Are we headed for a world wide meltdown?

[Chung Tran]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

hotter than the runup to 2008? maybe. about the same. and the result will be the same when it drops like a rock.

I think a little hotter, yes. When you get flyers in the mail, random phone calls asking if you'll sell your house, and you know people who don't know shit about Real Estate, partnering up to buy and flip houses, that is a hot Market!

By the way, speaking of HOT, and the spiraling appraisals in the Metroplex... Anyone know a good contact, to fight an overly high appraisal? Never done it, want to now. I know May 15 is the deadline. I know there are Firms that will take a cut of your property tax savings, if they fight and win. Any recommendations? No time or inclination to do it myself.

[rexdutchman]

Yes,,,,, great reset

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by rexdutchman

Yes,,,,, great reset

Can OEB be far behind?

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Chung Tran

I think a little hotter, yes. When you get flyers in the mail, random phone calls asking if you'll sell your house, and you know people who don't know shit about Real Estate, partnering up to buy and flip houses, that is a hot Market!

By the way, speaking of HOT, and the spiraling appraisals in the Metroplex... Anyone know a good contact, to fight an overly high appraisal? Never done it, want to now. I know May 15 is the deadline. I know there are Firms that will take a cut of your property tax savings, if they fight and win. Any recommendations? No time or inclination to do it myself.

just got this in the mail a week or so ago. a letter but here is the website


www.texastaxprotest.com


no idea if these people can do what they claim. Caveat emptor.


my tax went down last year by about 1,700. that's what i got back when Chase adjusted my escrow. my payment went down about 150/mo as well.


according the letter from this outfit they claim my property tax will increase a huge massive $637.

bahhahhaaaaaa


their fee to appeal is $295. not worth the bother, this year anyway. and in Collin county there is a year by year cap of 10% it can increase.


i hear various things about how successful these outfits are and/or appealing yourself and most of what i hear is it's a waste of time.

[bambino]

There will be a meltdown, then a rebirth. It’s gonna be Biblical.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by lustylad

[B][SIZE="5"]The arrest last week of the founder of the investment firm Archegos, charged with securities fraud, is a great reminder of hidden debt. In March 2021, Archegos was overleveraged, allegedly hiding its debt from Wall Street firms as it used funky “total-return swaps” to manipulate stock prices. The inevitable collapse destroyed $100 billion in stock value. (Archegos’s lawyers have denied the allegations.)

My biggest loss in a short position ever was in a company I'll call XYZ Inc. I'm not giving the real name because it might out me if a friend or colleague reads this. The company was a complete fraud. They were fabricating revenues, and wildly overvalued based even on their fake numbers. I sold short the first time around 64 and covered at about 102. I reentered at about 200 and then bought back when the price spiked up to over 260, having had too much punishment.

It turns out Bill Hwang (owner of Archegos) had "bought" over 50% of the float of the company! Not only that, but at the same time Archegos "owned" over 50% of Viacom!!! Hwang was using massive, hidden leverage. Actually "own" is not the right word, because Archegos didn't own the shares. It had entered into derivative contracts with investment banks -- the total return swaps mentioned in your link. So the company managed to hide both its massive level of liabilities and its holdings. None of the banks would have done business with Archegos if they'd known what Hwang was up to.

The price of the shares is now around $2.00, way down from my entry points at $62 and $200. Like I said in a reply to CM or CT, you can be fundamentally right about a company when you sell short and still lose a bundle.

As to how or whether this fits into the big picture, that's a question for you or CM -- above my paygrade.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

That's exactly how I look at it.

Imagine that you ran an almost unimaginably humongous private equity firm. (Fun thought, isn't it?) You see that the stock of a company with prospects you like is trading at $__ per share (fill in the blank appropriately). Would you buy the whole company at its current market cap? If not, you're speculating, not investing.

"I have simple tastes. I am easily satisfied with the best."

-- Stanley Marcus

"I am a simple man with simple ideas. I like assets, reasonable debt/equity ratios, strong, sustainable competitive positions within an industry, free cash flow, and dividends."

-- CaptainMidnight

To that end, among my favorites are the few dozen companies sometimes known as "dividend aristocrats" -- that is, companies with a long history of cranking out steadily increasing earnings and dividends.

Earlier I mentioned that I like to cash in 5% or so of my positions in rapidly appreciating growth stocks (mostly tech) when the market is richly valued.

Everyone wants to "buy low, sell high," needless to say. The problem is picking the entry and exit points. That's why some of the very most successful investors (Peter Lynch, Warren Buffett, etc.) very rarely sell and seek to own for the long term.

"The wise investor buys his stocks when fairly priced and holds for the long term, not concerning himself with worries over market cycles, wars, recessions, and short-term panics."

-- J. Paul Getty

I've always thought that successful long-term investing requires patience, self-discipline, and a certain amount of cold-bloodedness. Another aphorism Buffett sometimes tossed out is that the market is a mechanism for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient.

