treasurehunt

That's a good point that some jobs are indirectly the result of government spending. I'll try and ask Deep Research about this tomorrow. Not sure how to phrase the question exactly; I'll think about what to ask, but if you have anything in mind, do share.

The government being responsible for 85% of job growth in 2024 does not pass the smell test. Just to verify, I posed the question to both Grok 3.0 and Gemini Deep Research. Grok came back with 25-30%; Gemini said 23%. Any idea what the original source is for the 85% (what this RIC report is based on, that is)? Budget deficits (and I guess government spending, by extension) have been abnormally high lately for a non-recessionary environment and are not sustainable over a long period, but I don't see any alarming trends in government employment. I asked Grok to analyze the last 20 years of government employment (fed + state/local) and its answer was that the share has actually gone down from about 17% in 2004 to 15% in 2024. Gemini Deep Research came back with slightly different numbers but a similar trend. I am sure there is a lot of waste in government and some housecleaning sounds fine, but the employment trends don't support taking a hatchet to so many jobs seemingly with very little deliberation.

Damn! I am not a big fan of oil executives generally, but this is a brilliant speech!

Fairfax, Strathcona, PDD and EWBC for me.

We should get an extra 1-1.5% from dividends and 2-3% from buybacks. If the market cap goes up by 11.6% per year, our total return will probably be around 15% annualized. I'd be thrilled with that over 10 years.

Very interesting interview; thanks for posting. So according to Li Daokui, policymakers' goals are clear even if specific policies might be issued only over a period of a year or two - swap out local government debt for central government debt and increase domestic consumption mostly by incentivizing local governments properly. Good to keep this in mind.

I really like this idea. There will probably still be gray areas and room for different interpretations, but at least this is an attempt at an objective analysis. There seems to be this view that government bureaucracy is so bad that doing something - anything - can only be an improvement, regardless of what this something is. I disagree. Having lived in another country for a good part of my life, I can assure you that government bureaucracy could be much worse. So it is important to examine the actions that are being taken to make government more efficient and the consequences of these actions.

I bought my first B shares in February and March of 2000 for right around $1,500 per share. Still have those, although I have sold some that I bought later.

Sold some BYDDY. BYD is executing very well, but a P/E of 25 for a company that faces intense competition in all its verticals seems rich.

I have cut and pasted the chart below. It was posted on X by Ernie Tedeschi, former head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. Anyway, this chart maps inflation-adjusted median net wealth (assets - liabilities) versus age for Gen Z, Millennials, Boomers etc. And by this metric, Gen Z and Millennials are doing better than Boomers. Your data uses different metrics - percentage of total wealth owned by people under a certain age, wealth as a percentage of disposable income etc. Arguably these metrics are better at gauging how a generation is doing financially. I think it is accurate to say that Gen Z own less of the total pie than Boomers did at the same age, but today's pie is much bigger in real terms.

Is it?

I don't think BAC is particularly cheap now and for me over time it had become too small a position to bother with. So I sold. There was no company-specific reason for my sale.

Sold the last of my BAC. It was a very nice run from 2011 till now. Thank you, Brian Moynihan!

Added to my Prosus and Tencent positions. Only a nibble though.

Amazon's Kuiper might be a viable competitor although they are way behind schedule at the moment. Apparently, half the Kuiper constellation has to be in place by July 2026. https://spacenews.com/beta-project-kuiper-broadband-services-pushed-to-early-2025/

Well, big banks such as BAC and JPM are quite constrained when it comes to growth, I think. EWBC has a chance at growing faster than these behemoths. But the main reason I kept EWBC while lightening up on BAC and JPM is that it is not as overvalued as these two in my estimation. Defining IV as the price where I can expect a 10% annual return going forward, I have BAC valued at $36, JPM at $200 and EWBC at $105. Of course it is entirely possible that my estimate of IV is off by quite a bit. Also, take a look at past growth in book value per share for these banks (I use growth in BV per share as a proxy for growth in IV per share). Annual Book Value Per Share Growth BAC JPM EWBC Since 2013 5.11% 7.44% 11.48% Since 2018 6.12% 8.95% 10.89%

Interesting. I too bought EWBC last year after SIVB went belly up, but haven't sold any yet. I have lightened up considerably on other US banks - C, JPM, BAC, GS etc - since I have about 20% of my portfolio in this sector.

Milton now up to Category 5! I hope it weakens before landfall and spares the more populated areas in Florida.

My biggest buy in the last three months is PROSY (2% of portfolio). Second biggest is HQI (1% of portfolio).

The Economist has jumped on the solar bandwagon with both feet. They are predicting a future (some decades out) of very cheap electricity, quite the opposite of an electricity crisis. I think the articles are behind a paywall, unfortunately. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/20/the-exponential-growth-of-solar-power-will-change-the-world https://www.economist.com/interactive/essay/2024/06/20/solar-power-is-going-to-be-huge The Economist doesn't really address seasonal fluctuations or problems with long duration storage. On the other hand, solar electricity production is only 6% of total global electricity production, so there is some time to solve these issues.

Aren't you ignoring the role of batteries here? CAISO has over 10GW/40GWh of battery storage. That should help a lot with handling the deeper duck curve, right? I don't see why load shedding will be necessary. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/04/30/california-batteries-dominate-evening-grid-with-10-gw-40-gwh-of-capacity/

Thanks. Lots of great information in the prospectus on the non-life insurance market in India and on Digit itself.

I don't see how it's just arithmetic, since there is no free flow of goods and labor across national boundaries and the prices of goods and services at market exchange rates vary widely across countries. Can you explain your thinking? Also, how about Canada for another counterexample, albeit not as dramatic as Japan? In the 15 years from May 8, 2009 to May 8, 2024 the Loonie has depreciated from 0.87 USD to 0.73 USD. But inflation in Canada was slightly less than in the US (39% vs 46% according to ChatGPT).

Is there good statistical evidence for this? For instance, 15 years ago one US dollar was worth about 95 Japanese yen. Today it is worth over 150. During that period, inflation in Japan was much lower than in the US. Obviously even over long periods, factors other than inflation can be very significant.

If India's real GDP can grow at 6.5% and inflation is at 4.5%, the nominal GDP growth rate will be roughly 11%. This level of nominal GDP growth can sustain fairly high fiscal deficits without increasing the debt to GDP ratio, right?