aws

Bought some more LILAP and shorted a little LILAK as a hedge. In a month the common is up 50% while the preferred is down 20%. Seems like at least one of those is wrong.

What a crazy game between Mexico and England. Glad to see it ended with good sportsmanship and not ugly like France/Paraguay.

I'm a glutton for punishment so I've been nibbling on some Volkswagen

LILAP - the latest Malone spin off. A 9% preferred trading at under 80 cents on the dollar even after Malone bought pretty heavily open market in the past few days.

Except for the soldier who did it with the prediction market. Prediction markets being the thing turning the whole world into a casino, which Trump doesn't like apparently, despite his company is also getting into the prediction market business. It's only ok if you make enough to donate millions to his PAC

Our new director of national intelligence, at his weird meme stock event in an airplane hanger with people getting slapped by dildos: https://keubiko.substack.com/p/bill-pppultes-ppp-ppproblem https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/18kqann/a_500_perticket_party_in_a_florida_airplane/

Berkshire Hathaway to Acquire Taylor Morrison Home Corporation for $8.5 Billion https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/berkshire-hathaway-acquire-taylor-morrison-203000204.html

We got through the Q&A without anyone making their kid read their question for them.

Sold some CROX and bought BRK.B with the proceeds

FWIW Centcom says zero ships passed in 24 hours

For whatever reason the knives came out for Swalwell at this time, at least there was sufficient pressure to push him out. Gonzales on the other hand still has his seat despite admitting guilt in the scandal over his affair with a staffer who set herself on fire. Hopefully they follow through on expelling him.

I like to think he just enjoys making his followers debase themselves. Like when that article came out that he gave everyone shoes that were two sizes too big, knowing they wouldn't dare not to wear them.

He posted it last night, got criticized, and deleted it this morning after saying he posted it because he thought it portrayed him as a doctor healing people.

Who needs the pope when you have Orange Jesus?

Orban just conceded defeat. Great news that there won't be any shenanigans to try to stay in power. Hopefully that allows the EU to deliver the support to Ukraine that Hungary had been blocking.

Was JD Vance the kiss of death for Orban in the Hungary election? With 29% of the votes in, the opposition party is projected to win 132 of 199 seats, almost a supermajority.

I don't think the US is going to blow up any tankers, but we might seize them. If they choose to run a blockade that's fair enough.

I think it's one of the best ideas he's had. The US has done nothing to disrupt any of the shipping through the strait throughout the war. They've let all the Iranian tankers and bulkers through, which effectively allowed Iran to cash in on high oil prices while they disrupt the rest of the world economy. Then the ceasefire was allowed to continue for days even though Iran failed to live up to the only precondition of opening the strait. The US now has credibility that the issue of the strait closure is Iran's fault even though the US might add to the pressure with a blockade. I think it's a long time coming. Iran has been able to feel very powerful by choking off the rest of the world without affecting themselves, so they felt no need to cede anything in the ceasefire demands. At least this would add some pressure to them, turning it from a cash cow to a pain point.

Probably because people figured out how to cheat on the tariffs. Foreign exporters setup shell companies in the US to take delivery of their goods, lied about the value of what they were importing, and sold the goods duty paid to the actual importers. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/tariffs-trade-import-fraud.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Z1A.Cdey.JtTKq6d0XDjj&smid=url-share

NTDOY, CNSWF, FICO, NAVI

The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, with only a handful of Iranian tankers being allowed through, plus a few dry bulk vessels paying the aya"toll"ah. Yesterday Trump told a reporter he was considering a US-Iranian joint venture to collect tolls, which thankfully he is now walking back tonight with truth social posts demanding no tolls. Hopefully it has more behind it than his "Vladimir, STOP!" posts. It's quite ridiculous to allow Iran to collect revenue from this. Not only is the shipping lane through the strait in Omanian waters, but imagine the precedent it would set. The vast majority of all international shipping has to pass through chokepoints in territorial waters of at least one country, like the Strait of Malacca or Strait of Gibraltar. Would the adjacent countries there start demanding tolls too?

It's pretty frustrating that we seemed to have learned very little from the war in Ukraine and just leave hundreds of millions of dollars of planes sitting out in the open on the tarmac for satellites to see. $20k drones taking out $50 million planes. Maybe Trump shouldn't have blown off Zelensky's offer of assistance.

I hope we get Thanksgiving letters for many years to come.

Wrote a bunch of weekly puts on CROX in various strikes from 71-75. Enough to more than double down if all assigned. In the end I may wish I just added shares outright, but I'm a sucker for collecting put premiums on shares being bought back heavily at 52 week lows.

Weirdly, I noticed the A share count is higher than it was on the last 10-Q. It went from 519,193 to 523,010. The total outstanding between A and B is exactly the same, so I guess they incorrectly recorded some conversions in the last report that they had to undo.