Spekulatius

Totally agree. I think the Epstein files would be a nothing burger for him if he released them. He got away with way worse stuff politically anyways. A body letter for Epstein birthday? Who cares? I The files itself probably just contains more lose ends could be a problem but those likely get lost in the shadows anyways. I think the hilarious thing is how much Bondi/Trump/Patel hyped them up and then nothing…

Sold $BAH (profit) and $BAX (flat). I don’t really likened news from BAX but that’s not a new thing either, .

Added to $BRO. As is often the case, the secondary offering price ($102 ) acts as a magnet to the share price, so I added some around $103. $BRO is actually fairly reasonable valued around 21x 2026 cash earnings. Thats not much higher than the market multiple. I think you can do a whole lot worse than buying $BRO on current weakness. The deal looks expensive on the surface , but if they can pull of the synergies that management think they can do, then this deal creates quite a bit of value.

Moder war’s take s long time to play out. The current situation is a stalemate with very small land gains for Russian at a tremendous cost. Putin will only negotiate we realized that he can’t win or he starts to lose. Trump weapon shipment stop didn’t really help here, so maybe resuming might help a little. I am not sure why Trump waits anther 50 days to do something as it clearly wasting time. Europe has a chance here to developed weapon tech in a practical setting with Ukraine as a laboratory to counter a land invasion. I think the goal needs to be to give the Ukraine air superiority , the. They can hammer the Russian frontlines and counter the glide bombs while deploying thermostat en Masse. Also give them long range weapon in sufficient quantity to destroy Russian infrastructure , energy/power generation and logistics (also works with air superiority). No modern war since WW1 (may even include WW1) has been won without air superiority.

Inflation in Japan is in the 3%+ range, higher than in the USA. Interest rates on longer term bonds in Japan are rising accordingly, Looks sticky to me too: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/core-inflation-rate

Did anyone actually read the WSJ article? Looks fairly matter fact to me, it‘s not even just about Trump and mentioned several others involved Trump (Clinton): https://archive.ph/KB2LC Whether this occurred before or after POTUS became president is totally irrelevant. The problem, is a simple one : Trump, Patel and Bondi etc all stated on numerous occasions before they were elected/appointed that they would release the files. After they were appointed, they the suddenly said no. What has changed?

Well, EACO is one workedwell for me. I have a few hundred shares that’s gobbled up one day when there was a seller. No surprise with these numbers: https://capedge.com/filing/784539/0001104659-25-065208/EACO-8K/file/2

A familiar pattern emerges. Trumps sues media outlets as a private person while also being president. At best it is an extortion racket to be enrich himself at worse it’s both an extortion for enrichment as well as attempt to control the press through lawfare by a sitting president https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/trump-sues-epstein-murdoch-wsj.html

I think it’s more likely we reverse engineer them starting Lizards through genetic engineering & Breeding. I think the DNA protein from fossils is to denaturalized to reconstruct whole thing and even if we could, it would not by itself mean we could create a dinosaur.

I thought we are done with RR mergers. Going from 4 to 2 would reduce competition substantially.

Net immigration going negative should be a big concern too. We are going to have shrinking population pretty soon. This alone could reduce demand by a few hundred thousand homes a year.

More ELV and small adds to FMCB, BAX and WLY

MAGA is big into conspiracies. Deep state, chemtrails, 5G vaccines. The Epstein files fits right in and the more Trump tries to defuse this, the more the Streisand effect plays out:

Adds to ELV and BAX

It’s the right thing to do

W e did not give airs any money. The money they that was theirs in trust accounts and this was part of the nuclear deal. Iran abided by the deal terms, Trump tore it up thinking he can get a a better. Also, we have been sanctioning the Iran economy for 40 years basically. It stunted their economic development for sure, but it only goes so far. They can still sell their oil in the market and the UAE is the second largest trading partner. Besides, Trump wanted to make a deal with Iran -then Israel started dropping bombs

I am not sure we are fiscal dominance territory yet. However, I think the emigration policy with both the legal and illegal immigration’s being throttled will cause population shrinkage soon, if it does not already. Thats causing slower growth in the GDP for sure. There are obvious knockdown affects into housing, demographic profile (less babies being born) and other things. When you compare the USA to Europe, about 1% better GDP growth can easily be explained by the higher emigration in the USA. We need one heck of a productivity spurt to make up for that.

Fed up with the Fed. Could get interesting. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-suggests-fed-renovations-could-235413236.html I think the long end of the yield curve could see some action.

More tariffs. 17% tariffs for Mexican tomatoes. Agricultural goods were covered by USMC agreement so the statement that the 30% tariffs only applies to non USMC goods gets wonky here. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-imposes-17-duty-fresh-210632322.html The country tariffs are just a baseline anyway, Trump has rolled out tariffs for Steel, Aluminum and now copper (50%), cars & trucks (25%), potash, energy (10%) and those are in addition to country tariffs , I think. We probably get some tariffs on pharmaceutical products as well (likely not the 200% the mentioned though). Sort of tough to negotiate when one side thinks they have an override.

The damage is nothing compared to what they have received though. No question is that Iran is weakened., but I think the nuclear program is till intact despite the damage record. Now know does not go away. So, are they now more inclined to pursue the bomb than before? I think so. There is a pretty good podcast on this in Hidden forces . Something to think about wether your agree on all points or not: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-forces/id1205359334?i=1000715571252 When has humiliating an opponent without essentially defeating them entirely been a good idea in the past? They are arming Russia and are essentially sending their army there. Russia is more dangerous than any terrorist group I can think off.

According to trading economics the consensus deficit for June was -$11B. May was higher than consensus . I think the positive June was due to changes in payment timing. If so, expect a large deficit in July 2025 - May for example was higher than consensus. And yes, tariffs play a role here as well, as they were higher than expected.

Just a different opinion on the 12 day war of Israel against Iran and it’s not from the left: https://mises.org/power-market/12-day-war-was-political-disaster-america-and-israel Essentially, what has Netanyahu has done is make Israel’s problem America’s problem now as well. I don’t think there is an easy way out either and in my opinion, we are at war with Iran now and how this plays out remains to be seen and the real result will not be known perhaps a decade from now. What we do know, that we are now entangled in this conflict. Ironically this is something Trump accused Biden with the Ukraine Russian war, even though Biden weren’t through great lengths to get America not directly involved. Now with the Iran- Israel conflict, America is directly involved.

My recent small adds are UNH, BAX and 3836 (Avant Group) Bax - I was not fond of Baxters management but the results have been reasonable and hopefully new management is better in terms of capital allocation. 3836 is part of my Japan basket.

Tulsi was thrown under the bus the day before Trump dropped the bombs on Iran. He then simply declared that Tulsi was wrong. It was clear to me then that he would get involved militarily because that’s how he operates. He changes his opinions and the truth is whatever is convenient to justify his current stance. I don’t think Tulsi testifying in a march really means much as it was compliant with Trumps opinion about Iran at that time (make a deal with Iran). When he changes his mind, he throws whoever works for him to justify the earlier stance under the bus, the opposite of yesterday’s truth may be the truth of today in the Orwellian doublethink fashion. He always keeps maximum optionality that way.

Yes, that was about what I expected. What the EU should do is give Sheinbaum, Carney a call and coordinate to counter the tariffs with equal counter tariffs, which is basically what China did. Then Trump will have to do what he said he would do and raise again. Keep doing this until tariffs are ridiculous levels. Add an extra digital tax to make sure the Mag 7 stocks are hit. The faster the SPY goes to 5000 again (Taco level) the better. Trump is making volatility great again! Yeehaw!