tede02

This grabbed my attention: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/nycb-is-paying-the-nations-highest-interest-rate-apy.html#:~:text=NYCB raised the annual percentage,rates for his website DepositAccounts. Paying 5.55% on their high-yield savings product under the Flagstar-My Banking Direct brand . Obviously trying to attract deposits. I opened an account. It's a little clunky compared to Ally or Capital One's platform, but it's paying a much, much higher rate. Withdrawals are limited to $50k per day.

@thepupil You've got more guts than me. I've grabbed a little bit of 10-year notes and some 5-10 TIPS when yields have popped. But keeping it small dollar. I grabbed some 2-year today at over 5% YTM.

I bought a few ITM LEAPS on NYCB to ride Mnuchin's coat-tails. Just enough to keep me paying attention.

It doesn't look like price pressures on housing is going to ease in the immediate future but this caught my eye last week. Multi family construction has jumped to the highest level in 50 years and single family, though not at highs, is trending in the right direction. Probably takes a few years for this new supply to effect supply/demand balance. I also don't understand why the Fed board is talking up rate cuts. Financial conditions have eased substantially this year. The markets are wide open again with fresh IPOs and tightening spreads. It's kind of crazy. Feels a bit like 2021 again. If I were a member of the FOMC, I'd be really concerned that inflation will pick up materially if they cut rates. It also seems like the markets are really vulnerable to the Fed coming out and saying they aren't going to cut this year. One thing that does make me chuckle a little is despite all the gloom and doom in commercial real estate, the sector has been fortunate that the rest of the financial markets have been booming. Distressed sales seem to still be the exception rather than the norm. I'm sure it would be a very different situation if the economy was in recession, markets were down, etc. Who knows what happens in 2025 but it seems like CRE has been gifted a very favorable backdrop to muddle through for now.

LMAO. These guys can't get their story straight. In the 2021 UAPTF report, they reported that 144 out of 145 cases reviewed could not be identified even though 80 of them were picked up by multiple sensors. The new report says virtually everything they look at can be identified. It's a total joke. One of the Florida congressman (Moskowitz) said something that keeps me interested. Every time they (members of congress) ask the pentagon for answers or try to set-up hearings, they get HUGE push-back. The obvious question is why? If there's nothing there, why is there a vicious resistance at every turn? It doesn't make any sense. There's so much dis-info out there, it's difficult to sort through but I remain very curious about what lies behind all the obfuscation.

Someone has probably already mentioned this but isn't buying BTC within an ETF contradicting one of its supposed main tenants (decentralization, no custodians, etc.). I see BTC and gold to some extent as interesting from a psychological perspective. It's kind of a big experiment. Good for those guys that have made some big money on it. I do worry about some people I know (including family) that believe crypto is their ticket to riches or an early retirement. Maybe it works or maybe they take a huge loss. I will continue to observe with amusement.

I really enjoyed this. Covered a lot of subjects. The story about crossing swords with Icahn in the 90s was surprising. If Ackman's side of the story is true, that was a really B.S. play by Icahn, just blatantly breaching a contract and trying to outlast him in the courts. I don't understand why people would want to do business like that. Also was interesting to hear Ackman mention that Elliot tried to push his public vehicle into liquidation for their own profit when things were going bad with Valeant and Herbalife. That is pretty brutal.

I was excited about this but I'm having a tough time finding local credit unions with the promotional rates. For any New York state residents, there is a CU offering 12 months at 0%. Not sure what the closing fees are. Sidney Federal Credit Union.

Using HELOC financing to buy promotional CDs or Treasurys looks interesting. I think there is a narrow window to take advantage of this risk free (I expect the Fed to cut rates over the next year). There are some credit unions offering 6-12 months of 0% on HELOCs. Likewise, 12-14 months CDs are plentiful at 5.5%. There are some credit unions offering specials over 6% (more restrictions generally). You do need to look carefully at the fine print on the promotional HELOCs because there can be significant fees. But, if a guy could get $200k at 0% and reinvest at 5.50%, that is interesting, even if you have $2k of closing costs. Curious if anyone has done this.

Added to TTNDY.

I would second that. Harris Associates is technically the name of the asset manager that runs the Oakmark Funds. The entire firm is owned by Natixis. I've been a long-time shareholder of multiple Oakmark Funds and have had some interaction with people internally. My perception has always been positive.

AGG is now up over 6% YTD. Amazing considering where things were at the end of October. I also find it amusing that there were a lot of prominent money managers saying, "We're in a new era of higher inflation, higher interest rates, etc." It reminds me of the 2011-2012 timeframe when a lot of the same type of people were saying the Fed's QE policies were going to cause massive inflation. That turned out to be dead wrong. The inflation and rate story presently still has a ways to go, but I won't be surprised if we see a repeat in the sense that these guys that have been saying high rates are here to stay turn out to be completly wrong.

Buying GGG in February of 2009. I could see it was fundamentally a great business. Got lucky on the timing. Has been a 10-bagger. But the best part about it is I bought a bunch of it for some of my close family members and a few of my early clients at the same time. Most of them still hold it. My dad kicks himself in the ass for selling half of his position along the way up. I had to sell my shares in 2020 to get a real estate deal done which sucks because I missed the most recent leg up. Started to rebuild a position during the market chopiness this year.

Man, what a ride with rates this year (and equities I suppose)! Right now I'm feeling pretty good about shifiting a lot of cash to term debt over the last 4 months. I just missed the coveted 5% treasury note the day Ackman publicly said he was taking his rate bet off and long rates dropped back in the 4s. I bought a nice chunk of TIPS. Wish I had some more medium term nominals but you can't have it all I guess. I follow the main inflation reports, (CPI, PCE, PPI, etc.) and the downward trend is quite strong. All that said, if I were the Fed, I personally would have preferred to maintain more hawkish rhetoric at least for a while. They pencil in 3 rate cuts for 2024 and now you have equities back to their highs and long rates plunging. This fights against what they're trying to do unless they do really want market expectations to start easing conditions.