i posted it exactly how i think about it. level 1, level 2, level 3 etc..etc.. that is how i think about things everyday. peel back layer 1, layer 2 etc..etc.. i can' t do any better if that is considered rude or condescending here. i felt brian trolled me in a couple diff threads, so i really didn't know if he was asking seriously or not. that's why i asked.

i thought about riding it a couple months ago too. would need to know more about the development schedule & how much noise they can make. not for value obviously.

That isn't what first, second and third level thinking is.

The problem isn't what you think it is.

are you just going to troll always? in every thread? i explained to you why the sss is irrelevant in this case & your reply is the above captioned? do you think your being clever?

and with regards to your previous post:

"Most investors would be looking at same store sales growth. If it were disappointing (which it isn't - approximately 7%), you would dig into same store ticket growth. "

this is exactly what a very mediocre & uninformed investor does. looks at sss
in a vacuum, see a +change & "thinks" things are good. actually the 7% growth rate is pretty bad. i posted why.

Could anyone tell me what would be my maximum risk on an option like that? Pretty much a noob with options, I just know it's more risk/reward.

Scenario is I am betting ShakeShack will go to 190 within a year. So how would I construct this to limit my risk.

it doesn't have any options...IPOs take a few months.

you'd probably just buy like a 120 call for $1 for january 2016 expiry (hypothetical numbers). they're per-share prices, and options are traded in 100-share allotments, so 100 * $1 = $100 for the 120 call. plus your commission fee of whatever. if the stock is at 190 near expiry, you'd make 190 - 120 - 1 = 69 * 100 = $6900. if the stock less than 120 near expiry, you'd lose the full $100.

i have no idea how call options will price. put options would have a premium.

No. Disaggreeing is not trolling. If you want to post on a site where you can say what you want without your "ideas" and "thoughts" being challenged, I believe that you can buy a domain on Go Daddy.

Having three loosely related thoughts is not third level thinking.

Also, your facts were wrong. There has been an increase yoy in tickets per existing unit. You can see that from your chart (there is a projection that it will be flat for 2015, but we will see). In a restaurant that has a lot of hype ("zomg, did you hear they are putting a Shake Shack in?!?") and is running at full capacity from day one, you expect tickets to drop then stabilize (if everything goes well), not rise over time. Everyone from an assistant manager second class on up knows that.

That is exactly what an informed investor and operations manager does do.* You look at the overall picture, which is what sss growth does. You glance to see if something is odd about the underlying statistics, but there is nothing to see there with this one!* If there is a problem or weirdness, you dig in.

You think that their ability to raise prices without tickets decreasing (in this case increasing) and with solid sss growth is somehow not a good thing?

(it still isn't a value stock by far and it is priced for perfection)

*they also, if they are super cool and froody and interested in turning a profit, demand to see empirical evidence that a variable predicts the future prospects. Any data on publicly traded stock returns being predictable from store ticket growth? I think not.

**again, stable tickets is pretty darn good here and they have growth. I was expecting ticketmagedon.

.

yawn. sss is meaningless without context. context is the story here.

from the latest 10q i got a ev/ebitda of 671.45 using fridays closing 82.75 share price for shake shack.
they say 10 new openings a year and aim for 450. currently at 63? (taking from google prolly wrong) so that would take 38 years to get there at that rate.

is shack really worth 3x more than the habbit? just seems like a hot stock at the height of a fad, you think burgers will be an even bigger part of the american diet in the future?


I have been looking into kona grill, another high growth casual concept but it was also priced too rich, and it tumbled after q1 earnings missed, might make a play in q3 after renovations and new openings are all up and running. Not a value stock but figured id mention it since we on the subject.

The HC2 deal for MCGC is looking less likely today. Any thoughts ?

Still holding. Either activist shareholders force the HC2 deal through or the other deal passes for $4.75. Either way it is going up.

Yeah fairly unlikely both deals fall through. HC2 just put out a filing widening the collar on the deal, and stating that the deal wouldn't require SEC approval. The directors also own very little stock so they're really just looking out for their jobs.

