mcliu
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Posts posted by mcliu
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2 hours ago, CorpRaider said:
End game is he stops at the river to save face, best case scenario. More likely he gets whacked or deposed because of all the Russian body bags and pissed off starving oligarchs (and Xi). No man is an island. I mean they can't even take mariopol which is like RIGHT on the border of crimea.
It's not conclusive that if Putin is going, he'll be replaced by a pro-West democratic govt.
Isn't there possibility that someone even worse comes along?
4 hours ago, Gregmal said:Exactly. I was having a discussion the other day with some folks about this. Putin is very much like Trump where his ego leads him to constantly and compulsively "call and raise". He doesnt have a winning hand here and the only real way out, peacefully is for someone to recognize this. Not keep calling his bluff because that will end badly.
This is the way.
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This showed up on my YouTube. Not sure if this is fake news, but Ukraine uses actual neo-nazi units in their military? What the actual fuck?
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The problem with following the war on Twitter is that you only get one side's perspective and end up with the impression that Ukrainian troops are ready to roll through Moscow.
I think these sources/summaries provide a better but still murky picture of the situation:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-3
While Russian military has not been as effective as expected and has met some supply and strategic/intelligence issues. The overall picture shows that they're pushing effectively into Ukraine, especially along the southern axis. Ukrainian resistance has outperformed expectations using advanced NATO weapons & training, but keep in mind it's only been 7 days in a country of 40+ million with 1.5x size of Iraq. US+allied forces took over a month to conquer Iraq with a far superior force.
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Thanks for sharing!
Btw, does anyone know why WB didn't mention DaVita & Verisign as one of the top 15 holdings in his annual letter? Did they sell out?
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7 hours ago, zippy1 said:
To answer your question, you probably ought to find out, beyond the pandemic ( hopefully an one time event), what drove the semi shortage. For people working on semi, the answer is quite clear.
before 2017, when the US China trade war started, Taiwanese market did not appreciate much.
Thanks. Are you saying the shortage is from US shifting trade to Taiwan from China?
Btw, what do you think of China's plans to become self-reliant on semi? Any chance of success or is it just too difficult since you need global scale/equipment?
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3 hours ago, zippy1 said:
For the past 5 years (03/05/2017-03/01/2022),
The Taiwanese stock index (^twii) is up 85.51%
The Shen Zhen composite index (399001.sz) is up 29.42%
The Shanghai composite index (000001.ss) is up 7.58%
The Heng Seng index (^HSI) is down 3.57%
Taiwanese stock market appears to benefit from the geopolitical change in the recent years.Is it geopolitical change or mainly because of the pandemic driven computing boom and semi shortage?
The 2 largest weights are Foxconn and TSMC. Price performance from 2011-March 2020 is ~30%.
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Another perspective, would a closed-end fund trade at NAV if it had an all-star manager with an excellent LT track record and ability to generate above market returns while taking on little risk and employing negative-interest-rate leverage?
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57 minutes ago, Peregrine said:
I visited Taipei a few years ago and was astounded by how antiquated their society was - their banking system was still pen and paper, the population is old and in the words of the locals, the economy had been in stasis for 20 years. The contrast is night and day compared with China's Tier 1 cities. Taiwan's young also sees this and are making conscious choices to move to China in search of better jobs.
Thanks. That's an accurate take. I think Taiwan's stagnation also coincides with China's rise. Taiwan became a much less attractive investment for foreigners & even locals.
I think despite economic integration, younger Taiwanese seem less politically aligned with the one-China position than their parents, which is reflected in election results, frequent DPP wins over KMT. Overall I agree, integration is inevitable, hopefully peaceful, but there is risk of a confrontation. Timing is uncertain.
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39 minutes ago, Xerxes said:
I live in Iran during the 8-year war as a kid, so have a different perspective than the usual view of West-is-right-everybody-else-is-wrong (not saying that you are saying that)
Western hypocrisy. The US has done plenty of sketchy shit and killed a ton of civilians (probably more than Russia in the last 20 years) but so far no sanctions, no flight cancellation, no global condemnation and no asset freezes/seizure of US leadership.
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Another big difference is that Ukraine is a recognized sovereign nation.
Taiwan is not. All the major world powers recognize Taiwan as a province of China.
Which is why I think the probability of US intervention is very low.
I think Chinese planners would also actively try to create a scenario where the cost/benefits analysis for the US would skew toward non-intervention.
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Obviously not comparing Afghanistan to Taiwan. My point is military superiority does not guarantee success in a conflict.
