Gregmal

I absolutely hate gold but I like money and the setup Q4 into 2022 was a good one. Would be surprised if it doesn’t continue.

Got gold?

The Carl Icahn doc on HBO is pure finance porn. One of the best I’ve seen.

Yea lets see NFLX do that. Anyone want to live in Albuquerque?

I think it kind of comes in waves. Inflation is awfully popular in terms of narrative right now. A year ago all we heard about was transitory. Now its here and accelerating and never going away. These pundits and talking heads generally happen to be laggards and I do think we're probably going to see this peak in the near future. The two big things IMO are shortage of good which will go away as people stop using covid as an excuse to shut down, and labor. More people will work if you pay them more. Companies can definitely afford to. And if not, be more receptive to immigration which I think the current administration can do. I would be less optimistic if an anti immigration republican was in there right now.

Yea financial people I talk to are generally surprised when I admit I haven't watched CNBC or Bloomberg TV since maybe 2015. Theres many other ways to get info from the world and sift through whats relevant and useless/useful. In the US/North America people have this awful tendency to take hook, line and sinker what suites them. If they are, lets call it "anti chicken noodle soup", its amazing how many folks go get their news from places that have an "anti chicken noodle soup" agenda, and then when they get headlines or stories that shit on chicken noodle soup, turn around and cite those sources to others as "facts" and reasons to say I told you so...and then more often then not end up being wrong and yet go make the same mistake again the next time theres a story about chicken noodle soup.

Both Putin and Ukraine folks said the invasion talk was hysteria. Some “US sources” said it was happening any day now. While I don’t think either outcome is all that material to the markets, is there a point where we start throwing these US news peddlers and information sources into the same camp as the experts who give us polling numbers for the elections? Seems the biases really get running here and just like with some politicians, any time an anti china or anti Russian story can get a reaction, some jerk off throws it out there. Then when they get called out it’s an “honest mistake” LOL or they some how insist they were right anyway. It’s not even worth paying attention to most news sources at all anymore. LG at Cleveland cliffs said it wonderfully on the last call. We haven’t been an iron ore company for years but some jerk off substitute teacher on cnbc called us one yesterday and used it as his reason for selling the stock.

This thread is definitely dunzo LOL. But then again, the title is “the top is coming” and that happened a year ago. New thread topic suggestions relevant to ongoing discussion could be “how to make a fortune off crisis”, “the situation in Ukraine” or “I got duped into voting for Brandon and he just made things worse”. The later could potentially be in the politics section.

To be fair Eric, you can undo everything the previous guy did, including creating an overnight border crisis for virtually no reason, but your hands are tied on this? If his job was to “fix” everything the last guy did wrong, which is what all the experts told us he would do, how come he fucked up everything that was done right and left in place the stuff that needed fixing?

Eh if nothing else’s there’s just been a cold dose of reality and I told you so poured on folks. 4 years of fabricated crisis vs one year of real ones. Even COVID, it was what you made of it and certain states with certain policies thrived while other places with other policies did awful. Proof is in the pudding.

Currently about -50% but a good chunk of that is PSTH and the like and also a bunch(~low teens %) of options/derivatives hedging the market.

Hung over after a long night fishing and just in general don’t want to get into too much detail as it’s probably insensitive to a degree(if not already, oops), but I do have some friends and family but probably most impactful to the 5000 mile away opinion is a bunch of investors I’ve worked with in the past decade. Lawyers and politicians from not just Ukraine but places like Estonia, Serbia, etc. Had a few in St Petersburg as well, both English lawyers who took 3x the pay plus the substantially lower tax rate to leave London. And the prevailing consensus is that it’s far from the Ann Frank/yellow star stuff often described like in the post from Viking. Eastern European culture is very different from American culture and Russia/Ukraine or even many of the other old USSR places is sensitive but more akin to politics here in the states vs life and death, freedom vs slavery. Russia isn’t going to overtake Ukraine and kill all the men, rape the women, and brainwash the children. It’s more a pride and security thing and Russia believes Ukraine was stolen and as someone else already mentioned, I doubt the US would take well to meddling with Mexico or Canada which is exactly what EU and US constantly do. It’s more complex than the tabloids and MSM on either side will tell you cuz everyone is telling sides to the story not the whole thing. Anyway, just make money from it LOL. Hoping to get around to BG and CF soon. Both look cheap and nicely setup.

Most of the energy and commodity assets globally are in hands that benefit from rising prices. Look at the oligarchs. Mining and infrastructure guys. No one’s messing with that. They’ll sell to the stupid American institutions that won’t touch XOM right now because it’s a bad look for their green mandates. Cycles are awesome if you get them right.

Hey it is what it is. Everyone is entitled to opinions and I respect infinitely more the opinions of people who put their money where their mouth is and over time some people just happen to be right more often than others. If your money is where your mouth is that adds up pretty quickly and if you’re wrong then you learn just as fast and those faulty opinions can quickly resolve themselves. And if there’s nothing on the line who gives a shit about that opinion anyway as it’s by definition, worthless.

Divine right inspired land grabs are much more complicated than either side fighting for them can convey. And they’re too hard as you said to really break down beyond certain levels. Thankfully, this is far from an Israel/Palestine situation. The majority of those people can’t agree on anything whereas much of Eastern Europe is very much ideologically on the same page. So it might create minor fireworks but I think the real impacts will be from EU/US actions and sanctions.

