Gregmal

Loopnet is a total waste of time. There is a massive public to private disconnect. I didn't see the NOI on a lazy glance, but thats a 7.5-8.5 cap property. The problem with the public companies is theyre all kingdom builders. So you're not getting anyone saying, "we're trading at a 10 cap but are easily a 6" and winding things down... The REIT structure is also sometimes heavily inefficient in light of the kingdom builder context. You cant tell a discount to NAV story and then issue stock, so it's leverage, leverage, leverage, then whoops.. CREXI is where its at though if you're looking to keep up with listings and get access to brokers. https://www.crexi.com/properties/314749/florida-silver-star-shopping-center

Theyre definitely more durable. But I think a lot of the issue is that value investors of a certain ilk just continuously get jaded by scripture. Falsely lulling themselves into being content being wrong, because under a certain mindset, value investing doctrine lets one think that when wrong, you arent really wrong but rather just need to be patient and buy more. A dangerous thing. Especially with bad businesses, which for the past decade, seems to have become a trend for even the best managers out there.

Have you read their research? If so, and you disagree with their figures / outcome, can you explain why? Everyone has their research and everyone makes bold claims. Motley Fool beats the shit out of the market too apparently. Financial Services firm research is mostly bs. Especially stuff done only for accredited investors. I'd even point out that unless they have additional disclosures, spamming Twitter like they were doing not long ago is a major no-no in the business as well. I think since they only market to exempt participants, they can get away with it, but its definitely sketchy.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/10/california-pol-tweets-f-k-elon-musk-amid-plans-to-move-tesla/

Yea margin rates are the only reason I use IBKR. I have begun migrating some of my smaller cap names out though. Its a total waste of time for anything $500M market cap or under. Their margin requirements are awful for those. But if you can find $1B+ideas, its a beautiful thing.

https://www.harris.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Monthly%20Economic%20Crisis%20Support%20Act%20Bill%20Text.pdf This is the most insane thing Ive ever seen. Married couple with 3 kids who collectively earns $150k a year will be getting $10,000 a month from the government! Frugal folks like those on here could pray this pandemic lasts 2-3 years and then just retire.

This is all great and sounds cool, but what these guys do is effectively gamble away the entirety of your allocation with the hope that under certain circumstances, their wagers will result in a big windfall. Peronsally, I'd love to have a job where the expected outcome is that I lose all of your money, with no consequence. Actually scratch that.... with the expectation that next year you will give me more to do the exact same thing.... Why do these guys get so loudmouthed and boisterous during times where they hit? Because these schemes revolve around marketing.

Huckabee recently stated that any elected official supporting a shutdown, should not be allowed to take a paycheck until their constituents are allowed to get back to work. So simple, but yet so true. Why are these guys getting paid? Total scum.

Yea same for me, kind of as you guys. I started buying in Nov/Dec 2018, got really lucky selling and yes, actually did nail a lot at $67.25. My reasons for selling were somewhat lucky. I recall a bunch of folks, myself included, just being really excited about the recent developments and management sounding really, really good on one of the calls. After stepping back a bit and reading through my notes, I gut feeling'ed a determination that this had run the cycle, from boring and unloved to now quite loved, and that my estimates of a $70 NAV meant it was time to move on. I did however not hesitate to start rebuying in the low 50's. And continue up until recently. Average rebuy basis probably around $47. Ultimately how I feel about it sways, largely due to uncertainty of recent events. If you put a $65 NAV on this, it fails to stand out against almost all of the alternatives. To me, its better managed than all of the alternatives, but isn't quite as cheap. Do I then enter the rabbit hole of quality vs valuation? I dont know. I dont think this applies as much to real estate as it does other businesses. I dont think its very easy to fuck up real estate unless you overpay for assets, dramatically, and consistently. Thats not a risk here IMO. At least with development, your risk is typically very well compensated and these guys also typically limit their exposure to spec projects. Anyway, I've recently been drawn to JOE. Probably worthy of another thread, but they've come a long way over the past half decade and seem both well run and well positioned financially to make some noise.

We've come a long way haven't we?

