Gregmal

Musk's ability to "deliver" is questionable at best. Metaphorically, Musk is the older guy with the fake ID in school. All the freshman love him because he has this aura about him. He's more popular than they, and is the guy they turn to when they need something they can't get. They forget that they are wildly overpaying for a case of beer bc they are too enamored by the end carrot. They willingly hand over their money to this guy. The first day(when I was in school there were no cell phones but pretend anyway) he's supposed to get the booz his phone is off. The second day he has some grand story of adventure, but still no case of beer. The third day he comes by with a 12 pack of Busch even though you gave him $30 for a case of Budweiser(no change for you either but you do notice another case of beer in his car). Generally everyone is ok, but over time those people wise up (learn how to financially analyze a company) and realize they are getting a raw deal, but for the time being its exciting and entertaining.

As a fund manager I spoke with the other week stated "Musk damn well better come through on all of these promises, otherwise he should end up in jail". This whole thing is pretty wild to me. I guess there are still some whom believe the story but this guy just keeps kicking the can down the road and every time he kicks it there is an even bigger fable told as to why you should continue to believe. The SCTY deal was one of the most disgusting cases of self dealing I've seen in a while, and now he's made all these grand promises of SCTY being a positive cash contributor and sworn TSLA wont need to raise cash and it's looking like the whole thing is on the verge of collapsing now that it seems the market is beginning to realize they wont produce 500k cars even if you combine the next several years. What they will do in 2017, 2018, and 2019... lose massive amounts of money and dilute shareholders.

In light of weekend chores around the house/property, Home Depot and Lowes.

Don't have numbers on hand but HSIC/PDCO come to mind. GLDD, ISRG, FNMA/FMCC

Let me ask a very candid question, if CEO and CFO were to let go, what then? Do we call up Deutsche Banc and say "let's take these assets out to market again?" Who's the natural buyer of these assets? John Albright and Mark Patten were bought in by the BOD put together by Winter. If Winters messed up once bringing in a management team, can we really trust them to somehow get it right this time around? Why is it that management has no credibility anymore? If you can list concrete examples of why they lost credibility, I am all ears. Yes, Albright and Patten did receive a lot of stock. But isn't Winters largely responsible for that? Isn't the purpose of tying compensation to stock price part of the reason why they got so much stock to begin with? Isn't Winters and the board responsible for that to begin with? My takeaway from attending the investor day is that the assets are "hard to move" and takes time to be absorbed. They literally own 1/4 of the town. People want to buy either wings or chicken breast, they don't want some weird wings/breast combo that they have to go home and take apart. CTO is this weird wings/breast combo right now. From 30,000 ft, I have a small position so I am very open minded to discover the truth. My 2c. If senior management is let go, I think for the sake of transparency you get to the bottom of the process that occurred with Deutsche and see if there is anything that makes sense. I am not a fan of the sell the company idea. Part of what has turned me off to this group is how quickly they want to fire sale everything in order to do the REIT conversion. They've been telling people 4-5 years they expect to have all the land sold. Why??? Land is a very valuable asset and if it is currently out of favor then hold on it longer. It was a really stupid move to lock in Tanger at a great price per acre and the wholesale the rest of the Town Center to North American at what amount to a lesser price. Otherwise, their lack of credibility is outlined pretty well by a number of people in a number of places, so I'll just leave it at that. Regarding the replacements or Winters elected directors; it is what it is and this is always a risk. Winters could have put his people on the board to begin with but instead he went out and found what seemed to be good, highly qualified, local Florida real estate guys. Over time it seems they grew apart and/or were smitten by Albright. It happens. I didn't marry the first girl I dated and some people even divorce the person they marry. Getting Winters on the board at least would seem to ensure a greater focus on shareholders/value creation. The guys in place right now are too busy with the infighting and too stubborn to take measures necessary to move forward. The current group, at the least, has created a disturbing trend of over promising and under delivering. They've done a lot of underhanded and disingenuous stuff behind the scenes too, which has greatly turned me off to them. An orderly liquidation at this point is where I see the most value being created. Texas Pacific Land Co's been liquidating for 100 years and its been a boon for investors. No reason CTO can't follow in those foot steps.

Don't think too many people close to this situation are surprised by this. After the investor day it was widely speculated they'd pull something like this. Without getting into the merits of the release, and believe me, there is a ton one can pick apart that smells downright rotten, the bigger issue is that when management no longer has any credibility, it's time for a change. Then again, we can take them at their word. Trust them I believe someone mentioned. In which case, during their five year tenure in which they've been paid millions and absorbed generous amounts of granted stock; after an eight month process, in the midst of a blow out real estate market and record low interest rates, in which they supposedly scoured the entire universe of real estate investors for any number of ways to create value, the best they could do was fetch two all stock offers from companies insinuated to be distressed micro-cap lepers. So yeah, on that front they've earned themselves a pink slip as well.

