Spekulatius

V and MA are an entirely different business model, so it's not comparable to DFS. I think DFS has a better business model than COF with their branches, auto lending and commercial lending. I think they do a pretty good job in credit cards but not so much in the other two business which consume considerable resources. That said, I don't like DFS student loan business which they acquired in 2010. it's a diversion from DFS core credit card business and I hope they get rid of it: https://www.pymnts.com/acquisitions/2023/report-discover-financial-services-weighs-sale-of-student-loan-business/

Yes, lousy guidance. Growth went from 22% to forecasted 10-12%. That growth is not enough to sustain the valuation. Had a small position in this because I liked the company, but the valuation was high. No margin of safety in that one. Sold it when I skimmed the press release yesterday AH. That said, I will evaluate in a month after the wash sale period is over.

I have done one small add in CNHI at $11.5 but not buying more although the price seems tempting. I am going to check the Q3 report first.

We have had this discussion before but QE is not "money printing". It's just an asset exchange of a longer duration treasury for reserves (or essentially a shorter duration asset). It seems to have accomplished very little other than damage the banking system. Only deficits are money printing and we do plenty of this. Deficits are inflationary. The treasury drives the bus much more so than the Fed.

I use insurance liabilites / Premiums as a quick measure. I get $57B (2022 insurance liabilites) /22.6B (2022 net premiums) = 2.6 years roughly. It's probably not totally correct but in the correct ballpark.

The Palestine conflict stole the eyeballs. FWIW, there are probably more Russians dying each day than Palestinians right now.

Sold $PAYC yesterday AH after earnings were announced. Huge downwards guidance. Painful. Was a small position since I liked the company, but valuation was a stretch and needed growth to continue at good clip and it didn't.

Sarepta Risk and the FDA (Drugs that don’t work but get approved anyways due to pressure from orchestrated patient advocacy groups) https://open.substack.com/pub/johnhempton/p/sarepta-risk-and-the-fda?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

SFX is fraud regardless if they bet 10% or 100%. Betting it all on black is sort of logical because they would have been Ok if it had worked out regardless of fraud, the way SillyCon valley works.

The black see is a side theater. Russia tries to choke off Ukraine from sea access, so it is important in a sense that they don't succeed. On the counteroffensive, it seems like Ukraine does very little lately and Russia is burning tremendous amount of material and manpower to take the Avdiivka salient. The videos that come from there are really something to check out (most NSFW). I think at some point things on the Ukrainian attack are going to pick up again, but right now, it seems relatively quiet.

He is jealous of Israel's special operation and the fact that they are actually hitting their targets.

What is the right bet size if you bet with other peoples money per Kelly formula? I think it's 100%.

Looks like he gave it exactly 10 years and then calls it quits.

Don't do drugs and trade.

You can also not go anywhere and freeze to death at the South Pole (=japan). But yes, i absolutely agree it was a smart decision from FFH management to keep duration low. The opposite example of this is BAC for example, which also shows in their stock performance. On the other hand - the thread is about 10 year performance and we are about 2 years in right now. We can say that FFH got of a great start but BAM not so much.

I think the direction of interest rates determined the outcome here. Rising and now higher for longer interest rates are detrimental to the private equity model, especially the Brookfield variant where they hold large stakes in subsidies. The high leverage packed on assets works both ways great when prices move up and interest rates go lower, but mot so much when things go the other way.

There are some nice flats with community spaces in Europe., sort of like some college dorms here with common areas. If you don’t have kids, are single, or older and your kids are out of the house l then I don’t see why these are not an option. Ideally, you got the advantage of urbanity (walkable city) and some community ( you can support each other). many are quite upscale too. Inevitable we will run out of space for single family homes. Happened in Europe a long time ago and will happen in NA as well. So other solutions need to be found and one is going vertical. It does not need to look like the pic that @Castanza showed.

his bullish on O&G not petrochemicals. Petrochemical is a spread business - they make a margin buying O&G and producing petrochemical products from them. High O&G prices are not necessarily good for them.

I think the "problem" with the better than expected GDP growth that it caused the much better than expected earnings growth last quarter. The market is forward looking and the 4.9% of course is unsustainable. That is probably why the current earning season is tough - the market expected a continuation of the recent trends and now the economy is slowing down and earnings go in reverse. Someone smarter than me all figured this out before it happened probably.

This is pretty rich. I think AJG mentioned in their IR decks a while ago that they pay 10-11x EBITDA but that is for much smaller acquisitions. I guess valuations keep creeping up.

If you think you have a bad day, watch this:

4.9% annualized GDP growth...I guess most of it is caused by Federal spending which means more borrowing which is the reason why LT interest rates are up. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gdp-us-economy-grows-at-fastest-pace-in-nearly-two-years-123246049.html We are probably growing faster than China at this point.

I looked at $CFG, which is a local bank to me and did not like their reports all that much. I agree its cheap though, but it does not look all that well run.

I also bought back a chunk of GOOGL (which I had just sold at close to the top) in my tax deferred accounts. Also added some financials (PYPL, DFS, BAC) and a tiny add to CRL.