Opening Comments
Picture of the Day
Go For the Food & Bring the Cheer-Dagon Restaurant Review
Quick Bites
Markets, AMC/Reddit, Zoom, Oil, Biden Income Tax/1031 Exchange
Shrinkflation, JBS Cyber Attack
NYC Asian Hate Crimes, Kid Pandemic Eyes
220 CPS Profits, Google Diversity, Faux Drive By
Job Searches, Metal Detectors
Virus/Vaccine
Fauci
Real Estate
General Comments
NYC
Greenwich
Opening Comments
Spent a quick two days in NYC in frigid and rainy conditions. I never felt unsafe, but the homeless situation is as bad as I have ever seen it in NYC. Jack and I drove around a bit and I watched numerous situations with homeless getting aggressive trying to get money from people walking around. On 42nd and 6th, a man with his pants around his knees was all over a tourist couple and in their grill. The tourists were mortified. Jack and I golfed with a young man who works near Bryant Park. His associate came out of the subway recently (young woman) and was sucker punched by a homeless person while walking up the stairs. DeBlasio strikes again. Left or right, I am yet to hear from anyone who thinks he is doing a good job.
Also, every time we walked around, we smelled weed and I saw people smoking 10 yards from police who did nothing about it. The squeegee men are back in full force in NYC as well with many pictures in the article above. I never saw any of this with Rudy or Bloomberg leading the city.
I drove around the city and it is definitely coming back to life in some respects with more people walking around. However, I have never seen more “For Lease” signs for retail on 3rd Ave, Lex, Madison Ave or 6th Ave. Some blocks had a half dozen vacancies. On 69th and 3rd, the old Gracies has now been vacant for almost 7 years unless something quickly went in and closed again. This could be an amazing time to take over finished space and open a restaurant based on the amount of availability, city coming back to life and prices you can get for spaces which are already decked out with expensive FF&E. New York restaurants are still struggling to attract diners, with reservations down more than 30 percent compared to pre-pandemic 2019 — even as much of the nation shows strong signs of recovery, according to new data.
Had to get it out early tonight. Apologies for typos or anything missed.
Picture of the Day
Maybe getting old is not so bad after all. Now that I am 51 years young, I am digging the recent successes of pro athletes who are no longer spring chickens. In February, Tom Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title at age 43, his second championship in his 40s, and his seventh overall. The win also minted Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians as the oldest head coach to win a Super Bowl, at age 68. Then, last weekend, a fit, 50-year-old Phil Mickelson went out and pocketed the PGA Championship, outdueling golf’s thick-shouldered rocket-hitters to become the sport’s oldest major tournament winner. Finally, on Sunday, Helio Castroneves cannily passed 24-year-old Alex Palou with two laps to go to win the Indianapolis 500—at age 46.
Go For the Food & Bring the Cheer-Dagon Restaurant Review
For those who have known me for 20 years or more, you may remember my restaurant reviews which were actually my first foray into writing/posting. I had a shockingly large following for the reviews which were written under the pen name of, “The Feisty Gourmet.” The name was given to me by a chef when I sent him a handful of reviews for his comments. I have an investment company named The Feisty Gourmet as a result and many of my PE and Venture investments come out of that entity. I ate out for dinner virtually every night as a single guy who did a ton of client entertaining and was fortunate enough to try virtually all the better NYC restaurants. Jack became a bit of a food connoisseur in NYC. He had 34 Michelin stars under his belt by his 11th birthday which was celebrated at Le Bernardin. Below is Jack with the chef in the kitchen.
Living in Boca, writing restaurant reviews would be boring given the food is disappointing, the ambiance worse and the average age of the patrons is somewhere between 83 and dead, but starting to get a little younger post pandemic. On the rare occasion I go out to eat in Boca, I have a better chance of tripping over a walker, oxygen tank or cane than I do of seeing a 20 something or having a good meal. This is likely to change on the margin with new restaurants in the Boca Resort and Mandarin Oriental Hotel coming over the next 18 months.
Jack and I were in PA and the weather turned frigid and rainy, so we headed to NYC for a night of good food. I had written about Dagon a couple times in the Rosen Report and was anxious to give it a try. I went with Jack and our friend, Ed, at 6:30pm on Friday night. Below in italics was taken from the website.