As someone else mentioned, I'm generally not a huge fan of Tilson. But this is laughable. First, Tilson of all people is the last guy I'd ever call out as a "Wall Street Billionaire". He's piggybacked the big time hedge funder rep of his college buddies Einhorn and Ackman while pretending to have the success of his peers when clearly he doesn't. I'm not even sure he'd wants to, but nevertheless he's oddly outspoken and sometimes seems to try too hard to be like the two aforementioned fellows. His LL crusade was so outrageous it overshadowed a tremendous call. Warren though, is a complete clown. A one Indian traveling circus using any sort of populist rhetoric she can grasp at to try to position herself for a future White House run. "Oh big banks are evil", "oh Wall Street ruins the world", "Oh drug prices are too high", etc. Classic loud mouth complaining who's constantly looking to stir up a storm rather than try to solve anything.

Depends on cost of capital

Anyone attend the Investor Day? Any thoughts or comments?

Ugh. Way to drag the conversation even lower and invalidate anything useful you had to say. These types of comments are now fair game since your guy won the election, is that right? I for one think it's great and I hope it keeps going on for another 4 years It will, no doubt about it. Every cycle needs a spark for the circus cannon to light. Banker bashing was cool the past 8 years, now its transitioning into healthcare/obamacare and pharma/drug pricing. The forest for the trees crowd gets easily distracted, but the rest of us see that Trump is more or less a life long Democrat who played the game and won. His policies are going to be much more populist than many expect. His biggest opponent will still likely be hardcore conservative yawkers

Ugh. Way to drag the conversation even lower and invalidate anything useful you had to say. These types of comments are now fair game since your guy won the election, is that right? Missing the forest for the trees. Seems like a common trait amongst many of you. If you choose to cover your eyes and ears because I choose a humorous name for a circus spectacle character, be my guest. If you'd like to sit at the big boy table and discuss my point that DC(both traditional Dems and Republicans) is a circus show, well then step right up. Thanks

Yes

So much for that: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/n-kkk-group-hold-victory-parade-donald-trump-article-1.2868491 I know this week has been dragging on slowly, but four years has yet to pass. The trailer community may be better for the country than the filth that currently inhabits DC. Want a microcosm of why Trump received twice as many electoral votes as pretty much every one of these folks predicted? Look at how DC voted. 93% for Clinton. Then look at the break down for the rest of the country. Yup, just another example of how out of touch these folks are. DC is and pretty much always has been a circus. Adding Palin to the mix just gives another act to complement the Paul Ryan, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and Pochahontas shows.

Agree to disagree on this one? For one, simply making the decision to invest the money, into an index fund or real estate or whatever, is a much harder decision to make than one gives credit for with the blind and naive "index fund would have done better" argument. Secondarily, as many here should be intimately familiar, outperforming an index is no easy task either. And lastly, I dont care what people say, but being in a position where you own or are associated on a high level basis with 400+ companies is all the proof you need of his business success. The "oh but he had 4 that went bankrupt" argument is pretty hilarious as by my count that still means 99% of his businesses are still around. And when you're comparing that to someone like HRC whose most daring business venture was getting paid $250,000 an hour to give speeches, the whole conversation seems utterly preposterous. Bottom line is that Trump may be a bit of a whacko with questionable judgment and character, but he is unequivocally, at the very least, a capable businessman. Considering this, as well as the fact that being a morally grounded person has never been necessary to be POTUS, and its clear that the bickering by many is largely founded in subjective and personal biases rather than any sort of legitimate reasoning.

Looks like those that saw the forest despite the trees are well prepared. Meanwhile those posting pictures of a guy wearing a shirt, making utterly ridiculous yet hilariously empty comparisons to Nazi Germany, and blanketing this as symbolic of the entire election lose their shirts. As I said, the pea brains didn't and probably never will "get it". To the rest of us, we didn't get caught up in the nonsense; we weren't mindlessly manipulated by the likes of the Huffington Post, Washington Post, and the likes, and ultimately everyone will get what they deserve.

Is there really an argument here that a career politician may not have the same skills/experience negotiating deals as an accomplished businessman? This was one of the most shocking aspects of the 2012 election; that there were people who held it against Romney that he was successful and claimed Obama would be better for the economy. For one, somebody who has made their living taking other people's money(through taxation and donation) can't possibly have the same respect for details as someone looking out for their own dollar/investors/business.

