Dalal.Holdings

Yep, there is a market for that. Obviously anything geopolitically can happen to spike oil, but other than that, I think it grinds lower. I'm avoiding the sector and I would certainly avoid marginal stuff (Canadian oil sands, Drill-ships, etc), but to each his own...

You might want to add some context to "7th largest producer". This is a country with a massive population and industrial base that needs energy. Being 7th largest is not enough for them. They are the world's largest importer of oil at over 11 million barrels a day (more than what SA or Russia produce). They are a massive importer of oil and they know what their critical geopolitical weaknesses are: the strait of Malacca, the South China Sea, Strait of Hormuz, etc. The less oil they use, the better off they are strategically. China's auto EV juggernaut is devastating European auto manufacturers and it will structurally reduce China's dependence on oil (it already is) The fact that very few oil bulls look at all this stuff is hilarious to me

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/101424-chinas-ev-sales-output-hit-fresh-record-in-sep A majority of cars sold in China are now EVs. China has very little of its own oil reserves and this is the smart thing to do. I expect them to continue to barrel ahead on this path (and export a massive amount of EVs to the parts of the world that don't put up trade barriers).

https://www.ft.com/content/169816b5-39e9-4f05-ae84-43ef8e277c76 This is the first time I've seen EU seriously consider joint fundraising. I'm not sure it will be Eurobonds, but it sounds like a step in that direction. Non-EU members like the UK can participate too. Trump is the catalyst that is pushing Europe to take charge of itself as I pointed out earlier. And I think long term that's a good thing for everybody... It seems like $500B won't get them that far given how long they've come to rely on the USA to provide the vast majority of their defense apparatus. That amount is less than the annual U.S. defense budget... The EU has a lot of spending and investment it needs to do. These industries will take time to spin up as they've been neglected on the continent for so long...

Interesting bit from Bezos on why America is where it is vs others like Europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-05/opec-meets-to-discuss-further-delay-to-oil-output-revival OPEC is having a lot of trouble keeping a lid on production even among its own members and is losing market share in the process. Remind me again why this is bullish for oil ? https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-02/the-wrong-oil-price-is-truthfully-a-problem-for-opec

Please no. Shareholders don't need to be paying for every corporate exec to get a Secret Service detail (as we've recently seen, even the Secret Service is not enough)

The Riyal has been pegged to USD since 1952. I think that SA's revenues fluctuate much more with the volume of oil they sell and the price they sell it at than any currency fluctuations or inflation of the dollar. Their loss of market share and the flood of oil from U.S. producers has done more damage to their budget than any money printing by the USA. The massive increase in U.S. supply has brought prices down for everyone. It's in each producer's interest to maximize how much oil they produce, but if everyone maximizes their production, everyone loses (at least in the short term). Lots of Game Theory involved.

SA isn't losing market share because its wells are running dry...looking more and more like a supply glut with demand flatlining and in some places having already peaked... Oh, and SA's eventual solution might be to flood this market...

Progressives in the USA wanted to make America more like the EU. That's why they lost. Canada, EU are bastions of progressivism. Climate change activists, regulations galore. That's why America has taken the lead in so many areas. The irony is that progressive areas are now symbols of failure: uncontrolled migrant populations, homelessness, crime, dysfunctional government (look at UK/France/Germany/Canada), inability to build infrastructure, energy crises (Germany), wide deficits, decreased labor productivity, lack of innovation, and overall economic stagnation... The "degrowth" crowd wanted this, after all, so you reap what you have sown. Progressives have actually become regressive.

Do you have to read the entire document aloud?

Yet Charlie bought BABA (probably under the influence of Li Lu). Charlie's (and Li Lu's) biggest win though? BYD. BYD and its peers having significant impact on China's oil demand and they are rapidly growing and exporting cheap EVs to other countries too... https://www.autoblog.com/news/byd-projected-to-surpass-ford-by-year-end

I think that the assumption that China will resume its voracious appetite for oil is probably very wrong. It certainly won't see the growth of the past 20 years. That's bearish for oil... https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/after-decades-china-sputters-engine-global-oil-demand-growth-2024-12-03/

https://unherd.com/2024/12/europes-techno-populist-nightmare/ The problem of the EU leadership is it thinks a lot like liberals in America...that "experts" always know what's best...that rules and regulations are always good and that people like Elon are irredeemably bad. It leaves no room for positive tail events/black swans. That's why there's a dearth of Unicorns in Europe. The European Commission is a supranational government that is staffed with technocrats who believe they are the "experts". They have wreaked havoc on the continent and yet Ursula gets to start her second term...

Good thing I'm not buying the DAX

https://geekway.substack.com/p/a-visualization-of-europes-non-bubbly What is Ursula's strategy for addressing this massive gap? A vague "competitive compass" and a "task force" of bureaucrats, of course ! No promises to repeal ridiculous regulation, and continued pursuit of "decarbonization" https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-mario-draghi-is-creating-a-task-force/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/business/volkswagen-strikes.html The consequences of Germany's many bad decisions over the years are coming home to roost... So VW says it needs to deeply cut structural costs while workers are demanding job guarantees and keeping factories open... Unless a miracle happens, it's going to be a rude awakening for lots of people. This is the ultimate consequence of Europe's stagnation as a result of its poor governance. Eventually, it comes down on the people...for a long time its people have been sheltered from consequences of mismanagement of the continent. With the U.S. providing an umbrella of defense, their pensions and social safety net seemingly untouched by the happenings of the world... Now there is a reckoning.

A lot of problems in Europe. I agree. Europeans need to show more urgency in tackling their problems, but aside from a few murmurs from Draghi/Macron, I don't see much yet

Oh, I'm not looking at BP or BNP. There are others out there though...

Europe has a lot of issues, but when did value investing become just buying Mag 7 north of 30 times earnings? I thought value was buying when there is lots of fear (Europe) and sell when lots of greed (USA). Even Warren has a big cash pile now.

We just need a few more headlines like this

How it started (1 year ago): He's dangerous How it's going: he has a lot of lessons to teach the world Pretty funny 180 from The Economist (and many other pundits)

That chart covers 1950 onwards so it's pretty easy to see...If you look at that chart, Europe strongly outperformed the U.S. two consecutive years after 1976: in 1977 by ~30 percentage points... What's more important is that in 2024, unlike 1976, you look at the decade prior and see just about every single year the U.S. strongly outperformed Europe...that was not true in 1976. That means the U.S.'s cumulative relative outperformance to Europe is very large, likely larger than any time in modern history. This is more in line with cumulative and you can see it clearly addresses 1960 and 1976. An investor would have done quite well selling U.S. and buying Ex-U.S. at the Nifty 50 bubble and even the internet bubble. The relative performance since 1950 was in a band and we've broken out of that in the past decade. Is the sky the limit? As to 1918, in between two World Wars but parts of Europe did well in the Roaring 20s (though obviously not Germany)

It looks like the cumulative return gap of the past 10 years is considerably bigger than the 70s

https://www.ft.com/content/c4ddf3ab-94c6-41b3-95c1-1afd38d23704 People like Christine Lagarde represent in my view a lot that's wrong with EU governance. She's got all the "right" credentials and traveled through the revolving doors of various big institutions, pretty much unaccountable to the European people. She represents to me a lot of the bureaucrats running the show in the EU who all have the "right" education and walk around between Zoom meetings wearing lanyards while cooking up new regulatory schemes. The fact that she helmed these institutions during the past few decades of what she says can be argued as a 3 decade "crisis" for the EU speaks volumes. She seems to think the gap between EU and China/U.S. in technology is largely because of lack of financing which is ridiculous: While she does admit regulations are part of the problem, I'm not sure she has the right solutions: And overall, her response to one of the last questions just demonstrates a lack of urgency and enthusiasm to solve the problem. (That EU regulations like GDPR, AI Act, Deforestation stuff needs to have a hatchett taken to them: be repealed): Imagine if Americans had a narrative that their country had "become a museum". There would be massive political push to make it not so. The lack of urgency among Europeans to address their problems is concerning...