Spekulatius

More tariffs for furniture: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-to-impose-tariffs-on-pharma-imports-kitchen-cabinets-and-furniture-175804917.html Medical Equipment: https://www.medtechdive.com/news/trump-tariffs-medical-devices-equipment-ppe-section-232-investigation/761118/ We still have tariffs for pharmaceutical on docket https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/trump-announces-100-tariff-imports-branded-or-patented-pharmaceuticals-october-1-2025-09-25/ Semiconductors: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-impose-tariffs-semiconductor-imports-firms-not-moving-production-us-2025-09-05/ This all in addition to the country tariffs that are already in place. What a time to be alive!

There is no circulatory in this financing. it would circular if DE/CNH would invest directly in farms providing capital to farmers so they can buy their equipment. CAT does not producing farming machinery.

There are elections in October and Milei got a warning shot. They want to help Milei win this election, that’s why this aid package is done so quickly.

Yes, these circular relationships are nothing new. Lucent gave generous finance terms customers who probably could not afford the equipment otherwise.

I think the best play to buy what the current crowd thinks gets disrupted. Sectors like software, consulting, financial data.

Every generation gets to play a bubble. Mine was the telecom bubble from 1997-2000. I think this one is bigger in term off investment in this sector/ GDP and also our government is all in.

For context, I recall two times when Argentina went on a reagonomics like reform binge, fixed the deficit and the currency stabilized only only to fall apart due exogenous forces and internal political (voters got fed up with lack of progress, corruption . Those were in the mid 90‘s and early 2000. In the later case it was the GFC that did them in. Also to keep in mind, the former government has was whacked by the COVID-19 crisis which affected the Argentina economy substantially and triggered a spending binge that this country could not afford. Foreign money and investors are wary of Argentina and pull the rug quickly when they see trouble unlike with most other countries. Based on some economics comments I read, it seems to me that Milei is much took focused on keeping the Peso/USD exchange rate stable, which can quickly drain foreign reserves at the central bank. This is done fight inflation (a depreciating Peso will cause more inflation) but it also causes the issue that some Argentinian industries don’t remain competitive. One of the problem with Argentina is that the economy remains very resource and AG products dependent and never really build out a manufacturing base. This is the a result of the resource sector being so successful in the early 20th century (1900-1950) that they didn’t need manufacturing and just imported those goods. The problem is resource industries don’t employ a lot of people so the solution became to give them basically government service jobs instead.

$100B. $100Mm buys you an AI guy who knows how to write code. https://www.reuters.com/business/nvidia-invest-100-billion-openai-2025-09-22/ So $NVDA invests $100B in OpenAI, they buy $100B in chips from NVDA. Thats worth 10x revenues. The stake in OpenAI is worth another $500B next year. So $NVDA just created $1.4T in value. Thats how this works.

As usual Lutnick has no idea what he is talking about. Said it was an annual fee, now it’s a one time one. I also think lobbying will excempt some companies. Then we get a short commercial about the Trump Gold card in the Oval Office. Even some banana republics have more class.

Sold my starter in SES.MI. One of those dip buys that worked out.

Very well said. Laws are a product of their time and often need to be adapted. Where does the right to self defense against government tyranny stop? The military now has missiles, fighter planes, tanks, drones, satellites etc. Does the right of defense against tyranny include anti satellite missiles to defend against government spying on me, stinger missiles to defend against fighter planes, ATGM against tank and a large caliber machine gun on a truck to defend against amassing infantry ? Most people would say this makes no sense. For home defense a handgun and/or shotgun will do fine.

I am fairly sure that access to firearms is a factor in gun violence. If I don’t have a gun lying around, I can shoot anyone. A lot of gun violence is done on impulse (rage) and when gun isn’t available, those probably won’t happen. The second are underlying issues, which could be economic stress, mental issues etc. There is a perfect social experience going on in Israel. Since Oktober 6 2023, Israel has eased gun ownership significantly so citizens can protect themselves from terrorist attacks. Makes sense. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t easy to get a license to carry a gun in Israel beforehand, now its much easier, The result is a remarkable increase in domestic gun violence in Israel, since October 6: https://www.timesofisrael.com/domestic-violence-exacerbated-by-wartime-raising-concerns-over-looser-gun-policies/ I had a talk with a college from work who is from Israel who pointed this out to me.

They were sure to mention that they are a Nuclear power.

Seems like tailor made (pun) for LVMH to acquire.

A bit more PUIG, GRG and BAH

Insurance customers can’t demand all their money immediately.

Yes, I got this paper from a thread on X that mentioned Bouchaud. What is fascinating is this is is a macroeconomic paper while the initial topical was about meme stocks, but the multiplier (% price increase / percent inflows) is quite similar (5:1 and 5.7:1) for both. We know that meme apes are not investing based on valuations but what this implies is that the entire stock market works a bit like a meme market as whole (investing independently on valuation). Fascinating stuff. Theoretically, if the market would consist of only die hard value investors that look at valuations, then inflows would not change the prices/ valuations of stocks at all because value investors would just refuse to buy, just like Buffett keeps his stash in cash if he does not find anything to buy at the price he likes. However, as we know people do change their behavior at times some can guess that at some point, people may move funds out of stocks and the 5:1 multiplier works in reverse just as well. I guess thats the reason why valuation and stock prices can change so much, while index as a whole show low volatility most of the time. We see this more with individual socks as I guess people sell just one stock and buy another typically. Index funds put money to work mechanical and just basically follow the momentum.

Her is another economic paper about how flows impact equity prices. They found similar results than above: $1 in markt flows will cause a $5 rise in equity prices. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28967/w28967.pdf One should note that this model assumes that investor allocate more or less independent of valuations, which I think is fairly correct.

I am very much familiar with the H1B visa process myself, as I emigrated to the USA in the late Nineties through H1B myself. The company has to provide extensive documentation about salary comps, the labor market. It’s quite a process. Companies can game this somewhat but not to the extend that many think. Some of the post you see on social media indicate clearly that people have no idea what they are talking about. I think the most important mistake however is the zero sum game thinking that is so common with MAGA.

I think the numbers that @Marco Van Basten cited are incorrect. https://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/Sponsor/Top500_h1b_visa_sponsor_2005.pdf I get $75k mean and $80K average for JPM H1B salaries in 2005.

I don’t think what you are posting from memory is correct:

When you look at the lowest salary in this list, it all tend to be Indian outsourcing houses (Cognizant, Tata Consulting, Wipro, Infosys). ACN for example pays $195K but those pay around $100k. If you want to find abuse, that’s probably where it is. The rest seems to pay pretty food salaries in my opinion. The H1B brings in qualified and very desirable foreign educated human capital in the US. it a tremendous bargain for the US as a whole.

Actually this is not what critical race theory is. Critical race theory means that racial bias is a critical factor how our society and institutions operate and determines many outcomes. The theory was also taught at my sons high school at which point I was acquainted by it. While I don’t agree with some of the material presented, it was also taught as a theory and not as an absolute truth. Teaching a theory and fully endorsing it are different things. I was taught Marxism and Leninism theory too at school but that does not mean the teacher were communists. I don’t really have an issue with teaching critical race theory either because I think at some point it was how society operated it just much much less the case nowadays at all, if you look at many objective facts. I think parents get upset about what some schools teaches but they should only be when it is taught in a wrong way as absolute truth. Reading about Karl Marx and learning about communism does not make your kids a communist either.

This is correct, DEI affected Asian people as well but it seems that the MAGA movement/resentment is much more so driven by whites than the Asians. Asians understand the impact of DEI on college applications all too well. I told my son not to put in Asian as a race (he is of mixed race) for that very reason.

Yes, the bloated education costs are an issue. However keep in mind that most H1B from India come from the equivalent of the top 10 institutions in their country. They would most likely get a free ride at many colleges in the US as their kids do when they get here. In a way one aspect of MAGA is that’s it’s just DEI but for white people Overall, I agree, the education sector in the USA is vastly inefficient starting from high schools to colleges. Same with the health care sector and I argue construction as well. Shelter, health care and education are huge expenses for middle class households and are very bloated. its the reason why the mean person in Europe has an equivalent life standard than the mean person in the USA despite much lower nominal income.