Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
Get Daily Recap Feedback

Wednesday, November 4, 2026

Back to the front page

The Buyback Shows Up (ESRT Q3 2026)

Empire State Realty Trust repurchased $85.8 million of shares at $4.56 each, using 1359 Broadway sale proceeds to fund buybacks and debt reduction.

ESRT $1.3B
Orphan REITs 6 clicks

From X

@RagingVentures

Raging Capital Ventures on X

Some thoughts of mine on Archegos from May 2021 (below). Was Leopold using swaps? The value of Situational’s reported Q1 13F holdings pale in comparison to some of the exposure numbers being mentioned today, even adjusting for appreciation. I would observe that once Archegos blew up at the end of March 2021, many previously impossible shorts (names like $TDOC and $TRUP come to mind) became much easier to navigate and ultimately collapsed… ****** PEELING BACK THE ARCHEGOS ONION The implosion of Archegos is a very important market development and I hope regulators peel back the onion to truly understand what occurred. Archegos owned massive swap positions in companies like ViacomCBS (VIAC), Discovery Communications (DISCA), Tencent Music (TME), and GSX Techedu (GSX), in some cases controlling 20-50% of their tradeable float. Swap ISDA agreements typically limit aggregate ownership in a single company to 4-9%. Archegos appears to have aggressively violated these limits and/or the prime brokers looked the other way, enabling the firm to corner numerous large stocks in the U.S. equity markets. Notably, Archegos owned perhaps 50% of the float of a reputed fraud, GSX. How long has Archegos’ Bill Hwang been cornering stocks like this? He is rumored to have turned $200 mm into $5 b over the past six years (and may have briefly tripled that amount to $15 b during early 2021). What other short squeezes did he orchestrate in recent years? Are other funds using similar strategies as Archegos, and were there wolf packs of funds that Archegos was communicating with on these squeezes? My hunch is that Hwang and his ilk have been cornering stocks for years, with the typical exit plan being the sale of his positions to passive indexes who are perversely designed to buy more of a stock the higher the price goes. This underscores a major issue with passive investing. Archegos’ machinations also created tremendous pain for short selling hedge funds, which provide a valuable ballast for the entire stock market. Furthermore, if you peel back the onion enough, I think you will find an Archegos (or a similar fund) connection to Tesla (TSLA), which was squeezed multiple times until it was added to the S&P 500. Is it possible that Elon Musk, who regularly attacked the shorts, and who in 2018 was making unusual pre-market trades in his own stock at prices well above the prevailing market price, was somehow connected to this action?
@AsifSuria

Asif Suria on X

A friend mentioned MarketAxess $MKTX to me years ago. I followed it for a while but never acted on it. Despite the 44% premium being paid by $ICE to acquire the company, given the five year performance of the stock, this almost feels like a take under. Reminds me of the CBIZ $CBZ acquisition by Grant Thornton from earlier this week. Even after the acquisition related pop in the stock, $CBZ is still down more than 27% over the last year.
@ActAccordingly 1 click

PAA Research on X

A name for @dirtcheapstocks and @dirtcheapbanks... $ETD. $600 mkt cap, $133MM in cash, no debt. Generated $40MM+ in cash flow last year. They also have extensive real estate holdings (unencumbered) which could be worth $175-$275MM. They pay a regular dividend of $0.39/quarter which is about a 7.0% yield. For the past 6-years they've used any excess FCF to pay special dividends to shareholders. The stock trades at 1.5x book (which is clearly understated). Seems like someone should buy this biz.

Investor Letters

All letters

Site Centers (NYSE:SITC)

Site Centers' $3 per-share return-of-capital distribution and December delisting leave a discounted liquidation stub, with two properties…

CURB $3.6B
Real Assets, Real Value 5 clicks

Stevanato down 30%. Yikes.

Stevanato fell 30% after forecasting low-single-digit 2027 growth as lower Nexa syringe volumes from a GLP-1 customer offset solid Q3…

STVN $3.6B
Best Anchor Stocks 3 clicks

When the liquidity does not add up

Arbor Realty Trust’s dividend suspension is presented as creating $60 million of liquidity, raising questions about its ability to meet…

ABR $2.2B
John Hempton's Newsletter 4 clicks
PRIM · long

Primoris Services CORP

Primoris Services, a $5 billion EPC contractor, has fallen about 60% from its peak.

PRIM $3.9B
Value Investors Club

Verra veerer

Verra Mobility’s Avis termination threatens 2027 earnings, while Government Solutions profit rose 25% and implied fourth-quarter guidance…

VRRM $333M
The Oak Bloke 3 clicks

Publications we follow

Every publication on this site, hand-picked.

129 publications

Newsletters 109

YouTube 4

Blogs 15

Seeking Alpha 75 of 279

Nominate a publication

X accounts we follow

Every account on this site, hand-picked.

91 accounts
Nominate an account

Investor letters we follow

359 firms

Sectors

Ordered by how often our editor reaches for them.