Spekulatius

I always love seasonal content:

I know Europe is uninvestible but I have found this VIC thesis on Elis SA quite compelling: https://valueinvestorsclub.com/idea/Elis_SA/5242429684 It’s basically a uniform laundry/ consumables business similar to VSTS or Cintas, but mainly in Europe. they do have a good track record as far as I can tell, but the stock has recently taken a hit as they have taken an interest in VSTS, which makes no sense (imo) an acquisition for them. no this is apparently off the table but investors are obviously now discounting the possibility of an dilutive merger. I think Eli’s is attractive because the outsourcing of these things is a trend, the revenues are somewhat re-occurring and they can gobble up many small operators at supposedly relatively low multiples. Haven’t done a whole lot work on this, it seems good enough to buy a few shares and probably will add more. This and Italmobilare ( a publicity trades private equity like fund trading at a 45% discount to NAV) have been recent buys in Europe.

Kuiper is the next satellite constellation and I think China will build another one.

I added to LNR, STNE and bought a starter in BAX and ITM (Italmobilare an currently Italian private equity Holdco)

I think this is one to watch. it’s probably impacted by the malaise in South America with Brazil, and Mexican equity markets going down the tubes.

Your phone probably uses it. Higher precision than GPS.

Yes, that’s it. One of my favorite Blogs ValueAndOpportunity posted about it and bought it a while ago. I did not buy at that time but checked the results and like what I saw. Welcome to CoBF !

Trading with Putin and getting back the cheap NG gas. That’s basically what the AFD is asking for. What’s could go wrong? You would think that the Ossies had enough when they were occupied for 45 years by the Sowjets (and were none too happy when visited the DDR in the 80’s) , but I guess not.

I looked at OGN as I tend to do with all spinoffs but that turned me off was that invested heavily into Women’s health , which is a hard business to make money in. The spinoff also came with a boatload of debt.

An Immobiliare Holdco that everyone can buy: More transparent than above, I hope.

Yep, and these rocks are a highly correlated with a lot of interdependency (AI trade etc), When you buy SPY you don’t really buy a highly diversified index , you really make a tech trades that is based on just a few themes. The same was true in 2000.

Watched King of New York for the first time. Not the best script, but has outstanding cast (Christopher Walken, Buscemi, Fishburne etc) and some great performances. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099939/

I have an idea why North Korean losses will be high:

Look at all the cyclical components $DOW, $LYB, steel, oil, machinery; they almost all scraping the 52w low and in some cases multi year lows.

Pretty much everything is down except few tech and momentum stocks. Even NVDA has started to go down.

$NVDA is the answer, I think.

Boomers are undefeated:

Germany has a decent cash economy too, I can assure that. Germans like paying in cash, getting paid in cash for good reasons and it’s not just because modern payments don’t exist. You get a better deal from a small contractor paying on cash than with credit or check, same than in the US. FWIW, the last car I bought in Germany from a dealer ( a low mileage almost new Vorführwagen) was paid in cash and I got a very good deal on that one, that was in the 90‘s but I am sure I could do the same thing now.

If you want to change the health cares altem find out where the fat margins and large salary are made. It’s probably not the insurance that sends you the bill. FWIW, this guy want even insured with UNH. His back injury was a result of a surf accident. His surgery was a success and and we do not know what sort of financial issues resulted from it, could have been a deductible? Otherise, this guy was basically living a dream, but he apparently had mental issues, 3 d printed a ghost run and shot a health exec that had nothing to do with whatever issues he had. After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, he worked at the Santa Monica-based car-buying website TrueCar until 2023 and lived in Hawaii for some time starting in January 2022. During a six-month stay at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space in Honolulu, Mangione’s back pain worsened in part because of a surfing incident.

Yes, if you run a 4% deficit and have 4% growth, your debt/income ratio stays the same.

I think think you can do all this in 4 days. Make a plan, but don’t plan too much.

I said it for some time, but there is a covert war going on in Europe: https://www.csce.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Spotlight-on-the-Shadow-War-Website.pdf Asssinations, GPS jamming , infrastructure attacks, election interference, cyberattacks. The cut of the fiber optics cable in the baltics see didn’t made it on the list yet, as the cutoff date was November 2024. FWIW, WW1 started for lesser reasons than those above . Those who think there can be peace with Putin in charge need to think again. It’s not just about Ukraine. Europe is in a covert war with Russia.

No, but I did hold foreign currencies in 2008 as I own foreign stocks in IBKR and it wasn’t fun. Foreign currencies like the MXN Peso are a disaster in these meltdowns as everyone goes into the USD. Traditionally, the yen was a hedge, but that seems no longer the case.

If he held these positions until 2008, it would have been a disaster , despite even higher Federal spending.

$JOST a stock I like from uninvestible Europe. They are the #1 for 5th wheels. (A real thing) and other truck accessories . $JOST. Roughly €6 in earnings (a bit less this year) and a goal to have €10 Euro in earnings for 2030. ~20% ROE due to asset light business model. Sounds pretty cheap to me for €43 Euro stock. https://www.jost-world.com/fileadmin/documents/pdfs/investor-relations/IR-presentations/2024/20241119_JOST_Werke_Investors_presentation_2024_-_November_2024_update_final.pdf