Spekulatius

The Chinese stock market has not performed well for quite some time. There is also a bit difference between betting against something and just leaving it alone. In fact it seems like a good idea to leave all stock markets with autocratic regimes alone. I do think you can make a bull case that China is a decent trade because negativity has gone too far, although that was more the case in Fall 2022 right after the CCP party congress.

I don't think Xi plan to move China back to a control economy and to crack down on tech, because it became too powerful of a force and threatened the CCP's monopoly on power was obvious three years ago. This became more and more obvious with the Ant Financial crackdown, Jack Ma's temporary disappearance and last not least the elimination of term limits for Xi at the Party congress in fall last year. It's not just perception either, the economic impact for tech and let's say Alibaba is very real - the growth rates have gone from 30%+ growth to zero and now back to ~10%.

Sold my $FNF in tax deferred accounts.

This is the after math of a M30A1 HIMARS (tungsten ball payload) on a truck convoy. Tiny little holes everywhere. You don’t want to be close when this one hits from above for sure. https://streamable.com/t/zglgyk On the counter offensive, it seems like the anchor towns of Urozhaine and Robotyne have been conquered by Ukraine forces means some progress has been made apparently. It looks like the cluster ammo has been put to good use, to soften up Russian defense lines and especially when the Russian have to leave them. It’s slow going and apparently Ukraine had to change tactics to use a much slower approach than initially planned. The above posted on Twitter, but it seems like videos are not loading on Twitter any more in many cases.

@Luca when you look at recent changes in how antitrust is viewed in the Biden admin , you realize that there is a shift going on. The current antitrust view is much broader than then view since Reagan cam into power (just look at market dominance and when it doubt approve). That game is over - the new view is multipolar based on consumer, employment POV, tech angle etc. The bickering about mergers not getting approved and stonewall from the special sit investors is a clear sign that things are changing and my guess is that will be the case even if the administration is going to change. See the odd lots podcast interview I posted in the podcast thread.

I would buy BOC, but don’t like the hedge fund like incentive structure. ATM issues are OK at the right price (above NAV) and I think BOC financed themselves well. OUT is a reversal to the mean play, but quite frankly, I haven’t looked at it very deeply. I just noticed it when I poked a round LAMR.

Until inflation really rears it's ugly head, that is. After that it's much less clear what is more palpable. Inflation looks like free lunch but isn't.

How about $OUT if you like the billboard business. You get a big dividend check as well.

The issue with any ride service that they are likely booked out during the busiest hours (like commute hours) and then you are going to be waiting for a car a long time potentially. The fact that they are not fully utilized across the whole day doesn't matter if you have to waste 30 min to obtain car when you and everyone else needs it.

So you use a tractor instead?

There were quite a few steel plants build in the US by Nucor or Steel Dynamics. However, in those business requiring huge plants, most capacity expansion projects tend to occur with brown field not green field projects, because it’s quicker and cheaper to egg it done. I am not sure about systematic underinvestment in Capex either. Investors require a higher return than what the market conditions were given them and preferred to invest in China vs the USA (because that’s where the growth was) but that is now changing. I think somebody said some time ago that there are more cranes operating in China than the rest of the world So in my opinion, it’s not that total Capex is changing I but more that investment is going to move out of China to other countries and back in the USA and possibly Mexico.

Incremental progress, but a long way to go. I also want to point out that this process creates a lot of neutron radiation, which will make the materials in the reactor that absorb it radioactive.

A true value investor. Sell high and buy low. Who would have thought?

That’s why “Thinking fast and slow” from Kahnemann is very applicable to investing.

How about Dire Straits: “Money for nothing”

This is definitely happening. Also the West is diversify away from China in terms of supply chain, which means that Chinese manufacturing capacity is underutilized as well as underemployment. Both things are deflationary. China needs to move away from their mercantilist trade model into towards a more domestic consumption based economy. They can’t just continue to make stuff and hope that somebody else will buy it.

I found Polite Society ( a martial arts / Bollywood / Brit comedy ) to be much more fun than I expected: [Streaming in Peacock) Edit : I am not fully through S2 of Bear (Hulu), but while S1 was good, S2 is epic, imo.

I had to think about a bit to determine that it's not equivalent. This equal weighted index thing sounds compelling but then I think about all the winners that need to be constantly trimmed and loses that need to be added to and I am not sure it's better than market cap weighted indexing. I thought that it would be an interesting idea to start an equal weighted fund at certain times (once a year?) and not rebalance. That would be an interesting experiment but I think it could only be done in a closed end fund and then you have to deal with discounts to NAV.

Well, an equal weighted index fund will constantly rebalance while a coffee can will not (except for taking tax losses) so over time the returns will differ a lot. Also, with eh coffee can approach a lot of the returns will depend on what was picked early on. My guess the loser will be decided based on the tax loss that can be monetized, because fundamentally the losing stock could be the random stock pick at the same time as well.

That’s an interesting way to do it - buying a random stock every two weeks: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/beer-billionaire-jim-koch-buys-210559882.html

USB has more issues with NIM than C, imo. They have a lot of low yielding paper on their balance sheet for once- C does not have that particular issue. I also want to point out that C for the first time seems to have a decent CEO (Fraser). That said, i am chicken and my C position is just a starter at this point.

Bought just a small starter in $C.

According to some hunters I have met, squirrels don’t taste too bad. It’s probably better than what most Russians are eating , if done right. https://www.wildmeat.co.uk/blogs/news/squirrel-why-everyone-should-try-it#:~:text=Squirrel tastes like a subtler,recommend allowing one per person.

The claim is that media takeovers have impacted pluralism in india: In India, media takeovers by oligarchs close to Prime Minister Modi have jeopardised pluralism, In this ranking system, India ranks below Venezuela (#159). Not sure this makes sense.

Bought a starter in PYPL this AM.