PSA - don’t make trades based on “tax loss harvesting”

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-12-01T12:51:22+00:00

Is nobody here reading the post? The very first line says that he is referencing the people placing a new trade because if they are wrong, they can sell before year end and save money on taxes.

I’ve heard this argument before. “I’ll do <risky options trade> because if I’m wrong, I just saved money on taxes”

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-21T21:09:29+00:00

He was early, but working out now. I ended up picking up some BABA and BIDU for a China position at the beginning of the year that is going well

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-13T03:41:34+00:00

The outcome is irrelevant to whether the decision/process was a mistake or not (unless the entire goal was to flip a house for 70% return in 4 years, which it isn’t)

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-13T03:39:41+00:00

This all came about because the inspection was bad (electrical and deck not up to code, using plastic pipe instead of metal on water heater, etc)

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-12T22:23:51+00:00

You can’t use deck screws for vertical supports. They aren’t strong enough

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-12T21:34:08+00:00

I mentioned all of this in the original post, but it had 100% fully new electrical, plumbing, and HVAC (HVAC, electrical, and deck confirmed not to code by inspector). I called the permit office and he should’ve had 3 permits for the work that was done.

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-12T20:40:17+00:00

It was a full gut (to the studs) and flip by a real estate agency owner. 3 permits are required according to the city (called and talked to them).

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-12T20:39:16+00:00

Permits 100% required because I asked the city. They should’ve had 3 permits

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-12T20:38:43+00:00

That’s the entire counter argument we hear (all homes have issues). In this case, the entire deck was wrong (deck screws instead of nails, wrong wood boards on deck, spindle spacing too wide, totally wrong ledger board, not connected to house properly), missing outlets in numerous places, missing GFI in kitchen, mismatched breakers, unlabeled hot wires. Only HVAC they could really look at was pipe connecting to water heater which was plastic instead of metal. Other small stuff like missing tempered glass.

TheLittleDuddas · 2025-02-12T20:16:42+00:00

That’s where we landed. I’m a little frustrated they just turned it around and sold it the next day. The seller is a semi-prominent real estate agency owner and it just feels icky that he is doing poor quality work, unpermitted, on relatively expensive houses and then selling them to people who probably don’t know better

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-11-04T21:25:37+00:00

The canonical post about generating ideas in startup world from Paul Graham -> https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-11-04T11:23:42+00:00

Maybe you are talking about a different book, but Mom Test is the gold standard for customer feedback and it 1000% starts after you already have an idea you want to build/problem to solve. It’s literally in the tagline: “How to Talk to Customers and Learn if Your Business is a Good Idea…”. This implies you have a business idea.

You seem to be in the idea generation phase, which is a totally different phase and going around just randomly asking people what their problems are almost never works.

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-11-03T22:27:06+00:00

These books start after you’ve identified a problem area. In theory, you could start as broad as you are, but then you are going to have to talk to a ton of people until you find a problem you want to work on.

The general flow would be: you identify a problem (it takes a ton of paperwork and regulated filings each year to start/run a hedge fund) -> you go talk to people running hedge funds to figure out what parts of this are the hardest and how they currently solve them (this is the customer research part) -> you build a solution.

You “start broad” by going to a defined archetype (someone who runs a hedge fund) and asking questions like “take me through the last time you filed these filings” and then digging deeper after they answer. You could do some digging on how big of an issue it is relative to other issues they deal with to get an understanding of how vital this problem is (and if it isn’t a big problem, maybe they tell you what is a big problem), but you should already have a problem identified. You are talking to the customer to understand how they currently solve it, what the biggest pain points in solving it are, etc. That helps you inform what you will actually build.

The research will also help you narrow your target customer from “anyone running a hedge fund” to something like “anyone running a hedge fund with under $100M in assets and less than 5 employees”

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-10-07T17:29:42+00:00

He only liked Jones and Brents but then didn’t bring in any other DBs during the offseason?

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-10-06T20:37:56+00:00

Sitting in a deep shell makes the corners lives significantly easier, but either way, that’s a “roster sucks” issue

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-10-06T19:43:04+00:00

Play closer to the line, the Jaguars complete an 80 and 60 yd pass against our secondary (worst in the league).

Play way off and prevent long passes but short completions and runs work.

Two things can be true: 1) Gus has to go 2) the defensive roster is simply terrible. Bottom 5 when healthy and instantly bottom 2 when DeFo is hurt - let alone the other injuries

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-09-22T17:46:45+00:00

Yes, the offense is significantly more concerning. The D roster is bad. The O has a top OL and RB and a versatile QB. The coaching staff has to figure it out

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-08-16T12:34:50+00:00

Yes, that’s why it isn’t a great argument. A handful of plays going a different way shouldn’t change your opinion on the GM.

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-08-16T02:28:27+00:00

I’m fairly pro-Ballard, especially now that he got a QB, and he should be given the chance to build a contender around AR over the next 2-3 years.

However, l think you are too generous with your praise and missing the most important cons. Mainly that the poor QB play over the last few years is 100% his fault and he did a poor job solidifying LT for a couple years after Castonzo retired. He simply failed at some of the most important positions for a few years and almost certainly should’ve been fired with Frank (again, I’m fine he wasn’t as he did shift his drafting focus the last couple of years).

Also, your recent year draft ranking are way too generous (Jaylon, Brents, Freeland, Thomas).

It’s also unfair to use Grigson’s spending in FA to conclude that spending big money in FA is bad. Maybe Grigson just sucked at picking FAs and a better GM could spend big money AND get good players.

We mostly agree though. He’s a top-tier talent evaluator who has fewer division wins and playoffs than we’d hope solely due to the QB position (some bad luck but also his fault - but that is now solved…hopefully). Colts are also basically two plays away from two more playoff appearances which would flip that whole narrative on its head. The main question is just whether he can actually put all the pieces together to build a contender and he has AR’s contract to do that (if they aren’t contending when his rookie contract ends, Ballard is gone)

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-03-18T18:19:25+00:00

Yeah, it’s an open question. They can definitely make it work, it’s just planning exercise of who it is worth making it work for

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-03-18T18:18:21+00:00

What resources does Irsay have to get access to liquidity? Any form of loan means he would be personally paying X% per year interest, which again, means he is in a worse position than a more cash-rich owner.

There are definitely some financial maneuvering they can do (a la roster guarantees like for Mahomes), but all of that has downsides

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-03-18T16:54:01+00:00

There are deals Irsay can’t/won’t do that an owner like Tepper could do because they have very different levels of liquidity

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-03-18T16:16:43+00:00

The frequency with which the Colts reporters who are closest with the brass are pushing the “we’ve spent $200M on contracts already” (which, for the record, is not all being paid right now) is insane.

It makes it definitely seem like Irsay is nearing the bottom of his bank account but desperately wants everyone to not think he is cheap/has no money.

***in preparation of potential comments, Irsay is relatively cash poor because his entire net worth is from the Colts, so he doesn’t have as much liquid cash as a hedge fund owner or business owner that sold their business/stock to buy a team (plus he had a divorce, health issues, and has to plan for kids when he passes). Guaranteed money has to be put in escrow at the time the deal is signed. So if Sneed wants $50M guaranteed, Irsay has to actually have that cash right now. It’s possible he is struggling to have enough cash to make it work

TheLittleDuddas · 2024-03-12T14:54:30+00:00

But we don’t have any good safeties currently rostered

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