Gregmal

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an under performing object? Trump dishes out tariffs, tariffs hurt GM, GM cuts 15% of US workforce. Interesting.

I saw this and actually found it quite amusing. No, not the content itself. But rather watching it and trying to figure out how many dozens of people, most likely making six figures plus, spent what was likely millions of dollars of corporate resources, and THIS is what they came up with? Holy incompetence! If this isn't proof that anybody can make a lot of money, than I don't know what is. I can't see how their entire team working on this isn't fired because the fact that this ENTIRE thing got this far means that EVERY ONE OF THEM has questionable judgment. As for D&G itself, IDK, I've never been a fan of their style, although I've never been a fan of any brand you pay 10x or more of the normal price for an every day item. I've bought Ferragamo shoes and Burberry wallets, and frankly they suck compared to my $65 New Balance shoes and $35 I forget the brand wallet. Only crazy expensive item I've found actually worth the tag relative to it's cheaper competitors are Yeti coolers.

This is so friggin true it's cringe worthy. It's the same thing I notice at VIC and other places as well. Some of these numb nuts get so wrapped up on crunching every number down to what is ultimately meaningless information, and compound that by scaring themselves into paralysis by overestimating the likelihood of every risk. It's amusing to watch sometimes. My favorite writeup I think I've seen in the past few years was Torico's VRX pitch last year. Drove the pencil and calculator crowd nuts, got low ratings, and then promptly crushed the returns of all those "well thought out", formulaic pitches you see all over the place.

This is a sham. Despite what is claimed, I guarantee he doesn’t manage a hedge fund. These are SMA’s.

Thanks for the article. This guy is a world class tard... I bet you he went to a nice school and has an MBA too.

Maybe I’m missing something but given the name of his site and blog this seems like more of a “product” selling platform than a real money management operation. Don’t judge a book by its cover, maybe, but I would never think putting money with a firm called optionseller.com or whatever was prudent. This guy got his Rolex selling product and that product blew up. Not an uncommon story on the street.

But why would it be? IIRC that was also the argument the Winklevoss dudes used and also arrived at roughly a $350K BTC price. I have no idea, ask SharperDingaan, he is the one who used this weird equivalence to argue that BTC was overpriced.

https://www.apnews.com/010a03a69e1730a743679f4e4d4a03ef Ho hum earnings. It definitely appears the company has another acquisition target in it's cross-hairs. I'll most likely be adding once the dust settles.

Pretty easy. Classic sentiment trade. As I've said before, returns are everywhere, just gotta find them.

And at various points people had said this about airlines, and technology companies too. I wouldn't bet on it, but it wouldn't catch me by surprise either.

Just a hunch, but the price action of late IMO would seem to indicate that they are actively repurchasing stock.

While this might not exactly be a "Buffett position", my understanding has always been that it is one that has his blessing, much more so than others. He has regularly applauded Mary Barra, publicly showcased his new Cadillac, and in general, has been quite aggressive at various points in terms of getting more exposure to autos. I don't expect him to make a move, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he does eventually try to acquire one of the big auto companies.

Home Depot is just plainly a great business. A chimpanzee could run it, with outsized returns. FFH IMO is a business that is what you make of it, with a very astute manager. The problem is, even great managers can make mistakes and be wrong. I don't know how you can f*ck up Home Depot...

I personally feel like if everyone says "recession" enough, it will force one to happen. Kind of like Beetlejuice. Same shit's been going on with auto now for half a decade...

This is an excellent, excellent summary of basically what's up. I interpret, and more or less speculate that the question marks/concerns you listed are revealed more favorably than the market expects, but its really just a moderately educated guess. Your reasons for covering the short are my reasons for going long here, more or less.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4166467-general-motors-gm-q1-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single Thanks... Have to think they got lucky, and then hope they took advantage of it.

Yes, this one has been quite interesting, for a long time. I've always thought the short case had more merit than the long case, however was never able to get a good response from any short piece about why their offerings where highly regarded and why even competitors typically saw them in a favorable fashion. I don't doubt there is/was fraud on some level. If, as some have stated, we're dealing with bribes and channel stuffing, from years ago, done by employees who no longer work there, I mean thats not blowing them off the map. So essentially where I am at, is that is should clearly have a SPECULATIVE AF disclaimer, but with the convergence of recent event, this IMO is where you take a shot at this thing. Think about it for a second. The people truly behind the scenes just put in a poison pill at $6. If this is a fraud or ending up a doughnut, wouldn't they at least try to pass the hot potato or salvage something for shareholders? But instead they took a measure to assure the company wasnt going to get sold for a quick 20% premium, ~$7 a share. ALA Papa John's sub $50. Now at $2.5, with ZERO having changed, even at a 20% discount to the poison pill announcement, you have 100% upside.

I do not recall this. Do you know where/when? Thanks in advance.

This is something I've had an eye on for quite a while and I feel the story has finally played out and the risk to reward here is now massively skewed to the upside. I am not an expert on these type of companies. Zero is still definitely a possibility. This is a massively overcrowded short. However, the one thing no short has been able counter, is that MDXG does have solid products that are overwhelmingly viewed favorably by doctors, employees, and even competitors. Over the past month or so, the perfect storm of shoes dropping has occurred. Kicked out of smallcap index, delay of filings, delisting, and a poison pill to name a few. The company also seems to have completely cleaned house, and generally speaking, it's actions in no way reflect a company on the brink. I specifically believe that the past 2 weeks have brought out every forced seller possible, and now the shares even trade at a discount to Citron's $3 target. All in all, this one is simple. The actions of the company, and the precedent set by regulators leads me to believe that MDXG's existence is not likely threatened. And if it survives, it is a multi bagger from here. This is a great spec. long...

I've only started following this recently and I think this is a good business, but am not impressed with management at all. They literally spent half the call making excuses and ducking questions about why they refuse to repurchase stock at these prices. They seemed to have a poor understanding of cost of capital, and seem to be of the belief that they're doing a great job... You don't want management who blows off issues raised by a big chunk of shareholders because they think they know better, when their long term track record is at best in the ballpark of mediocre. Just my 2c

Highlighting Barra's incompetency with capital allocation... Has anyone noticed they've repurchased 0 shares the past two quarters... just as the stock started getting really cheap again? It seems their only commitment was to buy OVER 37....

A tragedy! https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/michael-avenatti-stormy-daniels-attorney--reportedly-arrested-for-alleged-domestic-violence.html

I've taken another tack, and that is to limit myself to a modest update on the news for the first 7 days of each month. Ditto for Twitter & I found myself not even wanting to visit there this month because it's so full of inflammatory nonsense. Spending nearly a month with your head in the sand is liberating. I highly recommend watching re-runs of Rowan & Martin's Laugh In to see how nothing has changed since the 70's. The absurdities are pretty funny when framed by great social satirists. The Obamas thread was about divorce... and only highlighted the Obamas as a great example of a couple who makes it work. Nothing political about it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-06/tesla-short-einhorn-says-last-quarter-was-as-good-as-it-gets ::) One wonders what his overall returns are on the short and whether it was truly worth the opportunity costs of borrowing shares/paying option premiums over the >1 year that he's been short and has nothing to show for it (except losses). Guess he can keep putting out statements like these and one day hope his thesis works out -- but it seems less and less likely that his returns even in that scenario (if it were to occur, let alone when) would justify being short in the end (in terms of lost opportunity cost). Then again, the Greenlight long portfolio hasn't exactly performed on par with anything to write home about either... It’s very worrisome to have people manage your money when they can’t admit they are wrong. When you are short a stock, you need to admit very quickly when you are incorrect and that seems to be the case here. Maybe TSLA greased the numbers for last quarter but nobody has found a smoking gun. Excessive valuation alone isn’t a reason to go short, he should have learned that much. Yea it isn't really even gimmicks like TSLA, he's short things like Amazon and Netflix too for no reason other than valuation. But what I think is shameless, is that he's now using his Tesla short, which relatively speaking is an immaterial position, to get publicity and attention. I was surprised to see his name maker shorts on Allied and Lehman, for all their glory and fame, were like single digit positions that had, overall, maybe a couple hundred basis point effect on the overall portfolio. They were more or less publicity stunts. At least a guy like Ackman with HLF had a real reason to be vocal.

I am an expert and a genius when it comes to politics and certain investment ideas. I am far from one when it comes to social media/tech stocks and short selling. So the bar for me must be higher!