.

I share your appreciation of dividends. You can fake a lot of things -- income, accounts receivable, inventories, net cash, even cash flow. But it's damn hard to fake dividends.

[Chung Tran]

Originally Posted by Tiny

I share your appreciation of dividends. You can fake a lot of things -- income, accounts receivable, inventories, net cash, even cash flow. But it's damn hard to fake dividends.

But don't get fooled by YIELD.

Plenty of stocks look attractive at first glance, when you see they have a high yield. Look under the hood, and they may be in a pronounced downtrend, stock price in near free fall. The yield is phony, based on a divident payout previously given, but the next dividend will be cut, or eliminated.

There was an infamous company (Fieldstone) that sported a 17% yield in the throes of the financial crisis. So the books stated. You bought it, and you never got any dividend. They went bankrupt quickly after.

[lustylad]

Good point, Chungy.

Jim Cramer has for years advised viewers of his show Mad Money to invest in "accidental high-yielders". By that he means stocks in companies that are fundamentally sound but have been beaten down in price for other reasons, such as a general market downturn. A 50% drop in a stock's price automatically doubles the dividend yield, without the company doing a thing.

Here is a recent Cramer list of "accidental high yielders":

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/02/10-d...ping-list.html

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Tiny

My biggest loss in a short position ever was in a company I'll call XYZ Inc. I'm not giving the real name because it might out me if a friend or colleague reads this. The company was a complete fraud. They were fabricating revenues, and wildly overvalued based even on their fake numbers. I sold short the first time around 64 and covered at about 102. I reentered at about 200 and then bought back when the price spiked up to over 260, having had too much punishment.

It turns out Bill Hwang (owner of Archegos) had "bought" over 50% of the float of the company! Not only that, but at the same time Archegos "owned" over 50% of Viacom!!! Hwang was using massive, hidden leverage. Actually "own" is not the right word, because Archegos didn't own the shares. It had entered into derivative contracts with investment banks -- the total return swaps mentioned in your link. So the company managed to hide both its massive level of liabilities and its holdings. None of the banks would have done business with Archegos if they'd known what Hwang was up to.

The price of the shares is now around $2.00, way down from my entry points at $62 and $200. Like I said in a reply to CM or CT, you can be fundamentally right about a company when you sell short and still lose a bundle.

As to how or whether this fits into the big picture, that's a question for you or CM -- above my paygrade.

this guy Bill Hwang is a piece of work to be sure.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Hwang#Career


Career

Hwang began his career at Hyundai Securities in New York, after which he worked at the now defunct Peregrine. At Peregrine, he met Julian Robertson as one of his clients. Hwang went to work for Robertson's Tiger Management. Robertson closed his hedge fund in 2000 but handed Hwang about $25 million to launch his own fund, Tiger Asia Management, which grew to over $5 billion at its peak.[1] Robertson’s former protégés are known as the Tiger Cubs, and Hwang was considered one of the most successful among them.[7] Tiger Asia suffered heavy losses in the Great Recession.[8]


In 2012, Tiger Asia Management and Hwang paid a $44 million settlement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in relation to insider trading.[9][10]


In 2014, Hwang was banned from trading in Hong Kong for four years.[7]
Archegos Capital Management

In 2012,[11] Hwang closed Tiger Asia Management, and opened a family office, Archegos Capital Management,[1] which managed US$10 billion of family money. As a family office, they were less regulated than as a hedge fund.[9]


In March 2021, the losses at Archegos Capital Management triggered the default and liquidation of positions approaching $30 billion in value, leading to substantial losses to Nomura and Credit Suisse, as well as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley[9][12] The firm had large positions in ViacomCBS, Baidu, Vipshop, Farfetch, and others.


Credit Suisse exited its prime brokerage business as a result of losing $5.5 billion.[13] Archegos had a 20% share of Texas Capital Bancshares Inc., and their share increased 93% but plunged after Archegos' collapse.[14]


Before the losses, Hwang was believed to be worth $10 billion–$15 billion with his investments leveraged 5:1.[7]


On April 27, 2022, Hwang and his former top lieutenant, Patrick Halligan, were arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud as part of scheme to harm investors.[15] In a 59-page indictment, Manhattan federal prosecutors alleged that Hwang and Hallligan schemed to manipulate stock prices.[15] Lawyers for Hwang and Halligan stated that they were innocent of the charges in the indictment.[15] Hwang was released on a $100 million bond, which was covered on margin with $5 million.[16]

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

this guy Bill Hwang is a piece of work to be sure.

Hwang led his meetings with a prayer and also had a 30 minute Bible study at the office weekly. I'm more God fearing than you are, but will say that when you see people doing that you better watch out. There's a good chance you're going to get screwed. And I imagine there are a few of Hwang's staff who will go down with him.

