UK

https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/wall-street-thinks-americas-homes-are-overvalued-435e9c42?mod=hp_lead_pos6 U.S. single-family properties are the only type of real estate that has increased in value since interest rates began to rise in March 2022. After a brief dip in the months after the Federal Reserve’s initial hikes, house prices resumed their climb. Residential property values reached a record in July, based on the latest numbers from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index. ... Listed real-estate investment trusts that specialize in single-family homes, such as AMH Homes and Invitation Homes, have either slowed their buying or become net sellers. For big corporate landlords that want to grow their portfolios, a better option than paying today’s high prices on the open market may be to build new homes from scratch. ... The stock market is flashing another warning sign for house prices. Shares of U.S. single-family housing REITs trade at a 20% discount to their gross asset value, according to Green Street’s director of research, Cedrik Lachance. This is an indicator of where shareholders think the value of the homes in these companies’ portfolios are headed. Investors may be underestimating the housing market, though. There is a shortage of single-family homes in the U.S., versus a potential glut of apartments if all the projects currently in the pipeline actually get built. Rent growth is stronger for single-family homes than apartments. Another reason why apartment values have corrected and single-family home prices haven’t may simply be who owns them. Corporate landlords own 68% of apartments in buildings with 100 or more units but only around 3% of America’s individual family homes. Big institutional investors “are typically focused on cash returns as well as changes in economic and financing conditions,” says Cohen & Steers analyst Jordan Flannery. For regular home buyers, these factors are only part of the purchasing decision.

So I agree with sentiment here, but again, just looking at the markets opinion on NOVO/LLY, not sure it is totally easy to dismiss this as only a fad, although, this is my natural inclination too. But if all people were rational and disciplined, the world already would look very differently? Also: https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/weight-loss-drugs-obesity-e4bb2173 "Ozempic and similar drugs are transforming the world’s understanding of obesity. It isn’t so much about willpower: It’s about biology." Also: https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2023/09/25/eating-fewer-calories-can-ward-off-ageing But again, the question is not about personal choices or what is best to do for a rational person (as most here are anyway), but if this goes mainstream even for 20 or 30 per cent population level, what would be implications for different businesses, if any.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-03/barclays-recommends-shorting-fast-food-credit-because-of-ozempic?srnd=premium&leadSource=uverify wall "Drugs used for weight loss like Ozempic pose a real risk to companies ranging from fast food restaurants to cigarette makers, and credit market prices don’t fully reflect the potential downside, according to a report from Barclays strategists. Pharmaceuticals known as GLP-1 agonists help people lose weight while anecdotal evidence suggests they also cut urges to consume addictive substances, including alcohol, and cigarettes. The growing popularity of the drugs could hurt demand for companies including PepsiCo Inc., the maker of Pepsi soda and Lay’s potato chips, McDonald’s Corp., and Altria Group Inc,, the cigarette maker, according to Barclays strategists led by Jigar Patel in a note on Tuesday." Not used to think about a lot of these brands/companies as disruptable:). Does all this really could be something real and meaningful?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/3/armenia-to-join-international-criminal-court-wrong-decision-russia-says https://www.barrons.com/news/armenia-has-no-alternative-to-russia-led-security-alliance-kremlin-e442118b

True! But the problem is they are kind of diversified and far from 'pure play' in terms of this 'rate exposure', especially because of their enormous position in Apple?

https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/dan-loeb-third-point-hot-hand-goes-cold-5a2fb19 Funds at his firm, Third Point, fell by about 1.6% this year through August after tumbling 21.8% or more in 2022, according to investors. Both figures are worse than those of peers and the broader market. Loeb, who oversees roughly $11.7 billion, said he expected higher interest rates to take a bite out of the U.S. economy this year, so he turned cautious. As a result, he didn’t own enough technology shares to fully benefit from the summer’s AI-powered rally that drove stocks such as Nvidia skyward. Compounding the error, Loeb recently boosted stakes in tech and other riskier companies, just in time for those stocks to stumble in recent weeks. ... The missteps highlight the perils of wagering on a market in which interest rates are surging but the economy continues to grow, a phenomenon that has surprised some pros. For much of the year, high-price tech and other risk stocks kept moving higher, ignoring the rate rise, though they’ve faltered lately.

https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/catastrophe-bond-market-4a96483c?mod=hp_minor_pos21

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-29/ukraine-steps-up-strikes-on-crimea-as-offensive-grinds-on?srnd=premium-europe&leadSource=uverify wall For much of the war, Russia has hinted that striking Crimea would be a red line that might trigger escalation in response. But as Ukraine’s attacks have intensified and had increasing success, those threats have not materialized. ... Ukrainian officials suggested at least some of the attacks in Crimea have used the Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles provided by the UK and France, some of the longest-range weapons in Ukraine’s current arsenal. Russian air defenses seem incapable of shooting them down, said the European official. ... Despite the dramatic strikes on Crimea, allied officials remain skeptical that Ukraine will be able to make a decisive breakthrough in the ground war this year as Kyiv’s forces have struggled to punch through the extensively mined defensive lines Russia has built in the areas it occupies in Ukraine’s east and south.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-29/fink-sees-large-opportunities-for-deals-to-transform-blackrock?srnd=premium-europe&leadSource=uverify wall Speaking at the Berlin event, he said he expects 10-year borrowing costs to stay at 5% or higher for some time because of embedded inflation. He added that investors are underestimating how the changes in geopolitics are structurally inflationary. Fink said he has been telling every business and political leader he meets that they need to help create more “certainty” and “hope,” whose absence creates recession. Some economies are likely to enter recession early, he added, without elaborating. The US economy may be entering a recession by 2025, he said. “Whatever recessions we’re going to have are going to be modest, so I’m not that fearful,” he said.