I agree and Lampert is the new Buffett. No, Berkowitz is. No, Pabrai is. No, Fairfax is the new Berkshire and Prem is the new Buffett. No, Biglari is pretty clearly the new Buffett. And Dubya is the new Hitler. Wait no, Trump is the new Hitler. "History is a great teacher" -Adolf Hitler There is a troubling trend of guys hitting it big, either on one investment (hello John Paulson) or having a decent enough period of performance to blow up AUM (Lampert, Ackman) and then going completely rogue. I guess when you are wealthy enough you can do whatever you want.

IDK, I learned in like third grade the pretty much anything the president does is reactionary to other avenues of the political spectrum. In fact, pretty much anything he does is subject to the veto power of congress. Many within the conservative circles hoped Bernie Sanders would win knowing that his views were so extreme nothing would ever get done because of this. And approval rating? Polling results from asking regular people. Yea that controls public policy... My goodness People fight hard to become president because of the status and wealth that come with it. Duh...

Except that there isn't even a malpractice suit, just a bunch of doctors from a rival hospital talking shit. Yes but too many people that would generally be viewed as intelligent and capable are revealing themselves as pea brained and sheepish in regards to their following/understanding of the election. First, the president, is basically just a talking head. A character who by himself doesnt really do much. So its hilarious on several levels seeing people waste so much time nitpicking and scrupulously foaming at the mouth over the many flaws of Trump/Clinton. Especially so with the media thinking they have all this "gotcha" type fodder that seemingly backfires when the next poll results are released. The president is basically a hood ornament. The system is the rest of the car. Essentially, both candidates are massively flawed. But this isnt about an individual candidate. Anyone who thinks so is missing the forest for the trees. I love reading these "Hey look! Clinton/Trump did this". Its a great form of entertainment actually. Tells you a lot about someones ability(or lack thereof) to see the bigger picture. What its come down to is that voting for Hillary is a vote for the status quo which is entirely corrupt, broken, and systematically skewed against 99.5% of the population.

This is not an idea that should be done in an absolute sense, but theres definitely merit to it. Truth is that there are people who simply shouldn't be able to vote, or at the least not have a vote count as much as other folks. Its, cute, warm, and fuzzy to some that everything goes around thinking they are equal. But there is something inherently flawed with a system in which some drug addict who relies on entitlements casts a vote that has the same power as Mark Cuban's vote. Because of the system, the vast majority of lower income folks only care about their entitlements and will cast misguided votes if they think it will result in getting something for nothing. How many of the "Obama iz gunna pay my gas billz!!" videos were out there? Or this gem.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJbOU4nmHQ Then on the other end you have those highfalutin, wannabe philanthropist types in the upper middle class neighborhoods who mean well but are misguided as they preach about "giving back" based ideologies while driving 5 series BMWs and living in 800k homes. And like Trump, they're all for giving back but conveniently abuse the system when it benefits them. Sandwiched in between are the middle class that is perpetually getting squeezed by real inflation, stagnant wages, and ever increases taxes, both direct and indirect. Bottom line, is the people contributing should have more say than those that don't. There needs to be a balance of "creators" and "takers". So basically screw that democracy thing. Well now that we're disfranchising folks let take a closer look at that. Technically the president is not elected by the people but by the electoral college. Now let's go ahead and disfranchise the takers. Ok now the president is elected by the following states: California, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Utah, Colorado, New York, Kansas, Ohio, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota, and Delaware. Election night headline: Welcome Madame President!: Hillary Clinton makes history by becoming the first female president in a 151-43 electoral college landslide! Btw, i gave Ohio to Trump in that EV count. People who do not contribute should not be dictating the rules(which are a derivative of those elected to office) of the land and especially not be influencing the implementation of hardships upon those who are net creators or contributors. So its great and all that the Buffetts and Zuckerbergs of the world think "giving" more is a grand old idea. Its also not shocking that the have nots will support anything in which they "get" more. The ones getting royally effed are the middle class in between. Who are now consistently squeezed out of more and more; with the end game being the greater divide and ensuing class warfare in which those chasing the American Dream are cannibalized by those living "their" own versions of it.

