LouisEly

Also starring with Kotto in the movie Midnight Run, Charles Grodin passed away today. One of my favorite movies of the late 80's.

They said on CNBC today that this week lumber was down 7.5%, copper down 2%, and corn down 10.5%.

Bitcoin got hammered with Musks announcement (and the revelation of how energy inefficient bitcoin really is) and regarding inflation in materials pricing I'm hearing that many projects are being put on hold because of prices and labor shortage. Cramer also said today that copper futures have started to retreat so inflation could easily start to subside.

That's why I went the Amazon Fire Stick route for YTTV. Much less chance of Amazon being bullied by Google than Roku.

One thing that I'm really starting to like about YouTube TV is that you can turn something on well after it starts and skip back to the beginning. Not so with cable. Still wish it broadcast in 5.1 surround sound and not 2.1.

For the most part, yes, but cocktails at some places that have some exotic options can be hard to replicate. Maybe you don't want to accumulate a whole bunch of different types of bitters, simple syrups, exotic liqueurs, or other ingredients, and if you're trying to impress a girl early in a relationship it's often better to leave it to the professionals.

On the topic of good pizza, I had the cherry pulled pork pizza from Poco's this past weekend. Yummy. I see they just added a "hot beef" pizza with braised beef and horseradish sauce... wish they would have had that, or the summer sausage and cheese curd pizza. They're kind of like the Mobcraft of pizza, just coming out with some wild stuff. I asked the guy how many pizzas they do in an average week. He said that when he started he thought if they did 100 pizzas a week they would be wildly successful; on average, they do about 900 a week.

THIS. I was at General Mills' HQ on a tour with my MBA program and they offered Totinos things to us, and I wouldn't touch them.

Absolutely buy your own separate modem and router. They'll last for years. Go to Best Buy and the modems will say on the box which cable systems they are compatible with. For a router look for one with antennas as they will have more range. Dual band, as the 5Ghz wavelength has faster speeds. At least three antennas. Worth paying more for a good router. Super easy to set up on your own, no need to have Charter come over.

I think this is probably more accurate: https://uwbadgers.com/news/2020/12/16/2021_Signing_day.aspx

That's definitely my second favorite. Last summer when they shut down the running trails I used to run up and down Ashland right past it.

I'm in suburbs, and I prefer any of the Moretti's locations. Their deep dish is okay, but their thin crust is why I go there. The other places that are great are Home Run Inn, and of course an old favorite that is still around, Barnaby's. Haven't tried Pequod's but I will keep it in mind. Ironic, in that I've found Pequod's to be the closest thing to Rocky Rococo's that I've found in Chicago. Pequod's sauce is a little spicier, but overall it's fairly close.

I know that after I move back to Madison I'm putting on a good 10 lbs and Rocky's is going to be the prime culprit. I grab a couple of slices before/after the Badgers games. Way, way better option than the frozen burger patties from the area bars (and, I believe, less expensive too).

One more thing about YouTube TV - they only deliver audio in 2.1, not surround sound. I think cable is worth the extra $30/month.

When I was last in Madison (2012 to late 2015) they were in the midst of adding 5000 apartment units to the city. There certainly wasn't much pushback at that time; mid-rise apartments were going up all over downtown around campus. From what I hear, there are plenty of apartment units available in the city but they overbuilt on small 1-bedrooms and there is a big demand for 2-bedrooms. But I am not looking to live in an apartment building with a bunch of 20-somethings. There hasn't been much building of ownership units in the city the last decade.

Wondering what the Madison folks can tell me about the Madison housing market. I'll be moving (back) there sometime in the next six months, and just about everything I see is either pending or contingent. The only things I see that aren't under contract are either under construction or obviously do not need to sell and are listing a wishful price that would make it worthwhile to sell (as evidenced by the >150 days on the market). Not much even for rentals (and I have no desire to live in an apartment building downtown with a bunch of 20-something Epic employees). Ideally I'd like to be downtown because that's where the office is. There will likely be more inventory in a month or two when the weather gets better, but right now there is not much. I don't think there will be much of a wave of foreclosures, at least not for ownership property. The industries that got crushed by the pandemic (travel/leisure, restaurants, retail, hospitality) have a relatively low percentage of jobs that can support ownership; most jobs in those industries are part-time or low-paying.

I live in a condo community in Waukesha. Last year, I had six neighbors who had lived here fewer than four years sell their property at a gain that computes to an annual 6%-8%. I will be listing soon, and I would love for my place to have appreciated at an annual 6%. But near north Chicago isn't quite as hot with all of the restaurants shut down and all of the riots/looting last summer. I think I'm far enough away, but 6% ARR from when I bought it four years ago would be an absolute dream... it's what I would need in order to not lose money on it, given all of the repairs.