In practical terms, the book’s crowning achievement is its explanation of the “Merton share”. This is a simple rule of thumb for determining asset allocation, which says that allocations should rise in proportion to expected returns, fall in proportion to the investor’s risk aversion and fall a lot in proportion to volatility (specifically, to its square). This is not to suggest the book makes for light reading. The authors prescribe calculations that will appeal to only the most dogged investors, ideally with access to a Bloomberg terminal. Most will conclude that they need a wealth-management firm to help them; conveniently enough, Messrs Haghani and White run one.

:). Karma is a Bitch!

Oh sure. But I was asking you about period and progress eastern Germany made AFTER unification in 1990. So was allowance of it into West and NATO also a mistake, hypocrisy and it supposed to be left for Russia, or at least out of NATO, as WAS promised before unification:)? Btw, quite interesting story: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32066222 And also: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/12/russias-belief-in-nato-betrayal-and-why-it-matters-today

My grandfather and father used to do this too! I also remember some kind of version of this drink (egg liqueur) beeing made: https://www.recipesfromeurope.com/eierlikoer/. Also, besides normal eggs, we like quail eggs very much:)

Well of course US would not allow that. And it does the opposite in the South China sea etc. And it is not always because it is right or wrong...but because it can and has power to do it:) But Luca, let me ask, is US/NATO/EU sphere of influence for you is the same as Russia's/China's? I already asked on this thread: name me one country which made substantial progress for the better under Russia's influence In the last 20 or 30 years? I can name you a few which didn't and many, which prospered under NATO/EU. Accidentally, one of them is former German Democratic Republic. Or it was also mistake, hypocrisy and it was supposed to be left for Russia, or at least out of NATO, as WAS promised before unification? It is not foregone conclusion, but Ukraine (maybe not all) has a decent chance to became a similarly normal country, maybe not as cool as former eastern Germany, but way way better then it was or Russia is today. Which would be a huge plus for EU/NATO and of course this is what scares Putin most: truly successful Slavic country right next door. So again: what US/NATO/EU would mean for Ukraine and what Putin can offer? This is why most people of Ukraine supported this whole bloody struggle from its beginning in 2013.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/916054/us-nonresidential-building-construction-market-cost/ It seems it went down only -12 per cent after 2008-2009.

Nice chart:)

https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/rob-arnott-sees-just-near-perfect-environment-for-value-stocks-432SI-3182976 “It is wonderful for people who have enjoyed the growth run and been light on value to have a third chance to rebalance and take advantage of bargains,” he said before his television interview. “You don’t often get that. So I look at the current environment as being a just near perfect environment for value.”

Don't worry, just go long FFH then:)))

Have not seen anything more. Might be just discusion of some hypothetical scenarious. Also link to some older article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-20/dimon-says-fed-may-have-to-hike-more-to-fight-sticky-inflation

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-26/private-equity-is-piling-debt-on-itself-like-never-before?srnd=premium-europe#xj4y7vzkg Private equity firms have been increasingly adding another layer of debt to their complex borrowing arrangements, raising concern among some investors about potential risks to the wider industry and the financial system. Hit by a drought of deals and dwindling cash, some buyout firms are starting to resort to backroom financing to help meet fund commitments or enable succession planning. The loans — backed by assets including the promise of future income — carry interest of as much as 19%, a rate that's more akin to the charges faced by consumers rather than corporate borrowing. Even a junk-rated company in the US paid 10% on a bond recently. ... “The investor universe is unbelievably unaware of the underlying leverage throughout this entire ecosystem,” said New York-based Dan Zwirn, founder and chief executive officer of Arena Investors LP, an institutional manager overseeing more than $3.5 billion in assets. “That hasn’t hit the PE investors yet, but it’s becoming more clear for real estate investors,” he said, referring to the recent delinquencies in the commercial property sector.

https://www.politico.eu/article/nord-stream-2-germany-bears-responsibility-for-ukraine-war-minister/ It is scandalous, but no less scandalous than the fact that these pipes were build in the first place:)))

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-26/dimon-warns-world-may-not-be-prepared-for-fed-at-7-toi-lmzl7rao#xj4y7vzkg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-25/short-sellers-mount-attack-on-esg-stocks-bloated-from-green-hype?srnd=premium-europe

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/opinion/ukraine-war-putin.html

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/09/21/why-uranium-prices-are-soaring