Spekulatius

Read Putins speech and tell me where he learned anything. He is as boxed in his ideological box just as much as he was at the beginning of the war. Let's assume the west think we need to negotiate and decide we give him the Donbas, Crimean Luhansk area and his $350B back, bcause of nuclear threats. Happy days for everyone - Oh wait! Of course he still has his nuclear weapons. So he is going to ask for me - he would be stupid if he didn't. So now you have a Putin who is richer, has more land and has been vindicated. Why would he not ask for more fondling with his nuclear trigger. The only reason to negotiate is if you can eliminate the threat posed and we can't. So giving in to Putin in a negotiation is going to make things worse. The only way to counter the nuclear threat if Putin threatens with nuclear weapon use is to give Ukraine Nukes if they decide they take them. Then Putin can decide to nuke it out or go home.

We haven't even started this whole nearshoring yet - Inflation would be ridiculous if we did. Without immigration, nearshoring isn't going to happen anyways. Who is going to be running the manufacturing plants and fabs? I don't think they will get engineers to do these job unless we let them immigrate from Europe, Russia or Asia. Skilled labor with tech background is another issue, it just doesn't exist in the US to the extend needed. Maybe Mexico can help a little here or there.

I think the Chinese economy is in for a long period of lower growth and in particular less consumption of energy and raw materials (like iron ore, copper aluminum, cement etc) as they retool their economy from real estate/ Capex driven to more consumer driven. There are only so many houses they are going to need with a shrinking population. I do agree that NG is the fulcrum energy commodity, not oil.

Energy bulls and bears this year: I am tempted to dumpster dive into some SU if this continues. Problem is that superspikes in energy like we had this year are followed by a recession EVERY SINGLE TIME. We also know what recessions do to oil and energy prices.

PM is better run, but it's a matter of price. I bought in the low thirties, sold north of $46 (almost top ticked it) and now feel I should get in. It's a dividend stock and I don't try to overthink it. If PM goes sub sub 90's, I am in too. I continue to hold SWMA (havn't sold a share) but unsure what happens next.

Life comes at you fast - had a fill for some FRFHF at $451. Also got some fills for $BTI at a bit more than $37.

@Dinar thank you for the well written thesis summary. I think I have seen this written up before in one of the hedge fund letter, maybe Keith Smith / Bonhoeffer @Packer16 ?

Do you feel it's attractive? Their debt is surging. It's a great business as long as housing/construction hums along nicely, but not so much if it slows down. I don't know how much is priced in and it sure looks cheap. One of the many above average cyclical business that looks fairly cheap based on normalized earnings ( if this is knowable).

Think about logically - he is trying the "Volksturm surge" now. Risk of nuclear escalation is very very low for the time being. Negotiating with Putin is as pointless as negotiating with Hitler back then. The people who should be most interested in regime change are the Russians. Only Putin can end this or the Russians can end Putin.

Bought a bit of TSM pre market today. Have a buy order for FFH around $450

regarding Dropbox - you can get a subscription for MS365/ office and the free OneDrive storage cheaper than a Dropbox storage subscription, if you look around. Now MS OneDrive may not be quite a feature rich than Dropbox storage but still. it does show the power of bundles and MS integrated business model (they own their cloud business which probably lowers cost to provide storage to near zero).

Rhasida Tlaib does deserve a refund for her college education but wikipedia says she went to private law school.

