Gregmal

Your figures are an exaggeration above, but yes, I handicapped on ESRT, got in below $5.50 and got out at $10. When trying to handicap residential prices next to Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google in Seattle area, I'm saying there will be some negative impact to prices in real life as a result of Bill Gates prediction of more than 30% of days not being spent in office anymore, and there will be some positive impact to residential prices in exurbs in Seattle area. That's all, no extreme statements. Thats hardly a controversial statement then and Id even agree with you. There will be some softness and suburbs/rural will benefit. Thats already occurring. But I also wouldn't underestimate the desire of people otherwise priced out of an area to be waiting for the opportunity. I dont think its Gates prediction but rather supply and demand at work. However longer term, the question, and investment opportunity I think is pretty clear. What happened following the GFC where masses of folks were evicted/foreclosed? When the forecasted "new normal" was that everyone and their mother would be renters from now on. An unprecedented wave of private investor/institutional money came in and snapped up homes in desirable but out of favor areas. And its been nothing short of a home run for them. I wouldn't confuse the current covid hysteria where people are literally forced to WFH and daily occupancy rates are like 20% as a new normal. Two years from now most people who were working in an office will still work from at an office. Not just younger people; you dont think the average middle aged married person with kids doesnt cherish the break from that? Or the single, middle aged person not quite young enough for dating apps to be appealing? Where do they get social interaction? The distortion often emerges when there are irregularities and imbalances. Not a whole lot different than when we had an excess supply of stocks in March. The pendulum is always swinging. Sometimes it is fairly straight forward/easy to step back and simply determine whether we are in or out of favor, and then look at what needs to occur to get to the other side. In relation to the thread topic, for NY, its opening back up businesses, getting crime down, and probably looking in the mirror as far as tax policy goes. Pulling shit like they did with Amazon certainly didnt help, but I dont think thats something they can get away with doing repeatedly, and sooner or later they'll see that.

I kind of assumed that, along with your quite bearish tone because that is what you had conveyed in some other threads. I think in the ESRT thread you were talking about $100-$200 sq/ft. The thread is about NY, and if those couple things return, ie nightlife, entertainment, etc...so will the people. They do have an interest to get crime down, although there's tended to be cyclical trends with that, and it is not uncommon for there to be high crime during periods of economic disarray. Those issues shakeout, and you'll be seeing record prices again. Similar areas will likely see similar progression. If this isn't what we are talking about, then I dont now what we're doing in a thread about folks fleeing NYC. So if we are talking about this as an investor, there's really not a whole lot of "risk" posed to NYC or major city hubs, by WFH. The risk is that the drivers that make the city attractive go away...this is a low probability risk IMO. If we are just talking in general about a hiccup in terms of demand...so what? Thats what cycles are. If it isn't any of the above, then I am not quite sure what you are saying.... If anything, I think WFH is a ticking time bomb for suburban office space. Although anecdotally, I've been able to WFH since 2014. I've leased 5 different offices during this time and still pretty much did a hybrid 3/2 type of thing. I was still paying the full rent. Most offices in non prime locations regularly operate at below 100% occupancy and have had no problem gradually raising prices either. Either way, cities will be fine. The question is when, not if.

WFH is highly overblown. Sure, it will continue and progress. But you miss the fact that it may be in the interests of many of these folks to tout worker friendly "choices" surrounding WFH. That doesnt mean people will want it. People have loved city centers for as long as there have been civilizations. Young people want bars, clubs, restaurants, and lots of sex. This only happens in the cities. Or put another way, it doesnt happen rurally, and unless you're looking to boink soccer moms, doesnt happen in the burbs. The cities from a real estate perspective are trophy assets. Its supply and demand. With the degree to which capital is gushing into every corner of the universe, even a reasonable demand decline is more than offset by lower rates and greater number of dollars chasing fewer and fewer available assets. If you want to make an excuse for why guys like Bezos, Zuck, Flatt, etc are buying, fine. I'd prefer to just take it for what it is. It isn't one guy being an outlier...its multiple people and firms who are known for being savvy and opportunistic, doing so. If nothing else its proof of the above. Rich get richer, have more money to deploy....so they deploy it. Brookfield has a whole lot more capital to pour into these assets, and so do a lot of other HNW individuals, institutions, etc. Its the same reason you're seeing shopping centers and retail properties in prized locations selling at record prices, despite a much more dire narrative surrounding them. If anything thinks 5 years from now you see NY RE trading hands at $300 sq/ft....youre simply out to lunch.

