Spekulatius

This is not a new thing and has been around for a while now, mostly local governments and state owned companies asking for their employees passports for “safe keeping”. It does seems like this policy is becoming more popular. Note that this isn’t just affecting teachers.

So e interesting posts from Ryan Telford “quant”. About 10% of all 10 baggers end up having negative returns:

They had the right guest to chat with in the semiconductor episode.

Anders makes some other points about Putin making lousy decisions when some in the west believe he is a strategic mastermind. Mearsheimer is one of those structural dogmatic historians who see all the events in a very narrow lens. He is making some bold productions about the Israel conflict now that I don’t think will age that well either. In the end, it’s just people who make decisions and unless you know how these people think, it’s impossible to predict what they do.

This is another good one from an analyst - the danish analyst Anders Lick Nielsen: He has been much more right about Ukraine than wrong, unlike Mearsheimer who predicted that there would not be an invasion just a few days before it happened.

Well Iran did some fireworks, so now the question is how Israel will respond and respond they will. What I find more surprising is that a couple of days into the ground invasion, there seems to be very news about what’s going on in Lebanon. Sadly, I think this conflict will not have a quick end, we are talking a conflict that is probably not going to end even in 2025.

Probably one of the best summaries (in German) and one of the most depressing ones about the war situation from the Austrian Markus Reisner, who has done excellent commentary before. This is a more a big picture overview.

I think you are onto something and I think it boils down to momentum strategies (and derivatives of them) becoming more prevalent. For example, index investing is a strategy that is really a derivative or at least synergistic with momentum investing. Momentum is a strategy that has been working well for quite some time, but there have been times when it didn’t work, as I understand it The Meb Faber podcast on and off has talked about this and he himself likes strategies with a momentum factor.

Sounds like a clear ethics violation. Most public companies have an anonymous number for that. As a regular employee, you can and generally will fired for much less than that. As for disclosure, I think the answer is <$10k or <$100k. Below that, it’s a matter of corporate policies which should apply to everyone, including CEO‘s.

I do think these option plays change the structure of the market as they have to increase short term volatility around earnings etc. I think in general you want to be counterparty to the 0dte option retail players. My guess is that Renaissance and other quants feast on them.

He has to be ultimate hero of WSB.

This episode of Chit chat stockswith chipinvestor was fantastic on many levels. The Chit chat podcast is a iced bag with respect to the quality , but this episode really contains many nuggets due to the gues: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chit-chat-stocks/id1437766060?i=1000671571744 The Nuggets: It’s not about AI, it’s about accelerated computing. INTC issues. Moats in tech is not a useful concept. Moat is a static concept while tech or growth business are dynamic. Think about management, tech leadership , vision, not moat in tech. The latter part really rung a bell with me. Buffett looks at business with moats because he basically tried to buy business wheee nothing changes. In tech everything changes within 10 years so a moat ( a static competitive advantage ) actually becomes a hindrance. You should really listen to that one yourself.

I like ELV the most. It’s basically a poor man’s version of UNH whith a pretty good execution and a more palpable valuation. Bought my shares in 2020 and then more in 2023. I am also a HUM bag holder but that has now become a multi year turnaround and perhaps takeover story. I also own some CNC and bought and sold that one a couple of times before, all with profits.

Reduced my LW position at about breakeven. Stock has recovered some after the earnings, but ai find both the business, the valuation and management uninspiring. I figured I was wrong getting involved in this stock in the first place. I probably sell down the rest as well.

I think most investor who make a lot of money make it with a a few great bets. @BG2008 Now that I read my post again, it comes across a bit more acidic than I intended. I hope you won’t hold it against me. i will buy you a beer or two, if we ever meet face to face. My post does contain a morsel of truth.I have some participation trophies in investing I can brag about too, like looking at HANS before it became a MONSTER. I even tested out their product at that time, which were natural fruit juices in cans. I did nothing and knowing this stock doesn’t even buy me a drink. That was in 2002 just before they launched the Monster energy drink. There is hoping I am going to be better next time I find a similar situation, but quite frankly, I am not sure. Investing is hard.

That’s a participation trophy in investing. A potentially valuable piece of information that one doesn’t use and makes no money with. I have plenty of those.

Roughly 90% of the portfolio is in Apple and Berkshire. This won’t outperform the SP500 by 30% without changes. I want to thank the @Ver for posting. Yeah, seems a bit scamy first, but this fellow Duan Yongping seems worth tracking. Looks like he made a boatload of money in Apple and Kweichow Moutai.

Bought a bit more PLX and HUM and RTO. A starter in SEB ( Graham type low P/B stock)

If this investor has been in the business for decades and compounds at SPY +30%, this investor would be worth tens of billions, if he started out with any meaningful capital. I am sure we would have heard from of him by now. The only investor with such a track record is renaissance and you can’t copy them.

I think the west can get a Ukraine to agree with territorial concessions in exchange for NATO membership and a shot to get in the EU. The problem will be if that works for Russia as well, because their fear of NATO expansion was supposedly what led to them attacking Ukraine. I think the likely scenario is a ceasefire rather than a peace deal. Russia may think they can prevent NATO membership just be keeping a low level conflict alive indefinitely , which they sort of have done since 2014. At some point, the west needs to make some gutsy decision to get solve this problem.

Bought a share in $LICT

The article or VIC thesis makes some good points. You can also add Lubrizol and PCP to the list of subsidies that seem to have fallen behind. I think the recently higher multiple in combination with Berkshire subs underperforming peers is a recipe for the stock underperform the index going forward.

If the Russians learned lessons in the 13 century, they forget them too like “mobility in warfare”. I think its interesting to look at historical background, but it only gets you so far. I think my simpleton view is that Putin sees himself as modern day czar, his pompous palaces and all that stuff. He dislikes that Russia became a backwater (just like the later czars) and wants to restore the Russian empire of the 19th century. The NATO with their open door policy is a threat because all the potential target countries join over time (latest are Finland and Sweden) which prevents him from executing his expansion plans, because the NATO is untouchable so far.

From my limited data looking at the CLT home market (a city with many Millenials moving here), they don’t want MPC’s either. They want to live close to the town, near public transport and close to restaurants - the work life thing. So what really is hot here is gutting out the 50’s and 60 ‘s ranch homes in certain areas with ~1300 sqft and creating the open floor plan they like. Guess what, older folks where kids moved out already like these homes too. The MPC and planned communities are too far out and without public transportation. They are for people with kids liking this lifestyle with pool, picket ball courts and all that.

One of my rules in politics and investing is to “watch what they do, not what they say”. What does Iran “beating drums” and doing absolutely nothing to support Hezbollah tell us?