Pretty much everything that Putin says in his speech about the mobilization is BS. It also seems that his claim that he is mobilizing reserves and those with military expire he only, There are countless videos of transcripts getting drafted that look like they are 18 years old. it‘s not just the 32 year old IT guy. Putin probably intend to draft more than 300k soldiers or expects huge losses (through desertion or people being unfit or maybe on the frontline). This is going to be the Russian meatgrinder all over again and I expect huge losses. I don’t think these recruits will get winter uniforms either. The West really needs to support Ukraine with material for winter and offensive weapons that allows them to conduct offensive operations. I think a lot of the units formed from these Volksturm soldiers wills shatter on first contact. It‘s going to be a target rich environment, to use investment lingo. Also to keep in mind that revolutions in Russia were started with Soldiers getting unruly due to a senseless war and bad leadership. Minorities from Siberia are bearing the brunt of this. If they wake up (maybe unlikely but not impossible) then the Russian federation could fall apart. Even Belarus looks shaky as an ally because the opposition is emboldened and people seem unhappy with Lukaschenko and being allied with Putin. There is a reason they mobilized the army and it’s not to attack Ukraine (Belarus army is tiny). As for material, Russia is not pulling T62 tanks out of storage. Apparently they are running out of T72/80, not that those proved to be all that great, T62 is a 1960‘s tank, so those machines are 60 years old. If that’s not scrapping the bottomed the barrel , i don’t know what is.

If these reports are true, they are drafting regardless of military experience in Russia. There are quite a few more of these stories around, so I think this is not an isolated case. They are pulling in bodies from wherever they can.

I think with PCP, IBM and particularly Dexter Shoe, Buffett misjudged the business quality. I don't think he obviously overpaid but he didn't own what he thought he bought. it even happens to people as good as Buffett. XOM was bought as a cash substitute and I think pretty much everything that Buffett bought as a cash substitute didn't work out well. VZ is another one in this bucket. Lubrizol seems like an OK business, when he bought it, but it didn't work out well under Berkshires ownership? Maybe management issues? This one was pitched by Sokol to him before he was fired for "insider trading". I don't think it was a total disaster, but it definitely didn't work out all that well.

I have been tracking this for almost a decade since someone wrote it up, more for curiosity than being interested in investing. It's not really a business in a strict sense, because generating a profit isn't the primary purpose of a central bank. I would regard this as a preferred stock with certain rights to get distributions on their income. Well, that income is now gone for a couple of years as you stated. I think it's odd that the Belgium government let's this one float and now would be a good time to just buy out this oddball.

This is very bullish for GOOGL , MSFT and the likes. There is a lot of froth in salary and staff in these companies and when these excess costs are taken out, even smaller increases in topline will lead to higher margins and turbocharge earnings.

BNB is the closest to a central bank going broke you are going so see. BNB is a publicity traded "central bank". Another one is the swiss central bank - both are organized as stock companies. BNB has been a decent dividend payer, until now: https://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/enterprise/press/2022/marketrelease_nbb_21092022.pdf Looks like huge Market to market losses on their Fixed income portfolio are the main culprit.

I enjoyed this Freakonomics podcast with Roland Fryer: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/roland-fryer-refuses-to-lie-to-black-america/

So we list only the success ? No PCP, Dexter Shoe, IBM, Lubrizol as well as the O&G adventures XOM and COP?

Orwell coined the term doublethink for it. In George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984, doublethink is the act of holding, simultaneously, two opposite, individually exclusive ideas or opinions and believing in both simultaneously and absolutely. Doublethink requires using logic against logic or suspending disbelief in the contradiction.

It’s just a buy and put away stock. I expect about 10% annual return from it.

I read some transcripts of what Putin has been saying regarding nukes and he makes it appear like NATO threatens Russia with Nukes. Also, Putin always does some saber rattling on UN meetings and of course he needed something to go along with his partial mobilization. So, I think this is just for show and not really anything new. I agree with @shhughes1116 that Ukraine may do something on the offensive before late fall and winter when offensive operations become more difficult. Cutting that Landbridge to Crimea would very nice. I also think that it’s getting more and more likely that Germany is going to give some tanks or Marder vehicles to Ukraine since Scholz is running out of excuses. Would be cool to see German tanks with Ukraine flags rolling.

Todays mood:

Bought a starter of $KKR and $MKL and a bit $V. Small adds all over the place $USB, $CRM, $PCYO, $IAA.