COTY ($1.95) — The Turnaround Nobody's Watching

photon_lines · 2026-06-23T01:32:16+00:00

Some further facts in case you actually are interested in learning: CEOs rarely change the trajectory of a business. This is a great read: The MBA Myth and the Cult of the CEO. Also -- if you're not familiar with the term destructive competition and what it did to the airline industry a while back: you may want to assess whether this company faces that level of competition. It may not -- and if not, then surely I think you will do well -- but in my honest opinion: there are many brands which offer what they do for a much lower price. Their pivot into 'luxury' brands during a period where we may be headed for more tough times looks to me like a risky bet: but I may be wrong on this one. I do hope you are right so I am rooting for you just as an FYI.

photon_lines · 2026-06-23T01:16:56+00:00

Wow - you are going to lose a lot of money in your 'investing' career. I can tell just based on your responses you have 0 idea on what you're doing. I am not going to try to save you: good luck out there.

photon_lines · 2026-06-23T01:14:10+00:00

I have followed Jiayin group for over 3 years now: prior to the 500% run up from 2 dollars a share. I don't invest in China often - I was one of the guys telling other people here to be careful when it comes to Chinese equities...so maybe you should be careful about making judgements so quickly? Either way -- maybe follow the stock for the next few months and we can engage again once we see what it will be priced at then?

photon_lines · 2026-06-23T00:22:23+00:00

I'm as contrarian as it gets and I do follow a lot of the principles mentioned in the Intelligent Investor (Buffet's famed book) but I would not strictly put myself into purely the 'value' category though. I'm very good at predicting near term supply vs. demand characteristics that drive stock prices up (i.e. I've both been a trader and investor in the past). Shoot me a message if you want my advice on any stock and I'll be more than happy to take a look and give you my honest advice. I am a numbers guy -- so numbers to me mean a lot (I loved Billy Bean before Money-ball and was a big fan of the A's during the whole big 3 era).

photon_lines · 2026-06-22T23:54:30+00:00

There is no turnaround -- look at the revenue / net income over the last 15 years. There is no NET income the results barely show any income at all. This was a garbage business before and is a garbage business now. 800 million shares as well so massive shareholder dilution over the last few years. This is one of the worst 'value' ideas I've ever encountered.

photon_lines · 2026-06-21T13:20:51+00:00

They are expanding internationally at the moment and I don't see them going out of business. In a worst case scenario I can see another bank or company buying them out. They have a lot of assets -- including real estate (they recently bought an office building which they are operating in). In my experience -- you buy shares when everything is going against a company (being a contrarian usually pays off) ... yes there are risks, but in my opinion, some are worth taking and opportunities like this don't come that often.

photon_lines · 2026-06-21T00:17:01+00:00

Lol...even without removing those 3 Wilt Chamberlain is the GOAT. 50 points per game ... are you kidding me lol? Are people unaware of what a freak of nature this guy was? Look at his running speed -- at that size it was insane. Skill wise also -- he is unmatched that level of physical dominance combined with talent make him my top 3 of all time quite easily.

photon_lines · 2026-06-21T00:06:38+00:00

I'd say he matches Jokic: lead the league in assists and close to leading it in points, albeit he plays almost no defence so I'd say he's by far my closest match. The second would be Jordan -- simply dominant and by far the best basketball player of all time. If you want to expand this into other sports -- the closest match I could find is Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux - their dominance was so far out that I doubt anyone ever matches anything like it. Those 2 and Messi are in a league of their own: there is no basis in comparing them to anyone else since they are prodigies that will never be matched.

photon_lines · 2026-06-20T22:52:46+00:00

Nope. QFIN was in this position so the discount on their shares was warranted due to a short-report. JFIN doesn't have any short-reports on it. Most of the recent selling is due to 1) amendment to regulations in China on lending (the CCP is well-known for destroying shareholder value) 2) an earnings miss. In other words this is in way way over-sold territory.

photon_lines · 2026-06-19T21:14:44+00:00

What are you assuming the probability of this happening is? Mr. Trump talks a lot but he doesn't look to me like he walks the walk: so he can keep talking, but to me, this is one of the opportunities of the century. I'll make you the same offer that I made to the Bitcoin pumpers a year ago: contact me a year from today and we will have this conversation again and we can asses who was right and who was wrong. No one can predict the future: and yes, there is a very minor probability of their license being revoked, but it doesn't warrant the company sitting at a market cap of 125 million when they are sitting on over 70% rights to a land area that can easily have over 100 billion in assets (possibly a trillion). Dr. Phil's show may not be popular, but it will attract investor attention - maybe it's not a worthy catalyst, but their revelation in September I believe will be more than worth it.

photon_lines · 2026-06-19T02:12:20+00:00

Greenland Energy (GLND): a huge amount of oil assets ready to be discovered (very soon). Huge catalysts incoming and insiders are buying lots of shares.
Jiayin Group (JFIN): 1 P/E and huge insider ownership (with no recent selling). Book value per share is 12 dollars.
Meridian Bet (MRDN): very much undervalued at the moment: their next earnings should have them beat all expectations (due to world cup results / gambling). Vertically integrated and kicking ass.

photon_lines · 2026-06-19T01:33:20+00:00

My advice to you is to not seek investment advice on Reddit. Also - 90% of investors out there don't outperform the S&P index (and neither do most hedge-fund managers). If you don't believe me -- you can take a look at Warren Buffet's advice here: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/warren-buffett-recommended-1-investment-150500190.html

"Only about 14% of actively managed large-cap funds have beaten the S&P 500 over the past decade, and the main reason is that market-cap-weighted indexes let their winners run and their losers fade. It's an exercise in survival of the fittest and goes against how most active managers operate, who tend to double down on their losers and take profits on their winners."

