Gregmal

Haha yea I hear you. I think management definitely needs to prove itself. But I like the head start we have here in terms of valuation starting point at $10 or whatever we want to call it. My takeaway is that they likely won't be acquiring office and retail at the pace(or at all) that they have. This was primarily funded by the preferreds. In fact, about 5 years or so ago this was a total market darling and really only started getting into a rough patch because they seemed to max out MF and start wading into retail and office while ramping the preferreds which certainly wasnt anything to get excited about. I think I stated in another thread that I dont even consider that period of time to be a bright point or proof of stewardship. Frankly I think they put growth at all costs ahead of shareholder value...AND JUST HAPPENED TO GET LUCKY WITH WHAT THEY BOUGHT! However what an opportunity we have here now getting the reputational and collateral damaged carcass which somewhat fortunately turned out to produce this opportunity. To the preferred point, the issuance escalated in a staggered way that I think gives us a reasonably deducible path to see big progress made in a staggered way over the next 5 years. Here's a article that kind of highlights how the narrative has shifted. https://www.investmentnews.com/reit-with-a-twist-mdash-and-a-high-commission-mdash-is-new-darling-of-independent-brokers-dealers-68439 Anyway, the vote to reduce call from 10 to 5 years overlaps well and I agree on the highlighted properties, which in addition to retail/office could provide nice sources of capital to punch those out. Personally I'd like to see office go before retail. Ive been keeping an eye on some fo the Sun Belt retail market and for instance the other day got notice on a NNN Best Buy in North FL with a hair under 5 years left on lease at about a 5.8 cap....Some of those Publix strips could be 5 caps in not too crazy scenarios and in the above I slapped a 6.5-7 on them. I was cautiously optimistic about how coy management seemed to be regarding this on the call. It more so resembled an opportunistic value investor vs a promotional crew who wanted people to immediately price in all these major actions. The flip side is they could obviously underwhelm.

What is the point of this comment? It comes off as a cowardly, not so thinly veiled plea "Sanjeev censor/ban them!".... The thread is about the vaccine.... if you dont like it, dont read it,. Theres red states with policies that make sense, and policies that dont, same with the blue states. Its not politics...its real life effecting everyone. Its real and part of what many people myself included, weigh when looking at getting the vaccine. You see where the puck is going(vaccine passports) and realize theres a path of least resistance whether you like it or not.... I posted whether I was getting the vaccine? Did you? I posted how I got the vaccine? Did you? I posted my thought process on the vaccine. Did you? I posted what I thought was relevant to large scale vaccination and the resulting return to normal..did you? I am not so much referring to you specifically, but I think Ive had reasonably productive dialogue with Sanjeev recently and dont think Ive encroached on anything I agreed not to. I dont attack or call people names. I do plenty of other things that are viewed as positives for the board. But Im still dumbfounded at the sheer number of lurking cowards here...who dont post investment ideas, never really provide anything...but like a pack of piranhas race to comments posted by people like myself and cubs or folks they dont agree with...begging and cowardly lobbying for their removal and the bans of people they dont agree with. Man up people....

Why not short it against the index? Even double or triple the amount since you seem to dislike Tesla as a long idea so much you dont even want to go near an index with a 2% weighting? Long $100K SPY vs short 6-10% in TSLA or some ratio like that? If you play with the scenarios, SPY is still momo heavy enough that is Tesla does anything crazy to the upside, other index components almost certainly will as well. Pairing trades is a great alternative to sitting in cash.

Maybe people are just finally coming to their senses. Big Daddy Buff has told us $240 or lower and we're getting 6-10% a year run rate on the buybacks, maybe more. Inflation protected- check. Downturn protected - cough, laugh, check. Real, relevant, systematically important businesses trading at stupid cheap valuations? check. What more do folks want? A rerating here is inevitable. There arent many scenarios where 2% 10 yr treasuries, 30x on the S&P, and a Berkshire at its current price make sense enough to last very long.

