Dalal.Holdings

I see that today the entire crypto market cap is about $1 Trillion. This amount could instead be put into T-bills and earn $50B a year in what they call risk-free return... So the question becomes why would anyone in their right mind "invest" in such stuff. The old argument was that it was "inflation resistant" which has been thoroughly eviscerated. Rates are slowly killing this entire space as anyone in their right mind would expect.

Why not just...sell it

The chart says to not pay too much attn to monthly CPI I look back at the past to learn that the future is not so predictable and to exercise caution, I’m sure some people don’t look back at all…

They didn’t perform all that gloriously into low rates and loose policy thru last yr tho

Arthur Burns was fooled when inflation seemed to "finally cool off" in 1974...turns out it was only "transitory"

"Bitcoin is disinflationary/deflationary by design." Yet over the last 12 mo, the value of the dollar has declined at rapid rate and Bitcoin's dollar value is waay down... Why? Interest Rates. Rising rates are the nail in the coffin for this and everything like it. Buyer beware.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad Matt Levine's piece on FTX. Quite a read. What happens when you un-tether yourself from fundamental tenets like "investments should possess cash flow" is that you can become un-tethered to reality... People will be reading about this in financial history wondering "WTF was everyone smoking?" decades from now... And yeah, looks like Michael Lewis is working on a book which will surely turn into a movie a la Big Short

If the BTC network has utility, why does a token on said network need to possess value? What is the proper value? $16,000 per one BTC? Why not 16 cents? Why not $16 million? Barcodes have utility and the more retailers use them, the more "network effect" exists promoting their usage across the industry--however I would not ascribe value to an individual barcode... Does my IP address have value? What about my phone number? $16,000 ? "Ignore Bitcoin, it's a mirage" QED

Based on popular Tik Toks showing a "day in the life of a Meta employee", etc: I think that soon the current shortage of workers in restaurant/airport/service industries will be addressed. Not sure they'll need Office365.

AMZN cutting Office365 subs by about 10k now…

The arguments supporting bitcoin: “it went up a lot for a long time” can be used for Tulips and Beanie Babies. I’m gonna listen to the guys who have successfully compounded money for over 70 years. Other folks will listen to a guy who throws a football (Tom Brady) on investing. I’m just gonna keep it simple and buy cheap cash flows the bear market provides.

I'm very surprised this needs to be said on a Value forum, but: The FTX saga is just the beginning. These things will not survive above zero interest rate environments. Like Warren said, "bitcoin is a mirage"...

META and TWTR imminently cutting back on their Office365 and Adobe subscriptions. You'll see this at a large scale as the startup ecosystem goes thru a mass extinction event. The revenue isn't as "sticky" as everyone thinks.

I'm just glad I got to live through a decade of VC subsidized cab rides and food delivery

Bitcoin is a ponzi. Greater Fool Theory in action. I don't need to think beyond that.

I'm just glad we've returned to a time where Bankruptcies are possible Again! ... Going to be a wild ride

I think folks will be surprised by how incestuous tech is and how big Tech is not immune... Many firms are Dead Firms Walking

Watching YouTube this weekend. Ads by DoorDash, Lyft, and Peloton. If you know, you know.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-31/biden-to-call-on-congress-to-consider-windfall-tax-on-oil-companies?srnd=premium This guy is just plain stupid.

President fails to confront his glaring failures on Energy Policy: Meanwhile, CEO of XOM: “There has been discussion in the U.S. about our industry returning some of our profits directly to the American people. In fact, that’s exactly what we’re doing in the form of our quarterly dividend.”

Large swaths of tech investors did far, far worse than down 42% YTD because not only did they buy FAANMG, they bought stuff like SHOP, SE, COIN, NET, FSLY, etc etc The mentality that tech could do no wrong and pricing stuff on revenue multiples, optimistic future growth projections, and assuming revenues as recurring indefinitely proved catastrophic

when everyone and their mother thought investing was as easy as “just buy big tech” it should have raised some flags…even the “pros” like Li Liu were piling into these.

The bear mauled META to death today after 10 months of torture. GOOG and AMZN have been whipped. The way to outperform the bull market was -- Buy Tech The way to outperform the bear market seems to be -- Avoid Tech

At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. If you have high expectations (future high growth) for your investments in a world shifting from low rates to higher rates, well then good luck. Recent results from GOOG, META, NFLX, and the rest are showing you that these companies do not behave like their shareholders thought they would when interest rates go even slightly up...

Here's a list of them. Many of them--IBM, Sears, GE, Phillip Morris, J&J, P&G, Kodak, Disney, McDonald's were big components of the U.S. economy in those days... And you can see many of them had P/E ratios in the mere 20s or 30s... http://economics-files.pomona.edu/GarySmith/papers/Nifty50/Nifty50.html