formthirteen

Live to invest another day or invest to live another day.

MSCI

Starter in MNST

EW

FIVE

Made-in-China Goes Upscale as a New Generation of Brands Battles Slowdown https://archive.is/GQDPi China’s Real Economic Crisis - Why Beijing Won’t Give Up on a Failing Model https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-real-economic-crisis Looking for the upside of tariffs on China - Both Trump and Harris expected to slap more tariffs on Chinese-made goods in policy that seeks to reset terms of globalization https://asiatimes.com/2024/08/looking-for-the-upside-of-tariffs-on-china/ In Europe, the chancellor of Germany is intent on continuing the policy of deindustrialization: https://www.reuters.com/technology/germanys-scholz-not-convinced-about-tariffs-chinese-evs-wirtschaftswoche-2023-09-28/ Meanwhile in the US: I wonder if, for example, GoPro and iRobot will survive the CCP policy of industrial growth at any cost? If not, more innovative companies will be founded that will outcompete the Chinese companies. Creative destruction… I would expect TSLA to be able to compete with China through technological innovation and branding, but not pricing:

Watching season 2 of House of Dragons

LRE. I haven't received any special dividends yet.

Russia on the offensive in Venezuela and Cuba: https://apnews.com/article/russian-warships-visit-cuba-havana-fcddda9e9406a81b686d648d007b8757 Two of the oil and cigar richest countries on Earth.

These are ugly charts of unviable business models. Technical analysis clearly indicates, "Yes, you are right. There's no viable business model.": These businesses are undervalued according to management and owners.

MO and KNSL

I gambled on KNSL the day before their latest quarterly earnings report and bought a much bigger starter position than usual. No unique insight, just liked what I saw: experienced management, technology, efficiency, high growth, low combined ratio, growing market. No plans to buy more. Up around 20% right now, might even be a good time to sell, what do I know. Giverny Capital owns KNSL since Q3, 2023 and think KNSL can grow for a long time: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e8f1f2a9432801293f6439e/t/6668a598580f381f3190a30e/1718134168427/2023Q4D.pdf

Starter in Kinsale and Five Below.

Mark understands China: https://about.fb.com/news/2024/07/open-source-ai-is-the-path-forward/ Denmark too: Great article and espionage story by Bloomberg: When a Huawei Bid Turned Into a Hunt for a Corporate Mole https://archive.is/1zlDh This article was also interesting: China’s Richest Man Risks Losing Crown After $13 Billion Wipeout https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-richest-man-risks-losing-000128252.html

CME Is there a thread for EVO? I couldn't find one. You could think something with this growth and margins would trade at higher multiples:

Awesome paper. The only criticism I have is that it doesn't say which stocks will give us the best returns over the next 10-50 years, or maybe it does?

Teledyne also owns Universal Robots A/S which builds "cobots": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Robots

Thanks. Will try to read this one. Last summer I was staying in a hotel on the top floor and the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. Most people were looking out their hotel room doors instead of running out. For some reason it takes time to acknowledge you're in danger and in hindsight it took too long to exit. There was no smoke or fire, but I hope I had exited the building faster. It was a bit disorienting because I was half asleep and it was almost pitch dark. Walked out without shoes. There was only one way out down narrow and dark stairs. If there had been a fire on the first floor, it might have been best to stay in the room or fly out the window. It's easy to talk yourself into complacency when you see no smoke and people around you are standing still.

Venezuela and Iran? I hope it will be done in the places with the highest energy prices and labor costs (Europe and US). However, I expect Europe to regulate robots heavily. China will buy most of the European robot manufacturers that it has not already bought. Kuka, Dürr Ecoclean Group, and KraussMaffei have been acquired by the Chinese state Chinese companies in recent years. The US will produce the most innovative robot companies, maybe Tesla, Amazon, or figure.ai. China will continue to be the leading manufacturer of killer robots drones, but will be too scared to use them on anything but the weakest of neighbors. The people of the world will finally be free to argue 24/7 about gender and social injustice. At least until the robots become our masters. McDonald's already employs our robot overlords:

Presumed innocent

Machines will take over manufacturing at some point: https://www.figure.ai https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/robot-startup-figure-valued-at-2point6-billion-by-bezos-amazon-nvidia.html They will be operated from places like India and the Phillipines by English-speaking homo sapiens if support is needed, like Waymo: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/06/waymo-one-is-now-open-to-everyone-in-san-francisco/ Welcome to the future, it's already here, just unevenly distributed.