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Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:13 pm

He’s an absolute legend. His newsletters are a good litmus test - if you enjoy reading Matt, you probably will enjoy most areas of corporate law (at least in terms of substance, if not practice-wise)

Matt Levine also makes you wonder...is everybody at Wachtell that smart & knowledgeable??

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:13 pm

He’s an absolute legend. His newsletters are a good litmus test - if you enjoy reading Matt, you probably will enjoy most areas of corporate law (at least in terms of substance, if not practice-wise)

beepboopbeep wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:15 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:13 pm

He’s an absolute legend. His newsletters are a good litmus test - if you enjoy reading Matt, you probably will enjoy most areas of corporate law (at least in terms of substance, if not practice-wise)

Matt Levine also makes you wonder...is everybody at Wachtell that smart & knowledgeable??

My sense having read his newsletter for many years is that a significant amount of his knowledge comes from having worked at Goldman, which he did after leaving Wachtell. Not to say that Wachtell attorneys aren't generally impressive and knowledgeable, but he doesn't talk about his time there nearly as much as he references stuff he did at Goldman.

When I was a junior lawyer at a very lucrative law firm, the standard move, during or after a particularly difficult deal, was for the partner to say to the associate “take your significant other out to a nice dinner and put it on the firm’s card.” After sending, like, a $4 million bill for merger advice, this was a rounding error for the firm’s finances, but it was a nice, grown-up, gesture.

showusyourtorts wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:20 am

+1. Matt's great.

Does anyone have other resources they'd recommend that are similar to Matt's in style and approach? I.e., discussing difficult technical concepts in an approachable and interesting style?

motojir wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:17 am

I just read his coinbase/spac article, the most recent one on his website. Same stuff you see from other "I earn a penny for each click" folks, but with too many platitudes, too much verbiage and too little substance. Most of these are garbage (no one worth a damn gives their finance knowledge away for free) but the most useful penny-per-click finance authors are on seekingalpha.com. Occasionally you'll get actual diligence there.

When I was a junior lawyer at a very lucrative law firm, the standard move, during or after a particularly difficult deal, was for the partner to say to the associate “take your significant other out to a nice dinner and put it on the firm’s card.” After sending, like, a $4 million bill for merger advice, this was a rounding error for the firm’s finances, but it was a nice, grown-up, gesture.

That's from his most recent article. I can't imagine what sort of douche one would have to be to try and impress his audience with this sort of anecdote.

motojir wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:17 am

I just read his coinbase/spac article, the most recent one on his website. Same stuff you see from other "I earn a penny for each click" folks, but with too many platitudes, too much verbiage and too little substance. Most of these are garbage (no one worth a damn gives their finance knowledge away for free) but the most useful penny-per-click finance authors are on seekingalpha.com.

Billionaires read Money Stuff. “Matt is one of the best writers today chronicling the ironies, paradoxes and absurdities of modern business and finance,” wrote one of them, the hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, in an email. “His work is some of the most sophisticated analysis of what is really happening on Wall Street,” said Bill Ackman, another billionaire fund manager.

motojir wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:17 am

I just read his coinbase/spac article, the most recent one on his website. Same stuff you see from other "I earn a penny for each click" folks, but with too many platitudes, too much verbiage and too little substance. Most of these are garbage (no one worth a damn gives their finance knowledge away for free) but the most useful penny-per-click finance authors are on seekingalpha.com. Occasionally you'll get actual diligence there.

When I was a junior lawyer at a very lucrative law firm, the standard move, during or after a particularly difficult deal, was for the partner to say to the associate “take your significant other out to a nice dinner and put it on the firm’s card.” After sending, like, a $4 million bill for merger advice, this was a rounding error for the firm’s finances, but it was a nice, grown-up, gesture.

That's from his most recent article. I can't imagine what sort of douche one would have to be to try and impress his audience with this sort of anecdote.

motojir wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:50 am

How do you think Levine is paid at Bloomberg? I don't know his deal, but I'm pretty sure he's a penny per click writer. That's how almost all of them get paid, either directly or implicitly. That's why, every day, thousands of finance articles come out purporting to explain aspects of the market. Publish n words, get your eyeballs, repeat. Another day another dollar.

If you want actual insight, facts you didn't know before, seekinalpha.com is the best place I have found so far. Most of the articles there are bad too, but sometimes the authors do actual diligence and dig up useful information.

And LOL at citing Bill Ackman, one of the biggest bullshit artists on wall street as proof of anything. If you believe anything that comes out of Ackman's mouth when he writes or speaks in public you're a fool. Last March, he gave the ultimate "sky is falling" interview as he secretly shorted the market. The market fell significantly as a result of his interview, putting money in his pocket at other people's expense, and CNBC was railed for allowing that. If 90% of finance articles are unhelpful and written only for pennies per click, 9% of them are written by super rich people trying to move the market in their favor at other people's expense. If Ackman wants you to read Levine, then it's probably because he wants you occupied with bs rather than learning useful information.

If you want to place value on douchebag stories about the fancy restaurant he went to at his firm (literally copying steroid-cringe douchebag David Lat's playbook), and public praise from people like Bill Ackman then go ahead. If I'm going to waste time wading through the swamp of articles, I'd like to have a chance of gaining some insight.

Edit: I'll read more of Levine's stuff, though. I only read one.

motojir wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:38 am

I read a few more of Levine's articles. I'm going to stand by my original assessment. Compare his article on Coinbase with Seekingalpha's page on Coinbase.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... -for-banks

https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/COIN

Also, here's a link to the article about Ackman in March 2020 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/bill-ac ... ilton.html

ExpOriental wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:42 am

motojir wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:38 am

I read a few more of Levine's articles. I'm going to stand by my original assessment. Compare his article on Coinbase with Seekingalpha's page on Coinbase.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... -for-banks

https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/COIN

Also, here's a link to the article about Ackman in March 2020 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/bill-ac ... ilton.html

You're impressively dedicated to embarrassing yourself in every thread you post in.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:32 am

By your own logic, Bill Ackman (NW: $3B) and Jim Chanos (NW: $1.5B) have jobs that are far, far harder than whatever it is you do; their opinions are far, far more insightful and valuable than yours. By orders of magnitude. Their collective $4.5B opinion that Matt Levine is worth reading every day far outweighs the fact that you (NW: ???) like reading robo-generated headlines on seekingalpha or "analysis" showing that COIN offers indirect exposure to bitcoin.

motojir wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 18, 2021 12:08 pm

You thought Levine's analysis of COIN was better than the stuff on SA? OK. The links are right there for anyone to see.

As technology improves, one could argue Bitcoin processing will improve. However, if Bitcoin were to get used for payments, the conversion of crypto holdings into US dollars will dramatically increase overall network transactions. We are big believers in the concept of..."if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

This is a pretty simple one. If you believe that crypto is going to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency, then you should buy crypto. The purpose of buying Coinbase instead eludes me.

Definitely, I am not a crypto expert. I work from the basis that I should be able to explain in simple and conveying terms why an investment makes sense. For COIN, I cannot because of the underlying asset class, the trading platform is easier. Anecdotally, most institutional clients of investment banks talk now mostly about 'how to get exposure' to cryptocurrencies, not 'what is it exactly and how does it work'. This means we want to get in. This alone tells me that COIN's valuation could be fueled by potential madness.