Spekulatius

Can you explain this to me, like I am a boomer (I am almost one). How can this this stablecoin drop from ~$60 to $0.000000035 in a short period of time. FWIW, Mark Cuban deserves the title for the dumbest self made billionaire.

yes I think that could well be correct. The narrative "the bond market is smart and is bullish" could well be wrong, because as @wabuffo neatly pointed out, the bond market is just supply and demand and right now, there is little supply, so prices wen up (and bond yields down) due to a transient factor.

Jamie would agree with you: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/14/jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-is-hoarding-cash-because-very-good-chance-inflation-here-to-stay.html He also understand the monetary pluming much better than said economist. Well if I had to chose one side argument, I think I would go along with the guy who bet's $500B on something (or at least the interest income from $500B).

I agree with @Libs Nd of course @wabuffohere. It looks like yields are artificially compressed for treasuries because there are not enough treasuries issued right now because the federal reserve account bonds is slowly run down. This sets up an interesting dynamic where despite inflation numbers being high and the economy running hot, the yields go lower. It is interesting from a trading perspective because many seem to draw the conclusion that the bond market “knows” that the inflation is a head fake and what we are seeing is just a result of a temporary supply Imbalance caused by monetary plumbing issues. If this is correct there money to be made betting on higher interest rates (once the Fed account balance is run down). and probably betting on growth stock/ high multiple stocks going down as well, because if discount rates moving up again. We have already seen in March 2021 how this can work against growth equities. It is an interesting thesis, but now one has to estimate the infliction Point which is when the Fed account balance reaches about $100B. Currently, we are at $633B which is probably worth about 1-2 month from now- I am guessing end of July when interest rate should start to move up again, if this hypothesis is correct. It seems that TLT puts with an out of money strike and a year end expiration date would be a good way to play this. Either it works, or it doesn’t but it is an alternative hypothesis that I like because I think it is underpriced. Any smarter way to play this? Puts on some growth stock index? ARKK?

It is not just politicians, it is homeowners as well. I have yet to see a homeowner who welcome when single family homes are replaced by multi family homes or a commercial development. There simply is self interest at work. Perhaps sharing economics in a smart way with the city and neighbors might help, but I doubt even that. The more expensive homes gets, the harder rezoning/ repurposing get’s ironically.

Bought this one for $10 at the NH liquor store a week or so ago. It is really hard to go wrong with Cabernet , Merlot or Zinfandel from Sonoma county. $10-$20/ bottle gets you good quality. Napa county is great too, but usually more expensive. Some vineyards from Mendocino county are Ok as well. For whites, I prefer Finger Lake Riesling or other white grapes or perhaps an unoaked Chardonnay from CA ( same location than above)

I use OneNote and it works well enough. the main benefit that it synchs between the various mobile devices I use (iphone, ipad) so i don't lose important thoughts or links.

Sold my MITK in my tax deferred account. I am not too fond of the convertible debt issue a while ago.

This is more bullish than El Salvador allowing bitcoin as legal tender, imo. It is probably not too bullish for Coinbase and other crypto exchanges. Bullish for both BTC and IBKR...

I have no idea if BTC is going up or down. My comment of the 18k resistance zone is based on my reading of the BTC chart. BTC could as well bounce back and go up. I can understand why trades like BTC, it’s volatile and there are a lot of amateurs in the game who can be fleeced. I think some institution like Renaissance Tech who can skim the social media and determine trends ought to be in a position to make huge bank here, as is someone like Druckenmiller. Since there are no real fundamentals other than news that can be interpreted either way ( like some of the cryptic Elon Musk tweets) it is probably the greatest playground for traders there ever was.

