Spekulatius

How do you regulate this crypto complex though? All the tokens and cryptic currencies have different properties but have no intrinsic value. They literally make the rules (for their token), issue them and then eat their cake too. So basically Ponzi schemes by design. This SBH fellow for example owned a crypto hedge fund and an exchange with token holdings propping each other up. These things have to collapse. The only way they don’t is if more people keep buying them. For all we know, dogecoin will ultimately become a zero. Most others crypto’s as well. in my opinion, regulation is pretty futile. We have to separate the regular fiat financial system from crypto (no fiat lending backed by crypto ). If a crypto hedge fund going long dogecoin short Polkadot collapses, we shouldn’t care. An interesting thing will be the stable coins. Does anyone really think they are backed by real currencies? Those are just disasters likely to happen. Then there is the whole crypto lending complex. What we need to do is segregate the crypto system form our financial system and maybe regulate the on/off ramp in some way that a collapse causes no harm to our financial system.

Gets better. You can’t really make this stuff up: From $32B valuation to zero in a couple of weeks. Who is in: Sequoia, Tiger Global, Softbank and Ontario teachers pension fund,

Yeah, it’s not Lehman , more like a crossover between of Theranos and Enron: Here is an article from Sequoia caps website (taken down but accessed via way back machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20221109230422/https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/ Biggest red flag probably, even I’d you don’t know anything (eerily similar to Theranos):

Except the falling earnings part may not happen, especially if the recession is shallow. I believe margins for several sectors have room to expand. Tech has a lot deadwood and they can cut expenses. It looks like META, AMZN, GOOGL and MSFT all started to do that. Tech salaries may come down as well. Industrials have seen strong input cost inflation and generally have not been able to raise prices quite as much than costs implies. What happens to margins if costs start to come down and prices stay or even go up a bit more. Even if volumes go down, then margins may expand. I could make this exercises for a few more sectors. Banking and insurance will benefit from higher interest rates etc. Anyways, I would not assume that earning will go down from here because there are quite a few sectors where I can see margins going up.

So injustice in those cases which occurred hundred of years ago justifies doing nothing to injustice and attempt of genocide now? Like, we didn’t help Aborigines against the Australian colonizers 150 years ago and that’s why we need to stay put when Russia tries to colonize Ukraine now? That makes no sense to me.

Just because there is a war in Ukraine does not mean there needs to be a war in COBF.

Buffet is selling out USB. He used to own ~8.5% and is now down to ~3.6%. he is probably going to sell down his entire position. Now that I bought USB.... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/36104/000119312522282565/d302279dsc13ga.htm I see our resident expert @gfp beat me to it.

You are likely correct. The Russian retreat does not look like rout and they may have just sacrificed some conscripts to preserve their regular army. Crossing the Dnipro under fire would be tough, so I expect this front line to become quieter, likely with artillery duels continuing.

That's an interesting one. The CEO / heir sleeping on the couch somewhere and reliving his fraternity years shouldn't really impact fair value all that much.

They are trying an ordered retreat but they only have 2 bridges that under constant bombardment to get 40k soldiers and their equipment out. They will likely lose a lot of soldiers and material in this retreat and it can easily end up being a rout. Those that are doing rear guard duty will have to sacrifice themselves and either die or go into captivity . These are some of the better troops that Russia has, so their absence will be felt in this war for a long time to come.

I think both IBRK (Paxos) as well as Fidelity have now buy/sell as well custodial services for bitcoin and major cryptocurrencies. No opinion if those are safe, but I trust them way more than Coinbase. I guess the idea with crypto is that you don't need these services, otherwise there is no point owning them other than speculation.

Putting money into FTX and even COIN is like lending money to a shady bookie in the red light district because I don't trust the banks.

How do you get to $100B for $DIS ex DTC? EV is $220B and I don't see DTC worth $120B by a long shot. Furthermore, since DTC is part of the flywheel, you can't segregate parts of it or do a SOP, imo. You have to evaluate DIS as going concern. As for DTC, I expect it to eventually trade for a single digit EBITDA multiple. In the past, these streaming business have traded more based on subscriber growth metrics, but I think at some point this will switch to old fashioned profitability metrics. Reading the transcript, in 2023 their DTC spent will be >$30B. This years DTC revenue was $19.6B so if it increases by 20% that would be $23.5B. that would mean about $6.5B in operating losses next year compared to ~$4B. Maybe revenues grow quicker, but I see almost no way that the DTC losses go down next year compared to 2022. I also think their linear network earnings ($8B operating earnings) will go down compared to this year. Parks likely should be flat due to recessionary trends. This all does not look all that great to me. They made $1.75/share this year in operating earnings for a $87 stock. This can easily hit $60 or below, imo if cord cutting worsens and their DTC subscriber growth is a bit weak. Again, i have no deep insight other than this does not look all that cheap or like a great setup at current prices to me.

