shhughes1116

Did you guys mean XIFR, the new name for the bombed out Nextera Energy Partners?

I think there is a compelling investment case for high-powered lasers (CIWS, replacement for Phalanx) and missiles. The events in the Red Sea suggest that 85-95 VLS on destroyers are not enough and so we are likely to see ships equipped with larger volumes of missiles, along with lasers. I think we will see a similar evolution on land (more robust EW, high-powered lasers for close-in defense, and larger volumes of small missiles).

The combination of AEGIS and E-2 Hawkeyes make it almost impossible for someone to get close enough, undetected, to launch a salvo of hypersonic missiles. But let’s assume they are launched. Carrier group changes direction to increase distance and speed between the missiles. CAP aircraft get the first shots. The CG’s destroyer group gets the second shot with SM-3 and SM-6, and each destroyer has about 85-95 vertical launch cells. And if by some miracle the hypersonic missiles get past that, multiple Phalanx CIWS get a shot (likely with some debris damage to the flight deck if they successful hit the hypersonic missile). and all this assumes the enemy kill chain is fast enough to get hypersonic missiles into the air and headed to the right place where the carrier is. The Chinese make this look super easy when they repeatedly hit their aircraft carrier mock-up in the desert that does not move and does not fight back. if you are basing your assessment on the British destroyers in the falklands and their experience with Exocet missiles, you may wish to read about all the mistakes they made leading up to that point - mistakes that are unlikely to be repeated by a carrier group.

There is clear case to make for drones in the future of warfare - in that sense I agree with Elon. The experience in Ukraine highlights the impact of small drones around the line of contact and in the rear. But a majority of infantry casualties suffered by the Russians are not caused by drones, they are caused by DPCIM 155m rounds. And the naval drones are operating in the space of a green water navy, not a blue water navy. The future of warfare is likely a combination of manned vessels/vehicles, wingman-like drones operating from the manned vessels/vehicles, autonomous longer-range drones for ISR and A2/AD, and grunts that hold a position. I wonder if electronic warfare capabilities keep up with drone tech. I've been looking for reasonable investments in companies that make high-powered lasers for ships, vehicles, and air defense. With the proliferation of drones and the cost of missiles, I think we will see a move towards lasers which may be more effective at dealing with large volumes of drones.

I'm sure that approach will work great in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean when China employs A2/AD around Taiwan. Marine Grunt: Where's our air support? Tech Bro Call Center: Sorry bro, those drones ran out of juice and fell into the ocean 1000 klicks to your west. Good luck.

CMCT. Combination of tax loss selling and people puking the common after a preferred conversion, which begets more tax loss selling.

It’s quite straightforward to fire poor performers. Done it multiple times over the last two decades. For Insubordination and for performance. Some hiring authorities like Title 42 and SBRBPS - hiring authorities routinely used at NIH - make it more straightforward. Once you fire the first one, your Branch/Division/Office gets a reputation and the shitty employees stay away. If a supervisor is saying it is impossible to fire poor performers, then in my experience in the Fed gov, it is the supervisor that is the poor performer and should be fired. I think re-shoring tech and other supply chain components will be the winning trade under Trump. I think DOGE will implode in a battle of egos between Vivek, Elon, Trump, and JD, which is unfortunate because I think they could bring some good ideas to government.

When I bought it, it was right under book value. At the time, there was a pretty steady stream of branch closures by the money center banks in Alaska which I thought would help the three listed Alaskan banks (FBAK, NRIM, and DENI). The Denali deposit mix was terrible and seemed like it could improve over time (it did) as customers moved from closed money center branches to Denali. Denali is also the smallest of the three by a lot, which makes it pretty easy to take-out at a premium. In the meantime it is a steady EPS grower and you get paid to wait around. My main issue - a recent one - is the increasing share of construction loans. Feels like they are growing this right into the peak of the cycle.

Lots of different reasons to own banks. Because I am constrained in the parts of the market I am allowed to invest in, I spend a lot of time looking at banks. I like FFBB, UNIB, SBNC, LRBI, DENI, BEOB, FRSB, NBN. All for different reasons. I routinely flog myself for not owning more NBN, SBNC, and BEOB.

Why not the Class B shares? 10% cheaper, same economic interest, and additional voting rights.

Peltz has a reasonable track record with activism and a reasonable track record in the UK. Not sure why folks would focus on the rear-view mirror when the activist investor is clearly not going to settle for the status quo of the last 5 years.

Are you referring to the antitrust case around ad tech? Or around the search monopoly? Regarding the search monopoly and payments between Google and Apple, and between Google and Samsung, I dont envision the court compelling Google to share search data with competitors. And I don’t envision DOJ requesting this as a remedy. This would be a pretty bad look for any court and for any administration to force one tech giant to share consumer data via search with other tech giants. The salient issue is Google paying to exclude competitors. This is reflected in the ruling. I think an injunction against this practice will be the remedy, and we will end up with some sort of “search provider choice screen”.

My forecast…. In Summer 2025, SUP uses a combination of cash and debt - maybe $100 million cash and $200 million in new debt - to redeem the preferred shares. Maybe there is some negotiation between SUP and TPG that brings it under $300 mil. But I can’t see any reason why TPG would settle for much less than $300 mil, especially given the debt stack was refinanced so there is not a going concern issue that would donut their holding of common. This reminded me a little bit of WHLR with the onerous preferred terms. However, I think SUP is a little bit better positioned to deal with the preferred.

Bought some Superior Industries (SUP).

