Spekulatius

Some of the small cap japanese companies in the semiconductor (or related business) look interesting. I wonder the thesis is on BMY. I had some shares that have done well and sold after it did what I thought it would do.

As for China, I think their construction industry is seeing a significant decline and hence energy consumption from this part of their economy should decline, most likely permanently. Construction means steel, concrete, trucks and heavy equipment etc all of which consumes significant amounts of coal, diesel etc. As China transitions from an infrastructure/ Capex led to a more consumer oriented economy and should need less energy. As for demand, I expect significant demand destruction from higher prices in emerging markets first. The rigzone link talks about oil inventories only, but not inventories from oil refining which are up. The refineries in the US have taken advantage of the huge spreads and probably refined what they could, hence the low crude inventory (in the US). If I had to make a short term bet it would be that crude prices likely go where they were before the Ukraine invasion into the $80-$90 range short term. I don’t think they go much lower than that.

@Crip1 and @ICUMD good point from both. I do think that business performance is not always correlated with stock price performance - in fact the very fact that value investment works implies that it is not always so. I do hate fund structures like FIH and think in 90% of the cases, it's just better to invest in the mothership ($ FFH). Brookfield ($BAM) is another example of this.

You could be correct. I do think it's huge strategic value to unblock Odessa harbor and there are various means to do so.

I don't own any, but really like Pirelli (PIRC.MI). They are in the premium tire segment and have some of the highest margins. I also follow Michelin loosely and owned it in the past. Tires are not that great of a business because it needs a lot of Capex and working capital, so you really want to be in the highest margin segment of the FCF to owners is going to be non-existent.

I agree. it's fairly hard to make sense of his holdings and since he trades in and out very quickly, it probably does not make sense to follow what he is doing at all.

That didn't take long. Snake Island becomes indefensible for the Russians with the delivery of some HIMARS rocket system. Snake island is about 60 km away from the Ukraine mainland and these rocket systems go for 70km (the longer range version goes 200km. game over for the Russians on Snake Island. Not a huge win right now, but is important to keep Odessa from staying blocked longer term potentially. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/30/1108855805/russia-withdraws-snake-island-ukraine https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-long-range-rocket-systems-arrive-ukraine-minister-2022-06-23/ If we give the Ukraine rocket weapons systems that go somewhat further (~300km) then Russia can not safely move ships into Sebastopol harbor any more (distance from Sebastopol harbor to Ukraine mainland is ~280km). At that point, Crimea and Sebastopol would become more or less strategically worthless as a naval base during war times. Russia has been firing nilly willy with rocket bases from Crimea and with their Ships on the Ukraine mainland and that cannot be allowed forever.

There are batteries that don't use nickel (or very little of it). I think one of the types uses iron phosphate chemistry and they are used in some lower end batteries. The problem with these chemistry is lower energy density, so it reduces the EV's range, which is still a big issue. I suspect they also may be less durable (less charge cycles), but I can't state this for certain.

The loss of Geico happened a while ago and is priced in. IAA is still a duopoly with CPRT, so I think it will do OK. It's available at a reasonable price now after the recent decline (Actually COVID-19) lows. I think the activist (Ancora) will put pressure on management: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3813616-iaa-gains-as-activist-holder-calls-for-sale-of-company-or-ceo-to-be-replaced

Pretty good piece, imo. If Biden is smart he pivots to pushing NG as a clean transitional source for the next 30 years. Develop infrastructure to phase out oil heating in the US and help out European allies. It's positive from a carbon balance (replacing heating oil with NG) and helps Europe to wean of from Russian gas and it helps the US NG producers with stable end markets and more stable prices. Laying all those pipes to supply gas to home would be nice infrastructure program that would pay for itself, and wouldn't cost taxpayers much (perhaps some incentives for home owners in some cases).

Bought a starter in USB (dividend stock) and added / bought back IAA this AM.

I think investors regard FIH as a high cost / poorly performing and externally controlled CEF. Those ought to trade at a large discount to NAV. Don't shoot the messenger. I think FIH might be a trade at times, but as a long term investment, I think it's a lost cause.

The war in Ukraine shows yet again (just like the war in Lebanon decades ago) that whoever buys Russian weapons buys garbage. This is likely becoming a bigger problem with sanctions impeding high tech components in Russian weapon systems and likely the ability of Russians to supply spare parts. I expect Russian weapon exports to tumble as a consequence of the war with Ukraine.

EV's are the best thing that ever happened to tire companies. It's seriously bullish - all that torque from the electric or hybrid power trains makes for a lot of wheelies on the roads.

I think it's probably important to look back in the late 70's or early 80's. Buffett was involved in a lot of energy / Oils and gas names back them - like Amerada Hess. He traded those quite frequently and successfully, they were not LT holds as all. Later past 2000 his track record trading energy became much more murky, he dunked on Exxon and COP, but had a home run with Petrochina.

Russian are grinding it out mostly with overwhelming artillery, they are not slicing through anything. The slow progress is proof of this. The Russians tried the Blitzkrieg when trying to take Kiev, but instead it sort of evolved into a bum rush. For good analysis, try Michael Clarks analysis in Sky news (available on youtube): https://news.sky.com/video/ukraine-your-questions-answered-by-professor-michael-clarke-12629662 Give the Ukrainians enough artillery and the russians will get anhillated. Note that the artillery wars tipped in Russia's favor because the Ukrainians are running out of 152mm artillery shells. Even the NATO stockpiles that were supplied to the Ukraine ran out as those are only produced in Russia. So the Ukrainian native artillery is mostly not active any more since it ran out of ammo. The West has replaced some of this with qualitatively better one but it's not enough. This WW1 without artillery on one side. Even fortified positions will eventually been ground down under prolonged barrages. That's what the Russians are doing. The west needs to supply hundreds of artillery pieces to the Ukraine not dozens.

Burry turns over his portfolio basically every quarter.

I think the Hardcore history podcast has some anecdotes about him. Quite some characters in the US army with McArthur and Patton. There was a reason why the otherwise unremarkable Bradley was commander in the European theatre and not Patton.

This makes sense. Germany needs all the LNG tanker they can get: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/06/29/ftse-100-markets-live-news-inflation-prices-russia-gas/ I guess we call this a lease cancellation. @Xerxes As for the Mc Arthur story - the job of a general is a different one than as politician. A general / commander in chief needs to lay the options out there. If he got A, B and C at the disposal, and A is a nuclear strike, it's probably his job to present this scenario. It's up the the politician to decide which of the options is viable. I think this happens pretty much every conflict. I bet Eisenhower as general had different thought process than Eisenhower as a president.

It's not just fairness, over the longer run, ZIRP or worse negative interest rates are like cancer to the financial system. They cause all sorts of problems - we can see this playing out in Japan and Europe. Whole Ponzi scheme like "asset classes" like crypto are booming because of ZIRPR and are melting like snow in the sun when central banks are tightening.

There is plenty of Lithium in the earth crust - we just need to increase supplies with new mines, which I have no doubt is going to happen.

Mc Arthur was not president. I am sure the Russians are playing all sort of war games in their operations room, including nuclear strikes. Those are irrelevant as well. Anyays, Putin screwed himself - NATO has no expanded to Finland and Sweden, which are very capable. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/29/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html With Finland (North) , the Baltics, Black Sea under NATO can easily throttle any Russian fleet movements except from Vladivostok on a moments notice. The long range rockets that were given to Ukraine have enough reach to get to Snake Island where the Russians intent to block the Odessa port traffic. So the Russian should not get too comfortable there. Donbas is tough for the Ukraine as the Russian now wear them out with artillery. So west needs to supply the Ukraine with enough artillery to match. US/ NATO artillery has 2x the reach of Russian artillery and have guided ammo, so should be possible to counter it, given enough quantity. FWIW, I expect Russian arms exports to drop substantially because they can't deliver spare parts and the performance of their weapons is abysmal on the battle field.

No one is "entitled" to returns. That includes Savers, bond investors, Stock investors, private equity investors, crypto/collectible investors, venture capital, real estate investors and entrepreneurs . At times, every one of these asset classes has performed horribly.

Bottom is not in for $BBBY. -27% SSS. Gheez. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bed-bath-beyond-ceo-removed-june-2022-122453161.html

Furthermore , it is important to note that Russia officially is not in a war yet. We are still talking about a "special operation here", per Russia's official messaging. So there is zero risk of a nuclear escalation right now.