Spekulatius

Actually, on the CNBC interview I watched, they were rightfully discussing the blood bath in the context of the car industry. I guess the headline creators do the clickbait thing with this, but once you actually read the article, it becomes clear what it’s about. This is the thing with many media articles, the headlines are designed as clickbait and often don’t represent what is actually the content.

Not a mental model, but more of a checklist is what I use: I think what’s missing is sizing though. 1) Is this a good business? 2) Do I understand the business? 3) Is the stock cheap? 4) Is management capable and honest? 5) Is the stock safe (balance sheet, business resilience) 6) Are there more head winds or tail winds going forward? (Elevator going up or down?)

For prepaid services you just look at FCF instead of earnings and you are basically done. As far as insurance float is concerned, it’s accounted for in the ROE imo. However, you need to look at float separately, if the newer if s power of the float will change dramatically as a result for a change in interests rates or if management decided to invest the float differently. The change in interest rates has been a huge tailwind for is insurance companies because they get far higher returns on fixed income, but also have MTM on their existing fixed income positions in many cases.

I reduced $C a bit more on this premarket $GS bump earlier this week.

The climate related investment I like the best is HVAC. Many tailwinds here with respect to regulation (requires more environmentally refrigerants, better efficient, switch to heat pumps) as well as the increasing temperature s especially in heat island cities requiring more HVAC use. It’s a story that seems to have legs for decades to come. That said, most stocks are not cheap, but I did buy some JCI recently at a decent valuation and look at others as well.

Startups fail in the US as well without much fuss. It’s the legacy companies with a vast economic infrastructure around them that tends to get help.

Mostly noble gases like Argon, Helium etc, then likely Nitrogen, some Hydrogen and gases used for reactive processes and doping (fluorides, boron and phosphor chemicals etc). I suppose. Every vacuum deposition and etch process needs technical gases.

I don’t think the LLM itself have much value and any edge seems to be fleeting and probably only lasts a few month. It seems difficult to build a moat around an LLM alone. The moat if any will de slop around specific use cases, based on training on proprietary data and perhaps in developing an ecosystem that makes an LLM easier to use.

I think they should pretty much eliminate the corporate level debt and just keep the secured debt to finance their cars fleet. Putting debt at both levels seems crazy to me.

CAR (Avis) was discussed in the Tidbits thread and is the most aggressive cannibal I am aware of. They also levered up to do it, so results still TBD (Mr Market does not seem to be enthused right now)

If someone is interested in a very well run smaller bank - FMCB may fit the bill. They are Farmers and Merchants Banks in Lodi and specialize in agricultural loans. ROA and ROE are very healthy. Even during the GFC, they did not have much issues with credit quality and they are always running well capitalized. The stock used to be quite expensive relative to other banks, but it’s not relatively cheap and they also started to buy back shares, which to my attention. Trades on OTC and is insider controlled. https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/FMCB/news I bought shares around current prices and added a few today.

Another one with a sweet tooth here - bought a starter in $HSY as well

Yes, it happens more with Fidelity than with Interactive Brokers but I had this happening with both., typically only with odd lots. On OTC markets I have had trades going though outside the bid/ask range for full lots as well.

I have had this happen (trading outside the trading range) quite a few times but it’s almost always with odd lot trade executions in very thinly traded securities.

The problem for a restaurant , especially fast food is that the simplicity goes out the window. These restaurant live of simplicity and if you do not know what the meal you order costs any more and it becomes like booking airline tickets, you may just consider simpler alternatives. I think McDonlds already solves this with their app - they made the regular prices high and to really get the discount you have to have the app.

Sold some CUERVO.MX which I bought for a trade a while ago.

My guess is as good as anyone’s, but I think the margins might end up higher than pre COVID-19. The situation with the vehicle shortage during COVID-19 is unprecedented and the fat dealer margins during that time will mostly reverse to more normal levels.

Adding a little $G here in some accounts.

SEB is not a great business, but they took at ~17% of outstanding shares buying back stock from a major shareholder group at a ~15% discount. Quite impressive. Shares when from ~1.16M to 0.97M in one scoop. Trading far below book value now.

Pretty good 5 min summary from Michael Clark of the current situation:

BlackBerry movie on Hulu: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21867434/ Well done Movie, imo.

There is not one, there are probably hundred that lose all on option trades. ST option trades are zero sum games. This fellow seems to have some serious skill if you believe his posts.

Animal spirits are still alive: $20M starting from $2M…

Nuclear power is much more expensive than NG power plants right now. I can’t imaging anything beating power generation at <$3 MCFE right now, not even coal. I agree Ng is oversupplied in the US - all the more reason to export NGL right now not ban/ stall export licenses.

I did not like Dumb money. I felt that the actor portraying Roaring Kitty was bland and felt the story was poorly told. On True detective /Night Country, I personally liked the show, but I agree there was some weakness in storytelling especially Ep 3&4. I did feel they tied it up decently at the end. Acting was great.