Spekulatius

Re BWIN (used to be BRP) the concerns that Blue Orcs brings up are more or less mentioned in this thread on the first few pages. You can see from a mile away just looking at BWIN income statement and balance sheet that they a very aggressive rollup. Sith that come questions about rollup costs, adjustments to the income statement and the balance sheet (leverage). It looks like a hot potato stock to me.

Karpathy and Dwarkesh podcast about AI. I have not listend to the whole thing but he seems very skeptical on AI progress.

I think most observers think that Xi Jinping has eliminated competing factions and he is at core a socialist. I am not sure what info you have. It is possible though that Xi Jinping softens more toward a market economy as he has done already the last 12 month or so. I think it’s fine with him as long as thru don’t challenge the CCP. He may be socialist but he is also a pragmatist as well.

The problem with Argentina is that it’s not a large US trading partner and in fact competes with the US ( agricultural goods, energy). its is a much more natural trading partner with China who needs these goods. So Argentina can’t really ditch China (which is what the US wants) because it would be suicidal to their economy. Brazil so similar - because they are so close, their economies are intertwined so even if Lula and Milei don’t like each other, the countries will just have to get along.

Bought more BRO and a starter in AON before. The brokers are seeing less organic growth which essentially means we are entering a soft insurance market in some segments (P&C). This is a normal business cycle. FWIW, if brokers get the flu, the insurance CO’s will get pneumonia.

Well summer 1998 was when Asia imploded starting with Thailand as I recall and many tech stocks went down with it, so the 10/1998 start8nt point may actually be a bear market low point.

There are clearly bubbles in some segments (crypto, QQQ or the hotter segments like quantum computing , the OpenAI complex) while many other market segments are more then reasonably valued. Echo‘s of 1999, imo.

Added more BRO later for $88 and below.

Same. I agree MMc’s results weren’t that band. It is ironical that BRO is down more than MMC. I did buy a starter in AON as well.

What caused today’s decline for the banks? Lower interest rates? I read the news but I still don’t have a good idea. .

Got a fill for a starter in AON this morning for $340 and change . Also just a bit more $BRO for $90 and change . Must have been $MMC muted report that screwed the pouch.

Entry level jobs for welder etc at Electric Boat company in CT pay around $25/h. Perhaps they should consider paying more. People make more money in service industries with much easier jobs.

Interesting article in the WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-trade-war-trump-talks-25c50136?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Dutch Investors. Looks like a very interesting podcast show. I am going to check out this episode about Robertet first : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dutch-investors/id1780074969?i=1000698022294

EXO, Odet, AZE and a bit more cement for my portfolio (GCC)

Brazil has way more influence in South America than Argentina due to the size of their economy.

The weak USD is implicit to balancing the trade budget. There really is no way around a weaker USD to do so. The push to lower Interest rates amounts to the same thing.

Sold LSEG- that one actually did OK short term. I am just not sure about management here, as others have noted.

Actually a 100% premium in 10 years means 7% annually without NAV increasing. Now assume NAV increases by 8% annually (just to pick a reasonable number) than a 100% premium in 10 years gives you a great return.

Totally agree. He pulled off what no one else could by putting pressure on Netanyahu. No can the peace last. I think it depends a lot on what the local players are doing and if the Palestinians can extract themselves from Hamas.

Or try Korea town in NYC. Amazing food for bargain prices to be found there.

California without question has much more to offer than Florida.

Argentina is trading much more with China and Brazil than with the USA. Thats not going to stop because the US tariffs are going to throttle Argentinian exports to the USA. Also Argentinian farmer compete with US farmers etc. The swap line and aid is politically motivated as they want to help up a perceived ally but Mileui can’t really cut lose form China either as it would be suicidal for the Argentinian economy.

My first answer is constant with the first. It is not plausible that Obama ran intelligence after the left office and the document that you showed implying such is pure propaganda BS as if evidenced already by the over the top language. Truly a banana republic is what we have here.

The document is pure propaganda from Tulsi. The language reveals this document as unprofessional.