LC

Pretty much that's my read on the trade thesis

Well I think of it this way: if today is not the right time to buy - is it the right time to sell?

JPow's term goes thru May 2026 and I'd imagine he will want to wait and see at least two quarters of economic decay (i.e. rising unemployment) before taking any real action. First, to maximize the knife twist to Trump, and second because I think if he just sees rising rates with stable inflation and stable employment, he won't take action.

I thought the premise of the trade is believing Trump will pause the tariff war with China? Unless you believe he would pause tariffs, then subsequently place sanctions on Chinese stocks? To me that seems unlikely even for Stumpy.

Why not pick up cheap Chinese retailers (PDD)? Heads you get a huge rally, tails you're probably already close to the bottom for PDD, valuation wise?

His cars do - they just do a good job of hiding and misclassifying it

You can identify them from their silly red hats

This may just be recency bias, but I think one of the best investing lessons from Warren & Charlie is that it pays more to focus on the micro versus the macro.

Isn't this what we expect? Higher treasury yields imply lower equity prices.

The issue it seems is getting it out of the ground. The US has rare earth minerals (as does Canada and *gasp* Greenland) but building the mining infrastructure is a long, expensive journey. https://spectrum.ieee.org/ukraine-rare-earth-minerals https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/rare-earth-element-occurrences-in-the-united-states#sec-dates

@Pelagic That is really amazing. Very cool how they added metadata for each asset (e.g. estimated value) and the shading by range...thanks for sharing.

I wonder if we will see a change in strategy from Ukraine - if the Russian oil apparatus just became less valuable, does Ukraine find other targets for its missiles?

It's martini Mondays so let's not get too ahead of ourselves I don't know if manufacturing can ever really come back to the US, not until there is some purchasing power parity between US and large "3rd world" manufacturers. Mexico/China, then SE Asia...soon more and more of India...poverty labor is cheap and work will go to wherever costs are cheapest. Protecting something intangible and easily copied, like IP, is very hard. Especially in a globalized world where everyone has nukes. But I think there is some middle ground - the US can at least focus on taking back share of highly-skilled manufacturing. And it can push harder to enforce IP laws, and try to punish China when it breaks those laws.

The national debt is a weird one too because, yes we owe a lot of people a lot of money. But a lot of people also depend on us. And as @gfp mentions above it's not 100% cut-and-dry and I don't pretend I understand all the nuances. Japan for example is the biggest single foreign owner of US debt. They also run a MASSIVE deficit - twice ours. Again I won't pretend to understand half the nuances - but I imagine it is not a simple debtor/creditor relationship. So I'll leave that alone. Lux/Caymans...no idea who is really behind that. Russian shell cos? Screw em. The Chinese? I could at least agree something needs to be done - so OK, pull the pin and lob tariffs at them. UK & other European countries that depend on US security? Cut a deal. Restructured debt in exchange for military support. Let's just say it's obviously not as simple of a solution as 10% tariffs across the board. But that's how Trump negotiates - start with a sledgehammer and maybe it whittles down to a chisel.

I mean that's a fair point. Trump should spend time communicating that to the country vs. playing another 9 rounds. Just brainstorming some ideas: Raise corporate tax rates? Raise 1% taxes/cut out BS loopholes? (I imagine he could bully his buddies in congress to pass whatever tax law he wants) Use tariffs more judiciously i.e. against trade offenders and large importers (China) Actually negotiate with Europe re: military spending Do a better job reducing government spend (headcount) Work with Powell/FRB and not against them? Send the guy a gift basket for a 2% rate cut.

Nice. I picked up some shares a bit higher (1330). Giving some more room to average down...it is like limbo - how low can it go?

To my knowledge a President hasn't yet attempted to use an EO to control taxes. Not that it couldn't be tried - but it hasn't yet. Tariffs on the other hand have been enacted by Presidents on and off for decades now. I think my (moot) point remains: Way less likely Kamala would've attempted an executive order to raise taxes. At the very least it would've been fought tooth-and-nail from a Republican Congress as unconstitutional. Tariffs have already been delegated to the President, so Congress just rolls over. Just my two cents.

Not sure I agree. Actual taxes are under congressional power. Which ironically may be blue-leaning in 2 years. Kamala alone wouldn't have been able to enact a wealth or unrealized gain tax, for example. Even if she wanted to (which I am not sure she did) There is some good context here on political control over tariffs and taxes: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-does-the-executive-branch-have-so-much-power-over-tariffs/

In this economy? I can't afford be above anything! I'm being facetious but at some point there is a level of relativism here. At what point does political bullshit become too impactful to ignore? I think it was easy to hand-waive Biden receiving $20MM from Romania/China/Ukraine. Because it's $20 mill. (I don't even know how factual this is, just accepting as truth for argument's sake: https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/) It's more difficult to ignore the last few weeks of global economic chaos and trillions of lost value.

Trump posted that "if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately." Art of the deal, baby!

A low blow, admittedly But ya know, if our dear leader can toy with the livelihoods of 400mm people without clear reason, planning, or communication (and people will still defend him) - I wouldn't expect anyone to get upset about being called out on voting for it!

77 million of our worst, at least

I've got no idea...I mean, it's a fools errand to try and predict the future. Much less the economic future. Much,much less the economic future under this president. My approach is, try to buy some stuff that looks cheap. Save some $$ to buy another day. Keep going till it gets to the point where I've got no more investable cash, and then get creative. And then if creativity gets all tapped out, well, screw it...might as well buy powdered milk and start collecting rain water

Trump tariffs in a nutshell: short-term thinking that destroys long-term American assets. Trump administration orders half of national forests open for logging https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/04/05/trump-administration-orders-half-national-forests-open-logging/ And as a bonus, it comes with the standard Trump-rationale: high-school level thinking which experts dispute: Rollins added that, of the land that fell under the directive, almost 67 million acres were determined to be at a “very high” or “high” wildfire risk, and almost 79 million acres were experiencing “declining forest health” from insects and disease. But forestry experts often suggest the removal of undergrowth that doesn’t yield timber, and they warned during similar efforts in Trump’s first term that you can’t log your way out of fire danger...Removing large, fire-resistant trees also gives way to young trees that are more susceptible to fires. In other words, this does nothing to prevent forest fires (only YOU can do that!) It will serve to destroy a long-lived asset And it is only 'necessary' because of value-destructive tariffs on lumber producing (ex-)partners

Woof