Spekulatius

Another fall (from a boat this time), another dead Putin confidant: https://todaytimeslive.com/world/118596.html

Both residential and commercial RE in SF is prone to crashes. I have seen it in 2001 and 2009. This time is more self inflicted - the crime rate makes going to the city undesirable and most people hang now out in suburbs. We visited relatives and friends in the Bay Area and never even went to the city, but formerly dead places like South SF have now lively small downtown areas where people hang out. Just fixing the crime issue would go a long way to revive the city, because now daytime SF is now how Tenderloin used to be past midnight. I have no idea how Tenderloin is nowadays is past midnight and no desire to find out.

Mostly small adds: GOOGL , COF, VNT, TPB. Bought back some FAF in one account as well.

One of the shittiest insurance companies I am aware of (from a shareholders perspective). Hasn’t gone anywhere for 2 decades. I owned shares around 2001 or so and made out OK riding the shares up a bit, but they are pretty much back to the same levels. I liked them as a customer when I lived in CA, lowest rates for the combo of homeowners and car insurance by a country mile for me. What is your thesis?

You could get ~5% on MM accounts too in 2006, and ~6% in 2000.

Not a great inflation report. Core inflation is accelerating while Food and Energy got cheaper. (Gas prices have begun to rise again recently): https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm All items less food and energy The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.6 percent in August after increasing 0.3 percent in July. The index for all items less food and energy rose 6.3 percent over the past 12 months, a larger increase than the 5.9-percent increase for the 12 months ending in July.

Interesting to watch the mental gymnastics from Tucker Carlson and his goto expert McGregor: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlsons-ukraine-war-expert-totally-debunked-in-72-hours/ Foxnews would fit well into Russian media landscape.

Reality of the Russian Army. Seaman apprentice, assigned to a tank battalion, 1 week of training. "I am here because I am retarded."

A good one I use (for free so far) is docoh.com. Once you build a watchlist there, it does a great job on keeping you current with filings, earnings etc. https://docoh.com/user/dashboard

If Russia uses At this point very unlikely. First, Russia has not even declared this special operation a war yet, second Putin himself has downplayed the nuclear option just a short time month ago. https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-there-can-be-no-winners-nuclear-war-it-should-never-be-started-2022-08-01/ Also, to make it clear, in my opinion Russia has lost a huge battle but has not yet lost the war yet. It is clear now however, that victory as Putin sees it is far out of reach. If the Russians can stabilize the frontline, they could probably spin their own propaganda machine to still declare their “accomplishments” a victory. In my opinion, the west should really ramp up their military aid to give Ukraine the offensive weapons they need (tanks, capable infantry fighting vehicles, F16’s ) to get this quickly over with. The Ukrainians have proven to be capable so if they get the full nine yards of weapons, the Russians are out of Ukraine including Crimean early next year. A bit nuclear saber rattling from Putin is expected and should be ignored.

I use the paid version of tikr. Huge time saver and well worth it. It’s the only info source I pay for.

One thing that’s interesting is how fast inflation in China has slowed: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-09/china-s-inflation-slows-more-than-expected-with-covid-flare-ups

Lots of support for the war / special operation in Russia, even more are ignoring it:

Interesting that some of @shhughes1116 predictions are actually happening right now:

India is going to be an important power going forward and perhaps more important than China. That does not mean that Indian stocks are doing well though. For one thing, it seems that India’s entire economy is run by a few family chaebol like organizations. If they can’t democratize economic development, bad things will happen and it’s s question when, not if in my opinion. India also made a mistake tying themselves to Russia. First, China now has an alliance with Russia and they are India biggest enemy (besides Pakistan which really can’t challenge India). Second it’s now abundantly clear that the dependency on Russian weapon is a serious weakness, because most likely the Russians can’t export much any more (they can’t even produce enough for themselves and sanction are crippling their industry) and second the weapons are garbage compared to western and most likely even Chinese weapon systems at this point. So India can pivot toward the west or try to walk a fine line being a neutral state (which I think is more likely) but the cuddly relationship with the Russians really has no future.