I and other shorts couldn't figure out who was on the other sides of our trades. We figured people like Robin Hood customers and meme fans, as well as some Cathie Wood fund-manager clones and momentum investors. But it turned out it was Hwang, buying like a bat out of hell.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Chung Tran

But don't get fooled by YIELD.

Plenty of stocks look attractive at first glance, when you see they have a high yield. Look under the hood, and they may be in a pronounced downtrend, stock price in near free fall. The yield is phony, based on a divident payout previously given, but the next dividend will be cut, or eliminated.

There was an infamous company (Fieldstone) that sported a 17% yield in the throes of the financial crisis. So the books stated. You bought it, and you never got any dividend. They went bankrupt quickly after.

Yes, if shares are cheap, you need to know why they're cheap.

There are a lot of reasons why high dividend yields may deceive. You brought up one, I think (I'm not familiar with Fieldstone), too much debt and a downturn in business.

Right now you're going to see coal exporters, refiners and bulk shipping companies paying generous dividends. But when coal prices, refining margins and shipping rates go down, so will the dividends. The market realizes this and so they sell at high dividend yields. Still, for some of these companies, it's possible the dividends you'll receive in the next few years may justify the share price. Some are probably cheap.

Some companies will juice the dividend yield so the insiders can dump shares. This is common with some Chinese companies listed on foreign exchanges. Some are frauds. You can guard against this by being careful with companies that haven't been listed and traded for a long time -- probably one of the reasons CM prefers companies that have paid good dividends for many years.

Resource companies can be sitting on key mines and oil fields that have low reserve/production ratios. That is their gold or oil or whatever is about to play out. So they too can sell at high yields, for a reason.

Capex and working capital investment have a big effect. If a company was minting free cash flow and then decides to embark on a major project or expansion or acquisition, it may cut or omit dividends, and may in addition go deep into debt. If the return on their additional investment is poor, it may be a long while before you see good dividends again.

In addition to future capex and other investment, keeping an eye on net debt is a good idea. Once a company pays down debt dividends are likely to increase, and vice versa.

Read the disclosure and analyst reports, find out if they have a dividend policy, try to talk to the investor relations person or management. It's not a bad idea to talk to competitors, suppliers and employees too, although I'm usually too lazy to do that. All these help to understand not only what's behind the dividend, but the prospects and fundamentals of the company. You're buying a share of a business so you want to understand the company.

You want to be forward looking. Yes, there are empirical relationships, which haven't worked as well in recent years because of the market's obsession with growth, like historical price/earnings, price/book, price/free cash flow, and dividend yield. But what you'd really like to have a handle on are earnings, free cash flow, and dividends going forward. And how management treats shareholders and what it does with its free cash. Those are what drive share prices, or at least should drive them.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by lustylad

Have you checked in with our resident Know-It-All, the dissembling incoherent simple-minded simpleton WTF?

He's always wrong, but never in doubt!


]

Wrong! Always? I'm up 30% in the last quarter

Originally Posted by lustylad

I agree with you, but his hands were tied for most of last year if he wanted to be reappointed to a new 4-year term. Biden didn't re-nominate him until last November. The crazy "progressives" like Liz Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse wanted a far-left dim-retard named Lael Brainard to be nominated instead. Thank God that didn't happen. While Powell is way behind the curve in slowing inflation, he is a lot freer now to slam on the monetary brakes than he was 6 months ago.

So when Trump was crying about Powell raising the rates too much and begging for negative interest rates....you had no problem with that bubble producing want?

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

hotter than the runup to 2008? maybe. about the same. and the result will be the same when it drops like a rock.



the market is down at least 15 percent. thanks Brandon!!

Biden is not responsible for the stock market price...you maybe should look at different metrics if that is how you invest!

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

Local realtor can. Be aware, you have to fight the "Market" value, not just the "Assessed" value. Is their a Metroplex in Fuckknuckle??

Originally Posted by Chung Tran

I think a little hotter, yes. When you get flyers in the mail, random phone calls asking if you'll sell your house, and you know people who don't know shit about Real Estate, partnering up to buy and flip houses, that is a hot Market!

By the way, speaking of HOT, and the spiraling appraisals in the Metroplex... Anyone know a good contact, to fight an overly high appraisal? Never done it, want to now. I know May 15 is the deadline. I know there are Firms that will take a cut of your property tax savings, if they fight and win. Any recommendations? No time or inclination to do it myself.

[Chung Tran]

Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do

Is their a Metroplex in Fuckknuckle??

Ha!

Yes.. The Morgantown/Huntington corrider. The traffic is horrible, Horses and Buggys everywhere you turn!

Originally Posted by WTF

Biden is not responsible for the stock market price...you maybe should look at different metrics if that is how you invest!

He's not responsible. Trump said if we elected Biden ''your 401k will go to zero''. Today's Market is making Trump look prescient, but averages are still higher than when Trump left Office kicking, screaming, and fomenting an insurrection.

Jay ''inflation is transitory'' Powell is responsible. Trump's FED pick, whom he blamed for the 2018 downturn.