Dagon is a new restaurant on the upper west side is named for the Phoenician and Philistine god of agriculture and the earth, and features cuisine from “somewhere in the Mediterranean.” Inspired by his Tunisian and Israeli family heritage, Ari Bokovza’s culinary style celebrates the rich flavors of the Mediterranean. Bokovza trained throughout Europe, learning the techniques and philosophies of some of the finest chefs, culminating at the Michelin-starred El Racó d’en Freixa in Barcelona, Spain.
To be fair, I was a little underwhelmed when I walked into the restaurant. It was nice, but a little too bright and did not love the decor despite it being clean and new. Shockingly, the place was packed so early with zero empty tables, including outside and it was 50 degrees.
The Positives:
Food-Although the menu is limited and changes regularly, there is something for everyone at this Mediterranean gem. Food, presentation, taste, seasoning, texture were all amazing and exceeded my lofty expectations. I am not sure the dishwashers needed to be paid to clean the plates when we were done, as we practically licked the plates clean.
We started with flatbread with sides of whipped eggplant, tahina and Moroccan carrots. The bread is freshly baked and each of the appetizers were remarkable. Of the three, I would rank them eggplant, tahina and then the carrots, but all were solid.
We then had another starter, hummus with flatbread. Again, the presentation was stellar and the dish tasted great with a tomato puree and a soft boiled egg. The flatbread is some of the best I have ever tasted and comes out steaming hot. I hate when a nice restaurant brings out cold bread; it is insulting to me.
For entrees, we had three: lamb, chicken and branzino. The lamb was delicious, but no knife needed. It was so tender that it literally fell off the bone and must have been slow cooked. It was seasoned with cucumbers, dates, walnuts wild rice and shawarma spice. The flavor was amazing, but wanted more. The next dish was the Harissa BBQ chicken. This was insanely tasty and served with a potato sumac puree and greens and there was a healthy portion served. The chicken had a beautiful crispy skin with moist and tender meat. The greens were covered in a seasoned olive oil and thankfully no one else wanted them. Last, we received the branzino which came with celery root and lemon butter. It was good as well, but a distant third to the chicken and lamb.
For dessert, we split the chocolate cake which was solid, but a touch dry for my perspective. Again, the plate was prepared with the utmost care.
Room For Improvement
Our server’s first language was not English and given the mask, it was impossible for anyone to understand him. The service was a bit slower than I would have expected, but not offensive. The music was upbeat and fun, but again, they could have dimmed the lights a little to create a better mood. The wine list by the glass was about as weak of a wine list I have ever seen at a restaurant with this caliber food. The full bottle list is better, but expect it will continue to improve as the restaurant is sure to be around a long time.
For me, the biggest issue was the scene. Here we have an amazing restaurant with impeccable food and the ambiance and patrons were not what I had expected. I did not feel the decor went with the vibe of the menu or food. Older crowd, not Boca old, but hardly young. The attire was out of a JC Penny catalog and not the cool outfits I had hoped to see in NYC. I attribute the disappointment to a few things. Dagon is on 91st and Broadway, so it could not be further from the hip, young crowd who lives below 14th Street. Also, it was Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend and the cool kids were in the Hamptons sipping expensive Scotch on the beach eating $100/lb Loaves and Fishes lobster salad. Don’t get me started on Loaves and Fishes or my language goes inappropriate in a hurry.
Overall, 100% chance I go back to Dagon and hope the crowd is a bit livelier and they splurge for some new duds before coming back. Go for the food and bring the cheer with you. I can’t imagine you will be disappointed with any aspects of the meal. If it is a cool vibe you want, head downtown with the cool cats. Remember, the UES and UWS are traditionally culinary wastelands. I sent a family there yesterday and the father said, “It was amazing food, great music and we cant wait to go back for more despite ordering everything on the menu.”