$DIS problem is the same problem that $WBD and $PARA are having, lack of profitability in their DTC business and shrinking topline with linear networks. The bottom line was actually fine for linear networks. For DTC not so much.

LOL, my son know a few fellow high school students who are in the "Socialist club" as well as a self proclaimed communists. I think these kids think it's cool to be a communist. Most of these kids drive nice cars and live a sheltered life. I think they just like being contra conventional wisdom. None of them would last in a true communist society much less enjoy it.

The last earnings reports had a lot of focus on FCF and it’s easy to see why- their FCF went almost to zero in 2021 with a huge inventory buildup. As a rule of thumb, when you turn around a business, the first focus is almost always on FCF first and earning a second. This is because it’s game over when a company is running out of cash (and the ability to borrow more) rather than when it shows large losses. Also, reducing inventory will generate cash, but probably make earnings worse due to “under absorption” and probably some discounted liquidations etc. While the plan makes sense in a high level, the current CEO (since June 2022) was coming from a CFO role at SWK and shares some of the blame, imo. The current CFO is interim, which I don’t think is ideal either. Quite a mess and it’s not because the business is in a steep downturn really. The former management screwed up operations and lost control of their supply chain so to speak. other companies in similar business have done much much better than SWK. I think there is some real risk here that shareholders get permanently impaired (dilutive capital raise etc).

Doesn't any vaccination increase inflammation markers? I think I have seen the same thing about influence vaccines. Like this study: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.ATV.0000248534.30057.b5 I don't know if this is comparable or not but those issues are part of safety studies. Also see above study about mortality of COVID-19 unvaccinated vs vaccinated cohorts for non-COVID-19 causes. Anyways, the vaccine is almost certainly not to blame for excess death here. There are likely other leading causes like deferred medical care, long COVID-19 fatalities, increased drug overdose death at play here.

I was in this at higher prices (small position) and sold out for a loss. I do agree with the thesis, but I think they are seeing significant reduction in demand while prior troubles were more self inflicted with supply chain troubles anf also cost inflation out of control. Compare how TTC managed through the cycle so far as a comparison. That said, I am watching SWK closely but I am leery of continued misses that just seem to keep on coming.

@KJP and @xxx1313 thanks for the additional data. It does seem like the reason for the increased is multi casual. I do feel that an 15% increase in excess death is a big deal, no matter the cause and probably should get more attention than it does currently. With 2.84M death that means that more than 430k people die in the US than statistically predicted. I guess the hope is that it’s transitory? What if we get higher excess death for longer? Unless you operate a funeral business, it’s bad news for everyone. Some life insurers seem to have taken note of this trend as well.

Studies have been done on this apparently. I don’t think it’s it’s directly vaccine related. https://www.kp-scalresearch.org/new-study-looking-at-millions-of-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-people-found-no-increased-risk-of-death-among-covid-19-vaccine-recipients/

COVID-19 death don’t explain the increase in mortality, at least does not only most of it. I think the theory that makes more sense is that it‘s fallout from the epidemic. In particular many people did not get or did not seek timely treatment for chronic diseases and now show increased mortality. This one discusses the issue from the UK perspective: However, it’s just a theory right now. I personally have more questions than answers.

Putin is a classical example of a Pascal mugger. In exchange for giving him Ukraine, he promises no nuclear war. That‘s the fallacy that many here are subscribing who say we can’t fight him because he has nuclear weapons. Of course, after we would appease him , he still would have his nuclear weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_mugging Who would give a Pascal‘s mugger some of his money? I certainly would not.

I came about this through a fellow looking at excess death in the UK. However it‘s not just the UK, there are excess death almost everywhere. I picked up a few countries in this website and virtually all of them have excess debt, by about 15% above the excepted run rate. Are this due to LT pandemic effects or is there something else going on! I have no clue and neither seems anyone else. I am surprised that 15% more people dying isn’t news but I think it should be. If it stays it means that the average life expectancy will go down significantly. The excess death seem too every age any age group. This is not meant to be a political post, but I feel it’s important data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-average-baseline?country=USA~GBR~DEU~FRA~SWE~BRA~AUS

I think BAM will outperform both unless interest rates go up from here and stay high. The reason is that BAM‘s business model is able to get higher returns on equity.