Spekulatius

S3 of Slow Horses is indeed great. This show gets better and better. I also like “Monarch” and “For all Mankind” on Apple TV. Apple TV is often dissed but they make awesome shows. They really are about to become the new HBO.

I would agree with @Spooky here that the SP600 is a better bet than the SP500 now. I do have a related question - what is the baseline probability that a stock from the SP500 beats the SP500 index within the latest (or better even former). 5 year timeframe. It’s got to be less than 50% because the distribution of returns is quite skewed.

Yes, it was the GFC that messed things up. The FTSE has a lot of financial exposure and literally all large financials were significantly impaired from dilution. There is also very little tech exposure, which has been driving the returns in US indices.

Besides, all UK stocks suck, doesn't matter what business they are in (tongue in cheek comment)

Sold my starter in $CI in tax deferred accounts and added to my $HUM starter from the sales proceeds.

DOCS.L Dr. Marten (starter) and an add to RI.PA (Cognac trade war)

Trade war getting serious - Cognac. They cleverly target French goods since French politicians were behind the EU antitrust/ dumping claim for Chinese EV sales in Europe. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-launches-anti-dumping-investigation-brandy-imported-european-union-2024-01-05/ Porsche/ LVMH etc also have a lot to lose here.

Yes, ADI has done a good job, as did peers like MCHP or NXPI or STM. those all have very diversified customer base, so it's harder to track real consumption versus inventory hording. MLBY just supplies car makers, so they have relatively few customers and I think they deliver a kit basically. They should know exactly how much goes in one car (one kit or set/ car) and it should not be too hard to find official numbers how many cars have been sold. It should be obvious that you can't take customers by your word in this business as they always give projections that are WAG and supply chain managers are incentivized to order too much because too little means production stops. So they tend to overorder and then adjust down. If they see inventory piling up internally , l they often cancel all PO's all of a sudden and may not order more for month.

you are correct on the "Stan" etymology - it's not Russian. the Russian tourists (and mafia from what I heard) is concentrated in Phuket and Pattaya. I guess the Russians go elsewhere too, but they are probably too dispersed in a big city like Bangkok. On the tourisms side, there are much less Chinese tourists (they avoid Bangkok after that Mall shooting in October, I have heard) than I expected and Indian tourists now seem to replace them. Biggest issue I have with Bangkok is the heat and the pollution as you say. Temps were from 30-34Deg C and that is about the coolest month. Summer you have the monsoon wet season and April/May are the hottest month. I just can't take the heat as well as I used to when younger. Chiang Mai is a lot cooler, but that's a trip for another time.

MBLY - another belated Semiconductor supply chain victim: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mobileye-releases-preliminary-fy2023-financial-115000786.html I think this revenue guidance is ~25% below consensus (which is about $2.5B in revenue for 2024). Boggles my mind how this supply glut has escaped management so far. they can see how much their customers have bought and how much cars they are selling with those Mobileye kits.

Phuket is now Pukhetistan - the vast majority of tourists ( and quite a few LT residents on LT Visa) are Russians. Bangkok was very nice. It has probably the best food in the world. For westerners, I recommend the food courts in Siam paragon, Terminal 21 and Emquartier and a few others. We also did the local outdoor markets (they all have food) and it was mostly awesome. I also recommend getting a thai massage, but many of the places on tourist or shopping streets don't do it right - we went with this (Healthland Spa) , which is a franchise. 2h for 650 Baht (<$20) https://reservation.healthlandspa.com/ If adventurous check out to the Soi Cowboy alley next to terminal 21.

Stock for stock deal. Yes, this seems also about the Permian. APA shareholders (I have a starter too) are not too excited - down ~4.5% premarket.

The AMC screens in our area are bad too. Other local theatre chains are doing a better job with the screens and sound system. I used to like the big screen experience, but ai now have a decent flat screen and sound system at home and it raises the bar to go to movie theatre. It also helps that I can crack a beer or drink some wine with the movie. The kids don’t watch long format movies as much either, I think.

Seeing quite a few Indian tourists here in Thailand on my vacation trip. According to our a Thai friends that's a new thing as they seem to partly replacing the Chinese tourists that are not traveling to Thailand that much any more after the shooting incidence in a Bangkok mall: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/04/asia/thailand-shopping-mall-shooting-charges-intl-hnk/index.html I think tourism from outbound India is going to explode as the country gets more wealthy.

I think there is a disadvantage of getting buried deep down in a conglomerate vs being a pure play like SSD. (You Ninja’d my post before deleted it, since it’s redundant with what @Jaygo posted. )

Damodaran’s model actually isn’t that complex. He uses the same spreadsheet over and over again and actually starts with a story and the tries to put numbers behind that story. Even better, he posts his spreadsheet so you can download it and change input variables to your liking and based on what you think the story is. had also clearly keeps track of his assumptions and there is total transparency and he will tell in follow up posts where reality different from his model. I think it’s a great and transparent approach. He did some good work on Tesla for example where he took apart the underlying assumption that make or break this investment. I find this very helpful. It is also not about the result (of the spreadsheet) but about the way you get there.

Exxon sells their shares pro rata in their issuer bids and keeps their stake at ~70%. Seems like they have no intention of buying this outright.

Cramer is an entertainer, the topic just happens to be business and stocks. He is not stupid, but his customer don’t own any yachts, at least none bought with what they learned in his shows. Some CEO interviews can be worthwhile.

IMO (Imperial oil, Exxon subsidy) is not much talked about , but they have reduced their sharecount from 850M shares in 2018 to ~560M shares after the last issuer bid. All this without much debt and while increasing production.

I am currently in Pukhet / Thailand and you would think it’s a Russian colony now. My wife is from Thailand and knows some friends with extensive travel experience and they told her to be careful with Taxis as the Russian Mafia has taken hold in the transportation business, so we got our driver through local connections here. Anyways, I hear a Russian spoken everywhere and there are Cyrillic signage everywhere as well as some stores that seem to cater to Russian exclusively. Looks like the Russian are using the Thai long term Visa programs to stay here for the long run. I guess you could say there is some leakage from Putin’s regime.

Yes all else being equal, higher interest rates should lead to higher CR because earnings from float should increase and that can compensate for higher CR’s. Right now insurers have tailwind from both the hard market and higher investment income due to higher interest rates and I don’t think both will persist forever.

Interesting post on the destruction of a couple of Russian SU-34 fighter jets who thought they were safe (over Russia) but I guess not. They were downed by Patriot missiles deep over Russia.

Nikes profit warning could be a secular problem rather than a temporary or cyclical one. From what I read and hear, the Chinese consumer increasingly prefers domestic brands rather than foreign ones. Japanese (Fukushima water resales) and US brands (geopolitical tension) could be harder hit than Europeans ones. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nikes-warnings-china-scare-other-025856754.html

I can get used to XMas with palm trees

Prosus and Tencent are down a mid teens percentage in European trading due to CCP cracking down on online gaming again. It is not the first time and probably not the last time. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-china-curb-gaming-spend-041159548.html