Food-A
Wine List-B, but the glass selections are a C
Service-B+
Scene-B-
Quick Bites
Stocks rose slightly on Wednesday with the S&P 500 hovering near an all-time high. The benchmark gained 0.14% to 4,208 on Wednesday, sitting about 0.7% from its record hit in May. The Dow added 25 points to close at 34,600. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.14% to 13,756. All three indexes are fairly close to record levels. The Dow and Nasdaq are 1.4% and 3.2% below their respective records. Energy stocks again outperformed the broader market on Wednesday as crude prices continued their recent rebound. Investors have snapped up shares of some of the nation’s largest oil and gas companies in recent sessions as optimism about the economic rebound in the U.S. fosters demand for crude, airfare and other travel-related assets.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.’s Reddit-fueled rally has reached about 2,900% so far this year as retail traders ignore the company’s financial troubles and continue to buy heavily shorted stocks. Shares of the movie-theater chain nearly doubled on Wednesday -- adding to Tuesday’s 23% gain -- after it announced a program called AMC Investor Connect that will reward small-time investors with goodies such as special screenings and free popcorn. The surge has topped 390% in the last two weeks alone, pushing AMC’s stock price to a record high. Its market capitalization has also ballooned to $31 billion, surpassing other so-called meme stocks. That includes GameStop Corp., which now sits at about $21 billion after reaching a high of $25 billion in January. I get euphoria about repoening and the vaccine effectiveness. My issue is I have seen this movie of euphoria before. I got hurt shorting .com stocks during the bubble and learned a lesson. I was right, but too early which made me wrong. I am not here to tell you all these Reddit stocks are shorts today, but feel the speed at which they rise and the reasons behind many of them are questionable. I just ask that people invest in the “Reddit Craze” stocks with extreme caution. At some point, fundamentals matter. Many of my readers are too young to remember that companies were changing names to include .com and when they did, the stocks went up massively. Nothing else changed but the name. It worked for a little while and then the Nasdaq went from 5,000 to 1,100.
Zoom reported better-than-expected first-quarter results Tuesday, with sales growth of 191%. The shares rose 4% in extended trading after initially falling as much as 5% as the company showed signs of a looming slowdown.
OPEC and its non-OPEC partners agreed on Tuesday to gradually ease production cuts. The group opted to stick to the plan agreed upon in April, whereby 2.1 million barrels per day of supply would be brought back to the market between May to July. International benchmark Brent crude futures traded at $71.17 a barrel on Tuesday, up around 2.7%, while West Texas crude futures stood at $68.65, for a gain of more than 3% and the contract’s highest level in more than two years. Oil prices have climbed more than 30% this year.
The average interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 3.17% from 3.18% last week, but the Mortgage Bankers Association said applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 3% and were 2% lower than the same week a year ago. “Tight housing inventory, obstacles to a faster rate of new construction, and rapidly rising home prices continues to hold back purchase activity,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist.
President Joe Biden has proposed a 39.6% top marginal income tax rate, up from the current 37%, to help fund the American Families Plan. That rate would affect single individuals with taxable income of more than $452,700 and married couples filing jointly with income over $509,300, according to a budget proposal issued Friday. The top rate is slated to increase to 39.6% after 2025 even if Congress doesn’t pass Biden’s proposal.
President Joe Biden is pushing to close a tax break that helped his predecessor amass a fortune. The so-called 1031 like-kind exchange rule, named after a section of the tax code, was created a century ago to aid family farmers. It has evolved into a beloved tool of property moguls, Fortune 500 companies and real estate trusts that can use it to create a daisy-chain of tax avoidance. It works like this: An investor buys a building for $4 million and sells it later for $10 million. By redeploying the proceeds into a new property within six months, she can defer paying taxes on her gains. She can repeat that process indefinitely. The Biden administration’s rule change would avoid hitting smaller transactions by allowing as much as $500,000 of capital gains to pass tax-free in any exchange.
Consumers are paying more for a growing range of household staples in ways that don’t show up on receipts — thinner rolls, lighter bags, smaller cans — as companies look to offset rising labor and materials costs without scaring off customers. It’s a form of retail camouflage known as “shrinkflation,” and economists and consumer advocates who track packaging expect it to become more pronounced as inflation ratchets up, taking hold of such everyday items such as paper towels, potato chips and diapers. “Consumers check the price every time they buy, but they don’t check the net weight,” said Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate and former assistant attorney general in Massachusetts.
A cyberattack on JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, forced the shutdown of all its U.S. beef plants, wiping out output from facilities that supply almost a quarter of American supplies. All of the company’s fed-beef and regional beef plants were forced to shutter, and all other JBS meatpacking facilities in the country experienced some level of disruption to operations, according to an official with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
A homeless man with dozens of prior arrests was busted for slugging an Asian woman in Chinatown on Tuesday — and frustrated top cop Dermot Shea said the suspect was free to put New Yorkers “at risk” because of the state’s revolving door justice system. “When you have an individual like yesterday’s from Chinatown [who] lives in a shelter, arrested eight times in the last year, randomly assaulting people … What are we doing in society when we are releasing these people right back onto the streets? It’s putting New Yorkers at risk,” Shea railed Tuesday morning on NY1. Someone please tell me why NYC’s policy on bail reform is right? I spoke with a Federal judge on this topic. She convinced me bail reform works for 1st time offenders of non-violent crime. I am not convinced offenders arrested multiple should be given additional chances. A man with a 40 prior arrests should not be given the “benefit of the doubt.” Innocent, tax paying, law abiding citizens are being victimized. There are lots of things wrong with NYC causing many to leave. Let’s try to take care of those who follow the law and have serious penalties for those repeat offenders. In an effort for fairness to those with less means, NYC politicians are effectively jeopardizing the welfare of the hard-working New Yorkers paying the bills. The little I was in NYC last weekend, I was walking around with my head on a swivel ready to protect myself. Although I have not seen complete data on a national level, the articles I have read suggest a majority of Asian hate crimes are committed by Black people. I would like to see official nationwide data on this matter.
Many kids are emerging from the pandemic with vision problems, doctors say. A primary culprit, they believe, is increased screen time. Eye doctors say they are seeing more children—many of whom were in virtual school—with new and worsening prescriptions for myopia, or near-sightedness. Doctors also report more cases of digital eye strain in kids. A leading theory behind rising myopia rates posits that when children look at screens or books for prolonged periods, the eye adjusts to accommodate a close focus, which may change and elongate the shape of the eye, leading to myopia. No wonder I am going blind. I spend hours researching stories for the Rosen Report, then I need to type and edit it. If this story is right, I am in serious trouble.
Even as the high-end condo market has been sunk by oversupply, a waning foreign buyer pool and a slowing economy, 220 Central Park South has floated above it all, closing high eight-figure deals, snagging boldface buyers and effectively creating its own single-project luxury market. It is the clear heir to 15 Central Park West as the city’s new alpha residence. It holds the record for the country’s priciest residential transaction. And with $1 billion of realized profits for Vornado, it’s arguably the world’s most successful condo. The article suggests the building cost $5,000/ft (I had been told it was $5,500/ft) and many units sold for $10-11k+/ft. The pièce de résistance came in January 2019, when Griffin closed on a 23,000-square-foot quadplex for nearly $240 million, shattering the record for America’s priciest residence. I have been in apartments in all of the “best” buildings in NYC and feel nothing can compare to 220 CPS. The place is another level of insanity for the uber wealthy. The amenities, views, services, finishes are crazy. I am in shock about the prices, but the wealthiest people can afford the best and this is a good example that they will pay for it. I found the attached article which outlines the development process and shows the complexity and cost of putting a deal together. If you cannot see it on your computer, the app is free on your phone and you can get access. Steve Roth is aggressive and a genius.
I spoke with a home builder who cannot find help. He took out a large billboard on a highway which has 32,000 cars drive by every day. His ad has been up for 5 months and he has received one employee from it and is paying $20/hr. Like many other small businesses, he cannot find help. Workers in states that are scrapping the extra $300 a week in federal unemployment benefits started searching for jobs on the day their states announced the moves, according to a new report. On the day states said they would end the checks — which critics say are making it hard for businesses to hire workers as they struggle to recover from the pandemic — clicks for job postings spiked by 5 percent, compared to the last two weeks of April, according to a Friday report from Indeed.com. Wait, stop paying people to sit home and play video games and they decide to look for a job? Who would have thunk it.
Google’s head of diversity strategy is under fire over a 2007 blog post in which he wrote that Jews have “an insatiable appetite for war and killing” — and an “insensitivity” to people’s suffering. Kamau Bobb made the comments in a Nov. 30, 2007, post titled “If I Were a Jew” when he was a research associate in technology at Georgia Tech, the Washington Free Beacon reported. He apologized for his words. Last I checked, he was still employed by Google. How is this possible? He is the head of DIVERSITY!