I think it just points to the continued efforts by the politicians to bully people through fear, into getting vaccinated(which perplexes me since the vaccine is something benevolent). There s a huge swath of people who believe them still; who dont know any better. Its equivalent to circus animals. "Master, can we go to the gym? Master when can our kids go back to the classroom? Master can we dine out? Master can we have baseball this summer"..."No, not yet. Only at 10%. Only if you're good!"....I mean this woman even wore goth type makeup presumably for effect. And while people often get worked up over calling this a hoax, what is a true hoax is what the establishment is peddling. Literally all you need to do to see its a giant hoax is go on vacation. But they tell you "dont leave the state"..."you need to quarantine"....and feed you things like "we're saving lives!" and "flatten the curve" which..who is going to argue with that? But as we continue to see...its all unnecessary because "the bad guys" as some of them continue to refer to states that dont buy into their game...have better numbers than "the good guys"...To this day, the WORST states, are the ones who took the most ridiculous measures and attempted to turn their residents into subservient puppets. And if we had any doubt its nonsensical bs, the irrefutable proof is in the pudding because none of the wealthy or important people follow these stupid rules!! What does this have to do with getting vaccinated? Well one, I think everyone deserves a real return to normal. Its embarrassing and also sad a lot of the country is still of the mindset of "master, when can we return to normal" to which the reply is "when WE determine its safe"- to which there is absolutely no real metric they are presenting to crystalize when that is, other than simply everyone getting the vaccine....when the truth is that people can already return to normal and if you really want normal you can just travel a few hours south to escape the bullshit. Two, I think it further emphasizes the importance of people thinking for themselves and making their own decisions. You can not trust these politicians, period. The more you resist them the more it seems they ramp up the crap. Covid will basically be done by the summer or at worst the fall. It will definitely help if as many people as possible get the vaccines. But if they choose not to, well, this is still America and thats their right. The question is what the politicians will do next to keep people calling them "master" and being subservient. The passport thing I can see becoming a big power issue. To me, Ive got it, so I'm good. But dont really think its fair to use that against others. So if this skews too hard one way or another for folks...oh well. But the truth is that all these things weigh into a decision making process. For me, it was an easy decision, much similar to ones I use when investing, and with my life/wife....its more important to them than it is to me....so I will just take the path of least resistance to save myself future headaches(in this case, the probability of which I assessed as being low)...hopefully everyone does what they need to and we all have gigantic 4th of July bashes...not just the ones who choose not to ask "master" for permission to gather.

I dont know if I'd expect a total repeat of 2000 and expect a precipitous crash, theres probably too much liquidity for that. But I think its clear the top is in for certain popular themes....do folks really see ARKG getting back to $115 any time soon. Personally I would think you just see a gradual bear market type decline. Rallies get faded, new lows put in. Similar to what we've already been seeing. There's also, a large segment of stuff that I wouldnt expect to be effected at all, IE BRK and the like. Its a good market for the fundamental investor IMO.

Its just an educated guess so take it with a grain of salt. The retail leases vary. Anchors generally have 10+ with 5 year options. Smaller spaces can be anything from 12-60 months, sometimes even 10 years. I think the bigger thing is the behind the scenes stuff. You can start working on this stuff but ultimately a lot has to happen to get anything memorialized and only once things are memorialized will a transaction occur and only after that you would begin to see progress on a new development. A shopping center and small MPC by me took almost a decade to get together just in terms of rezoning and entitlements and all those fun paperwork based approvals. Funny side story is that there was a bit of a tussle when one of the dudes who signed a 15 year lease on one of the outparcels was told the town wasnt issuing any more liquor licenses....whoops. Lotta planning and palm greasing in some of these places. If I again had to guess Id say the small strip center is worth more dead than alive and the last thing the owner wants to do is restart the clock by signing a couple crummy leases.

A lot of times that means theyre looking to run off the tenants and then reposition it or do something completely new. Seen stuff like this with shopping centers which then get converted to urgent care/medical centers or senior living/student housing type setups.  Just a guess though. Also, many times its not the owner doing the leg work but a developer who will either be a partner in the venture or take control via a purchase option generally contingent on getting the approvals.

I doubt these are isolated at all. Perhaps even this is the beginning of the pendulum swing back to normal as we've had a decade long run of increasing leverage to the point where nobody thinks there is risk anymore and the short interest vs market basically non existent. Saw a neat chart the other week comparing levels of short interest and currently there is nothing even remotely comparable to the short capitulation we ve been seeing outside of the period just prior to the tech bubble bursting. I mean we've seen all this shit unfold in basically 2 months...and many of these WS chumps run the same books and utilize the same strategies....one falls they are feel ripples. Theres some talk out there that the GME saga had a role in how this played out. The volatility is great though. Bring it on.

