Spekulatius

Ukraine's NATO membership is not going to happen until there is a piece deal. NATO has never admitted any nation with an open conflict. More likely than not, Ukraine's NATO membership is going to be part of (or a side deal) of a peace deal with Russia. FWIW, one of the reasons why Russia kept the stale war in the Donbas going from 2014 to 2022 is to prevent Ukraine joining the NATO, knowing too well the unwritten rule about open conflict.

Good podcast here about Japanese stocks: https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/podcasts/episodes/07-11-23-kirk.html New factors are TSE encouraging companies which trade below book to do something Inflation starting to creep up (wages, goods) Slow motion restructuring of Japanese companies (governance, capital allocation, de-conglomerization etc). This has kicked off during the Abenomics phase and while slow moving seems to go in the right direction. Buffett bought Japan (via the trading houses). The Abenomics boom from 2013-2017 sort of flamed out - the last post here in this thread came at the tail end of it, but maybe now it the time to take another look. Disclosure: I own two japanese small/midcaps but very small in size.

Well a concession is a concession and not to extend a concession does not mean it's taken away. The Mexican airport operators on concessions. IN PAC case, the concession was granted in 1998 for 50 years, so it will expire in 2048. In my opinion anyone buying PAC needs to take into account that the concession may not be extended. One nice thing about European airports like FRA (Germany) or Aena (Spain) are fully owned assets, not concession. However even in these cases, the government / regulator has a lot of influence on fee rates and in FRA case a de facto controlling stake. Owning an airport is very much like controlling a unique real estate asset.

WSJ story on EV’s and foreign car makers (which have been losing market share rapidly) https://www.wsj.com/articles/rise-of-chinas-ev-makers-puts-end-to-wests-local-dominance-775d0811?mod=business_major_pos7

Informative and entertaining. Moderators changed the topic quickly a few times. I am not sure I buy anything he is saying.

The 10 year Chinese government bond trades at ~2.6% yield. US 10 year bond yield trades at 4%.

I agree with this view - locals tend to have the advantage . I also find that parallels drawn from one market to another and investment thesis build around those are mostly (but not always) lacking. I think we call it "goes butter goes cheese" thesis constructs in Germany. (Geht Butter, geht Kaese). I still like to invest in foreign markets where I have a reasonable good understanding of the local culture &system or at least I follow some people that do. For me , this is mostly Europe.

Agreed - just managed to listen to it. It's interesting to look at the differences and similarities of japan 1990 vs China 2023. i did not know that Japan had better demographics in 1990 than China does now. The population in japan started to declined in 2009 and China has to deal with this issue right now. Construction sector in China is 36% of GDP vs ~20% in Japan at the peak in the late 1980's. Seems like the leaders in China are keenly aware of the problem unlike Japan in 1990. Anyways, worth listening too.

The question for somebody like Seth Klarman with a lot of cash for a long time should be why he just doesn’t return the excess money. Maybe his investors don’t mind though or think they have insurance with the knowledge that in case a crash happens, he will make excess returns buying cheap stuff. So maybe it’s on the clients, not him.

I have actually seen things get nasty after the first rate cut more often than not. A rate cut isn’t necessarily bullish for equities in isolation. The “burning hole in the pocket - just swing you bum” inclination is very real. Not everyone has the patience that Buffett has.

Opec may be cutting , but the US shale cowboys are cranking - production hit a record last month:

And a lot of credible historians would disagree with your view and this also has been repeated ad nausea. Putin is really concerned about a democracy starting to prosper at his doorstep from a former Sovjet Union state proving there is a better way and undermining his raison d‘etre. Makes more sense to me. Same than XJP in China with HK and Taiwan.

That business literally went under. One could write on Stockton‘s tombstone: He was right until he wasn’t. Works that way in investing as well.

They are buying new cars. You get better financing terms (3-4% interest rates) and now the supply is more plentiful (no more wait lists for a lot of models). I think that’s why new car sales are that strong, it’s a better value proposition than buying a used one.

It it not an escalation since the Russian side has been using them from day one directly against civilians in some cases. Zelensky has to decide the risk/ reward of using them, after all they are going to be used in his country. I do agree the mines are a much bigger problem.

Well, I think it’s just what they have available in quantities needed. It’s really Ukraines call, since the main concern are civilian casualties post war, these casualties will be Ukrainians. So it’s Zelenskis difficult call to make. This ammo should be good to clear russian trenches and minefield which is what’s needed apparently. Not sure what the Russian missile crisis has to do with this. If we were uptight about that, we would have done something about the Chinese base that seems to be operating in Cuba.

There is a decent discussion on CNN with Bill Browder (who gets a lot of air time). Bill think there is more than meets the eye. The actions of Putin regarding this coup make no sense with just the information provided. According to Bill, they even returned the $111M in cash they found at the raid of Prighozhins office there (to whom exactly is unclear ). Bill thinks both Prigozhin and Putin have killers out there. Just my guess - if someone gets accidentally smashed by a hammer, it is probably Prigozhins guys, if the die of nerve gas or polonium poisoning or fall out a window, it’s on Putin hitmen.

It is not often that I read articles in Interactive brokers traders insight newsletter, but this one is pretty good and caught my attention: https://ibkrcampus.com/traders-insight/securities/stocks/the-value-trap-conundrum-and-six-criteria-to-help-deal-with-it/?src=tiPlus070723us&eid=10000017&blst=NL-TI_cps_artclBtn If you buy cheap or out of favor, like I try to do, then avoiding value traps should be front and center of your thoughts. I find it interesting that besides all the fundamentals screens they use a momentum screen at the end to catch what they may have missed with their fundamental screens.

The ammo shortage has been overhyped. just recently, the CEO of Rheinmetal, stated they can deliver 650k of 155mm ammo annual run rate. Thats just one company (albeit the biggest one in Germany) in the NATO. Ukraine is not going to run out of artillery shells for sure. I think the cluster ammo came up because because Ukraine ask for it, According to one pundit, it is highly useful to clear out Russian trenches as part of the offensive. It also can be used to clear a path in the Russian minefields which which have been hampering the offensive. FWIW, the tungsten Ball payloads for HMARS doesn’t even count as cluster ammo.

Russia is using cluster ammo in Ukraine and the US sure can do better then they do. No need to follow rules that the enemy has already cancelled. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/ukraine-cluster-munitions-kill-child-and-two-other-civilians-taking-shelter-at-a-preschool/ FWIW, neither Russia, Ukraine nor the USA signed the cluster ammunition ban.

I wish bond yield spreads would be higher. I see regular corporate bond ETF's with a ~5.5% yield and high yield bond ETF with 7-7.5%. I would need higher risk spreads to get interested. You can find trash bonds like the 29 $KW bonds (BB rated) here and there for close to 10% yield, but then you need a view on the borrower and watch them closely. Hard to go wrong with treasury MM funds for ~5% with these alternatives.

Generally, you don't use a biological weapon in your own country. It is always advisable to do away with complicated conspiracy theories when mere incompetence suffices to explain the facts at hand reasonably well.

They should put this in the manual for the Renault Clio. Ended up renting one with a base engine (1.2l or so) and air conditioning a few years ago and it felt like you hit the brakes when you turned on the AC. It was windows down on the Autobahn with that one.

Reduced $VNT a bit on a decent up day.

Applause everyone: