Tremendous

An angel investor's take on life and business

  • Hedge Funds’ AMC Doomsday Scenario

    Hedge funds have been perfectly capable of blowing themselves up with common trades like shorting and selling call options. But with the epic rise of AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. stock, there lurks another potential danger for hedge funds. And this one could be worse than anything else we’ve seen.

    Aside from shorting and options trades, another common way to bet against a company is to purchase credit default swaps (CDS). These are insurance on a company’s bonds. If AMC were to go bankrupt, that insurance would skyrocket in value, since everyone would want protection for their imperiled portfolio. But if AMC soars, that insurance could quickly become almost worthless.

    Why would hedge funds turn to CDS to bet against AMC? Because they’re being cut off from their traditional bear trades like shorting and options. Many prime brokers, who process hedge fund trades, have banned such moves in AMC, GameStop and other meme stocks, afraid they’ll be left holding the bag if hedge funds can’t cover their losses.

    The CDS market is massive, covering protection on over $10 trillion in credit. CDS is especially dangerous for several reasons. The market is extremely opaque; these derivatives are usually custom-made for each buyer and trade away from any exchange. The leverage available with CDS is unbelievable: buyers usually only need to put up 1% of the value of all the protection they want to buy. So, if a hedge fund plunked down $10 million, they could be exposed to the swings in a $1 billion portfolio of AMC bonds. Even a small drop in AMC’s default risk would have major implications.

    CDS also includes a feature similar to margin calls in stocks: collateral. Both parties commonly have to post collateral when their position moves against them. If AMC stock continues to soar, making it easy for the company to raise money and taking bankruptcy off the table, a hedge fund’s CDS could plummet in value. The fund could face sudden and massive demands for collateral because its CDS covers such a huge amount of AMC bonds. These collateral calls could quickly bankrupt a hedge fund.

    Will this doomsday scenario come to pass? Who can say? But with other avenues to bet against the likes of AMC rapidly closing and ever increasing pressure to redeem large losses, hedge funds may be attracted to this risky strategy.

    A wiser path would be to avoid betting against anything with a cult following as powerful as AMC.

    More on AMC:

    Photo: “Scary clouds over New York City!” by Orangeadnan is licensed under CC BY 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave your comments at the bottom.

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • How AMC Is Blowing Up the Hedge Fund Industry

    Yesterday, high profile hedge fund White Square Capital announced plans to close down after big losses in GameStop. New York-based Mudrick Capital just took a massive loss on AMC. Melvin Capital is down by nearly half as AMC, GameStop and others continue to move against them.

    These are not isolated events. There is a long term trend toward lower inflows to hedge funds:

    This trend is much worse than it seems if you dig into the type of funds that bet against companies like AMC: long/short equity funds. They are the most common type of hedge fund, holding 28% of the industry’s assets.

    But this strategy is dying. Long/short equity funds are seeing some of the largest outflows:

    No wonder investors are losing patience: such funds have underperformed the market every year since 2011, often substantially:

    Indeed, many long/short equity funds were shutting down even before 2021. I suspect those returns will be even worse this year, with high profile blowups in meme stocks.

    If you’re a pension fund or college endowment, two types of institutions that often invest in hedge funds, why should you pay their high fees in return for such miserable performance? Hedge funds typically charge 2% of assets every year, plus 20% of any gains. What do I pay for my Vanguard S&P 500 index fund? 0.04% of assets every year, and not a dime of the gains.

    Long/short equity funds aren’t providing much real value. What’s their strategy, to short stocks like AMC because they trade above their fundamental value? Everyone knows that. The Reddit crowd’s play is entirely technical: they hope to profit from a short squeeze or gamma squeeze.

    Let’s compare this to another form of investing popular with pensions and endowments: venture capital. I invest in startups myself, so it’s a world I’m familiar with. What investors in startups do is entirely different from a long/short equity fund. We have to evaluate obscure, early stage companies with little publicly available information. We have to judge technologies most of the public hasn’t even heard of yet. And we aim to provide a lot more than money: investors often give advice and make key introductions.

    Oh, and our money is locked up for about 10 years, versus easy liquidity in stock markets.

    That said, even venture capitalists often fail to provide good returns. But here’s the approach I’d recommend for hedge fund investors:

    1) Invest in hedge funds that have real performance and a strong value-add, and/or…

    2) Invest in index funds, and/or…

    3) Invest in something like venture capital, which can add real value

    The hedge fund emperor has no clothes. And investors are beginning to wise up.

    More on AMC:

    Photo: “Fruit of the fireball machine” by SiamEye is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave your comments at the bottom.

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Why AMC May Be Even Hotter Than You Think

    It’s no secret that AMC is going vertical lately:

    But this and other meme stocks may be even hotter than they appear based on prices in public markets like the New York Stock Exchange. The reason is a quirk in how retail orders are handled:

    The prices of so-called meme stocks may be distorted because the majority of trades in those names are executed away from public exchanges where share price formation occurs, the head of the New York Stock Exchange said on Wednesday.

    Meme stocks have a much higher interest from retail investors than most companies. Since retail orders tend to be processed on private platforms, this could have a significant distortive effect on the price reported in public markets.

    If many of the trades done by the most enthusiastic buyers aren’t reflected in public prices, this would make the stock seem less desired than it is. So despite AMC’s staggering rise this year, the real enthusiasm may be understated.

    In meme stocks, individual traders contribute as much as 70% of the volume, Cunningham said.

    The majority of retail orders bypass exchanges because of an arrangement called payment for order flow, in which retail brokerages sell their customers’ marketable orders to wholesale brokers. The wholesalers match the orders internally, trying to profit off of the bid-ask spread, while offering retail traders the best market price or better.

    If meme stock enthusiasm is understated, hedge funds trading against the retail hordes should exercise extreme caution. London-based White Square Capital announced plans to close down today after substantial losses in GameStop. Massive losses in AMC and others could cause many more casualties.

    The true power of the retail investor may be even greater than it appears.

    More on AMC:

    Photo: “Hot – canon 550d” by @Doug88888 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Hedge Funds Burn $6 Billion In a Month Shorting AMC (and Others)

    Several hedge funds that lost a fortune shorting GameStop in January have sustained further losses betting against meme stocks like AMC:

    Melvin Capital and Light Street Capital, two US hedge funds hard hit by the January rally in stocks popular with retail investors, suffered further losses in May.

    Hedge fund losses from betting against five popular meme stocks — GameStop, Bed Bath & Beyond, AMC, BlackBerry and Clover Health — total about $6bn since the start of May, according to the data firm Ortex Analytics. Peter Hillerberg, Ortex’s co-founder, said funds had recently reduced their short positions in meme stocks but that short interest remained “at very high levels”.

    These losses are likely heavily concentrated in AMC, since it outperformed all the other stocks on that list by a wide margin in May, nearly tripling in value.

    Hedge funds have been hit so hard that their prime brokers, the banks who fund their trades, are cutting them off:

    Wall Street’s top brokers are quietly tightening their rules for who can bet against retail traders’ most-popular meme stocks.

    The changes mean some hedge funds and other institutional investors now face higher collateral requirements or are limited from shorting certain stocks, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing internal policy decisions.

    Hedge funds have been moving toward options and away from short selling to place their bets against AMC and other meme stocks. But losses from bearish options bets can also be substantial, as Mudrick Capital recently proved. Such trades may not be covered under some of these policies against short selling. Jefferies, however, has wisely included naked option positions (a particularly risky trade) on the list of meme stock bets it will no longer handle.

    I have to wonder how long investors in hedge funds will put up with massive losses in volatile stocks, even as index funds post solid returns with minimal fees. If the hedge fund managers guess right on the direction of a highly volatile meme stock, they pocket 20% or more of the gains. If the stock moves against them, it’s the investors who are left holding the bag.

    Heads they win, tails you lose.

    More on AMC:

    Photo: “Hedge Fund” by Paul Robertson is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Hoboken’s Most Powerful Gangster

    Inside a low-slung building surrounded by trees in southern Minnesota, there is an old man. Now ailing and in his 90’s, he was once one of the most powerful members of the American mafia. This building is Federal Medical Center Rochester. This man is Louis “Bobby” Manna.

    Genovese family consigliere Louis “Bobby” Manna, right

    Manna was born in Hoboken in 1929 and, by the 80’s, he had reached the pinnacle of the underworld: consigliere in the Genovese crime family. Of the family’s 14 capos, 4 operated in New Jersey and reported to Manna directly. His empire included a $20 million a year gambling ring, the largest port on the east coast, garbage contracts, and union corruption that netted millions more in ill-gotten gains.

    Manna ran this empire from Casella’s Restaurant in Hoboken, a bunker-like structure with almost no legitimate clientele. There, he met with his capos and ruled on disputes. Even corrupt police officers came there to pay their respects.

    But despite Manna’s power, all was not well for the Genovese family’s vast operations in the Garden State. John Gotti, leader of the larger Gambino family, wanted a piece. After the Bruno/Scarfo family of Philadelphia fell on hard times, Gotti insisted on taking their lucrative South Jersey rackets, leaving only the less profitable territory in the north to Manna and the Genovese.

    Manna couldn’t accept this. He was also incensed by Gotti’s murder of the prior Gambino boss, Paul Castellano, in blatant violation of Cosa Nostra’s rules. As the summer of 1987 faded into fall, Manna began to plan Gotti’s murder.

