Live Free
The goal for 2024 and for life
Freedom
How do you measure your fitness? How do you measure your finances? For me the ultimate goal is to live free. When someone I like and admire wants to do something of any scale, my goal is to always be an instant “yes”. That means I have to train hard enough to be a trusted teammate on any mountain and in any sea. I need to save enough to pay my own way. And I need to have enough support to keep my family and business functioning (typically better) when I’m away. In short: total freedom.
Discipline
A goal of total freedom requires the disciplined life. You need to train hard, eat clean, and recover enough. Stay lean and keep moving. There isn’t time for much slack.
Discipline equals freedom.
- Jocko Willink
You need to invest wisely and save the proceeds. Keep enough dry powder so that you are poised and nimble when opportunities come along. Not too long ago, poised investors were able to buy 200k shares for $10 each in a bank’s equity offering and quickly get those share called away for $20 for a $2 million gain on the equity (with more from options premium and dividends). Just yesterday, the same type of bank equity offering let us buy 80k shares of NB (NBBK) for a $4.17 pop or $333,600 on day one with more to come.
You need to save the money to be ready for the next one. I have a running joke with a frugal friend about which sports cars we’ll buy with each mutual conversion (we set aside taxes, insurance, upkeep, and other such considerations and instead look to spend 100% of the pop on a specific car) but it is assuredly just a joke. Only a moron would spend such windfalls. I don’t want to celebrate one of these; I want to fully participate in 100.
The way to get rich is to keep $10 million in your checking account in case a good deal comes along.
- Charlie Munger
To reach my above goal, I use capitalism but keep it in its place. I love its efficiency and meritocracy, but I use it transactionally to compound after tax wealth. At the same time I avoid capitalism’s consumerist aesthetics in my personal life. I try to keep my mind clear of excessive media not just to avoid wasting time but also avoid getting manipulated by advertising. Ads work. I don’t want to be influenced by anyone else’s benchmarks for my success. I never want any aspect of my value to be determined by anyone else and certainly not by how much money I spend on what they’re selling. Keeping up with the Joneses? I don’t even know the Joneses or what car/boat/plane they bought. I can’t see their house from mine and I throw away their invitations.
I want to be able to risklessly endow all of my expenses forever, such that my downside is indistinguishable from my upside in terms of any practical impact on my personal life. This isn’t just because I want to avoid disasters (and I do) but because I want my mind maximally poised for measuring and choosing what risks to take with logic and without emotion. To that end, I like cheap stuff and love free stuff.
I offered a free idea this year for everyone to see here.
SHFS is most likely worth over $4 per share. Everyone gets that one. Subscribers get the rest. They are well worth it. Even tiny accounts can more than justify the three-digit cost of a basic subscription and even relatively modest ones can justify the four-digit cost of a full membership. Many times over. Just one mutual conversion should pay for a lifetime of dues.
Progressive kids these days love the word “sustainable” but that is just because they are morons. Their ideas are among the least sustainable. Their ideas are those of toddlers — self-centered and utterly predicated upon adults at hand to protect them and pay for everything. Ending fossil fuels isn’t sustainable. It is cold and dark and merciless. It is anti-human, preying upon billions of people with practical survival needs as well as the desire to be warm in winter and cool in summer, not wait in line for a bus, and turn on a reading light when the sun goes down. Understanding this requires the imagination necessary to conceive of people who look different but have the same preferences as you do (something progressives seem less comfortable with in practice than in theory).
What is actually sustainable is people willing and able to pay their own way. It doesn’t look like gluing (with petrochemicals) yourself to paintings in art galleries. It looks like work. Sometimes hard work. Sometimes dangerous work. Harvesting timber is sustainable. Driving 18-wheelers is sustainable. Doing stuff that has to be done that other people don’t want to do is sustainable. If you ache at the end of the day because you got shit done, then you are sustaining your own life, sustaining your family, and sustaining your country. We should each be sustainable. That means something entirely more yeomanly than what people who use that word mean. It is on the flaming garbage pile of words used in inverse proportion to their employment (along with “empathy” and “inclusion”).
Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.
