Spekulatius

Putin, Prighozin, Sechin, Kadyrov, Peskov, Maria Zakharova. If you ever need to find some villains ideas for another James Bond movie, you have got it all there. https://nypost.com/2022/08/13/putins-evil-inner-circle-nikolai-patrushev-to-ramzan-kadyrov/

Dave Filoni is the guy who produced the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon series? I did feel that Ahsoka had a similar feel to something else, but could not put my finger around it. The SW Cartoon series was well re dive though I never watched it.

Mr Pringles demise reminds of me of this quote: “We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

WSJ article of a pretty comprehensive overview or the economic situation in China: https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-economy-debt-slowdown-recession-622a3be4?page=1 Another small nail in the coffin - the company I work for has announced this week that a manufacturing site in China is going to be shuttered and the operations are moved to other SE Asian country sites. One more site left to go… Peak China:

I guess you guys are right. I didn’t even realize that the premiere has two episodes. I watched the second part and the show comes to its own. Another show that comes to its own slowly is Foundation S2. I think they took a long time (the entire S1 basically) to build up an ark that now makes this show and universe interesting.

Backed by Softbank Got to admire the DD that went into this investment.

I watched two of his videos. I was very skeptical first and thought he was just a trader using tailwind from people who follow him, but he does seem to have a sound process and risk management. he has a consulting background and uses the approach he learned for his stock picks. He Seem worth to keep and eye on. As I understand it you can just shadow his trades with an etoro account. He does seem to deal with reasonable liquid stocks so shadow trading should mimics his performance reasonably well. @competitive-advantage thanks for sharing.

the world economy is not a zero sum game and i don't think the G7's are afraid of the BRICS. I am leery of financials, especially in the top down economy like China. The large Chinese banks are all state controlled for example. I believe the place to look is at stuff like industrials and perhaps service cos that operate in sectors that are under the radar of both the Chinese regulators as well as Western governments. Stuff like car dealers, industrials, service business and similar business. I was looking at consumer good companies by they seem very expensive in most cases, but there are probably bargains to be found as well. perhaps something that benefits from a secular shift from a capital investment to a consumer oriented economy would be great.

@UK Investors are supposed to act like aimless flies and not like a beehive where a queen controls everything. I guess Li Bei does not believe in Adam Smith. On another note, do people here look at other stocks than Big tech (Tencent, Alibaba, Bilibili)? The only other stock discussed seems to be Postal Bank. I have a hard time believing that these super large tech and/or regulated business are the most attractive opportunities in the Chinese stock market, if you think the Chinese stock market represents a secular opportunity? Anything else out there that is smaller and under the radar , pays massive dividends and is cheap and underfollowed? Those would be more interesting for me.

Some good TV shows: Platonic - funny goofball comedy with Seth Rogen. Great cast and script - Apple TV Mrs Davis - Sci Fi, wild goosechase absurdist comedy. Great characters and storyline if you like this type of stuff (Peacock) Watched the first episode of Ahsoka and I am not sure about that one. Storyline seems rehashed from other SW shows and build around all female characters that don't shine (yet). - Disney +

It’s a hypothesis at this point that the plane was shot down, but the video shown shows a vapor trail concstent with a missile. Also it appears like the plain had lost one wing which is a pretty rare occurance. So, I think the hypothesis has decent support. We probably will never know for sure until much later after Putin is gone. I think it is in Putins interest that this remains shrouded in mystery.

It was predicted here on this board. However, even things that can be predicated can be scary.

Well, WSJ and DW has it too. Private plan crash that was very conveniently documented with a camera. Could not have happened to a nicer guy. Looks like an accident, but so fake that everyone knows it’s not.

Why do think birth rates will accelerate? Making this happen is not small feat and the youth unemployment suggests it will get worse near term. Anyways, here is a good podcast on that matter: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-21/the-deep-problems-underlying-china-s-economy?srnd=oddlots#xj4y7vzkg The follow mentions 4 d's that impact the Chinese economy - demand, debt, demographics and decoupling. Another interesting quote - The Chinese party thinks they are in charge of capital allocation for the Chinese economy. So, no stimy checks, we build more infrastructure because they serve as monuments for the CCP as well.