    With lookouts everywhere and his own soldier as the owner, Manna felt comfortable at Casella’s. Perhaps a little too comfortable. He spoke openly of killing Gotti, even using Gotti’s full name and instructing his lieutenants in detail how to murder the Gambino boss.

    Perhaps so used to power, Manna destroyed himself by his brazeness. An FBI bug picked up the conversation, along with many others. Manna was convicted of multiple murder plots and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989 under the RICO Act.

    Manna’s story has an intriguing postscript: in his 90’s and facing the coronavirus pandemic, he petitioned the court to release him to live out his last days with his stepson in Bayonne, NJ. A Change.org petition even circulated to spring the elderly convict from prison.

    Federal Judge Peter Sheridan ruled against Manna in December 2020, likely consigning him to death behind bars.

    Shortly therafter, his former headquarters was demolished to make way for a park.

    More interesting spots in New Jersey:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • AMC Shorts Lose $500 Million in 1 Day

    Despite losses of over $1 billion last month, short sellers remain attracted to AMC like moths to a flame:

    Investors shorting “meme stock” AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC.N) are estimated to have lost about $512 million on Monday after a rally that sent the cinema operator’s shares up more than 15%, data from financial analytics firm Ortex showed.

    They are up against staggering volume from retail traders, among others:

    Recent reports from brokerages Fidelity and Freetrade show AMC has been the most traded stock by their customers, many of whom are small-time investors.

    More here.

    These losses by short sellers likely understate the total losses by AMC bears. Many have taken option positions that benefit if AMC’s price drops. Those positions are going sour rapidly, leading one hedge fund to lose approximately $400 million earlier this month.

    There are other strategies AMC skeptics could adopt, like buying puts (limited downside) rather than selling calls (unlimited downside). Or, they could buy credit default swaps on AMC’s bonds.

    But AMC’s volume is more than double that of any other stock today and a substantial percentage of shares are still sold short, making another short squeeze a possibility. The safest spot for bears is on the sidelines.

    More on AMC:

    Photo: “Burn Money” by purpleslog is licensed under CC BY 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Hedge Fund Torched By AMC

    On glamorous Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan, as most people were heading home for the day, the top executives of a powerful hedge fund filed into a conference room. The fate of this multibillion dollar institution could be at stake.

    This is Mudrick Capital Mangement, L.P. With offices in New York City and London, it manages approximately $3.8 billion. Or did, until a struggling theater operator’s stock started to climb, seemingly out of nowhere:

    Inside Mudrick, executives were growing apprehensive as the AMC rally gained steam. The firm’s risk committee met on the evening of June 1 after the stock closed at $32 and decided to exit all debt and derivative positions the following day.

    It was a day too late.

    AMC’s stock price blew past $40 in a matter of hours June 2, hitting an intraday high of $72.62. Call option prices soared amid a frenzy of trading that Mudrick Capital contributed to and, by the end of the week, the winning trade had turned into a bust, costing the fund hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

    Mudrick lost about 10% of its value, or around $400 million, in just a few days. These losses came not from short sales but from selling call options, or a right to purchase the stock at a specific price. The options Mudrick sold gave the buyer the right to buy AMC at $40 a share. At the time, it seemed inconceivable the stock could ever go that high.

    Inconceivable except to retail traders on Reddit, among other forums. They pushed the stock to all-time highs, badly bruising Mudrick.

    Mudrick sold these options to hedge the risk they took in lending AMC money. I think it would’ve been a lot smarter to buy credit default swaps, which are like insurance. If the company in question goes bankrupt, the seller of the swap has to pay you. But, buying the swaps costs money up front, whereas selling the calls produced income right away. Mudrick seems to prefer the quick buck to long-term risk management.

    I find the sight of powerful hedge funds being torched by average Joes quite amusing. If other funds don’t want to join them, I’d suggest treating all meme stocks with extreme caution.

    More on AMC:

    Photo: “Police Stationed outside AMC Theater showing Joker film 4573” by Brechtbug is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Meet New Jersey’s Biggest Polluter

    Along the New Jersey Turnpike, it comes into view: a massive complex of tanks, smokestacks, and tangled pipes. This is New Jersey’s biggest polluter: the Phillips 66 Bayway Refinery.

    The Phillips refinery releases far more toxic chemicals than anywhere else in the state, and more than twice as many as the runner-up (another refinery). Some of these chemicals may cause cancer.

    Where do these chemicals go? Into poor communities in surrounding Linden, NJ:

    “We live in a very low-income neighborhood, so we’re advocating for food, and shelter and everything else. I don’t believe we can get to the point where we’re able to advocate for the smells or the chemicals that are released in the air,” she said.