I dont know how much one can take from the current situation other than simply acknowledging that some of these things already existed and will just progress with time. Covid is only a short term headwind. But the larger trends of high taxes in some of the places, anti business policy, and now violence...are bad, but will too pass. The current opportunity depends on your time horizon, and big baller status. Guys who answer to no one and who have shown to be opportunistic, like Flatt, Bezos, Zuck, etc.... theyre active and buying. They see that things will go back to normal, eventually. But other than that, who is going to pull the trigger today? If you're a Sr VP and heading up the division responsible for managing RE and signing leases, no way in hell you're going to be the guy who signs a lease in the middle of a pandemic; raging civil unrest, unprecedented violence, and widespread lockdowns... how do you explain that to your boss, who then has to explain that to the CEO, who then has to answer to the Board, who then has to answer to short term centric shareholders? Everything really makes sense within context. Its not surprising, its an easy opportunity, but I dont think it will be get rich quick.

Man, you guys are fancy. I still have, a love dearly, an iPhone 5. Works perfectly and accomplishes everything I need it to. $70 used on Ebay. Currently on my 4th one. Call, text, internet, camera. What more does one need?

Except that is nearly impossible because you do have real essential workers...and its also unconstitutional. So yes, its an appealing option to an academic, which most science folks are...but to someone with a rational understanding of how the world works and how the US is setup, it should have been an obvious non starter. The problem with the politicians, is they dont care, and even if, like Cuomo, their policies are killing people, or like Newsome and Pelosi, they are total hypocrites, "we're saving lives" is a great campaign slogan.

If the "pandemic" has taught us anything it is that the bureaucrats dont know what they are doing, ever, and the scientists need to stay in the labs and stick to research; nothing more. Letting these people make decisions and policy has been a disaster. Almost every position they've taken, they've at some point also taken the exact opposite position. Wear masks, dont wear masks. Stay home! Actually most covid transmissions occur at home! Remdesivir works. Oh actually it doesnt. Hospitals putting people on ventilators....oops, ventilators make it worse! The scientists and medical professionals have certainly come out of this thing looking quite poor. And then they wonder why people dont "listen to the science"... My wife had to got to the hospital for a standard procedure a couple weeks ago....they make this whole big to-do about temperature checks and processing everything and make us wait several hours to do basic check in stuff and get her one of the rapid tests. I ended up just asking, "you've spent 2+ hours dicking around and making us wait...what if she tests positive for covid? Do you not take her or something". And I was floored by the response. "Oh no, then we just take extra precautions but proceed as normal"...What!?! LOL Why TF wouldn't you just take these precautions, with everyone who comes in, to begin with? My wife's family, almost all of the women are nurses. And the stories about the hospitals, big ones at that, running around clueless or winging it, making mistakes all over the place, etc....its insane. I've long maintained that the only way I'll ever know if I've had covid is if I end up in the ICU or dead. Because barring being in that type of condition, I'd imagine I'd just suck it up like I would with any other cold or flu...and get on with my life. No need to take chances or incorporate these people into the equation unless absolutely desperate and necessary.

No problem lol. PCYO and several other smaller semi liquid names Ive noticed have unusual selling activity. Ive put some sucker bids in. SWKH especially as that one can get fat fingered pretty easily and I'd love to make a quick 10-20% just playing market maker on a holiday shortened trading day.

Hi Andrew Left. Thanks for setting up more shorts to get slaughtered. Jokes aside a $5-10 pullback wouldn't be out of this world considering the s/t move, which if I had to wager is all Andrew is playing here. He often just likes to put a bow of unnecessary research around his calls when in reality he's just trading; all he needs to do is just emulate Tepper's "I thought it would go up" response for SNAP, and that would be sufficient enough for me, but I guess he has a flair for the dramatic...

Sold the last few of my PSTH warrants. Also trimmed some CRSP.

https://spacinsider.com The above is a great resource for anyone interested in these. Spacs are literally the playground where the sophisticated investor can rape, pillage and plunder the Robinhooder, while the Robinhooder to date, still seems to also do pretty well. No guarantees how this ends of course!

Little do most people know, but historically, the biggest holders of spacs are some of the most conservative institutions/hedge funds. Of course typically they were in it for the 3-5% over max 18-24 months that was common pre-mania. Upon decoupling they would offload the warrants to get their ~2-5% return and then wait out the common for either a deal pop or redemption where you'd get the $10 plus (time*prevailing interest rate).

Happy Thanksgiving all. Who knows what things will be like in the future, so dont take for granted what you have now.

No because you have the option to redeem your shares for $10. From deal announcement, until deal close, thats part of the sponsor headache. Most who dont like it, cash out in the open market if the units are over $10, which they almost always are; lately, very much so. But even if the shares are sub $10, you have until deal close and can redeem them to the company for $10. Effectively, in a typical WS kind of way, to close the deal, everyone who owns the shares needs to be in favor of the transaction, rather than the typical 50% or whatever with most corporate actions. If the transaction gets nixed, between the IPO cash kept in trust, and the sponsor gap fill, all the units are is a shell company with $10 per share in it.

If you've got an itch to short the bubble, perhaps finding something that hasn't proven to be resilient and more or less bullet proof for nearly a decade makes sense. The only way to make money shorting Tesla is to more or less nail every facet of the trade, specifically, right down to the timing. And if thats something you have confidence in your ability to do, there's almost certainly higher upside trades to put on, that would likely coincide with the same catalysts.