Literally true for western politicians too @Luca what is your exposure to Chinese stocks? Also how do you risk manage it - or in other words what would you change your mind and made you sell?

On SMP - I think the auto part retailers like AZO, ORLY, AAP hold the power in the supplier buyer relationsship, if you think in terms of Porter 5 forces. You can see that over time SMP gross margin has been slowly slipping over the years which is sort of the income statement proof of above. Also SMP is seemingly used as an inventory buffer, which means they have lots of inventory on their hand lowering their ROIC. Insider sells for SMP look pretty depressing too. Anyone interested in this idea should look at DORM, which I think is the better business, but also has similar problems and is higher valued on most metrics. Not wanting to dunk on the thesis, but those were my thoughts after exiting SMP late last year, but maybe I was just a bit early. They may or may not be useful for others looking at the stock.

I owned this too for a bit (thesis being a that car repair should do well) but was very underwhelmed but their execution. They also have persistent asbestos related charges that keep popping up in “discontinued operation” losses. I think it’s a no moat and fairly mediocre business.

Maybe not as good but in an diversified portfolio, Shannon's demon should help. it did not work in 2021, because bonds were totally overvalued, but we have a different situation now. Bonds are the best relative value to stocks since more than 20 years ago.

Same here. Our son never slept in our bed, except for naps during daytime. We had a crip at the foot of our bed from the beginning. Then we moved the crip to his own bedroom when he was about 3 month old and started the sleep training. We found that rituals work. Do what works and then repeat it over and over. For our son, wrapping him really tight in a blanket (like a burrito) such that he could barely move, worked well with him for a while. You will know when they don't like it any more. Every kid is different. What works for one may not work for the other.

2%+ real bond yields (after inflation) with TIPS, who would have thought? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-stock-market-has-a-real-problem-morning-brief-100027846.html

The method for sleep training is well established. Once you put them in the crib , they stay in the crib. Exception is when the diapers are wet (smell test). You check on them in Intervalls and if they cry for a long time. However, they stay in the crib, except the rare diaper change. This works, but the first couple of nights can be rough. After a few nights, the sleeping habits should improve. We started when our son was 4 month old .

I don’t necessarily know the solution in your case (differs from kid to kid and family) but cosleeping is a big mistake. Our son got to sleep on his own when he was 8 month old and you got to tough it out. In our case, establishing a ritual before going to sleep helped. Of course there are these 2Am wake-up calls but they tend to get less and less frequently. Then again, every kid is different.

I think they need to repurpose apartment targeted for tourists (like the 1.5 room we rented in Kihei) to bridge over the now homeless people in Laheina. There are tons of tourist apartments in Maui and my guess is that demand will take a little bit of a damper there anyways. Lahaina's population is only 12.7k people and not all of them have lost their homes.

Good posts from @tnp20 here and yes keep away worthless political unrelated drivel and the scope crisp around what really matters. I do wonder a bit if the CCP should try to bail out housing in general. it seems to me that a lot of housing just serves as a fairly unproductive store of value for the Chinese. The CCP probably does not to bail out the future homeowners that have paid for their apartments (in escrow accounts) but are stuck in limbo because those apartments are skeleton building cannot be completed by the developers because they don't have the cash to do so. it a catch 22 situation where the developer needs some cash to hit the next milestone and get cash released from the escrow accounts etc. Seems to me that some intervention needs to happen because these unfinished homes ruin not just the neighborhood, but also the future homeowners (there are several stories in youtube about Chinese homeowners document their plight) as well as the developers or more likely the banks and debt holders who supplied most of the funding. This seems to be a classical case where state intervention needs to happen to break a gridlock. Beyond that, a more productive use of capital would be to move away from housing and perhaps infrastructure (which relates to new home builds) to more consumption based purposes. This also reduces Chinas dependency on manufacturing and exports. That could result in a bull case for China and their economy eventually.