Spekulatius

This thing hit 80x earnings and 30x revenues. Sorry folks, but it had to be done,

Bought a bit of BNR (Brenntag) as a limit order hit overbite in Europe.

Since 2010. I found it because it was one the few 5* rated banks in CA after the GFC. They had absolutely no credit problems despite their home banking area getting devastated in the RE crash. RE went down more than 50% in the Lodi/ Central Valley area. It took me a while to find why that was the case. The stock right now trades at lower multiples than back in 2010, go figure.

Sentiment is so bad that it‘s time to look at and buy European equities. You heard it here first.

Fascinating:

FMCB is a fantastic run OTC traded bank trading for a very reasonable price. I bought a decent position (for me). Their niche is agricultural loans. They bought back a nice amount of shares (~5% outstanding) from an estate at a discount to prevailing market prices. https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1085913/000114036124043159/ef20036803_8k.htm

Just give Taiwan some nukes. Makes the world a safer place.

Lol, there go Chinese stocks - down another 2% or so. I wonder if Tepper is still in his generational trade. BABA is down pretty much where I sold it and that was before the stimulus package was announced. There will be more opportunities to trade stonks. Trump is making volatility great again.

This is incorrect. First of all, the amount of money in circulation does not equal the value of all assets or goods and services exchanged . Also, If the tokens would disappear or devalued, the assets would still be worth something. One could replace tokens with other tokens and the assets would still be worth something, but the tokens would not.

Trump tariffs everything (including luxury goods), China targets luxury goods from Europe in retaliation for EV tariffs. US luxury and consumer goods targeted by China with tariffs and social shaming.

One thing that is clear is that Europe needs its own nukes long term and I don’t mean nuclear power plants. It’s one lesson Putin will draw is that nuclear black mail works and if Trump pulls back support from NATO, Europe needs its own nuclear cover. The countries that need it most though are South Korea (they will be blackmailed by Kim soon enough) and Taiwan, followed by Japan. This is true even more so with people like Elon Musk with their “longtermism “ having access to US government. I’d recommend reading up on long termism.

When the body hits concrete.

Dogecoin is rallying too, if anyone cares.

Or he won’t buy it all. I am sure he will be fine either way. Why does the US need a strategic bitcoin reserve? What is the strategic purpose? By the way currency reserves in treasuries or sovereign bonds do create interest income

Regarding perception versus reality:

$112 - the stock is now a double for me. Not a large position, but now I can cheer Go $Bro! I also made some friends along the way. Results look very good to me: https://investor.bbinsurance.com/news-releases/news-release-details/brown-brown-inc-announces-third-quarter-2024-results-including

Still going:

So how do we make money? The only thing I am convinced is that Trump creates more volatility. So keeping a stash of cash around for whatever opportunity arises seems like a good idea, especially considering current valuations.

I love soup dumplings. Might be worth the bike ride.

I actually had no idea that you can file disability straight out of Highschool. I always thought you need to fake a work injury or and illness or something like that to get there. The crime and immigration angle makes sense but affects mainly large cities and those still vote 75%+ blue. Have the all red rural areas been affected at all by this? I doubt it. I don‘t even think immigrants illegal or not go there. I live in a rural (relatively well to do do town) in the greater Boston area and I have seen zero impact. Now you go to the Boston you do see some issues, but it’s way way less than in SF or other cities. On the black unemployment, I show this chart - seems to me that black unemployment is lower now then it was under Trump. Ink ow what coming next. The FRED chart don’t show the realty, but who else has better numbers ? Certainly not Fox news. I think one issue instant in a world of abundant ways to obtain your facts, facts matter less and less because people just look at the sources they want to see, and there is something for everyone out there now serve you the disinformation you want, X being a primary example of this.

This is true, but I still wonder. My sons first summer job in a supermarket was $11/h (the year before it would have been $8.5, then three pulling later he was pulling in $20+. He did not take this job because he found a job at a restaurant where he pulling down even more with tips. Prior experience: none. Just show up somewhere and you got a job. Compounded inflation is maybe 30% but for sure not a double. How can you not be better off in this environment? I think perception does not match realty Now the salary increases for middle class jobs have been less, but I am fairly sure it matches or exceeds inflation. Also unemployment is non existent. I mean, I got laid off and found a new job although it took a couple of months. I am much closer to 60 years old than 50 for context. US homeownership is 65% and we all know how well homeowners do sitting on 2.x % mortgages. So 65% of people roughly speaking should to be better off. What the hell do people do to be worse off?

I added to APA and BP. These valuation of these energy shitcos is too cheap resist. I think BP will sooner or later move to the US and become US Petroleum

I think any stimulus is likely go toward individuals and smaller business. Xi Jinping doesn’t have much of a track record helping large business, except some state controlled industries or those that fit his economic agenda. I don’t see Temu working well in the US going forward but that’s perhaps already priced in.

Thanks. I wasn’t aware of this. This was kept as is by democrats and I don‘t think there was an intent to change it.

Anyone here is worse off economically than 4 years ago? I don’t know anyone, seriously.