I think taking money out of your primary home for anything other than a sure thing is probably a bad idea. Crypto is far from a sure thing and even if it were there's characteristics of it that are far from predictable. With equities it would of course depend on what you're looking at. Generally speaking though, I think your idea makes sense for the semi adventurous person with a reasonable risk tolerance.

Took a starter here today as well. First time owning it since probably 2017 or so. Setup looks nice.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/29/cdc-director-dr-rochelle-walensky-warns-of-impending-doom/ LOLzzzz. More theatre from the fear mongering bureaucrats...."hold on a little longer!" ha, no! how about STFU. Get my 2nd shot Friday. Only doing it once. If I start hearing about how we need shots every year for the "mutant" variants, I'll probably have to put my foot down.

Could you provide us with one, Liberty? I mean its cool dragging people on shitty investments, but why not let em know where they should be looking?

No, no. Im mainly short SPAK which is predominantly post deal close. Look at the holdings there! Such a beautiful basket of poopoo. Shorting pre deal is dumb because whats you're downside...5-10%, maybe in best case scenario? I still think pre deal spacs are somewhat interesting, especially on a case by case basis. Pre deal, pre announcement names you can once again pick up units pretty universally below 10.2 and a lot sub $10. Post deal announcement but pre close is actually probably one of the better ways to play market volatility right now, at least that I can think of. If you can snag something near $10 that was trading mid teens pre blow up and then use  the redemption deadline as your backstop you're probably going to do ok trading it. I wouldnt touch anything post deal close with a 10 ft pole though. Right now many are breaking $10 and then everything that works for them pre close works against them post close. Edit: I'd also add....guess what else is looking pretty good right now as a store of value, especially in the face of big banks once again reminding everyone that you never quite know whats lurking on the books?

Melvin and the #metoo NYC funds and their brilliant short positions, Achegos---->Nomura, ARK offloading liquid positions for illiquid positions. How many funds are levered big to SPAC pipes or units? As Ive said plenty in prior weeks and months, I think short the high growth covid fads is finally a sound proposition and have short positions in the ARK funds. Puts on ARK + spac ETFs as well. Still have some SPAK short but was bought in on about 1/3 of the position I have at one firm a couple weeks back. Looking to put it on again but also starting to feel post deal close spac are going to start getting ugly and good shorts here. I also think its a good time to be hedging with VIX calls. Leverage is a fun thing and like with Archegos, who knows where and who it blows up! Who's seeing the matrix? How are people playing this?

No problem! I dont know these people it was just a very tragic story I came across scrolling around, both Cohodes and Kuppy flagged it so good for them...both awesome dudes. If there is nothing else the past year has taught us its to be grateful and not take shit for granted. Too often I think folks with financial backgrounds or mentality become petty and cheap, and become too focused on planning for the next 5/10/20 years out, etc. Skipping the $3 coffee, tipping 15% based on pre tax amount, etc...I think thats a sad way to live and when you think of it, nothing is guaranteed in life. You really need to appreciate and live for today while also planning for tomorrow. Giving back is the right thing to do. We are all super fortunate. Even folks with $50-100k in a savings account, let alone those with 6/7/8 figures....we're all super-good for today and tomorrow and plenty of people arent. If everyone made an effort to be a little less cheap/more generous maybe the scumbag politicians wouldnt be able to goad everyone into class warfare and all that crap. For me I try to find something like this once a month or so and contribute. Doesnt have to be a lot of money but just an exercise in thinking of others which also forces you to really appreciate how good you have it and not take it for granted. Cheers!

All the money being made by fortunate folks like us, do something positive with some of it. https://www.gofundme.com/f/nicholas-caleb-johnson-support?utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

https://www.yahoo.com/news/virus-fight-stalls-early-hot-140524851.html Meanwhile Vin Gupta wants to go on CNBC last week and talk about AZ/TX/FL..... edit: cleaned up some adjectives to describe the disingenuous academic fool Gupta

^ There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but thats the problem plenty of investors have. They are either arrogant ro refuse to evolve from their original framework and then spend years underperforming while telling themselves everyone else is crazy and destined to fail...