This is not an idea that should be done in an absolute sense, but theres definitely merit to it. Truth is that there are people who simply shouldn't be able to vote, or at the least not have a vote count as much as other folks. Its, cute, warm, and fuzzy to some that everything goes around thinking they are equal. But there is something inherently flawed with a system in which some drug addict who relies on entitlements casts a vote that has the same power as Mark Cuban's vote. Because of the system, the vast majority of lower income folks only care about their entitlements and will cast misguided votes if they think it will result in getting something for nothing. How many of the "Obama iz gunna pay my gas billz!!" videos were out there? Or this gem.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJbOU4nmHQ Then on the other end you have those highfalutin, wannabe philanthropist types in the upper middle class neighborhoods who mean well but are misguided as they preach about "giving back" based ideologies while driving 5 series BMWs and living in 800k homes. And like Trump, they're all for giving back but conveniently abuse the system when it benefits them. Sandwiched in between are the middle class that is perpetually getting squeezed by real inflation, stagnant wages, and ever increases taxes, both direct and indirect. Bottom line, is the people contributing should have more say than those that don't. There needs to be a balance of "creators" and "takers".

On the PICO call this week interim CEO made the following remarks regarding the UCP stake: Overall, we are very pleased to see that UCP is striving to improve its return on equity and assets as they manage their existing land bank and their land acquisitions. Although UCP did not go forward in the 200 million notes offering as pricing exceeded that threshold, they appeared to have several distinct strategies including using internal cash generated from operations and various shorter term credit facilities to repay their senior notes due in October 2017. These strategies are detailed in the third quarter filings and earnings call. In light of these factors, the PICO board is commenced the process for assessing all of its options with the respect to the company’s investment in UCP. Seems all but a certainty this is going to be sold in the next couple months.

"It will take a downturn to show many that FCAU is swimming naked". Don't you think this remark is rather ridiculous? What about 2008-2009? Fiat was one of the only ones left standing. While some of their competitors went bankrupt, they had the guts to play offense and invest in Chrysler when it made sense. And BofA was playing offense investing in Countrywide... Chrysler was and always has been a disaster but fear not, humble leader Marchionne thought he could turn it around which hasnt at all panned out. FCAU is a gamblers spec play, GM is a conservative and well managed company. Would be like pitching a FFH takeover to Berkshire Hathaway. Thanks but no thanks.

Isn't this typically how the media has worked? Only difference is, how up until last week, its all been heavily slanted and one sided reporting. The same camp that lauded the FBI's handling in July now throws a complete hissy fit when new information comes to light that needs to be investigated. A lady who was gone so far out of her way to hide things she's even feigned a concussion, now "demands" full transparency. Oh the irony. Emails released show evidence of collusion between campaign staff and media outlets. Even to the chagrin on folks less popular, but nonetheless within the same party. And this is really what the Dems thought was their best bet? Dude, seriously? I mean I'm down with everyone to nail the media to the wall. Ever since they decided to move news from a loss leader to a profit center it has gone to shit. It no longer news. It's entertainment. It's reality TV Washington edition. There is no more Walter Cronkite. That era is is over. But the whole thing begin slanted against Trump really? How did he even get to this point? Why didn't the media nail his ass to the wall for the million outrageous and ridiculous things he said and did. Which reporter stepped up and put him in his place the way he deserves to be? None. Why was he allowed to call into shows of the can or wherever? Cause they're not doing their job. Everyone is blowing up about Donna Brazile being a partisan. The former chairwoman of the DNC is a partisan. What a shock! CNN also hired Corey Lewandowski. I'm guessing he's gonna be fair, balanced, and full of journalistic integrity. He'll never leak anything to Trump. What a joke! And the leaked emails? I've looked at a lot of them. They're actually a pretty boring depiction of a highly motivated high powered organization that is proceeding is a deliberated and highly calculated way towards a goal. Since when is that a bad thing? I'd like my leaders when faced with big and complex problems to move in a calculated and deliberated way, not shoot from the hip. Trump's entire rise was because he completely played the media for free attention largely because they are too stupid, biased, and ratings hungry to notice. Every outrageous or deplorable thing DT has said has been spam blasted ad nauseam because these clowns think they are successfully bashing him, getting tons of clicks/views, and bringing him down when all its done is drive his campaign without him actually having to spend. The HRC campaign has sat by and at best encouraged this, or at worst, been working with the media to manipulate the narrative(something now being substantiated by emails). The fact that her campaign is now throwing the FBI under the bus because they are doing their jobs does nothing more than highlight what an act it all is; mainly because they sat there and praised these same people 2 months ago when they got what they wanted from them.

Isn't this typically how the media has worked? Only difference is, how up until last week, its all been heavily slanted and one sided reporting. The same camp that lauded the FBI's handling in July now throws a complete hissy fit when new information comes to light that needs to be investigated. A lady who was gone so far out of her way to hide things she's even feigned a concussion, now "demands" full transparency. Oh the irony. Emails released show evidence of collusion between campaign staff and media outlets. Even to the chagrin on folks less popular, but nonetheless within the same party. And this is really what the Dems thought was their best bet?