Because as fun as it is making money off this stuff the stupidity and inefficiency of it all is highly aggravating. I don’t know why, it just is. I guess because I believe people should be forced to be accountable. After spending 4 years literally fabricating issues and hoaxes we now have 100% real and consequential ones and they’re largely the result of the whiny establishment/academic gated community crowd and the poor ones that just don’t know any better and need the system that feeds them to continue doing so. I mean even COVID….it was what you made of it. Last year I did the exact same thing as the year before, the same thing as this year. Hotels and resorts that were $60 last year and shut the year before, are $900 a night now. Why? Because it took some people 2 years worth of fuckin up to realize they shoulda just left shit alone to begin with and now all that stupid policy and economic decision making has to unwind. The energy issue is totally avoidable but we want to lecture about saving the climate or whatever that means. And now as we rewrite districts and try to reinvent election rules we want to pretend to be interested in “humanitarian” issues in china and Russia LOL. Not sure exactly how this relates to the exact title of the thread, but it’s a derivative; the top was last January/February and that’s not really debatable, but as things progress this is all relevant to not making more problems than necessary. Tech is largely a first world luxury. If we continue to ignore the biggest issues we ve faced in some time there’s virtually no way many of these companies can continue benefitting as they have in the past.

We see it all the time where these absolutely foolish and fantastically scripted narratives flow throw mainstream NA that ball up and arrogantly dictate how everything about Asian, Eastern Europe, and much of middle eastern culture is wrong and we’re superior. We lecture from our own glass house. And granted, there’s plenty wrong with the way things can happen in all those places, but the same is just as true about North America. Yet we continuously lecture and mind others business when most have no clue what they’re talking about and their limited knowledge of the ways of life of others in those areas come from America centric media. It’s all a joke. We currently have 7%+ inflation, $100 oil a tick away, shortages of food everywhere, housing at the most unattainable levels ever. And everyone STILL wants to act like our own shit don’t stink and preach to China and Russia LOL! But what’s encouraging is that 1) it’s so easy to make money from all this it’s almost unbelievable. And 2) voting and poor policy finally seems to have consequences. It’s earned and deserved and about freakin time.

And for the record I am Ukrainian. Well actually maybe Polish.100% don’t know for sure. The borders changed quite regularly around the time my family members were moving around. Western ideology and media is so ignorant of the rest of the world. You could recreate the “concerned” citizens protesting in Kiev with pictures from a PETA ad in front of a slaughterhouse in Idaho processing ribeyes for Kroger. We re just first worlders needing entertainment and things to be “concerned” about because Netflix is running out of good content and we haven’t had real problems in a while. But now because of a perfect storm of asinine politics and policies, supply and demand imbalances, and capitalism, energy and hunger crisis could very well be coming to NA. Folks reap what they sow.

Nah you’re just regurgitating the US centric media spin narrative. Why isn’t the US northeast part of England anymore? The people play a larger role than you think in deciding what they want. Ukraine is massively pro Russia. This all happens and the media gives you reason to get upset but how come none of you are talking about NY rewriting districts for voting purposes with the intent to seize control of areas? There’s this media porn fantasy that folks here love, the stuff liberty posts in the red alert thread….but you’re being played. Have you paid any attention to what’s come out of the current defamation suit against The NY Times? They openly admit to faking and ignoring fact checkers to put out manipulative narratives. Life isn’t about to change super drastically in Ukraine anytime soon. Sure there’s people you see in the street raging because CNN gives you the feed, or twitter shows you pictures, just as there’s truckers waiting for your boy Trudeau….but that too is a peanut in terms of its real life relevance. But regardless, you guys said Brandon was the answer. Enjoy what you’ve created. He’s so behind and predictable and Putin know it. What’s the career politician going to do to Russia? Impose sanctions that crush poor and middle class Americans via their energy costs? Yup. Brilliant!

Well, until then, there’s futures options available to keep profiting from the continued raping of the most vulnerable. Even shitty QSR type food is getting pricey! Anyone keeping an eye on fertilizer costs? Better stock up. Thank you Brandon.

Man! Where’s @Read the Footnoteswhen you need him? All those experts on psychological analysis declaring Trump a Russian puppet….the fella they voted for seems mighty effective. Ukraine going back to Russia. Arguably where it belonged to begin with as a huge percentage of Ukrainians consider themselves Russian and support Russia. It’s basically been a self serving US/EU initiative to steal Ukraine and the bulk of that region following the Cold War. IMO this is largely much ado about nothing. But the beauty? Nat gas is gonna go through the roof and $120 oil ain’t too far off either. Been debating picking up some $200 CL calls. It’s closer than everyone thinks.

Yup and $100 CL calls going out up to 3 years from now cost $2 not long ago. But people believed the lies that the politicians, bankers and doctors told them. Too easy. Enjoy your $5 a gallon gas.

Added to DIS at 149.

Got oil/gold futures and call options? Thanks to all who voted for this! What a dumb ass. Now he's gonna tax opec! LOL

I agree. I think we spent most of the year over 20 VIX. Between that, commodity environment, and rate swing, an investor would be wise to take an interest in an education focusing on how the navigate the futures markets.