Is it just me or have posts begun getting cut up for ad placement? If so, Sanjeev...can we solve this problem the way everything else in the world gets solved? Those who dont want to see ads everywhere pay a few bucks to prevent this?

Either way you kind of have a problem. If you are quite wealthy or have a huge hoard of cash sitting around, your money is being devalued by the current printing extravaganza. People have been crying about housing bubbles in Canada for as long as I can remember. You willing to sit on cash for another decade? If not, and you are investing it, well, when/if the bubble pops the cash is probably not going to want to be pulled from your investments which will likely be depressed. In which case you will need financing. Except during blowups getting financing is a best a total bitch and at worst pretty damn hard. My 2c would be to do what I did. Settle on something in the suburbs about 45 minutes to 1 hour from the big city. Its definitely going to be cheaper. Not as inflated in price, and if you like the area and want to live there long term who cares? Buy something you know you can afford, dont reach. You can always renovate as well. Then down the line if things or life changes, you can operate from a position of strength.

If you are consistently looking at COST and cant figure out how its a good investment, then your process in terms of how you are going about analyzing COST is wrong. Everyone has their own process, and yes you can be hugely successful investing in other things that are more down your alley; of course. But often investors make the same mistakes over and over again...Buffetts talked about it with some tech names and in general how it took him a while to rearrange his process to focus on quality at a reasonable price. Some people are just static and cant adapt. Some just stick to their circle of competence. End of the day, do what works. For me, expanding my universe to try to understand or get comfortable with as much as possible is generally the goal. The more things I can navigate to make money the better. I'd hate to be the guy who's circle of competence area spends years(or longer) in a bear market while theres other stuff going on.

My post was a little sarcastic but just trying to highlight a general point that I think can be learned from. Everyone has a process, when the process is wrong, you can either move onto other things or try to figure out why. Statement: Costco has been a great investment Statement: I look to buy great investments Question: Why haven't I bought Costco So you can tackle this a lot of ways but ultimately, the correct answer is that your process has been wrong. Otherwise, if your objective is to buy great investments, and COST has been a great investment...something doesnt add up. EVERY investment has short, medium, and long term drivers. A matrix in a way. Your job, if you are a curious investor whose objective is to make great investments and ultimately make money, is to see the matrix. So with COST...we come back to process. Your process was X/Y/Z....and this process leads to not buying Costco. Once you hone in on which input led to the faulty output...then you can correct it and get a better result next time. Here, obviously too many folks just blindly focus on valuation...and 15 consecutive times make the same mistake....I mean at that point just ignore Costco because you dont get it and never will. Or...you can see, uhm if I eliminate this one focus point, otherwise its an easy(almost no brainer) investment...and act accordingly. I mean there's a reason a 20 year NNN lease with an A rated credit tenant in a top MSA trades at a different cap rate than a month to month lease with a 2 man small business....duh. So with Costco, thats really where you want to focus and the quality and durability of the income being produced is superior to even a Target or further down the totem pole a Big Lots or Best Buy. So of course if you sit there and analyze it hoping for it to cross paths with those types of things you're never going to get things right....easy to see when you look at it like that, right? Ultimately I think much of the faulty investment process can be traced back to ill advised adherence to value investing rhetoric. For the most part, that stuff is nice ideological framework...but lets face it...much of the stuff is bullshit and even when Buffett and Graham did their thing they were applying it to bad business, cigar butts, and companies in distress. The easiest thing is simply to remember that everything has a matrix. There's often many common elements of overlap with all investments. But each one is unique and possesses different drivers. Could be an upcoming catalyst, could be share count/float, could be tax changes, could be a product launch....whatever...your job as an investor is to see the matrix. Not just plug in crap from the income statement or balance sheet and then project what you think is an appropriate PE...With Costco, if you're looking at valuation, or looking at hot dogs....well....youre just wrong and until you start focusing on the things that are important to the investment you're going to continue to be wrong.

Looks like another instance of "here's your dip"/"oh noes still too expensive"........has played out here. Pattern recognition and behavioral analysis is a nice ace up the sleeve of an astute investor. Others will continue to make the same predictable mistakes over and over again.

60% discount on the "moat" at Costco. Next to it another brand with a nearly identical product, at an 80% discount to almighty PTON.