Spekulatius

The large HK real estate developers are getting slammed too by recent signaling from Xi apparently. The red chips CK asset and Sun Hung Kai are down ~10% today. The Chinese government is not afraid to break glass and let the investors walk over the shards. Xi is obviously not afraid about contagion in real estate, otherwise the newsflow would be less contentious. You kind of wonder which sector is next.

Yeah, that’s my take as well after watching a handful episodes from Season 2. The script really declined in quality. I will spare me the rest, hoping for a better season 3.

Here is what I can access from my (Boston ) public library online: Valueline Morningstar Mergent Online S&P Netadvantage NYT online WSJ online Boston Globe online Its all free, just a bit less convenient to go through the library online portal, but that is all.

That’s a strange account that came to my attention too. I am not sure what to make of this. My sense is that the CCP will try a controlled burn, Evergrande equity holders will be zeroed, some apartment holders will be left holding the bag, some bond holders will take losses etc. I think they like the idea to reduce rampant speculation and this gives them a cover to do so. I think the CCP controls enough about the banks, economy etc to prevent systemic risk. Panics were very common before there were central banks. The CCP is almost omnipotent in China and has way more influence than the Fed and the government has in the US. I think they can easily avoid systemic risk.

Well most first time homebuyers are not single earners in the US either. I think eventually the Chinese will have to deflate their property bubble- maybe Evergrwnde is actually a convenient start here. Then they will also have to give massive subsidies to those families that have several kids. Those demographic trends are hard to reverse. There is just the biological lag of one generation, there is also behavioral lag that probably takes many years as well. The US and other countries get help from immigration, but China is just too large for this in terms of population, plus not many would want to move there anyways.

@irnovo I agree GRFS looks interesting after spending about 10 min of exhaustive research on the stock. I have never heard about this one before. Thanks for posting.

$NPCE -(med tech). Brain implants to treat drug resistant epilepsy. May suffer from COVID impacting elective procedures near term. I roundtripped this one with some success, trying again. $LMT - just a small add. I really like it below $350.

Speaking about Terminator, I totally forgot about robots. Anyways, $LMT covers this as well.

Whatever comes out of it, I don’t think it is going to be a mega trend sort of business. Maybe Cannabis will be. I could see Cannabis competing with Alcohol as the go to social drug of choice in a few decades.

Thanks for posting. This makes a lot of sense to me and gives us an idea about the timelines. Elections seem to matter, even in China.

The name Andrew Wilkinson rung a bell with me. I have heard about him in the Acquirers Podcast: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj7rITzzITzAhVDGFkFHcqvDyoQFnoECAcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcasts.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fberkshire-com-how-tinys-andrew-wilkinson-is-building%2Fid1454112457%3Fi%3D1000472037920&usg=AOvVaw1IYBNk2zvBiC_L_2IbD8Tc

I don’t know if I am die hard, but there is an episode or setup for every conceivable situation in life in one of the South Park episodes. Same with “The Office” show. So much wisdom just can’t be ignored.

Of course all the above will be used to build weapons. So you can future proof your portfolio buying $LMT. I actually added some today.

Tech trends I can see: 1) World wide dropship service. I believe it was Alibaba that announced a world wide (with caveats) drop ship service for chinese commercial customers (don't have the link handy). This could revolutionize commerce over time. 2) AI - we only scratched the surface so far and there is no telling how far this will go. Will probably a trajectory for new software. 3) Quantum computing - a must because the feature size is now only a few nm for semi's at the leading edge and once the dimensions are only a couple of atoms, quantum effects are inevitable and drive the behavior of the device. Since we will need to keep Moors law going somehow, quantum computing will become inevitable although it may not be with the current architectures. 4) Additive manufacturing. This was a boom and bust (in the stock market) a few years ago, but the tech is here to stay and get's constantly improved - cheaper, more precise, more materials and easier to use. it's a slow motion revolution that is going to migrate and change a lot of lower volume manufacturing over time. 5) Synthetic biology - same than 4). probably will boom and bust in the stock market, but the tech is here to stay. Will be used to produce a lot of complex organic substances. 6) Energy - carbon capture, Nuclear power 3.0 (mini reactors), Fusion. Will take time. Political issues. 7) Metaverse / augmented reality / virtual reality - many commercial ,and entertainment application. 8 ) Slow or even Defeat aging. A really hard problem but will be a huge market at some point. 9) Artificial body parts - maybe related to 8). Our current tech is crude (Artificial heart and don't work well). At some point we are going to grow artificial biological organs I think. Maybe we become Cyborgs over time? 10) Artificial Food. Current version are crude (Beyond meat) but at some point, we will have artificial meats etc that are comparable to a steak for example, maybe related to synthetic biology. 11) Space economy - the cheaper launch costs will enable new business that use the space as a new dimension. 12) Communication - 6+ G. if we have always on high speed communication for virtually any device that could be a gamechanger. I have no idea what we will do with this, but i think we will find out in a decade or so. 13) Blockchain - will have a use case for transactions. Currency is just one use case, but I think the main application will be to facilitate commerce without having to trust any single institution. 14 ) Superhumans. Probably controversial, but i think it will be inevitable that we will create superhumans over time using gene tech. Smarter, stronger, healthier. if a nation decides they don't want to do it for ethical reason, evaluation will take care of them. Inevitable. I am certain China will do it. Ethics will have to adapt. 15) Autonomous driving - it will come, but take longer than people think. it's probably still a decade out. It is not just a software problem, but also a hardware problem - we need cheap sensors covering many different ways to get info about what's going on around the vehicle - LIDAR, radar, IR cameras etc and they all need to be reasonably cheap and reasonably small. Not a simple problem. FWIW, I think Tesla will hit a wall because they solely rely on camera's (so far). That is likely not enough. On another note, I don't really think one needs to be first with these trends to be successful. Most of the trends above will evolve over decades (like e-commerce did) and many first movers will fail or wither and there will be setbacks. Some of these don't have network effects the same way that software or ecommerce does, so many winners are possible.