Yea, IDK but it seems the narrative has shifted quite a bit over the years. Buffett is widely regarded as one of the greatest INVESTORS ever. Guy in his heyday used leverage and was trading like a madman. Its at best an excuse that now he is an operator. Or that he's actually not a stock guy, but someone who runs businesses. I thought this(below) was interesting and probably mirrored some of the chat that happened here in another thread regarding Buffett and Musk. Buffet is not an innovator or business builder(in the organic sense), he's a capital allocator. And one of the greatest ever. Well, up until maybe 15 years ago that is. Now, for whatever reason, he does so little investing that people seem to think he is something that he's never been. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/warren-buffett-may-be-one-of-the-most-admired-men-in-all-of-finance-but-elon-musk-isnt-buying-into-the-mystique-2020-05-07

Yea its surprised me over the years how many people who invest in the stock market do not grasp several really, really simple concepts that make it all relatively easy and mentally much less taxing. 1) the most you can lose is you investment, but you can make many multiples of it(assuming your arent doing more sophisticated stuff) 2) gun to your head, always go with quality over valuation 3) ignore the noise from those who constantly worry about stocks "going down". I see so many people pissing their pants worrying about when the next downturn is. So fucking what? History has taught us that if you have a long term horizon, and buy quality, pretty much all downturns are opportunities. 4) diversify and manage your risk.

Yea I had my list of valuation shorts to hedge with and it came down to this or SAM. I went with SAM because CMG is very well run and who knows, there is a certain power associated with the whole 5lbs of rice with gristle for $11 that makes people go nuts. Where as SAM is run with a surfer bro culture and is pretty much driven by fads like hard cider, then soda and recently spiked seltzer, which should soon be hitting a wall. That said, both are still just valuation shorts and one should always expect to lose money with valuation based shorts.

Started a small position in SLB

Yea it is limited capacity but I'm more concerned, as a demand indicator, with "Sell out". This to me indicates they clearly have room to increase capacity and the people will be there. I'd be concerned if you're at 30% capacity and having trouble selling that. Such as the case with some airlines.

Phil and his wife do some really great things. No denying that. But when it comes to stocks he's kind of a degenerate gambler. Ive never seen anything like it. A "billionaire" trading pump and dump micro cap penny stocks. Using company funds to do so as well(held as "investments" and likely significantly overstated) and then in some cases buying them out.

I'm outright short. Borrow is basically nil. Going into catalysts I'll sometimes waste money for piece of mind with a few OTM calls to hedge parts of the position, but at the end of the day, any pop is a gift with this turd. They have what I'd peg as less than a quarter of cash so they urgently need to do a capital raise. Last capital raise was announced at $2.20 or so and priced at $1.50.... I'd gander there may be a few more suckers right now given the promotion of the lab biz, but as we've seen with the hospitals, the economics of much of this corona related business activity arent great. They currently lose like $1.30 for every $1 in revenue, and their much hyped junk like Rayaldee and 4K score will likely continue to be adversely effected on a demand basis due to the virus. So.... lab testing dollars at low margin vs high margin drugs? I'll take that trade

We have crappy diets, resulting in first world problems like high blood pressure, diabetes etc. In rural China and rural Africa, people have 110/70 blood pressure well into their old age. In the western world, with processed foods and high salt and high sugar, we have extremely high blood pressure and diabetes rates very early in life. Our bodies don't fight off viruses as well as healthy people. My view is it's largely diet based. All, the above and second and third world countries also have reporting issues, plus the epidemic has not run its. course yet. There are reports of bad situations in Ecuador (Quito) and Brazil but numbers are hard to come by. While these and other points mentioned above are all valid, I highly doubt they can fully explain the huge discrepancy between the developed and the developing countries. And especially considering the big factor that should make situations worse in developing countries -- their lack of good healthcare systems. I do wonder whether how some countries do not care much about this virus and this is being reflected in recognizing/reporting the COVID death numbers. My wife's coworker (they work in healthcare), who has families in Bangladesh, told her yesterday that while COVID is spreading there, people are more worried about going hungry than the virus. Suppose your people, media, and government do not really recognize this virus as anything novel or serious... In such countries, even if people die due to COVID or related illness, they might not warrant much attention and won't be tracked like some doomsday counter. In that sense, is COVID another "first world problem"? Yup. I think this is on the money. Media coverage and fear mongering have made this what it is. Its now widely recognized that this was here much earlier than some people thought, and guess what? Life was totally normal and folks got on with their normal business and the economy was humming along just fine. So yes, its a shame we manufactured a horror story and certainly did impair parts of the economy, probably unnecessarily. But, in other news. Shanghai Disney tickets sold out. RCL is reporting normal booking volume for 2021, guess not everyone is living under a table in their basement.