    Despite its staggering environmental toll, the plant employees just 800 people and, even at full capacity, produces only 155,000 barrels of gasoline daily. This is less than 0.05% of the gasoline the US uses every day.

    Even those far from New Jersey may have cause for concern: the plant sits two miles from Arthur Kill, the waterway that separates Staten Island from the Garden State and feeds into the Atlantic Ocean. I shudder to think what could happen in a natural disaster, to say nothing of a man-made one. Indeed, the refinery had to shut down prior to Hurricane Sandy.

    We have a dangerous plant in the middle of one of the most densely populated places in the country, leeching out toxins. Its damage falls disproportionately on the poor and nonwhite. Its economic impact is modest.

    Perhaps it’s time for a change?

    More on New Jersey:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • The Church Tony Soprano’s Grandfather Built

    “See that church? Your great grandfather helped build that almost 80 years ago. He was a stonemason, the old man. Came over from Avellino with four dollars in his pocket.”

    Tony Soprano

    The camera pans down to show a beautiful church made of grey stone. Alongside it: a red Tahoe. A father wants to show his teenage son the family’s history.

    I always loved this scene in season 4: the beautiful backdrop, the connection to the Italian immigrants that form my family and Tony’s, and AJ’s apathetic response to it all. So yesterday, I went in search of this venerable parish.

    The church in season 4
    How it looked yesterday

    The church is in Newark in the series, but the real shooting location was St. Patrick’s Church in Jersey City, NJ. Completed in 1877, it was built largely by Irish, not Italian immigrants. But how it was built closely parallels Tony’s story:

    Most families could contribute only pennies. But the men of the parish, most of them day laborers and unskilled workmen, contributed something perhaps more important, their raw labor, acquiring in the process a sweat equity in the great project and a commitment to its success beyond what religious fervor alone might have produced.

    We see St. Patrick’s numerous times in the series: in the pilot, when Tony visits the church with Meadow, in seasons 3 and 4, and finally in season 6 when it is home to the Feast of St. Elzear. The zeppole stand, sausage vendors, and rides were lined up on Bramhall Avenue, alongside the church.

    The beautiful garden in season 1
    The church garden yesterday

    Tony describes the neighborhood as “falling down to the ground,” and indeed I saw a number of condemned buildings. But nonetheless, I found myself wishing I could walk the Feast of St. Elzear with a bag of zeppoles in the shadow of this majestic church.

    The Feast of St. Elzear, season 6
    On the stairs, seen in season 3

    Just don’t ride the teacup ride!

    More on The Sopranos:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • The Mafia’s Hoboken Fortress

    On a narrow street at the edge of town sits a squat brick building. There are no windows. On the street, lookouts watch for unfamiliar faces. The few who do enter are carefully watched.

    Inside: the headquarters of the most powerful mafia family in this country.

    This is Casella’s Restaurant in Hoboken, NJ. In the 1980’s, it functioned as home to the Genovese crime family. Law enforcement attention had made the Genovese family’s usual haunts in Little Italy uncomfortable, and much of the family decamped to New Jersey to meet.

    Casella’s as it once was

    Casella’s was owned by Genovese soldier Martin “Mots” Casella, but the real power belonged to Louis “Bobby” Manna, consigliere of the Genovese family. As one of the top leaders, Manna held numerous meetings at this bunker-like restaurant. Another fixture was Hoboken bookie Peter “Petey Cap” Caporino, whose own social club was a few blocks away.

    Genovese family consigliere Louis “Bobby” Manna

    In 1987, Manna began to plot the murder of Gambino family boss John Gotti. He made those plans where he felt most comfortable: at Casella’s. Gotti had broken mafia rules by killing prior Gambino boss Paul Castellano. The Gambino family was also the Genovese’s biggest rival.

    Before the hit could be carried out, the FBI tipped Gotti to the danger, likely saving his life. But how did the FBI know about the plan in the first place?

    Shortly before Manna hatched the plot to murder Gotti, the FBI had done what they previously thought impossible: placed a bug inside Casella’s. It gave them the planning of the Gotti hit, the murder of associate Irwin Schiff, and a lot more.

    Manna and other top Genovese members were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in a trial that was a who’s who of future political stars: NJ Attorney General Samuel Alito went on to become a Supreme Court Justice, federal prosecutor Michael Chertoff became Secretary of Homeland Security, and the judge happened to be future president Donald Trump’s elder sister.

    Casella’s today

    After a sale, closures due to code violations, and a fire that destroyed the apartments above, Casella’s was finally demolished at the end of 2020. All that remains of this intriguing piece of history is a vacant lot.

    I wish I could visit the old Casella’s and order a plate of pasta…if they’d let me in.

    More interesting spots in New Jersey:

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    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.