"Joby Aviation, which plans to begin an electric air taxi service in 2024, is worth more than Lufthansa, EasyJet or JetBlue. Does that seem right? In this market, why not?

Not sure where this post should go. This is a WFH study conducted by Microsoft Results are not positive, Imo: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01196-4

I spent quite a bit of time around Shanghai and Suzhou a couple of years ago and while I didn't see ghost cities, you could see many completed towers that were only 5-10% occupied (my estimate when looking at them at night when lights were supposedly on). I asked chinese colleagues about this and while i can't quite make sense of this one answer was: People buy these for their kids etc and they don't rent them out, because they lose value, when rented out. these apartments are sometimes still raw (completely unfurnished, concrete walls and without fixtures). Sometimes they are bought for investment purposes, sometimes for their kids. So what can happen is that there is shortage of housing and families live crammed with grandpa and grandma and kids in 60 sqm apartments, while there are plenty of empty apartments around that won't get rented out by the owners. It makes no sense to me, but that is how it seemed to be. By the way, those towers were build to a large extend by HK developers (Hutchison etc.) and I think those guys don't build unless they sell. But again, this is just one GwaiLo's n=handful observation sample size from a couple of years ago.

SMG (Scott's Miracle grow) looks interesting, but why is it down so much? Looks sort of like $SAM. Solid grower (pun) with a decent brand name. it doesn't look to expensive to me either. For a while, it traded as a stealth play on weed (another pun). I need to do more work, but like what i see so far. Thanks for posting.

VTRS is another one I believe.

We are getting pretty good value for our money here. I think I paid $20 way back then and that's probably one of the best deals out there. I have come to love the changes in the website, so much easier to put in gif's now. My recommendation is to put a tip jar link on your site somewhere. I am sure some member will drop some change there.

My recent add are LMT: (Cheapest defense prime) CNC: health insurer rollup (cheap) TTWO and ATVI - gaming company stocks that have come back to earth. Starters in HENKY (consumer goods, adhesives) and VTRS (generics)

Those expanded benefits have ceased this month and in many states a while ago. I don’t think the states that reduced the benefits earlier have seen much relief in the labor markets. I with the company I work for, I have seen some employees asking for reduced hours and some retirements. I think the well performing stock market has a lot to do with the matter. I don’t really work at what would be considered tech company - with the stock option packages atex I think many families have decided that they can well do with one income rather than 2. The company I work for is trying to get some retired people back to work, but so far none have come back. I think the childcare issue has lead to some people dropping work out of necessity but now are not coming back, because they don’t have to. My wife is nurse and she is seeing some college uses living after the COVID-19 surge is over, Reason is burnout and some older workers just have enough. The remaining staff has to work more hours than ever because they can’t get new staff hired. I don’t think it’s just the money or UI. COVID-19 has stressed out many workers and some are calling it quits because they can afford to do so.

There is more intervention in the EU than there is in the US. Various shades of grey in Asian countries, some of which also have an authoritarian bend. Indonesia and Thailand come to my mind. South America is generally volatile and the government strongly impacts business conditions. Just looking at Brazil - Headlines there makes one skirm ( and equity investors too): Brazil's Bolsonaro: Only God will remove me from power https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-584790 Equity risk abound in these countries. Make sure you get paid well when venturing there.

Some people also would point out FNM and FRE. I think those deserve their destiny, but who am I to judge? Sometimes, it‘s thumbs up and sometimes…

^ Yes, the checking account balance is ~$230B. That's only enough for a few weeks if the debt limit issue isn't addressed. Drama to be expected.