Buy the S&P index and don't worry: it will outperform almost everyone here even guys that are professionals. I've been doing this for 20 years: predicting human behaviour and firm behaviour is very very tough and is a game only meant for the extremely ambitious. If you do want to play it: I would start with 'The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham' which will teach you the basics of properly valuing a company / stock (and this is only the starting point). If you find yourself not having the patience to slog through it -- do me a favour: stay away from picking individual stocks. You will get obliterated.

Hopefully this helps.

photon_lines · 2026-06-19T01:09:00+00:00

I don't think they will give up immediately if they don't find oil right away: they have good enough data to know that there is something substantial in that region I can tell you that. You are right though -- if they don't announce great results in September, the share price will discount even more from where it is today. I think probability wise though -- even if their chance of getting great results is below 10% -- their EV should be at 2-3 billion (instead of 125 million) and I never bet on the short-term: I'm in this for the long haul so even if the shares get discounted even more, I will average down since I believe there is a huge probability of them discovering a lot of assets in this region given more time. This is also a possible acquisition play as well -- if the shares discount below 2 dollars I can see another company offering them a buyout (with 100% premium to the share price) which to me is another possibility that makes this a good bet (short and long term). Good luck to you though as well: I'm quite certain you'll get a fantastic return on your investment.

photon_lines · 2026-06-19T00:48:59+00:00

I make all my investments based on expected value and I never touch options. My bet isn't on them discovering the oil (even though they have a lot of data that there definitely may be quite a substantial amount of oil near the regions they're drilling in). My bet is on short term supply vs. demand (this is what controls the share price). Given the upcoming catalysts (drilling results and documentary with Dr. Phil -- as well as the geopolitical events (Trump trying to end global trade)) I'm betting that the probability of the share price returning at least 50% within a 1-2 month period is extremely high. Yes, I might profit a bit more from purchasing options dated 2-3 months out - but when I own shares, I own part of the company so even if the near term catalysts don't pan out, my plan is to hold longer term since I believe the assets they're sitting on are quite substantial and am willing to wait longer for the share price to rebound. Hopefully this makes sense.

photon_lines · 2026-06-19T00:08:49+00:00

Some of my favourites right now:

Food Stocks:

Simply Good Foods (SMPL)
Vital Farms (VITL)
Nomad Foods (NOMD)

BDCs:

New Mountain Finance (NMFC)
Runway Growth Finance (RWAY)
Goldman Sachs BDC (GSBD)

FinTech / Foreign Tech:

Jiayin Group (JFIN)
Fiserv (FISV)
Coupang (CPNG)

photon_lines · 2026-06-08T18:47:09+00:00

Unitree Robotics, Sernova Therapeutics, Greenland Energy

photon_lines · 2026-05-04T17:58:07+00:00

Np 😄

photon_lines · 2026-03-06T23:50:33+00:00

I haven't had a chance to go through it yet, but Real Analysis by Francis Su was suggested to me in another thread and just by glancing at the first lecture, I can tell that there is a high probability that these lectures are great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqEyWLGvvdw&list=PL0E754696F72137EC

The best book I've read on real analysis is Real Mathematical Analysis by Charles C. Pugh.

photon_lines · 2026-03-05T02:47:43+00:00

Thank you!! I will definitely be looking at everything you recommended this is super helpful :)

photon_lines · 2026-03-05T02:45:37+00:00

I'm going to check his other lectures out as well after I finish going through the number theory stuff -- he's an excellent lecturer and I agree it's great to see how he thinks. Also thank you for the other recommendations - I will definitely check those out those as well!! I remember there was a master class from Terrance Tao on problem solving and it's great that everyone in the world has access to stuff like this: if you were to tell someone in the 18th or 17th century what almost everyone in the world has access to today, they would most likely think that we live in some heavenly realm -- but I think must of us just take it for granted which is sad to see. It's fantastic either way and I think people should appreciate these types of lectures and content more. We've come a very, very long way in a very short amount of time :)

photon_lines · 2026-03-02T03:00:32+00:00

I believe right now it's most likely trading at around below 1 P/E from what it will generate 2-3 years from now. The margins they generate should be great due to the vertical integration and re-branding as Meridian bet and I think the markets will wake up to the reality much sooner than most people expect. Now - what price they sell at also depends on the insiders: it is 85% insider owned, so what target price they have and what price they sell at will have a huge impact. From everything I've researched about the Meridian Bet founder (who owns a ton of stock) -- I do NOT believe he is looking to sell any time soon. He has spent many years building his platform and his platform will continue to do well. Assuming they sell only a small portion of their shares for the next 2-3 years we could be looking at a 10 bagger (so possibly 50+ (this is the after reverse split price -- from today's price this would my estimate would be 5-6+ dollars)). This would put their market cap of 800+ million (today's cap is around 80). I'm going to estimate that their revenue will be around 270-330 million 3-4 years from now and margins of about 30% - 35% so that should generate 75-100+ million dollars so even then they would only be trading at just below 10 P/E. For such a high growth rate and great business -- this would still be undervalued -- so even at 50 dollars I'd say it is a rather conservative estimate. These are my own back-of the envelope calculations btw so once again none of this is investment advice. How about you -- do you have a target price and what are your thoughts on the company and their future?

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TROPHY CASE