[HN Gopher] Single New Jersey deli boasts a $105M market cap, de...
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       Single New Jersey deli boasts a $105M market cap, despite $14K in
       sales
        
       Author : onetimemanytime
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2021-04-16 16:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (markets.businessinsider.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (markets.businessinsider.com)
        
       | arisAlexis wrote:
       | Right now dogecoin, an abandoned project approaches the market
       | cap of Space X. The deli is really not surprising anymore.
        
       | onetimemanytime wrote:
       | More details: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/hometown-
       | international-nj-de...
        
       | cheaprentalyeti wrote:
       | Huh. No Tony Soprano jokes?
        
       | adflux wrote:
       | I really think the market is due for a culling. All around me I
       | see people invest in stocks, pennystocks and crypto. I've had to
       | explain to people, who own a few thkusands in crypto, about what
       | a wallet is and how it works. I see people who don't know the
       | difference between debit and credit tell me why Tesla is such a
       | great buy. People who don't know who Adam Smith is. Then there's
       | a few hundred thousand people "investing" (gambling) through
       | /r/wallstreetbets. In my country never have more houses been
       | purchased by investors than ever before. In my personal circle I
       | see people jump through the craziest hoops to get the maximum
       | mortgage possible. Everyone is just leveraged to the tits and I
       | feel like we're in crazy town now. Wonder what happens when the
       | bond yields rise... Or maybe it's just me and I've spent a bit
       | too much time on the internet.
        
       | hprotagonist wrote:
       | Long ago, when I was a child, there was an excellent pizza
       | restaurant in the nearby town. Food was great, but it was kind of
       | run-down and not advertised at all; sometimes it would be
       | inexplicably closed for a week, sometimes not.
       | 
       | One very hot summer, when we did not want to be cooking in the
       | kitchen without AC, we had pizza for dinner one night. The next
       | night it was even hotter, so we did the extraordinary thing (for
       | my family) of having takeout two nights in a row.
       | 
       | Well, when dad got to the pizza place to order a pizza, he
       | discovered that it had been converted into a coin-op laundromat,
       | literally overnight.
       | 
       | Moral: mob front businesses are _weird_ ; enjoy the surprisingly
       | cheap pizza while it lasts!
        
       | EMM_386 wrote:
       | > One of the Macau companies, VCH Limited, in May 2020 entered
       | into a consulting agreement with Hometown International, the
       | filing said. "Pursuant to this agreement, VCH was engaged as a
       | consultant to the Company, to, among other things, create and
       | build a presence with high net worth and institutional
       | investors," Hometown said in its annual report.
       | 
       | This is not exactly just a deli in NJ. Although it looks like
       | one.
       | 
       | https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/hometown-international-nj-de...
        
       | mxuribe wrote:
       | Maybe this joint is a "laundromat", and not a deli? ;-)
        
       | neaden wrote:
       | Serious question, could this be money laundering, bribery or
       | something else shady? The fact that the owner made $2.5 Million
       | on a stock sale for a seemingly worthless business seems like it
       | could have some less than legal explanations.
        
         | mimikatz wrote:
         | My guess was defrauding Chinese as they were the major
         | investors in it.
        
           | ralph84 wrote:
           | More likely the Chinese investors needed a way to evade
           | capital controls in China and this was the vehicle.
        
             | neaden wrote:
             | How would this work for them? Is it easier if you are a big
             | Chinese investor to buy stock in a small American company
             | than to purchase it in a F500?
        
               | plorkyeran wrote:
               | It's basically reverse money laundering to turn money
               | that the government knows about into money that the
               | government doesn't.
               | 
               | 1. Make a really bad investment in an overvalued small
               | company.
               | 
               | 2. Company passes some portion of the money back to you
               | in a way that the government doesn't know about.
               | 
               | 3. Company goes bankrupt.
               | 
               | 4. The party knocks on your door and asks you where all
               | your money went and you point to a failed foreign
               | investment.
        
               | neaden wrote:
               | Interesting, thanks.
        
               | briefcomment wrote:
               | This would be a poorly executed instance of this strategy
               | right? Who in their right mind is getting fooled by a
               | 100m dollar sandwich shop?
        
               | onetimemanytime wrote:
               | would you have known if this story wasn't posted? Plus
               | every small shop has potential....1 trillion, billion
               | stores all over the world so the value is forward looking
               | ;)
        
       | andrewmcwatters wrote:
       | I had given this some thought in the last few months about how
       | valuations across the board are so nonsensical that the
       | investment landscape is ripe for essentially small businesses to
       | go public, and not even have to game their finances because
       | people will mis-screen them anyway and flock to purchase
       | literally anything.
        
         | rmah wrote:
         | I don't think this company is publically traded.
        
           | thrill wrote:
           | https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HWIN
        
       | fnord77 wrote:
       | probably featured in a WSB "deep dive" where the author states
       | this stock is the buy of a lifetime
        
         | atat7024 wrote:
         | It was for someone.
        
       | cosmodisk wrote:
       | Nothing surprises me anymore... Last year I did a bit of
       | freelance writing on equity markets with a focus on some more
       | interesting stocks. During the period I did read lots of SEC
       | fillings, other articles on various website, etc. It looks like
       | the bigger piece of crap it is, the bigger the valuation. There
       | are tons of companies out there that shouldn't be trading more
       | than a kebab kiosk,yet the stock price is like they are doing
       | missions to mars. Absolute bonkers.
        
       | jdavis703 wrote:
       | Average trading volume is 346 shares. It's pretty easy to
       | manipulate the stock price when only a few people are trading.
        
         | graeme wrote:
         | Which would mean, at current market price of $13.50, $4671 a
         | day is traded.
        
           | nrmitchi wrote:
           | """
           | 
           | Hey buddy, I'll sell ya 100 shares of my company, which has
           | 100M shares outstanding, for $1/piece.
           | 
           | Sound good? Sweet! I'm now a centi-millionaire!!
           | 
           | """
        
         | huac wrote:
         | This is the simplest and probably correct explanation. I'm sure
         | there are others out there too.
         | 
         | Of course volume today is off the hook, lol
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-16 22:02 UTC)