Spekulatius

Wealthier yes, but better I am not sure. Europe has a much better work life balance (work hours, vacation) and more livable cities. US has lower taxes , is much more entrepreneurial. I think the bottom 50% is probably better off in Europe, the top 25% better off in the USA and for the the rest depends. I think I can judge this better than most having lived and h sing friends on both sides of the pond and going back frequently. I think the combo of working in the US and retiring in Europe is hard to beat. FWIW, most people going to the Worldcup have travelled to the USA before, so I think some of the stories are a bit staged. Europeans know Amerika much better than vice versa.

Free refills is the killer app in restaurants. Here in the south they even give you a cup and a lid and refill to go.

Lots of countries will develop nuclear weapons - Saudi Arabia (through Pakistan), South Africa (they have nuclear power already), South Korea (counter North Korea), Iran, Ukraine (longer term) and likely Europe down the road. This a clear result of the wars on Ukraine and Iran, imo. This is a result of the Neo imperialism that is going to be the next chapter in a global politics.

The odds are not great but payoff is asymmetrical . The Soxx looks very overextended with many crapola stocks mooning.

I agree, Belgium looked weak here. Their whole game was odd and played without soul. Belgium used to play decent soccer with a solid defense and fast counters. The coach does not seem to use the talent he has available effectively.

It will be interesting how the export controls on AI products will impact the valuation and revenue trajectory of the LLM companies OpenAI and Anthropic . To me, it looks unlikely that the export control will be limited to Anthrophic since other LLM’s have similar capabilities , if not now, with a small time lag.

Khomenei quickly labeled the USA as the “great Satan”. This was likely a reaction to the USA constantly mettling in Iranian politics and enabling the Shah coming to power. The Iran hostage affair occurred in the chaos of the Islamic revolution . Radical students raided the US embassy. This was not government sanction as a stable government in Iran didn’t even exist at that time. Khomenei quickly capitalized on this though and put his weight behind the students. This was done for to establish his friction as a ruler of Iran and it worked. Thats a lease that also a explains many action that one could think of not rational. My sense is that if you label someone or a party as not rational, you just don’t understand their motivation at all. Now we mettle in Iranian political again (regime change) and expect a different results. I think we probably stabilized the regime if anything.

Not just in Canada. If US markets are closed you can pretty much bet that some weird things happen in other markets that are open. I had for example an order open for more Prosus (PRX) for 38.41 that got filled for 38.215 which also happened to be the low in IBKR today. Small potatoes but good stuff . I think the liquidity totally sucks on days like this and if some ETF rebalance or something similar at the end of the day, they just take whatever they get. It’s OPM, who cares, right?

Hard to beat this advertisement:

Added to BOLSAA and PRX (Prosus) on this quiet day.

Bought a little CME and some $6758 (Sony). All the exchanges are getting hammered on the new perpetual futures exchanges presumably. Those to me look like modern day bucket shops.

Good game. Canada is typically an after thought in soccer but they do have some decent players.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DZrUGnAIIn5/?igsh=dmoyaTIxN2djYnBy

Probably 60% of their revenue and profits are SaaS. The shares would be way lower if it were their sole business.

Perhaps. But the lessons already transpire to Europe and the US and likely China as we speak and will be adapted in the respective defense industry and strategy. It has become clear that you can saturate just about any defense system with relative cheap drones.

All valid points. I do know that they are regarded as national hero’s in Iran. I watched the game partly and the spectators there were fair. No booing when the national hymn was playing , so there is that. I am surprised they are playing at all- typically sports teams can’t play in countries they are at war with.

Moscow under attack: https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/18/europe/putin-confronts-war-reality?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc&recs_exp=most-popular-article-end&tenant_id=trending.en.hybrid-trending Looks like Ukraine has a substantial superiority in drones (slow and low flying and quite cheap ones) and those destroy military targets but also hit the capital city.

I think the $300B number may be a bit misleading. Maybe Trump thinks that the other Gulf states should pay for rebuilding Iran which I don’t think they are particularly fond of. Whatever, the outcome, I think it’s likely Trump leaves behind a larger mess than existed before, washes his hands and calls it mission accomplished. On to other projects…

You think? Art of a DEAL. Five away the store before negotiation even get started. Just like he tried with Putin to get a peace deal. I think this one will work just as well.

I believe this is the first time, that a country at war with a host country (Iran - USA) plays in a World Cup. Funny that nobody talks about it.

The odd lots podcast goes through the oil shock that mostly occurred in Asia. a few facts (from recollection) - China’s oil consumption went down by almost 10% and in addition, they have huge inventory which they draped down. This is the reason they could reduce their imports so much. Poorer counties without much storage (Thailand, Indonesia, India) did run into shortages so demand destruction took place. My guess is that oil prices are too low relative to where we are at because the storages need to be refilled and that’s a lot of extra barrels. I also think some counties learned a lesson and will build out. more storage infrastructure and fill it up, but that’s longer term.

https://babylonbee.com/news/oh-no-trump-negotiates-deal-with-england-and-now-they-have-the-colonies-back

I watch this in Peacock. Their Telemundo channel has all the games but commentators are speaking Spanish (which I don’t mind).

The protest were already over 2 month when the war started. The Iranian regime is very good at suppressing protest and they had similar ones several times before. Also, the regime had more popular support than most in the west believe. Even those that don’t exactly like the regime because of corruption likely want to keep an Islamic state rather rather than a western style secular democracy. You can see that on how people vote in surrounding states.

Charles is actually doing a great job as a King. He had lots of time to prepare.