Spekulatius

Thank you for your perspective. I think cancelling and election result is a tricky move that can result in voters backlash and it undermines democracy, but probably not as much than a rigged election. when you look at. Map, you see why Putin will target Romania to shut the door on Ukraine. He has already a Transnistria puppet regime to help out as well. Europe is under attack from Putin, not just Ukraine, that is sure (to me). To think that some sort peace or even truce deal with Putin makes this all go away is probably the most wishful and naive thinking I am aware of in some circles.

I bet they can’t even fire 10%. 80% is laughable. The states and other public institutions like schools etc are the problem, not federal employees.

You really don’t need to speculate at all, says the guy with the handle @Spekulatius

LEA - Lear (car seat) is another one of those steady repurchasers who keep nibbling back at their sharecount. The chart is wild, being rangebound after the GFC and then doing a 4x from 2013 to 2018 and now being rangebound again between $100 and $200. should be a great stock . The car seat business is a tough one, but they are one of the largest producers and not really impacted by electrification. Also, car seats are one of the aspects of anbehicle that the buyers tend to care a lot about and they get more luxurious and complex over time. LEA operates worldwide in NA, Europe and China . Their factories are often close or even within the car manufacturing plants. No position, but it might interesting here.

Evolution. The AI models that self iterate and can’t shut be shut down will survive. Humans will be obsolete in no time, since our brain really does not improve.

The enemy of your enemy isn’t necessarily your friend. The applies to the Syria situation. I think we still have some troops there but this isn’t our fight. It does show that the Russians and Hezbollah are weakened and need to focus on core operations in Management lingo. Turkey plays a hand there as they want to become a local hegemon.

Pretty fast collapse of the Russian and Hezbollah supported Assad regime. They both have other issues to tend to, it seems, so Assad is left hanging.

Anyone watches Romania? There was a thinly veiled large scale effort for Russian actors to influence the election via TikTok amongst all media: The election was annulled, which I have not seen before in Europe

More action around FMCB. I don’t know who these Cortopassi Partner guys are, but they took a 4.5% position: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1085913/000119312524270686/d900887dsc13ga.htm

On CP- 20% incremental revenue growth and 70% incremental EBITDA margins seem high. Right now they are scratching 40% EBITDA margins and it takes a one hell of a business to go higher than that. CP is a quintessential play on NAFTA:

DOGE sh$tco$n of course.

FOMO is a live and well. I wonder why the ticker $FOMO symbol isn’t utilized. I do see a lot of cheap stuff though , seems like an hourglass market where the cheap stuff gets cheaper and the expensive stuff pricier. 2002 was very similar in that respect too as well as the index getting tech heavy.

I added to MEGACPO, STNE and ELV a bit.

Bought a starter in VALE and added some HEIO.

Notaries in the US work at Kinko’s, UPS or as bank tellers. But before complaining about this , look at inefficiency in the US retail sector, including stuff like title insurance which is really a result of a lousy privately owned record keeping system. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t have this stuff. The US is an amalgam of amazing efficiency in some sectors and totally backwards and almost comically bad systems and infrastructure in others. Case in point, look at the Light switches in the US. I also made some of pictures of power line poles when I moved here. Those in SF looked worse than those in Portuguese favelas and still hadn’t changed almost 30 years later. You notice these things when you immigrate from one country to another.

Have to post this again:

Stock is down 4% today. This was definitely a planned assassination based in the info provided. Sad. I guess exec now need bodyguards as well. He was not a high profile person. FWIW, the insurers get too much blame for the health care system faults, imo. I do think that UNH owning a piece in too many providers isn’t right as it’s not really disclosed to customers. Obvious conflict of interest there and so I wonder why the FTC Lina Khan never dug into that one. I guess CPRI was easier to sue, but the outcome isn’t really life changing for anyone, unlike with health insurance potentially.

China counters with ban on exports: https://www.csis.org/analysis/china-imposes-its-most-stringent-critical-minerals-export-restrictions-yet-amidst#:~:text=China banned shipments of gallium,be subject to greater scrutiny. FWIW, these elements (Ge, Ga) are not hard to produce. I don’t think China has much of a competitive advantage here, but they are the low cost producer due to volume and likely willing to produce these close to cost. The west can easily produce these element too, but it will be at higher prices. China essentially subsides the rest of the world here because of their industrial policy.

It’s the season- striking interpretation of Carol of the bells:

UNH Stock is up another $5, so no harm done. Maybe shooting CEO’s increases shareholder value. What is not to like?

Oxy is a dud. Bad at capital allocation. I think WEB or his successor will dumb it soon enough. The buys at distressed levels were alright but he made a mistake when he kept buying. He should just have bought Chevron instead, imo.

Up 70% since the lows from 2022. So money can be made here. What caused the surge was the appreciation of a few stocks like SAP and Siemens.

If you wait from solution from Lagardère or Draghi or Macron you are looking at the wrong people. I think its more likely they some countries come up with solutions or even more micro level companies will come up with their solutions long before those three will even know about it.

It matters because the much of the difference in stock market performance did not come from a differential in economic growth but from multiple expansion in the US and compression elsewhere. Even the economic growth in the US is partly fueled by increased fiscal deficits that are much larger than Europe’s.

Just one think tanks opinion after one year of Milei being in office: https://www.freiheit.org/one-year-javier-mileis-economic-policy I think they make a good point about Milei being too focused on inflation. Inflation is more a symptom than the disease and of course just like with fever, you need to stop it, but Argentina needs also to work on pro growth stuff like firing up exports (the overvalued of the Peso facilitated by him to limit inflation hampers this) and a few other things. Gutting the education system doesn’t sound like a great idea either since it basically stunts growth in human capital. The economy also needs to turn around next year if his agenda is in trouble, because the a erase person is suffering quite a bit here and needs to see some tangible benefits, imo.