People underestimate the experience and logistics necessary to execute military operations. Maybe they aren’t a paper tiger, but there is little evidence to suggest that they are capable of executing cross-service military operations outside of the Chinese mainland over a sustained period of time, or even a short period of time. Sure, they have a large military-industrial complex that can produce equipment. And sure, they have millions of military-aged men that Xi would be willing to march right into a meat grinder. But no one is invading China - they aren’t going to bring their resources to bear on a little tiny bridgehead on the coast of China. If they want to fight (and assuming no war with India), they have to take the fight to another land mass, across a significant body of water. I remain unconvinced that the Chinese can pull this off. I think their military capability is overestimated. And this is why I do not believe China will invade Taiwan.

Why do you think they don’t have any? It wouldn’t surprise me if they had a handful of plane-launched nukes, or potentially nuclear-tipped torpedos, for a doomsday scenario where China invades and things look bleak. This would be the quickest way to torch an invasion fleet in the Taiwan Strait and buy some time to re-organize defenses on the island. i think everyone has seen Ukraine and the long-term results of being disarmed by the West. I think we are going back to the age of nuclear weapon proliferation as a strategic deterrent.

Those pictures won’t need to go live on the television. Dead Chinese marines and sailors would be washing up on the shores of China for all to see first-hand. Hard to censor that. And remember that firing cruise missiles and ballistic missiles is not a one-way thing. Taiwan has plenty of ordinance to launch into China.

I like that play on Lincoln’s quote - well-said.

There won’t be an invasion of Taiwan. Pulling off a seaborne landing is quite literally the hardest military endeavor to pull-off. Look at the Western Theater in World War Two and the Allied experience at Dieppe, during Operation Torch, during Operation Husky, and the fighting at Salerno, at Anzio, at Normandy. And look at the USMC experience in the Pacific. Except for Dieppe, all of these landings were pulled off with complete air supremacy, complete naval supremacy, and overwhelming numbers of landing troops. The U.S. and the British are the only countries in the world with extensive real-world experience at pulling off contested seaborne landings and subsequently supporting them logistically. Now look at Taiwan. The island is bristling with air defense, ground-launched anti-ship missiles, and a coastline that makes seaborne landings challenging to execute and support. The PLA won’t achieve air supremacy or even superiority, and they won’t achieve naval supremacy. It would be like Omaha Beach x 100 for the Chinese, and that assumes the PLA marines even get to the beach which I doubt. once the initial attack is repulsed, you can expect Taiwan to start launching cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against the staging areas on the Chinese coastline. We haven’t even addressed the idea of drones, or the very likely military support from the U.S., Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. Xi knows that the odds of military success are as close to the zero bound as possible. Threats of invasion are just bluster.

I’ll bite, although split between two picks. 50% Ally Financial and 50% Calumet Specialty. You aren’t buying at the lows (especially with Calumet), but I think both are reasonably priced today for what I think their share price will be in five years.

When I was reading through this, I had flashbacks to Enterprise Group. Cathedral looks pretty interesting, and I am a sucker for the type of acquisition strategy they are pursuing.

I think the answer to this question lies in the next election. if Nicki Haley wins, then Ukraine wins by force or by Putin suing for peace. if Biden wins, then I think Ukraine gets a slow drip of weapons to keep the status quo. And if Trump wins, the range of possibilities is endless. The Biden Administration has slow-walked numerous armaments that would enable Ukraine to easily eject Russia beyond the pre-2014 borders. Examples include over 1,000 ATACMS (past their expiration date, "unusable" due to our BS policy on cluster munitions, and costing the taxpayer to decommission when instead it would be free to ram it down Russian's throats), 100 of thousands of DPCIM 155s remaining in US inventories domestically and abroad ("unusable" due to our BS policy on cluster munitions), 1000's of Bradley's and HMMVS that are being scrapped, 1000's of Abrams that are sitting around to either be scrapped or sent back to the plant for the next version of the Abrams tank, 100's of M1A1 Abrams that were recently given up by the USMC, and there is plenty more. We have over 200 Assault Breachers - based on the M1 chassis - literally the best mine-clearing engineering vehicle in the world - and we didn't give them any before they attacked the Surovkin line in the South. The whole reason these exist is for a ground war with a near-pear adversary. All of this equipment withheld or slow-walked because some spineless Administration members are worried about escalation, or because they make the false claim that this stuff is needed in case of war with China (it is not needed for a war with China). And I am tired of hearing the BS about how the US can't release high-tech gear, or that we can't possibly weaken active duty units. We have a precedent - Nixon - of stripping active duty combat aircraft from front-line units and handing them over to Israel, along with other arms and munitions. If the US wanted Ukraine to win, all of this stuff would be in Ukraine now and Ukraine would be stomping all over Russia. The war would probably be over by now.

More NTODY and more CLMT.

USS Ranger, as well as the USS Wasp (modeled after the Yorktown class carriers but “value engineered” to avoid exceeding the remaining treaty tons) were both slower than the Yorktown class carriers so they were kept in the Atlantic, or at least that was the plan prior to the Battle of Coral Sea and subsequently Battle of Midway. After those battles, the US was desperate for another Pacific carrier and the Wasp was the least-bad choice. Her value-engineering likely played a part in her demise during the Guadalcanal campaign. sorry for the deviation from the regularly scheduled programming on Ukraine…

The Lexington and Saratoga keels were started as battlexruisers and then converted to carriers so their layout was not conducive for a large air wing. The Ranger was intentionly built as a carrier - the first purpose built carrier for the US - so it had the right layout for a larger air wing. The British had the same issue with the Courageous class - originally laid down as battlexruisers so the layout was’t conducive for a large air wing.