Anyone hold/have any insights into VNP.to? Price is almost trading @ NCAV

Was just reading the 10k for this company and Swenson seems like the ideal manager, right down to quoting Singleton in the letter. How much upside were you estimating when you posted this?

[ ] GARP
[x] GAURP*

*growth at an unreasonable price

It was my second largest position when I was buying around $11/share. To me it was a super no brainer at that price. I thought it was worth $25 within a year or two. I sold back in December at $26.50 when the stock was getting bid up by Biglari. I also think Swenson is the ideal manager and I'm waiting for an opportunity to get back in and then probably never sell. He is also CoB at PDEX, which is my largest position right now. I can send you my write up if you want.

Dug into this a bit tonight. There's something off about what's going on. Unrelated, I first just want to state that 42% of their revenue comes from Fedex, so pretty severe customer concentration.

More interestingly, though, is what's going on with Nick Swenson. Since canceling the dividend distributions after taking over, he's been buying up a ton of ISIG this quarter -- another micro cap that he has a big stake in. Additionally, previously at PDEX he was able to raise money from existing shareholders in a rights offering, only to then implement an "excess cash" policy which basically allowed him to invest in any companies that he wants (more of his own). Seems like he's using these companies to play fund manager. Maybe his end game is building a holding company in which AIRT is his base?

Then you have this weird proxy battle with Biglari (Biglari Holdings) which was unsuccessful. At the recent annual shareholder meeting, Biglari mocks him for trying to run a proxy contest with less than 0.2% of the shares. Not only that, now Biglari has bought 14% of AIRT in Q42014, with perhaps the purpose to give Nick some taste of his own medicine?

Can't get my hands around wtf is going on, but not buying. To read more, most recent article on Air T from seeking alpha in the comments section will get you started.

edit: Just feels like you aren't buying a company, you're buying Nick Swenson

The FedEx relationship has been in place for 35 years, also AIrT only provides the pilots and collects a fee so yes it would suck to lose the contract but they won't be "sunk" if they lose it. FedEx doesn't have to deal with union labor if they use AIrt so they like that and probably don't want to change that.

The surplus capital policy was in place before the rights offering. They stated later that they were bidding for an acquisition and that's why they did the rights offering.

Swenson used to be a partner at a $1.6b hedge fund and left to do his own thing a few years ago so yes, he does play fund manager.

If you look closer at Biglari holdings you will see that Biglai is absolutely raping shareholders and swenson took a shot at kicking him out, he came pretty close considering he owned such a small stake.

I think it's fair to view AIRT as Swensons permanent capital vehicle. You are betting on him. He owns $13m in stock and collects a $50k salary, the only way he wins is if the stock goes up, can't ask for much better alignment.

Sounds good BCI, seems we see it similarly. Thanks for elaborating on Fedex.

My main point is that some of his investments don't appear related to AIRT at all. For example ISIG, which he's been buying a lot of for AIRT, is "engaged in marketing in-store advertising products" -- basically point of purchase service stuff. Does not seem related to AIRT's business in any way, hence my point that Swenson seems more interested in developing a holding style fund with AIRT than growing it's core business.

Not necessarily bad or good, just worth mentioning.

I try to follow Coliseum to see if they are taking any new positions or cutting old ones. More often then not they're on the ball. They recently took a major position in BIOS which comes out to 19% of the company. They also did a PIPE transaction where they raised $61.5 million in excahange for 625k shares of class A stock at $100 share, 1.8M class A warrants to purchase common stock at $5.29 and 1.8M class B warrants to purchase common stock at $6.59. The preferred stock yields 8.5% per year and can convert into common stock at $5.17 per share.

I'm still doing research on the stock it does appear promising but still a lot of holes to fill. Do you guys think that the fact that Coliseum accepted out of money warrants means they're confident they can turn things around or is this common in PIPE deals?

So MEA turns down 78 cents offer from Weitsman only to accept 60 cents today from Total Merchant.

wp MEA

of course....

"Total Merchant has also indicated it intends to retain Metalico's management and all other personnel."

Doesnt stop Weitsman from coming over the top here now...