Spekulatius

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.

There is no deficit. Supply equals demand , it's just a matter of price.

Looking at Alleghany's performance, once sure hopes that these guys won't take over. I don't think that Markel has been that great either, especially with their venture / industrial side. I think Abel is the right choice. BRK is so big that it's harder to do acquisitions, so a great operator should like Abel is more important than a pure capital allocator. Abel just needs to continue to buy back BRK shares at opportune times and rip out some weed that has started to take hold in some corners of the Berkshire yard.

Inflation is how a sovereign is supposed to default on their debt.

Biological profits are non cash. You never see these profits. CAM.L was one of those sucker plays I participated with years ago to no avail. Growing tea and other products who know where. Unless they are paying you significant amount of cash, why bother?

I think inflation pressure will ease but the character of inflation will change from commodity/energy driven to wage driven. If we do get from 8% inflation driven by commodities/shortages to 6% inflation riven by wages, inflation will be very sticky and very hard to reverse. it's not a given, but it's a substantial risk.

Oxy is hard drug to withdraw from, once you get hooked on it. I think WEB will find out likewise, if he wants to exit this investment. I don't think he is going to swallow OXY, there is too much cyclicality in this and it likely won't be a great business in the long run.

I like the Zacks market edge podcast series and in particular the following episode: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/1942453/analysis-are-we-in-a-recession One fact the economics mentioned is that 2% rate hike alone never caused a recession by itself. Even a 2-4% rate hike only caused recessions about 35% of the time in the past. It sure I got all the details, but it was interesting to hear. The podcast isn’t exactly rocket science but brings in some interesting sectors and ideas sometimes.

My own one experience is that infatuation with buying at the bottom is likely not going to work and leads to subpar results. Stock market bottoms are only known after the fact and as much an result of mass psychology than of economical data. You see this again and again when the perms bears actually correctly predict a decline but then double up on their bearish beliefs and predict much more declines and then totally miss the turn when the market turns up again. Then it’s s dead cat bounce or bear market rally and in the end when it’s clear they missed the turn they blame it the money printing from the Fed or something else that bails everyone out. Its much better just to buy stocks that one can identify as cheap knowing full well they can get cheaper on the near term and just live with the fact that you get reasonable results without ever finding the bottom.

I do think a ban on refinery fuel exports would make a difference, if the government looks for a quick fix for the high prices at the gas pump, albeit it with long term consequences. The US is net exporter of refinery products even right now, with refinery capacity being tight. It has been this way since 2010. Looks like we are exporting ~2M brl net with about 18M brl/day in total capacitycapacity, so it’s substantial. I think it would have a substantial impact on the prices at the pump and quite a negative impact for refinery margins, which are sky high right now. I am surprised this has not been floated around, especially with the snarky responses from the industry to Bidens letter. More effective than the gas tax holiday for sure. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-refiners-urge-white-house-not-ban-fuel-exports-sources-2022-06-22/

I think a decline of 20-40% just on Buffett’s passing isn’t plausible. Do you really think a large part of the investor base will just sell? I don’t think so, there is no Buffett premium in the stock price currently, based in SOP or any other ratio. Interesting discussion and the vast divergence of views is always valuable to see. We won’t know until it actually happens.

What makes you think that Berkshire will drop much at all when WEB passes on the baton? I think BRK will drop less than 5% in this case. I would not be surprised, if the fall would be very small (<2%) and quickly reversed.

Kyle is never wrong but always a little early: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2021/10/17/dallas-hedge-fund-manager-kyle-basss-bet-against-the-hong-kong-dollar-fizzles/ https://www.udfonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tab-91-UDF-The-Oil-Glut-Is-Destroying-Kyle-Bass-Hedge-Fund-Hayman-Capital-_-Fortune.pdf

This particular plant (ISAR 2) is still running, so no issue with secondary radiation. I trust a technical report from the TÜV more then hearsay of a politician. I think a lot of preconceived notions in Europe are taking a bath when winter coming.

A few things regarding Europe. The current German government claimed that extending the life of the current nuclear power plants is very difficult , but the TÜV (which is the technical audit institution in Germany) came out with a report saying otherwise. At least some of the Nuclear power plants could easily continue to operate. This report puts a whole lot more pressure on the current government to agree to an extension Imo, especially now with Russia throttling NG supplies already. https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/atomenergie-weiterbetrieb-von-isar-2-laut-tuev-gutachten-moeglich-a-6b41169f-557d-4adc-a2e6-07df79a71a9c More LT and this isn’t widely known, but Germany has likely lots of shale gas. The geology with lots of coal seams suggests so. Now fracking is banned in Germany but who knows. If things get really dire, I think some preexisting notions will change. Wer see this already with the green Habeck agreeing to continue operate the coal plants. I think the chances that the nuclear plants in Germany will get an extension and probably others will get fired up again has tremendously increased.

Ooof: