UK

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-22/hedge-funds-rush-to-buy-stocks-with-s-p-500-on-brink-of-market-breakout?srnd=premium-europe&leadSource=uverify wall “Risk managers at big institutional firms are saying, ‘Look, the markets are going up, and you can’t sit around and do nothing, you have to participate,’” said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial. “The cost of missing out may be just too high. There’s this optimism that the Fed is either finished or almost done with its rate-hiking cycle, then there’s the notion that the recession could be pushed out.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-crackdown-foreign-companies-chen-yixin-9b403893

Nothing really specific re UMG (or GOOGL), just wanted to derisk portfolio (went into some leverage last year) and choose these two and some META to sell. Recently I also saw some discusion of the posible negative impact by AI on UMG, but I have no opinion myself on this.

BRKB, META, FFH, AMZN, JOE. Since year end exited GOOGL and UMG and reduced some META to derisk portfolio vs 2022 end.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/wagners-prigozhin-accuses-russian-top-brass-treason-2023-02-21/ Apparently angry, and speaking at times with a raised voice, Prigozhin blamed Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the country's most senior soldier, of deliberately causing the arms shortages, which he said were causing heightened losses among Wagner troops fighting around Bakhmut. "The chief of the general staff and the defence minister are giving orders right and left not just not to give Wagner PMC ammunition, but not to help it with air transport," Prigozhin said. Prigozhin has for months criticised senior commanders for what he has called their incompetence. Prigozhin has said that the defence ministry is trying to take credit for Wagner successes around the Donetsk region town of Bakhmut.

https://stratechery.com/2023/from-bing-to-sydney-search-as-distraction-sentient-ai/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jobs-hiring-boom-layoffs-employment-11675947399?mod=hp_lead_pos7

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-08/ex-goldman-exec-s-top-housing-market-predictions-for-2023?srnd=premium-europe#xj4y7vzkg

More TSM?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jobs-market-parties-like-its-1969-11675443737 Second, the annual revisions included in Friday’s report suggest the economy has more capacity to add workers. December’s count of the noninstitutionalized population aged 16 and higher was revised up by 954,000, and the labor force—people who are either working or looking for work—was revised up by 871,000. Last year the Labor Department revised up its December 2021 population estimate by 973,000 and its labor-force estimate by about 1.5 million. These upward revisions are likely largely the result of increases in immigration, which plummeted in the first year of the pandemic and then came back—the Census Bureau in December reported that net immigration to the U.S. rebounded over the 12 months ended July 1, 2022, to the highest level since 2017. One thing the population gains might mean is that employment can grow more quickly without exhausting the supply of available workers. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/12/net-international-migration-returns-to-pre-pandemic-levels.html#:~:text=Net Migration Between the United,Reaches Highest Level Since 2017&text=The U.S. Census Bureau projects,its lowest levels in decades.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-aids-russias-war-in-ukraine-trade-data-shows-11675466360?mod=hp_lead_pos1

https://www.barrons.com/articles/berkshire-hathaway-stock-warren-buffett-51675450214

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/01/29/ukraine-should-and-properly-supported-can-seize-crimea-argues-ben-hodges

Citi: "Given that we go into recession, historically SPX has never bottomed before the start of the recession. Typically, there are even several months between the start of Fed easing and the bottom in U.S. equities," they wrote in a client note. On the other hand, the S&P 500 has now crossed above the 200 daily moving average, which is "an important technical level." "Technicals related to SPX 200dma are indicating that the bottom may already be in. Equity markets broke more than 3.5% above the 200dma, a level at that we have never seen SPX make a new low from during a bear market," the strategists note.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-01/ukraine-russia-war-us-tanks-missiles-may-bring-putin-to-the-table?srnd=premium-europe https://www.newsweek.com/what-are-small-diameter-bombs-us-weapon-might-cross-putins-red-line-1775059

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-31/black-swan-s-taleb-warns-disneyland-is-over-for-investors https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-swan-manager-preps-for-financial-mega-tinderbox-timebomb-11675177877?mod=lead_feature_below_a_pos1 The upshot for ordinary investors is faintly reassuring, though, according to Mr. Spitznagel. Rather than trying to replicate a Universa-style safe haven strategy or moving into some “safe” asset class like gold bars, the least-bad alternative might be to just to buy and hold stocks passively through the cycle, as Warren Buffett and others have advised. He has suggested that, absent the opportunities he has as a mathematically-sophisticated hedge-fund manager, that is probably the least bad course of action to preserve wealth in the conflagration that he foresees.

Is very small something like 0.2 or 1-2 per cent? Sometimes I too make 1-2 per cent speculative or leveraged bets and also have a basket of very small, like 0.2 per cent positions, which for me is kind of version of wachlist of companies I just want to follow for some good or strange reasons:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-30/russia-s-war-in-ukraine-is-accelerating-the-shift-away-from-oil-and-gas-bp-says?srnd=premium-europe

Interesing! But isnt this thing is full of cloud, saas and similar businesses:)? And isnt most of them (except for Alibaba, Tencent and maybe a few other) is very similar to ARKK type of holdings?

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks, yes very good story:). Not sure cloud is just commodity storage though. Everything might as well develope into nice oligopoly market, controled by few players. It remainds me IBM 360 of old era more than just storage. Only my guess of course.

Astronomical PE is dangerous for any sector, but dont you agree, that cloud is a growing (not necessarily by 40 per cent) market for a long term?

I agree with most of your observations. Just wanted to say, that between tech stocks, especially after they finaly went down much more than the market, just like between other stocks, there could also be good oportunities, just like value traps. I myself never owned any US tech stock in large allocation untill last autumn, except for IBM (at the same time, when MSFT was at almost single digit multiple, dont ask why), so I understand my limitations on circle of competence with tech company and what a value trap is:). I think you have to be more open minded and be able to change your mind with these.

I agree that tech stocks carries some additional risk for buy and forget type, but also think what you call arrogant ant lazy in sometimes could be just smart and easy. Large cap tech, just as any large cap or small cap, can be also mispriced. Just look at APPL, when WB bought it. So called law of large numbers not so obvious also sometimes (same was said about APPL size like 10 years ago), not sure it applies to AMZN today at all, considering its business TAM. Then if you look at META, which is btw already like +50 from autumn low, it was very and still is cheap, like value stock. I think somebody even put it in value index last year:). TSM is another interesting case. Then of course there is TSLA and similar things, but most of this kind of growth or non for profit tech already went down 2000 style, like at least 80 per cent:). So I am not sure lumping all tech stocks together serves any better than dealing with the market on the SNP level.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-26/microsoft-openai-investment-will-help-keep-chatgpt-online?srnd=premium-europe “There’s a somewhat of a proxy war going on between the big cloud companies,” says Matt McIlwain, managing director at Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group LLC, which invests in AI startups. “They are really the only ones that can afford to build the really big ones with gazillions of parameters.” After an extended period of technological innovation during which a handful of companies consolidated their dominance of the internet, some people see AI developing in a way that will only strengthen their grip.