Spekulatius

What they really should do is sell the bank for book value and keep the shareholdings.

Sold VSTS. Made some money of that one but have some lingering doubts that this will be an easy turnaround and there is a lot of debt.

The mag 6 are getting more Capex heavy business. MSFT for example has roughly doubled profits since 2019 , which is impressive, but Capex went up 3x. They are less assets light business than they used to be. MSFT is n exception - Amazon, Google etc have similar trends.

Yes, it’s still my view that Spirax is richly valued. Looks to me that it’s single digit grower trading at ~27x earnings. I guess they need another 5 years with a stagnant share price to grow into the current valuation.

In addition , much of the wealth is in tax deferred accounts for many people. My liquid funds are more than 2/3 in tax deferred accounts so taxes are not an issue in those. Transaction costs used to matter, but are not an issue any more either.

@Viking Haven't seen that quote before, but it’s great:

They are very different. The difference between Social democrats and the CDU ( center right) in Germany is probably less than between the Dems and the Republicans. Then you have solid public institutions protecting the rule of law. Same between Tory’s and Labour Party in the UK. The new Mexican President talks already about changing the constitution. The rule of law isn’t exactly guaranteed either. I forgot who said it, but Emerging markets are just one bad election outcome away from disaster. While it’s early, I think this election outcome can result in a disaster - probably 4 lost years in terms of economic progression . This is similar when Dilmar won the succession election in Brazil a decade or so ago.

I just saw two great at the Outlaw concert in Charlotte - Bob Dylan and Robert Palmer. I like Bob Dylan as a songwriter but he is not the best live performer, imo. He sort of does his thing and mostly ignores the crowd. Amazing that he is already 83!. On of the best performers was the opener - Celisse loves you. Quite a stage presence - a huge women with a huge voice and a mean guitar.

Added to PLX.PA (Pluxee) and a starter in FIVE.

Bought back some CNC. Stock is cheap and I like the CEO. They have managed the medical cost issues very well so far.

I looked into this and spoke to some folks who have connections to Mexico and hence know the situation better and I think you are right. Shein could be similar to Dilma in Brazil where the county lost 5 years. People elect these populists because the relatively uneducated masses think they can get something for free (wealth transfer from rich people) and at the end everyone tends to be worse off. I think she will be a real problem and I think I will exit my investments, hopefully at a bit better prices.

@Parsad @rkbabang @ElstonG fantastic stuff now that I am catching up on the thread.

Yes, BGC indeed looks interesting. I also some new blips in the CME ticker feed regarding competition for interest rate futures from BGC. Apparently JPM is BGC’s customers. CME has a dominating market share in interest rates futures, but some things these markets can shift when a new player has better technology and trade execution. This is true with interest rates futures especially since the large banks are huge customers and having just a few customers change where they trade can shift the entire market.

Added to EDEN, DEO, PYPL, ABEV

Had $1.5 Tacos today from a local chain since it’s Taco Tuesday. I bet you can’t get Tacos that good for the same price in China. It has been a while since I was in China on business and what I do recall is that China is cheaper, but not that much cheaper - perhaps 1/2 US prices for restaurants. Turkey In my experience was equivalent or cheaper than China in term of prices. My experience was from 2017 - I do not know how the currency collapse and the inflation played out if our pay in foreign currency.

If you follow media , The Town is a great podcast and I particular like the episode with Scott Galloway https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-town-with-matthew-belloni/id1612131897?i=1000659609901 He rips the writers union for striking and the studios for fighting with each other instead of banding together and going where the money is (tech and AI). I think he got this one right.

@thepupil Thank you for your perspective and thinking about this you are correct. I do not know enough about the lawsuits to have an opinion.

I fail to see any connection between critical race theory and Marxism. The two have nothing to do with each other, other than being both wrong.

So the CCP around Xi is now a 5000 year old civilization. Sound similar to the 1000 year Reich. I think it’s all BS but I agree that Xi likely thinks that way . Of course for him things start with securing his power for life.

At the end of the day, his business went to zero just like Enron did. I am not a Chanos hater and I think he has scored definitely on some investments especially early on. It some of his late shorts thesis seem sloppy to me (like the one on datacenters etc). In the meantime, I think Kathy’s ARK still makes money. how can an investment manager even lose money? Must be that expenses are fairly high for the asset base, which probably means he pulled in a high salary while the asset base and business was shrinking.

Chanos and his fund seem to have an Enron moment themselves:

Brazilian stocks are getting cheap again. PBRA, ABEV, STNE, RIO all look pretty cheap again. Up and down she goes…

I don’t think it’s gun to the head. #3 reason (beyond #1 and #2) is that she is good at it and it is rewarding to do something that you are good at. Seems strange, but Werner von Braun was good at designing rockets and while I don’t think he was a Nazi, he could not let go and helped produce the V1 and the V2. Hjalmar Schacht (Hitler’s Banker) May be similar historic figure.

This law has been around forever, there is nothing new about it. I think the new thing is that they want to automate the registration. This has nothing to do with Biden, DEI etc either.

Yes, it’s the 2015-2022 annual reduction versus 2022 reduction. Now looking at this, I should change 2022 into 2023 since this data should now be in tikr.