It’s not for “free” if you end up missing the opportunity. The winter may already be there, as far as market sentiment is concerned although I think things in real estate take longer to play out. If I were interested, I would certainly start looking. Buy something that uses diesel/Heizöl or something that can be converted at least. Put a solar roof on this thing and you are protected from rising power prices somewhat.

NG is priced around 200 Euro/ MWH. Euro and USD are basically on par, so forget about this. So to convert this in mcf is about 200/3.4~$59/ mcf. That’s almost 8x the price in the US (~$8). I take a lot of this is priced in and will revert. The question is when. Russian gas is 43% of the total that needs to be replaced. Roughly 20% can come from savings and conversion to diesel fairly easily. The industry is in the process of doing this. Beyond that, it’s gets more difficult, especially heating for households. There is no quick fix there, the thermostats are going to get dialed down this month. If one of the LNG stations are coming online in Germany, that’s another 7.5% of the total. I think one can come only possibly as early than December , so that would really help, the next one is early next year. A total of 5 are being build and would be enough to replace the Russian gas. Now there are the issues of securing supplies etc, but there is a path to get there, Winter will be tough but after that, I think the NG prices in Europe will closer hug the worldwide NGL spot prices and that’s way less than the 200 Euro that it’s going for right now. I make a prediction now that European spot prices for NG are going to collapse most likely during winter 2022 and possibly as early than December 2022. Wildcard is the winter weather. Remember the idiots who were calling for $300 crude/brl? It’s now at $85, same than right before the invasion.

Good summary what happened on several frontlines: The large scale breakthrough is definitely confirmed and Russia has been pushed back to the Oskil River. Izium and the critical rail junction in Kupyansk (sp?) have been captured by Ukraine. The Russian front further south also looks brittle and could end up in a huge encirclement, if Ukraine can take advantage.

I agree the E3 of Rings of Power is really good. It’s all about Elves in every storyline. The show seems to comes to its own. For the Fantasy inclined, S2 of Britannica is out and I really love the production and storyline as well.

Yes, he could focus on other things after being confirmed, but why helped Zero COVID-19 helped him grab more power? It seems more likely that he put a stance on this and now can't walk it back easily, since it makes him look wrong and weak. If so, the Zero COVID policy likely will remain there for quite some time. It's interesting that this is also related to China not having a vaccine that works. They got out of the gate early with a vaccine that has proven not to be effective, even sold it to countries like Thailand (which stopped ordering it). I guess they could have made a deal with western companies like Moderna or Pfizer but then they would have to swallow the bitter pill that they couldn't do this themselves. They rather lock up millions from time to time when a new wave blasts through the country. That's the thing with autocracies, stupid things can keep going on for a long time, if they come from the top. For them it makes sense to rather pay a high price than admit you are wrong. They don't have the purge mechanism of a democracy that can get rid of bad governance with elections.

Not sure it matters, but I came back from a visit in Europe (relatives and city travel). People are concerned, but not panicked. My brother things Germany can get one of the two LNG stations in Bremerhaven or Brunsbuettel going this winter, ahead of schedule. https://www.uniper.energy/news/construction-of-wilhelmshaven-lng-terminal-can-start-quickly As for economic collapse, most industrial companies are in the process or have already switched fuel from NG to diesel for the time being. Biggest issue is with the chemical industry. BASF stated that they can keep going to about 50% reduction in NG usage- beyond that they will have to curtail production as switching to crude is not possible if NG is used as an input for chemical processes for example. If you put this together, the situation isn't pretty, but an economic collapse is very unlikely.

https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/EN/Areas/Energy/Companies/SecurityOfSupply/GasSupply/start.html#:~:text=Gas continues to be injected,remain at very high levels.

And yet, Germany's gas storage is 87% full, ahead of schedule. Track the data, not the stories.

Interesting - there are several reports out that the Ukrainians have broken through the frontline east of Kharkiv. Apparently the Russian have moved forces out of the area to reinforce the Kherson front, where the well publicized offensive in the south has taken place. Now they are apparently getting rolled in the North. Could be an absolute rout, if some sources are to be believed, but needs more confirmation. Buying ammunition from North Korea is not exactly an indication of strength either. Saw a pic on of a spent Russian Artillery shell dated 1964. That's older than I am.