So from my understanding, the idea is to buy around $10 (the floor), and sell in-between the announcement and closing date, correct? Seems too be good to be true, what am I missing? The win rate must be very low, no? Yea, theres two ways to do it. The first is the least risky. Buy the pre announcement spac. You can get them very close to $10 buying right after they IPO. Your max duration is typically 18-24 months. There is an interesting dynamic to the warrants as contrary to conventional wisdom, they actually gain value as time goes by as people anticipate a deal announcement. So, just using an example, something like SPNVU, you can buy now for say 10.15. After its 50th day public or whatever, it can decouple. Which allows the speculators to buy the warrants. So between that and deal anticipation, you're going to see a bit of a lift to the units. With this type of situation I like to park short term cash here that I eventually plan to use for other things. You can pretty reliably trade these, all day long and clip .5-1% just on fluctuations, which beats the shit out of your cash. SPNVU you can buy at 10.15 and either add below there or peel off over 10.2 and just rinse and repeat. Max downside in absolute terms is $10 but realistically probably more like 0 given much of the above and other factors. The second way, is to jump on a deal announcement or stalk existing deals. SBE for instance on first announcement traded 12/13. SPAQ fluctuated like heck and has been a trading bonanza. PIC you just had to follow and recently hugged $10 for a good while despite IMO being one of the more exciting and reasonably(within context) valued deals. I dont want to give away to much of the recipe but another very reliable trade is buying a small amount right at the close and then flipping it for a .5-1% premium after hours as the minions of Sherwood Forest reliably bid these up A/H. Main thing is to just have a plan. But yea, it is kinda too good to be true. Ive rarely seen risk/reward setups like this.

Yup. Had a decent little surprise the other day with INAQU. Only had a few thousand shares but still just highlights the power of the market. Had an investor, guys the biggest vagina in the world and up until US went 0 on rates in March, insisted on buying CDs with 90% of his wealth. Yes even at .75% for 24 months. He finally took my advice and we get a fair share of SPAC IPO, especially from certain syndicates. He put in for $50k on INAQU and got allocated for only 500 shares. This was September I believe. Sold yesterday for $12. He made more money in 2 months on a risk free $5,000 investment than he would have in 2 years on $200k....Today we took down some of the FRXU IPO. Also buying in open market LSAQ and SPNVU. These are beautiful.

If I learned one thing about O&G investing in the last 10 years is that you "rent" them, you never "marry" them. Size them small and diversified. Your mental health will thank you greatly in the end. Lucky again! GEOS booted from the Smallcap 600. Another opportunity to print some money perhaps. Would certainly buy this back in the low 6s. These schmucks actually approved a buyback a couple weeks ago.

Unfortunately, in our states, you cant present a firearm to an uninvited guest even if its on your own property. But I do have a Tibetan Mastiff and would be happy so see one of these unwanted "inspectors" meet him. Would be especially entertaining for everyone during Thanksgiving festivities. Mind your own damn business and you'll be safe.

Curious what date/strike? Had some Dec 11 $25s in my cross hairs today but held off as $2 for 2 weeks seemed a tad steep.

Sold the FSR warrants I bought today at the close. Money is growing on trees lately.

Average GEOS was high $5s. Started buying around $6.50 and pyramided into about a 2% position in the mid 5s. Either lucky or good, who cares right? Strange though seeing a pretty legit, almost net-net type US listed company like that. Chart looks good and I'm hoping we push towards $8 for the rest. Setup still seems there, but I'm getting a little skittish with the market and also building a new core position. And also as discussed, dont want to marry this bitch.

Lots and lots of money can be made in bubbles. Just make sure YOU rotate into value before everyone else! I agree on the house money strategy. You can make many multiples of your investment but can only lose 100%. Huge advantage if you know what you're doing. I trimmed some of my GEOS position today and took off another 1/3 of BEAM.

Any specific reason on timing price etc? I generally agree. For one, the market is kinda scaring me a little. Lots of euphoria. I think the tech/WFH stuff burst with the vaccine and will at best bleed out as the recovery play stuff becomes more en vogue, or at worst deflate into a more rational but still expensive valuation. But just off the top of my head, I won't even mention RE cuz thats just what we do and it was stupid cheap anyway, but I have/had a good half dozen positions(stuff like BTC, FSR, PLTR, SBE, JMIA) that have at least doubled in just the last few weeks. As much as I'd like to think of myself as that damn good, its only honest to say that this is not healthy or normal, especially when most of these things already seemed irrationally priced(with the exception maybe of PLTR) to begin with and largely moved on absolutely NO NEWS. So I ve been selling down a lot of the spec stuff and looking for some options should this mania subside.

Ended up adding a few FSR.ws at 5.10 Shares at $20 but warrants priced as if stock is at $16.6 w/ no time value. When shares were recently at $10 warrants were at $2. Seems like a reasonable margin of safety is built in via the disconnect.