I am not sure if the headline reasoning is correct, but it seems funny that BTC is down almost 10% because it now turns out it is less useful for frauders than thought. El Salvador is a bad example, because they cant even support their own currency. They work with the USD standard, so they have nothing to lose by allowing bitcoin or whatever else. It remains to be seen what other countries do. Looking at the chart, if the ~31k Maginot line doesn't hold, I think BTC could easily fall to ~18k rather quick (which was consolidation zone on the way up). Regardless of the merit of BTC, i find the interplay of the crowds psychology and the prices quite fascinating. It's great asset to study, because there are no real fundamentals to speak of, just supply and demand based on mass psychology. Edit: other explanation for the bitcoin decline could be that the WSB meme crowd moved back from crypto into stocks. I think there is some interplay here between the two as I suspect quite a few players move between those asset classes towards whatever has momentum currently.

It should be noted. that El Salvador is one of the few countries, who doesn’t have it‘s own currency any more, they dollarized their economy 20 years ago. I don’t recall why, I think their own currency was so trashed, that it became unviable.

@cubsfan and @Castanza This is actually very valuable information. I never thought of SPLK software category having an extremely wide moat. That changes the thesis for the better, despite the somewhat ugly looking financials.

Thanks for the color. SPLK for me is particularly egregious because they have high dilution (5-6% annually) while not growing all that much. Other serial diluters are PLTR, WDAY, ESTC and I am sure there are many more. At least those have been growing at a recent clip, while SPLK has not. NOW is actually reasonably attractive here and I think I might enter a smallish position on a correction. They are superbly managed should be able to keep growing for quite some time.

Yes, I am slowly raising cash when fair value is approached and I am not finding much to buy. I have been adding a tiny bit of VRTX and MRK. I see it more reflective of the jack if opportunities than a big macro call.

10% interest rates are not a problem for the vast majority of the company if the inflation rate is 10% too. 10% interest rates with 5% inflation, now that is a problem. You need to go no further than Mexico to see what this looks like (also Mexico is not quite there, but was close enough a short time ago).

LOL, he makes his comeback at exactly the right time. He should probably hail in with Andrew Fastow and bring the band together again.

Sold some more ABEV and the remainder of my GD. (I am keeping my defense exposure in LHX, NOC and LMT) Sold off my few shares in OGN (MRK spinoff)

I am tracking this one too, as they are getting some traction on the cloud conversion, but how can you justify the out of control SBC? They had about $180M in SBC on ~$500M in revenues so that's ~36%. Those are not old grants either - their quarterly dilution was only ~1.1M shares, so I am guessing they must be handing out new grants a lower strike prices like confetti. No position.

Here is mother recent talk. Druckenmiller here gives actually a bit of trading advice: 1) He exits when he figures his thesis is wrong 2) He Never uses stop loss. Is anyone using Toggle AI and if so, what is the experience? Today, IB has a Webinar today about Toggle AI around lunch time, so if it is quiet at work, I might give it a listen.

It is that simple.

There is probably some truth in this. Now that crypto has crashed (somewhat) all the WSB stocks are rocking. Coincidence? A year ago, I would say yes it is coincidence, but now I think there is a herd of sheep that likes to set money on fire moving from one popular trade to the next.

Sold my ABEV in my tax deferred accounts today.

I have some property stocks and a bit of gold. I am thinking of upping gold and probably invest in a gold miner or two as well. The best inflation hedge may still be owning good business with pricing power. Biden’s talk Cleveland from 5/27 ( linked above in this thread) really got me thinking that this time in fact could be different, so I will be watching for broad inflation based on wages rather than those commodity price spikes.

Cash was fine, because you could generate interest rates parking cash. Now, however, the real interest rates are negative ( after accounting for inflation) so it is not likely to do well. Inflation to some extend is good for stocks, but if it goes above a certain point (3-5%), it becomes very damaging to equity multiples. https://youtu.be/HLuiKOllVDY?t=2100 Another thing I would like to point out to those claiming that higher interest rates are not possible, because we can’t afford them. Well, what we can’t afford is real interest rates in excess of inflation, but a 5% interest rate and having 5% inflation is not a problem for the nation. In fact, since it would massively devalue the existing longer duration treasury bonds issues at lower interest rates, it would be a positive from the debt perspective.