Mephistopheles

That's an interesting point about negotiating margin rates. Another reason I use IBKR is because it allows me to do bull call spreads in my Roth IRA. Merrill Edge doesn't, which is so stupid because it's the same thing as a covered call. I'll ask Schwab about margin and spreads. Are there any other brokers that are willing to negotiate? Merrill is not. TD has some of the worst margin rates but I hear they have a great platform, has anyone been able to negotiate with them? Also the other supposed benefit about IBKR is the quality of their execution. Is it truly better than the others? I haven't noticed any difference between it and Merrill Edge, but I'm by no means a day trader or fast trader. Does execution quality between these brokers even matter for infrequent traders?

I use ibkr for the margin rates. Otherwise it’s god awful

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/business/lehigh-valley-warehouses-ecommerce.html Pretty good article on the Lehigh Valley warehouse boom and NIMBYism. Reading this article make's me a bit nervous. At some point, once the supply/demand imbalance swings in the other direction, this will not be a good investment. So much speculative building. And all these mall closings means so much empty space just waiting to be repurposed. When will that time come? Who knows. On the positive side I feel INDT is an obvious takeover candidate as has been discussed in this thread.

There you go: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001437107/000119312521167840/d68084d425.htm " each issued and outstanding share of Discovery’s Series A-1 Convertible Participating Preferred Stock, par value $0.01 per share, will be reclassified and converted into 13.11346315 shares of Discovery New Series A Common Stock "

I'm getting slightly more at 2.48 billion - still seems like a good deal at <9x '23 FCF The A1 Preferreds are going to get converted at a ratio of 13.11 common per pref. They have 8 million outstanding which turns to about 105 million pro forma. The C1 converstion ratio is 19.4 x 5 million shares = 97 million pro forma So: DISCA = 168,654,015 DISCB = 6,512,378 DISCK = 330,146,263 A1 = 104,907,705 C1 = 96,824,000 Share Awards = 11,000,000 Total = 718,044,361 NewCo = 2,476,015,039

What if Melinda was physically and verbally abusive to Bill, and then one day Bill walked in on her with another man, and then he proceed to cheat? Then would it be more forgivable? What if Melinda had a cuckhold fetish and promoted Bill sleeping around until she got jealous and then called it cheating? Point being that none of us can judge anyone else's personal relationships from the outside so we should not even attempt it, let alone try to relate that to their professional lives. If you take a microscope to your life or mine, and review every aspect of it and use it as a means of judging our professional character, I bet neither of us would turn up clean.

Not from a professional standpoint, no

Re: Snowball - my understanding is that Buffett gave free reigns in order to not bias the story nor have the audience perceive any bias. Meaning, he wanted Alice to publish the book without even reviewing it. Then when he saw the final copy he or family was upset at the level of detail regarding their personal lives. Like everything else in his career, he believed that giving people more reign and off hand approach will motivate them to do a better job. It didn't work in this case. Re: Buffett and Gates extramarital affairs- who cares? Who are we to judge? Who's to say Melinda didn't have an affair? None of this matters when judging their character because for us it's just an outsider perspective. I hated Trump but I feel the same way about his stormy Daniels thing. Who cares? And regarding Gates and Epstein relationship, definitely odd but I doubt that every friend of Jeffrey Epstein committed statutory rape. It's guilt by association.

I know Gates is a nerd, but he's the richest man on earth. Why is it so hard for him to get women who are not subordinates at MSFT? Why did Bezos have an affair with that woman who's now his girlfriend? She's got all that plastic surgery on her lips. Seriously if you're the richest man in the world, have some better taste and class. If Bezos/Gates had affairs with supermodels, that would be a bit more understandable and forgivable.

lol! where is this from?

I bought some. The accounting is for sure scary, but if it's to be believed than I think it's shooting fish in a barrel. Wouldn't have done it without Charlie. Why isn't Li Lu big in it is my question? Maybe he owns the HK shares so it doesn't have to be reported? Wouldn't that make sense? But then why didn't Charlie by HK shares? If the accounting is to be believed, I would like to see Buffett get in on it. He's expressed regret for never buying Amazon well this he gets for only $600 bn market cap. Would be a perfect place to park $50 bn.

I think selling puts can be beneficial in a situation where the IV is crazy high. Here you may not really care to own the stock but you can still make good money. For instance on Viacom last week I sold a few short term puts ATM $45 strike that expired last week and on. The one that expired last week I kept almost all of the premium as profit. The other one, expires on 4/23, I sold on 3/29 when the stock was $46, and today it closed below $43 yet I am still in the black. Most of the profit is from the IV collapse and some of it in the time value factor. (Though tomorrow I will probably be in the red). But, here's a stock which I think is ok to own at $45 but I am not thrilled about it. I am betting not on valuation, rather against volatility. Hoping to sell some $40s tomorrow depending on IV as CS and Nomura unwind.

winjitsu, ANP, Pelagic, thank you all for your generous responses. I have decided to pass as this is definitely in the way too hard pile for me. But I appreciate the thought processes laid out here and it'll help me look at another opportunity if I ever get it. I had to look up what an MVP was. Do they have one? No clue. And I don't know any angel investor either. The founders do have experience in starting businesses but not specifically in this industry. And ultimately, I do agree it's bizarre they are asking for a relatively small minimum amount from people in the U.S. (less than $50k commitment). As ANP pointed out, given the mania and the amount of money floating around, why would they need to ask for small sums from low net worth individuals? Let's see what happens. Watch this become the next Tesla :P.

I sold some puts.  Jan 2023 @ $40 strike for $11.50.  I'd be happy to buy Viacom again in the high 20's.  Seems like we are going to end up with five or six big players in the United States - Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Peacock/Hulu, Paramount Plus and maybe Prime Video or Apple TV, and these services become the new "TV bundle".  I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where ViacomCBS does not own a substantive portion of the streaming pie.  I tend to think the smaller players (i.e. Discovery Plus, Showtime, EPIX) get rolled up into the larger services to provide additional scale and content.      I ended up selling a bunch of puts too. I looked at BABA, TME, DISC and settled on VIAC because the valuation is reasonable. The premiums were so juicy and I am at 50% cash so it was an easy decision. I sold a $45 strike put expiring 4/1/21 for $2.75, and $40 strike expiring in Sept for $5.25. If I happen to get put the stock this week, I plan to sell some upside calls as I am sure the premiums will continue to be fat. I like that they managed to issue $2.7 billion of common at $85, and convertibles that convert at $100 IIRC, just last week. So the real numbers are better than what the current balance sheet shows.  I also saw they signed a new deal with the NFL that will go to ~2031. Content library contain a whole bunch of movie classics. Streaming subscriptions are shooting up. And, the multiple is in the low teens so I feel like I have a decent cushion.

Anyone buying with the Tiger Cub forced selling? We are at levels not seen since 2 months ago lol. Not too familiar with the industry but it doesn't look too bad on a valuation basis - like 10-12 x earnings or FCF.