I've been watching CNBC for over a decade; almost daily since the pandemic began. I have Jon Najarian's personal cell phone number, and I've been on Mad Money twice. No, it's not to get the hype going. It's to recruit clients. If you watch, they always explain the reasoning (financial and technical analysis) behind their positions. One of the biggest financial mistakes I've ever made was because I missed an analysis by Jim Cramer of the balance sheet of one of my investments which he recommended selling; a year and a half later the company filed bankruptcy. That's not hype.

Because Cramer was a hedge fund manager 20 years ago? Data is much more available and transparent now, and regulations were passed after the late 2000's financial crisis that increased government oversight and eliminated some regulatory gaps of hedge funds. The definition of "hedge fund" and how it got it's name is because they hedge their bets to create less volatility in expected returns compared to other retail funds with high exposure to the market. They make more extensive use of leverage and derivatives, riskier bets, but hedge those bets to reduce volatility. What I linked to was what is being said by others about Citron, not me.

RIP to former Wisconsin resident Dustin Diamond, a.k.a. "Screetch" from Saved by the Bell. Only 44.

If by "publicly bash" you mean publish opinions based on thorough research on the financial performance, financial stability, competition, and industry, then I guess you can say they "publicly bash" the company they are shorting. Citron Research has one of the best track records of exposing fraud in the corporate sector, and many of the companies that they have recommended shorting were because they were engaging in fraud (including bulletin-board pump-and-dump schemes). Is that "publicly bashing"?

The hedge funds aren't asking others to short the stock as well to drive up their profits; they don't announce anything. They're doing it independently. Their trades may be publicly available information, but they aren't promoting them.

The Rumble would be so much better if the winner got a title shot at the next PPV and not at WM. Because it's WM, it means that it can realistically only be 5 or 6 guys. This year may be the exception, with no/limited fan attendance they may be able to get away with a surprise winner. There's an old marketing saying - "predictability is the enemy of engagement". The Rumble gets a lot of engagement because the entrants and order aren't predictable, but it would be better if the winner wasn't predictable. I think every year for the last several years it's always been whoever was the odds-on favorite in Vegas the morning of the event. The winner eventually leaks out somehow.

How do you know that they didn't take positions before they broadcast their intentions on the internet? How do you know that there wasn't backroom conversation offline before they posted or about when to sell? Because they said so? Because it's on Reddit? They certainly don't have to pool their money for it to be illegal.

Not necessarily. It's not that dissimilar from other pump and dump schemes orchestrated by private parties who buy a bunch of a cheap stock and then use various media channels to try to get others to buy the stock to get it to go up and then sell. The dividing line typically is whether it is an individual entity or multiple entities, and whether it is a coordinated event among multiple entities. It is legal if it is one entity doing it, or multiple entities doing it independently without knowledge of others doing it. Broadcasting the intentions on any type of media is where it gets into a very gray area because it is no longer a single entity or multiple entities doing it independently. It is not known if the people on Reddit bought the stock before or after they announced their intentions; if it was before, then it is probably not legal. "Investment houses" (let's not generically call them "hedge funds" because hedge funds hedge their bets to take bigger risks but also limit their losses) cannot legally coordinate an effort like this with other investment houses; that's where it becomes illegal because that is market manipulation. What's the difference between two investment houses in a coordinated effort (which is illegal) and 200,000 individuals coordinating an effort on Reddit? Both have the same buying power, and both are attempting to manipulate the market for profit. One thing to note, most people who work for investment houses and have access to financial and market information are typically barred from owning individual stocks. A family friend of mine founded and was managing partner of a financial consulting firm that valued stocks and sold that information to investment firms; when he sold the company he said, "Now I can finally become an investor." He couldn't own stocks because of a potential conflict of interest, and that is the case with most people who work at those firms. Individuals who work at those firms are not directly profiting from it; it may affect their bonuses, but it could also cost them their jobs. The other problem is individuals who are buying the stock without access to/knowledge of what is being broadcast on Reddit. If they miss a sell signal from the coordinated effort, then they are the ones left holding the bag. This does not just affect big investment houses; this can also cost individuals (just like every market crash in history). Big losses on one investment lead to selling another... which leads to more losses, and more selling, and that's how crashes start. Also, big investment houses aren't the only ones shorting stocks; individual investors do that too.