Are you kidding me? How is this man fit to be a parent? A 10-year-old Miami boy was shot after his father took him on a faux drive-by shooting with a paintball gun — and a frightened homeowner returned fire with real bullets, according to authorities. Michael Williams, 26, allegedly gave in to his son’s pleas late Sunday to take him on a paintball “drive-by shooting,” where police said the boy fired off the unlethal rounds into a crowd gathered in the front yard of an Opa-locka home, the Miami Herald reported. But the homeowner, identified as Gregory Barns, thought the gunfire was real and that “he and his family were under attack” — leading him to return fire with a real round, striking the boy, police said. Training your kids to do “faux” drive by shootings seems like one hell of a bad idea. I have not seen an update on the kid’s condition, but I am not surprised the homeowner returned fire. Same thing would have happened at my house.
People have been metal detecting since 1881, when Alexander Graham Bell invented a device to find the bullet lodged in President James Garfield. Detector makers are reporting record sales. According to an annual report from one brand, Minelab, in 2020 the company sold 30 percent more detectors than the previous year, which had climbed 18 percent the year before that. As a kid in Florida, I borrowed a neighbor’s metal detector and went to the beach certain I would find treasures. I lasted three hours and found almost nothing and that was the end of career of treasure hunting. I see people on the beach searching and understand folks find a fair amount of jewelry which falls off of sunbathers. I think it might be fun to give it a try, but I am likely to quit after a couple hours of finding bottle caps.
Virus/Vaccine
Covid data continues to improve. The 7-day average for cases is approximately 20k, levels not seen since April 2020 when testing was 15% of today’s levels. Hospitalizations are at 21k and deaths are below 400 for the 7-day average.
More than 1.94 billion doses have been administered across 176 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 34.7 million doses a day. In the U.S., 296 million doses have been given so far. In the last week, an average of 1.23 million doses per day were administered. Peak was 3.4 million in mid-April for perspective.
Lots of stories about Fauci and emails. I have not had the time to go through all of it, but it warrants investigation. At first glance, it is concerning. More to come in the next piece.
Real Estate
General Comments
R/E remains hot. Im in PA and there is almost no inventory on the market. I continue to hear insane stories about the Hamptons and homes with no buyers for years no finding multiple bidders above ask. Josh Harris, Apollo co-founder, bought a house on N Bay Road in Miami for $32mm. He is no longer running the business and Apollo is opening offices in Miami. Would it be shocking if he too has permanent residence in South Florida with all the other billionaires? I am not convinced there is a golf club without a wait list between Miami and Jupiter worth getting into today.
NYC-From Jared Halpern
Last week there were 40 signed contracts in the Manhattan Luxury Market. The record breaking streak of 30 or more weekly contracts is now up to 17 weeks in a row. The last week of May took the month's total contract activity to 156 deals which represents an 875% increase from the 16 deals signed in May of 2020. The average price per square foot in May 2021 compared with May 2020 has ballooned by 15% to $2,581. Townhomes saw the greatest increase in contract volume, up 1400% compared to May 2020.
With another month behind us, Manhattan's total contract activity has shown that the Luxury market is making up 12% of total signed contracts with 792 out of 6,438 total deals in May 2021. Although the Luxury market only makes up 12% of total contract activity, with respect to sales volume, Manhattan Luxury deals amount to 47% of total sales volume by asking price or $6,647,626,928 of the total $14,266,516,928 of total sales volume in the first 5 months of the year.
Only 5 months into the year, the Luxury Market has seen a higher sales volume this year so far than the yearly total of Luxury contracts in 2020 which was $5,285,590,166.volume this year so far than the yearly total of Luxury contracts in 2020 which was $5,285,590,166.
Greenwich, CT-From Mark Pruner
May 2021 was an interesting month in Greenwich. We had the same sales in May as we had in April at 88 sales. Our 10-year average for April sales is 47 sales and for May it is 61 sales, so both are well above average. Our market seems to be going from very hot to hot. When you look at weekly transactions our high this year was the first week of May with 85 transaction, (sales and contracts). By the last week of May we were down to 45 transactions in that week, which looks like a big drop until you look at contracts. Our contracts are at their highest level all year with 267 contracts up from 242 contracts at the beginning of May and only 136 contracts at the beginning of the year.