Nobody is doubting US military superiority over the next 10/20 years. But China does not need to surpass the US in order to take Taiwan.
Keep in mind, only 14 countries recognize Taiwan as sovereign. If anything, Japanese/US intervention will be seen as an invasion by the China & allies. Especially given Japan's reputation in Asia.
The fact is that the amount of damage China's military can inflict is increasing rapidly. Don't think anyone will argue this.
And I think as China's military capabilities increase, the probability of US or Japan intervention decreases.
Probability of Japanese unilateral intervention to defend Taiwan without US is 0.
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Yeah sure, all that tech did wonders in Afghanistan. Weaponry & tech doesn't do much good if there's no will to fight and no logistics to support it.
You have to keep in mind, China is taking Taiwan, not trying to defeat the US. The carriers don't need to be nuclear since it's not meant to project power globally. The US has about 500 F-22/35, but it's deployed all over the world & needs a ton of support/logistics. How many can it really field to defend Taiwan? China has 150 J-20 stealth fighters & producing more. That's how things stand now, the gap will be even closer to the US and far superior than Taiwan in 10/15 years.
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The gap between US and China is getting smaller and closing quickly.
China's technological & industrial capacity is growing quickly and compounding.
Taiwanese forces have not had real combat experience since being defeated by the communists.
And unlike Ukraine invasion, PLA troops would be highly motivated due to belief in 1 china and liberation.
Logistics might be more of a nightmare for the US fleet than PLA crossing the strait.
Plus, realistically, how many casualties will the US tolerate to support Taiwan?
This is why I think US will not be involved in a conflict. Unless US uses the nuclear card.
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In the short-term it is hard to say, but in the long-term it's almost inevitable China will unify Taiwan either through force or diplomacy.
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Question about crypto. Blockchain tech seems very interesting, but how do we know it's not in the dot-com phase where even if it'll be valuable, the impact won't be felt for another 20 years? Also, for the experts, is there a Versign equivalent company/coin in the crypto space that's worth investing in? Thanks!
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It's also possible that having fewer ads & better optimized ads might generate more revenue through more users & engagement.
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Is there a way to turn off the full page mobile ad? That’s the one that’s quite annoying, I think everything else is pretty fair game.
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lol I wonder what the "market cap" of beanie babies was at the peak.
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For those of you that do a lot of financial modelling in Excel, is there a way to make sure certain fields don't change?
For example, I maintain financial models for~20 companies, the format is pretty standardized and a lot of the metrics & calculations are the same, but the financials & projections are different. I'm finding that sometimes when I make edits, update the model for a new year, change projections, things sometimes get wonky and I need to check all the cells again.
Is there a way to lock these? Is there a software for financial modelling that keeps track of assumptions & changes over time & allows for multiple cases?
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7 hours ago, Cevian said:
I've reached out to Canadian tax accountants to see if there is something that can be done to reclaim some of the withholding back.
Never did I expect that a dividend can be paid to some and not all shareholders. From my perspective a transaction took place where I gave them something I owned and expected cash/value of $500 in return. Why would I as a shareholder received a "dividend" because I tendered my shares while my brother not received a "dividend" because he didn't tender his shares? Mental note never to do anything like this again. If it takes 66 pages to describe a transaction, maybe I should stay away. I could have just sold now at the pop.
Since Canadian companies are allowed to return contributed capital on a tax-free basis and capital gains are taxed at a preferable rate (vs dividends) due to a 50% inclusion rate, the deemed dividend rule (section 84) is meant to prevent companies from converting what are essentially dividends into capital gains or capital returns.
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Hard to say what will happen.
They exited 2009 with $370 BVPS.
12 years later.. $562 BVPS.
Hopefully next 5 will be better.
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re:Terry Smith's chart, hindsight bias
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I think price matters because there are constraints in any ecosystem.
How many multi-trillion dollar companies can grow at high 15% rates for decades before they takeover the world?
15% for 20 years = 16x. FAANGM market cap around $10T so if they compound at 15% for 20Y they'll be at 160T. Maybe less cause of buybacks & reduced share counts. But still a huge #. World GDP today is maybe $80T compound at 3% for 20Y = $140T
Russia-Ukrainian War
in General Discussion
Posted
It’s unfortunate NATO keeps sending weapons to Ukraine knowing it’ll become a meat grinder as Russia reverts back to more traditional military doctrine, especially when a guarantee of Ukraine neutrality might have prevented war.
The unintended consequence of sanctions might be high inflation driving Europe into a recession causing existing govts to fall in upcoming elections. Ironically, Putin might outlast the elected officials currently in charge of certain European/NATO countries.