate on much of this thread about how great they are and how revolutionary that stuff is; it isn't contestable that this is a discretionary spend company. They arent making money at the peak of the cycle, and are barely staying solvent(maybe that's arguable, but you get my point). A slow down IMO, one that dries up the capital markets and consumer demand falls off a cliff, would kill Tesla. Would going as far out as possible on long date puts at maybe a $30 per share or lower strike not be an incredible all around hedge/trade/bet? It seems the outcome here is rather binary. Either Tesla changes the world and is worth $4000 a share, or its going bankrupt. Assessing the allocation from a risk management perspective, I really like the idea of say, buying June 2021 $20 puts for a buck. Thats basically a 15-20x payoff if you're right. Curious if others had evaluated stuff like this.

LOL so this is all just proving my point! I don't care if they blow up, or lose money, or cook their books...I just want to know how something like this occurs! Where TF is anyone who sees any value/utility to this as an investment??? It might be fueled by Softbank, but they arent the ONLY ones propping up this valuation(at least to my knowledge). How does this happen? Its a total enigma to me because the consensus for EVERYONE Ive ever talked to thinks this thing is one giant piece of shit.

The loss of MSG would definitely hurt Altice (Cablevision)...but it would kill MSG. That's a pretty big game of chicken to be playing. Hopefully level heads prevail but Altice is already losing subs due to high costs (led by sports). I would give my left nut(I already have two beautiful kids and that's all I want) for Altice to drop MSGN. It would create a ridiculous short term panic that ultimately would be resolved, and I'd make an absolute fortune buying the dip. No way the tri state area ceases to have Knicks and Ranger games or sees a reduction of 40-50% in terms of households with access to it. Does anyone remember when YES was only available on satellite? People won't tolerate it.

closed this out for a small loss. market reaction more muted than I would have thought.

IPO price keeps sliding. One thing I've wondered, and more so lately, is this. Has anyone here been involved in a funding round or gotten the up close pitch on this? I am super curious because I just have a tremendously hard time reconciling how enormous the valuation gap seems to be between what supposedly sophisticated institutional investors are paying for this, and what common sense and conventional wisdom seem to state based on whats readily out there. Its abnormally perplexing actually.