Investing in Strip Clubs

Snake, FarmerArt found a few of your namesakes in the financial footnotes of RICK, inclusive of a balloon payment due in 2013 (if I recall correctly.)

A few of my namesakes?

RICK is a speculative investment. They don't have any clubs in Ohio. Ohio does have a couple Deja Vu and Christies clubs.

"I was also thinking about shorting treasuries, but I wanted to talk to Dougster about that first."

lol!

I owned RICK for about three years, made maybe 10 - 15% return. The company keeps taking on more debt and buying more clubs, so there is no money to return to shareholders. Since strip clubs are a big cash business, I also wonder if management is skimming some (or a lot) off the top.

Snakes. And with their financials I was making a reference to there being "snakes in the grass." Are they selling their own puts??? Is that legal? Ethical? Oh heck, it's a strip club biz anyways, so who cares... Why CalPERS is one of the largest institutional holders of RICK stock I have no idea.

You guys are certainly right, it's one of my riskier stocks, but it's got a good P/E ratio, a business model that seems to generate a lot of cash, and from what I've heard, they deliver a much higher quality product than their competitors in many cities. I don't mind them plowing back their cash and loans into expansion, I think it stands a decent chance of paying off in a few years. I also think that due to their adult nature, they're probably overlooked by many investors.

Given that it is risky, I'm going to keep a close eye on it, but given that it's an entertainment stock, I'm willing to tolerate some volatility until a better economy let's it really perform.

A lot of chains seem to be buying up clubs these days. This means well financially backed corporations with legitimate symbols on the public markets and professional management going up against city councils and churches. I think these bozos pretty much pick fights with the small fry guys. Not the financially backed and a bunch of attorneys in the back room.

I suspect that clubs will make a swing back to acceptance such as in the 90s. Hotels and such provide even more hard core entertainment than the local club (usually) does. Having CNBC also legitimize the business with business stories about it also helps.

The other strip club chain that was a public company is now private I think (VCGH) and lost a lot of money for shareholders.

See what txtittyfan (you know? the guy who said to short treasuries the day before they bottomed) thinks and then do the opposite.

I hope Rick's has good lobbyists. With the current wave of strip club *limitations* legislation going on, they will need to make sure that their business model isn't forced to change drastically.

Shorting Treasuries with a 8-15 year holding period would be a good addition to your holdings at this point. You could also sell 6 month out of the money calls against your RICK to boost income.

Douchester, now is the time to put up or shut up and go back to being the TUSCL bitch that you are. I have never said short treasuries in the past. So, produce the post or STFU.

I do however, remember you recommending buying the dollar at 80.24. That sure was a stupid investment. But then you are one stupid little bitch.

There is hope for you though. One day you may be able to get laid in a SC like the rest of us. Although hopefully it will be someone other than your mother or sister.

Why are U asking that question on this forum???

Just get on the phone and call CNBC's MAD MONEY host Jim Cramer for better advice!

Snake, you have a stronger stomach than I possess. I shall stick to less risky stuff; like wildcat wells in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

txtittyfan: "You could also sell 6 month out of the money calls against your RICK to boost income"

Let's see, there are no six month OTM calls on RICK at this point.So how are you going to sell them? Try to start your own series?

Maybe tittyfan meant five month calls, i.e. August's. Not a good idea, IMO, give how low the liqudity is, and how big the spread is going to be. Let's see Aug $12.5 0.25/0.40 bid/ask with a wopping open interest of 517. Think you can do better than that. Or was he thinking Nov $12.5 with 0.40/0.7 bid/ask with 10 contracts open interest?

Now there is currently a bug in searching users' old posts, but I'll post links to the posts when the bug is fixed. "Short" story: txtittyfan did indeed say to short treasuries the day before they bottomed, and never admitted he was wrong or said to cover. I said go long the USD at 80.24 add more at 78-79 and then get out in the upper 80's right near the top. txtittyfan, you better pray Founder does not fix that search bug, or else you your idiocy and lies will have nowhere to hide!

Ok, tittyfan here you go. Evidence that you did indeed say to short treasuries, and are lying now when you claim you didn't:

http://www.tuscl.net/dt.php?DID=77978

Thread title: "Economic question - Do you think the recession will be over sometime next year?"

Posted by txtittyfan at 06/10/09 2:19 AM (the day before treasuries bottomed depending on your time zone):

"If you want to make money don't buy dollars, short medium to long term bonds."

TXTITTYFAN LOSES AGAIN!

Basic question for Snake: In the cities that Ricks has clubs in, would this(ose) club(s) be your go to choice? Realizing that Ens. pay isn't overly generous, I'll ask it another way: If you had a 7-figure net worth, would Ricks club(s) be your club of choice in any given city?

Douchester, how nice of you to take the comment out of context to suit your purpose. My comment was to compare dollars vs bonds. On 6/10/09 the dollar was at 80.27, today it is at 75.78.

You could have shorted bonds at a premium to par, say 104 to mature in 10-15 years at 100. You are receiving 104 to pay back at 100. True there are nominal interest pymnts to make, but the total return will still out perform the dollar as interest rates rise in the future.

Regarding RICK, although they have a lot of clubs, I still question their management, they had a great club in Houston in the 80's that is a mere shadow of itself now.