- P.J. O’Rourke
Speaking of sustainability, uranium, my favorite commodity, is starting to work. Earlier this year I mentioned that,
Uranium via Sprott Physical Uranium Trust units (SRUUF, TSX:U.UN:CA). It has done well so far but still has a (very) long way to go from here. Quantifying its upside (and downside) is difficult, but I’ll more or less hang onto around my current size in dollar terms, reducing units in $10 increments or so — smaller at C$30 and C$40 then probably out at C$50 per unit.
This energy source isn’t just lucrative… it’s also sustainable!
But let me close with a little menu of free stuff that might be practical little steps towards achieving a free life. None are that great by themselves. They are fun, lucrative, and keep my eyes open for opportunities large and small. Sometimes when I’m plodding away at the next little thing, I stumble upon the next big thing.
Forage when you hunt; hunt when you forage.
- Les Stroud
Some readers turn their noses up at small opportunities. I don’t. And many of the snobs that don’t bother saving $10 here and there are also too good to bother setting up accounts at NBBK and EBC that turn out to be worth over 10,000x and over 100,000x that.
Robinhood (HOOD) offers 2 free gift stocks when you sign up.
- They tease stocks in their image (AAPL) (TSLA) (DIS) (AMZN) (NVDA) (MSFT) (F) (GOOGL) that are far better than the disappointing small print: 99% of rewards are $3 each. Worth the bother but barely.
- Rakuten offers $30 when you spend $30. People bother to clip coupons for 5% off. This is literally 100% off. I love free money and consider it my job to pick it up.
- Wine Access offers $50 when you spend $150. I don’t drink. But I love bargains and am happy to fill my wine cellar for gifts and entertaining. Last Bottle isn’t quite as good (except during their marathon events with free shipping on single bottles that you can get for close to free). They offer $10 when you spend anything.
- While Robinhood’s sign up bonus is pretty weak, SoFi’s (SOFI) is magnificent and 100% worth doing today. They offer $50 in stock when you invest $10. If you don’t like guaranteed 6-baggers at any size then you are not my people. Which shares? So far this month I’ve received several but none worth keeping (DNOW) (EGHT) (TR) and (H). I simply sold what I got.
What do I like instead? This:
Dec. 01, 2023 12:24 PM ET Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (ESPR)
Summary
- Just a bit of scribble to let you know I’m on the case!
- This is my latest significant purchase.
- I will have more to say (and probably more to buy).
This time the bad actors are in Japan, not China, but this rhymes with RENN: They owe us $300 million (literally the exact amount). Shenanigans ensue. Truth eventually outs. We get our money. I liked the original and hope the sequel is as good.
This idea is simple. ESPR had a calamitous year:
A partner reneged on a $300 million contingent value right payment earlier this year. Esperion (ESPR) has an iron-clad contract suit. They have a court date in the spring by which time they should receive the delayed payment they were owed.
Caveat
This is a money burning pharma company that I wouldn’t otherwise invest in with no plans to return capital.
Conclusion
ESPR is worth over $2 per share if shareholders can encourage the board and management to return capital following any successful litigation outcome. Look for updates as litigation progresses. This is just an informal preview of coming attractions…
TL; DR
I recently bought ESPR and intend to participate further — either via litigation financing or via any future equity raise. Shares were crushed in March but should rebound if they can get a delayed payment.
So far it is the second best performer in my list of current picks:
StW members get real time updates on such ideas. This one is simple:
- 90% chance of a win.
- $5 in a win.
- $1 in a loss.
- But I’m most comfortable with the $2ish value from the suit.
- So it is $2 + 🤷🏻♂️
- Trial 9 AM Monday April 15, 2024.
Taking those variables and discounting for the time value of money by 10%, ESPR is worth over $4 today. It is a great way to invest your free SOFI money and could be particularly good today as tax loss sellers puke their 2023 losers.
Caveat
My usual: think for yourself, do your own work, and buyer (always) beware. This is a menu not recipe for success.
Conclusion
I like cheap stocks. I love free ones.
TL; DR
One can deposit $10 and get $50 in free stock from Sofi, sell the (probably garbage) stock and invest $60 in ESPR which could be worth at least $100 by the end of 2024.