Lazy, couple gin and tonics in write up that I meant to post last week... This is a cigar butt short. Company was toast and then COVID came along and "oh shit, we got a lab company", lets keep the gig going! History of nefarious dealings. Massively promotional majority shareholder. Ties to frauds, shitty bucket shops, stock promoters, and mafia entities. Oh yea, SEC investigations too. This company is literally a billion dollar penny stock. It exists for zero purpose but to serve Phil Frost and enrich his entourage. It has existed for over a decade and never made a legitimate profit. The "business" consists of rolling up failed pink sheeters, and ruined biotech companies, the majority of which Frost or his buddies have major(often undisclosed) stakes in, and then claiming the brilliant Phil Frost will reinvent or fix them and turn them into multi billion dollar products. Company is burning north of $200M per year and even after taking NJ state loans will NEED to raise cash in the next 3-6 months. Capital structure is dogshit. Convertible note issues with strike of $4 and chance. Frost owns a massive stake and keeps adding to promote the "insider buying" narrative. But he's old and a free call option is if he or his estate has to sell its game over. Either way, this is toast and was "trading" at $1.30 pre COVID, was probably "worth" $0.15 (to) -$0.35(yes, negative) then, and now has milked stock promotion from the NIA and ridden the COVID crisis to skating by a little longer. My 12 month price target is lower than the change you can find on the NYC subway(yes, while they are shut down and people are staying home). The company will likely be delisted and trade OTC. In a miracle scenario this occurs in a couple years. Realistically, much sooner. Disclosure: I am short OPK. This is all my opinion but based of things you can look up easily.

Is this sarcasm? No its legit. I get what you're referring to. I do amuse myself when value folks who have been both arrogant/condescending and wrong for a decade continue to be made to look like fools when their favorite "no brainer" shorts continue to skyrocket, even during times when "value" is supposed to be outperforming...but this is real. ANYTHING, internet related or fad related is going bonkers and it just isn't healthy or rational. While I do think valuations should be higher than most think, I also cant process blue chip RE firms trading at 10-12% cap rates with 0-1% treasuries/private market sales going off at 4-6% cap rates, and single digit PE's on systematically integral companies who are buying back stock and paying dividends while fantasy land business ventures are trading at 50-100x sales and insiders and selling/raising cash like there's no tomorrow. Something has to give and personally, I know what I would own... This maybe be the incognito blow off top everyone was looking for 3 months ago.

I cant help but get even more bearish when tell tale signs of euphoria include justifying valuations of companies like SHOP, BYND, and PTON. Oh yea, and we've gotten past the point of even questioning TSLA...

While I have no position here anymore, I mentioned this on the SPG thread; the only logical way forward, especially with significant deferred and abated rents, is equity stakes. The major players could literally come out of this owning decent sized chunks of a high percentage of the usual mall occupants. Thats how you compete against Amazon. Amazon takes a % of sales from people on their platform, and now you'll have the physical location equivalent in many cases. Will be interesting for sure.

Depending on how you read this, this is either brilliant sarcasm or a brilliant and probably unintentional self tout.

I would also add, any scenario where the Vandy Observatory "outcompetes" the Empire State Building, is going to be predicated on outrageously positive implications for NYC real estate assets. So I think that theres a major flaw in the thesis that all NYC RE is done for but One Vandy will be a bigger draw/take business from The Observatory...

He may very well be right, but his short thesis isn't very well laid out; other than to state the obvious, Observatory revenue will be bad for a bit, and their buildings are old. If I had to guess this sounds more like a pair/hedge or basket short rather than ESRT is fucked. The CBRE report looks interesting, thanks.