Well, I must admit tx gets a bit of vindication today. The 10y auction went terribly, and we saw Russia says it getting out of some of its treasuries and into IMF bonds (out of the frying pan and into the fire?). The dollar, however, recovered a bit. Still plenty of innings left in this game.jablake

The above comment was from Douchester on 6/11/09 from the same thread he references. A short term trade in treasuries was profitable. As usual, Douchester uses his selective memory and facts to distort the view so that he can remain the Board Bitch.

I am off now to go visit my local SC, (not a RICK's), and do something Douchester does not do, and that is have a good time at a SC.

I have a headache.

Me too, SuperDude.

"In the cities that Ricks has clubs in, would this(ose) club(s) be your go to choice?"

Excellent question. To give one example a friend of mine travels to New Orleans for business on a fairly consistent basis and he has said that for him and other men in his company, Rick's is their new usual spot, their advertisement campaign is widespread, and their club is larger, cleaner, and busier than the other clubs in the city. Reminds me a little bit of Scores.

"If you had a 7-figure net worth"

Who says I don't? I don't, but I'm halfway there, actually a little further than halfway. That's right, I have a full 4-figure net worth.

txtitty: The bottom line is this. First of all you lied when you said you claimed you had never said to short treasuries. It's all there in black and white (see links above).

Secondly, if you look at the thread you can see your reasoning for shorting treasuries was that China was going to stop buying them and, hence, there would be long term problems. You were suggesting a long term trade.

Now the bottom line on the relative performance of our suggestions long term is this:

You said short treasuries as a long term trade. There were a few hours in the last two years (your "bit" of vindication) when the trade was profitable but you never said to take profits then, so your advice has never been profitable. To this day you still won't admit you were wrong.

By contrast my dollar trade was profitable for many days, weeks, and even months, and I said get out near the top when the profits were high.

So, mathematically,

txtittyfan's advice to short treasuries = a disaster since he said short near the bottom and never (and still hasn't) said to cover

Dougster's advice to go long the dollar at 80 and then 78, and then get out in the upper 80s at the height of the your debt crisis = highly profitable, even though any profit at all, or even a minor loss was all it would take to beat tittyfan.

TXTITTYFAN LOSES AGAIN!

A couple of other things to point out about tittyfan:

This morning when he said to sell non-existent six month calls on RICK.

What a joke! Proof that he doesn't even do basic research before he makes an investment recommendation on here.

Sell six month calls? When they don't exist? If he didn't look what did he think the price he would be selling at was? How could he know it would be high enough to justify the risk without looking? Would he sell the calls no matter how low the price was? He certainly didn't even consider liquidity or bid/ask at all, so why should he consider price, huh?

The second things is even funnier:

His whole notion about shorting 10 to 15y treasuries is incredibly misleading. First of all you can only cover at 100 if you hold until maturity. That means your money is tied up for 10 to 15 years (since you are required to mantain margin when you short). So if you short sell at "104" (hmmm... think he fudged that price a little high, but whatev) and wait 10 years for maturity to buy back at 100, you've "made" a little less than 4% over 10 years or less than 0.4% a year ignoring the interest you have to pay. With the interest you have to pay, however, it's going to be negative.

So tittyfan's strategy of shorting 10y bonds and covering at maturity is a guarenteed loser. But this should be intuitively obvious, because you are effectively doing what the government does: selling treasuries to get some money now (borrowing) but pay back more over the long run.

Man, that is some serious proof about how clueless tittyfan is. I really, really hope for everyone's sake here they do not follow his investment advice, give he how he can't grok even basic concepts, like how bonds work, look at price before you buy, considering liquidity, and bid/ask spread when dealing with options.

Yes, I've given a long reply, probably more than he deserves, but, shit, I hope it protects people for being mislead by the clueless, charltan known as txtittyfan peddling the crappiest of financial advice here on tuscl.

SLAM DUNK! TXTITTYFAN BURIED ONCE AND FOR ALL!

Yeah, because I *sooooo* look to TUSCL for financial advice, all your hard work is really paying off Dougster. Thanks for all you do here on the investment front. I really appreciate your sacrifice.

GMD,

It made my visit to my favorite SC yesterday a little more enjoyable knowing that while I was being entertained by several lovelies, Douchester is crouched in the back of his short bus going through old posts and financial data, chasing windmills.

He is so predictable.

He definately needs to get laid by someone other than his mother and sister.

Well, I've never accused you of being smart, microbrain, but it's good that you know better than to take the advice of the likes of tittyfan (who did indeed say to short treasuries the day before they bottomed).

Speaking of txtittyfan's fellow short bus riders, here's an interesting discussion about RICK from July/2010:

http://www.tuscl.net/dt.php?DID=108067

Funny that MisterGay called RICK a "dog" when it was at $7.5. Today it is trading at $10.31. That's a 37% gain in less than a year. Now, OTOH, at least MisterGay didn't say to short into the big rally (as txtittyfan said to short into the big treasury rally). Who is the worst to take advice from? tittyfan or MisterGay? Both very dumb investment wise.

Yes, I surely know better than to take investment advice from posters on a strip club website, but rest assured that *your* every word is seared into my tiny little brain forever and always. I wait with bated breath the next orgasm of wisdom from the mind of never wrong, or even slightly mistaken, Dougster.

One thing nice about Rick's clubs like Tootsie's is they use SCL to advertise and nearly all of their clubs have printable free admission passes. This is good for business as it will steal customers from other clubs and bring in customers who were on the fence anyways about coming in. I have seen an increase in customers and dancers since Kahoots columbus started their SCL campaign for free printable admission.

Yawn

(used with permission from Clubber)