Spekulatius

This is a packaged bond - it trades like a stock. Somebody is trading it - likely in Expert markets.

I think it trades in the expert market.

Selling my few shares of GM here.

More honest than catholics or evangelists:

@John Hjorth yes, it fits the narrative that the Russians have destroyed Nordstream, but so far the admittedly scant evidence suggest otherwise. The investigation is also very slow moving in my opinion. I like to go with evidence rather than narrative, but we will see where this goes.

The issue is - you can't buy it in most accounts (Interactive Brokers, Fidelity), which is likely the reason for mispricing:

@changegonnacome It was the plan to swallow Ukraine, be it with a pupped regime or otherwise. Putin spoke to this several times, he believes little Russia (Ukraine ) belongs to Russia. With a puppet regime , Ukraine would ended up like Belarus. Belarus is basically Russia at this point. I would say plan B (demolishing) is failing too, Charkov, Kiev, Odessa and the other major cities are not demolished due to western air defense. Electricity grid was on the ropes, but wasn’t destroyed either. On a related note, I still would like to know what happened to Nordstream. An Ukrainian faction being responsible is a strong possibility. I think the fact that the investigation is dragging out is no accident either. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-had-intelligence-ukrainian-plan-attack-nord-stream-pipeline-washington-post-2023-06-06/

Looks like the long awaited counter offensive has begun- one thrust around Zaporizhzhia around Orikhiv and another one around Bakhmut:

I don't own ELF.TO, but I think it's actually a better bet than ONEX currently.

Sold ONEX. It was a small position and recent result make me think that lack of progress in getting scale in asset management make this likely a value trap.

They blew the dam 6 month ago, but it wasn't totally destroyed. The second charge obviously did the trick. This event has very little outcome on the war. This is nothing new either, just look at how the liberated cities Mariupol or Bakhmut look like. My guess is that any Ukrainian offensive will occur in this area. It's the ideal terrain, flat and no major cities in the way and it would cut off the Russian landbridge from Crimea.

How are they going to help, it's an active war zone? Besides, it seems that mostly the Russian controlled side is flooded.

I think tearing it down is plan B. Plan A was to swallow it whole and get little Russia (which is how they call Ukraine) back into big Russia. Even Demolishing doesn't really work for Russia, they have not been able to destroy the electricity grid for example last winter. I think we are getting at the point where part of Russia get's demolished and in addition the sanction are grinding down their economy slowly but surely. One indicator - when have you seen Russia amass a significant number of tanks on the battlefield the last time? I think it may have been summer 2022. The likely reason is that they don't have them any more and even if they did, they would be shot to pieces. Most of Russia's offensive capabilities seem to have been spent in the first mad rush to get Kiev and Charkov, which both failed. So Russia's offensive capabilities are limited to sending prisoners as cannon fodder to the frontlines, until they run out of prisoners.

I looked at $DG but a few things give me pause. The biggest issue is that $DG's Same store sales have been trailing WMT for quit a time and have been getting weaker. So the recent fallout is not a new problem, but has been lingering for a while. In the last quarter, SSS have been barely positive and given the history of retail, I think there is quite some likelihood of negative comps next quarter. I believe the issues with DG are perhaps more structural than temporary, so i marked this at waiting another quarter and see where the KPI go. The balance sheet isn't the greatest either with ~3x debt to EBITDA, if I see this correctly. I could well miss an opportunity here, but so be it.

Pretty good interview and it’s not formost about AI. He does own NVDA. To touches upon upon China (not a fan), Trump (ditto), Biden (ditto).

I also added a bit of BTI yesterday and before. I put some beer money into QQQ Nov17 puts with a $310 strike. I added some ELV shares a few days ago.

I think the better idea would be just to open a market direction discussion thread each year - clal it "Market direction discussion thread 2023 etc"

This is not going to end any time soon. I have not heard anybody from the administration suggesting that.

The damn was damaged 6month ago by a large exposition. Ukraine could sent special operations there, but unless they control the south bank of the river too, they can’t prevent the Russian from destroying the dam. Besides, the destruction may just be from LT damage from that explosion 6 month ago and may not even be caused by a Russian demolition team. Besides that, I seriously doubt that Ukraine want to start their offensive with a difficult river crossing , the offensive likely will be upstream from that dam.

Maybe time to revive this thread here. I am thinking it may be good to make a directional bet against tech stocks here. My thinking is to use puts on QQQ because index options are the most liquid and QQQ is a decent large tech proxy. VIX is low currently which ought to mean that option premiums shouldn't be too onerous. Thinking about Oct/Nov/Dec 2023 30 strike QQQ puts ~$4.7. I haven't used puts much, so what do people here tend to use in terms of duration or strike price. $300 strike is ~15% down from current levels of $355 currently which maybe is a bit much. I welcome all input here.

@mattee2264 the FED hasn't really changed and in fact the rally occurred during a time when LT interest rates increased, which to me seems concerning. I think the rise in tech is due to AI hype where I think we will see very little revenue impact the next few years, except NVDA and perhaps AMD which see improved demand for their chips. However one has to consider that NVDA's and AMD's revenues are another companies expenses. Anyways, I am reducing some exposure to tech names where I bought the dip (GOOGL, ZS).

Yes, SBC is a no cash expense, so in most tech companies, with little Capex, the difference between the GAAP income and the FCF statement is SBC. Sometimes there is amortization of intangibles and some cash expenses, depending on if the companies pay the employees taxes on SBC gains or not.

Why do you think big tech can’t take a tumble from here? The big tech rally is not underpinned by fundamentals, Imo.

Nintendo is a Japanese Company , very hard to acquire. It’s also considered a national treasure in Japan which suggest it would get sold to a foreign company. Apple does not make large acquisitions, they are builders not acquirers.

I don't think market participants are too impressed. Putin and some other folks will probably pump more. These may all be paper cuts.