Gregmal

In a way you can’t help but believe that China wouldn’t mind having its markets be viewed similarly to US markets; if nothing else that would be extremely beneficial with respect to capital flowing into the county. You tell these listed companies to start paying out like 50% of operating earnings for a few years and the incoming growth from all the whores, especially US based funds, would be insane.

Yea Im almost there. I need them to universally kind of take order from Xi to spray everyone with a firehose full of cash. If they adopt Western capital allocation policies you could definitely see a 1980s onward type of multi decade bull market here. Going from the "all the profits are fake" mentality everyone currently has, to a "lets give them a decent multiple" is a life changing type rerating play waiting to happen.

Stop posting! You’re making too much sense and making me wanna buy some of these. Until now I’ve been very impressed with my discipline and limited but so far modestly successful quick trips to the Chinese ADR dumpster. In all seriousness though, do you really believe any of these are long term compounders or just trading sardines? Over the years I’ve had some luck with Baidu, Xiaomi, Tencent, PDD and whatever the Twitter knockoff was. But they all have their runs and then eventually give it all back. Almost easier to just use options and trade the ETFs.

Yea good point. There’s also a huge difference between “teaching” K-12 and college/university. My grift comment was 95% directed at the college/university crowd.

No, that’s perfectly fine. But what about the other 95%? The top percentile always gets treated well, however I do kinda think it’s ineffective to encourage the most capable to outright shun going into the real world, which is definitely occurring in the medical space because of all the consolidation and shifts occurring in that system. I’d also put an asterisk next to “just Ok money”…”just ok” for lots of vacation time, straight 9-4 leave work at home hours, probably your own private office, 100% job security, elite benefits and retirement? I mean I’d peg that as more valuable than making $500k-$1m a year for a few peaks years in other professions. Outside of the medical space….do we really consider a Literature or Philosophy PHD “best and brightest”? I’m definitely kinda dunking on academia more than I want to, but it’s crazy how easy it is if you do the 5-10 years and share in the politics. Nobody counts the summers and winter breaks. Or ALWAYS being home for the holidays unlike cops or firefighters or medical professionals. No one puts a value on the pension which is so awful a deal for the employers that even the worst private sector capital allocators have kinda just thrown in the towel on them. I think the mistake we make is looking at ourselves or a normal ambitious, half intelligent, and driven person and assume this is the HBU. It’s not. But if you’re not ambitious, don’t want to work like an adult, love being an authority figure, and want a guaranteed cushy retirement….I’d definitely recommend it. Especially if you didn’t exactly kill it grade wise in high school and college and don’t sport a Tier A college on your resume.

My other brother is white coat PHD....always wanted his own practice, did the whole run...lots of school then residency etc...he's now debating a "research" position at a major university because "private practice has gotten too challenging"...most of the people who he went to school with also went the "academic" route because it was easier. These are the cream of the crop. Theres no "free ride", but realistically, putting in 5-10 years of intense labor is fairly standard, except when you make it to the other side in the academic field you're unchallenged and golden. Whereas if you do 5-10 years as an electrician...well, then you can go off on your own a start your own business from scratch, likely competing against your old boss.... Sure theres also a huge difference between grade school teaching at public schools and say graduate stuff at university...but both aint nearly the torture we always hear about. I had a Spanish teacher in middle school who taught the middle school, high school, and then had classes at two different local colleges...guy would boast about his hobby of buying $5,000 bottles of wine, despite not even drinking. Its one thing to have these sort of gravy trains if youre a cop or a firefighter putting your life on the line and having a smooth exit after 20 years which could potentially be your early 40s...but the teaching/academic stuff? No lives are on the line yet they get a similar if not better deal than the cops/firefighters.

Right....but other anecdata....my little brother is currently in a PHD program for genetic engineering at a top school. Yes, he makes shit. Yes, he's overworked and semi abused(depending upon how tough you are mentally and how you define abuse)...yes all he gets is a stipend....BUT....once he's done he knows he has a cushy academic job if he wants it, or he can go private sector starting off at probably $200k plus stock options. But thats a real productive space he s in...one with private sector demand. Tell me where else...say, someone who goes to Rutgers or Penn State with 950-1100 SATs, parties their way into a 3.0...ends up with complete job security, elite health insurance, a pension, and summers+holidays off while making $80-120k a year in their late 30s/early 40s?

So the easiest solution and path of least resistance also happens to be the most convenient….why wager on anything else happening? What’s nice now IMO is you also firmly have the Fed put in hand. Remember the “they’re trapped and MUST follow their mandate!!!” by the people trying to cause a panic? Except today, you don’t even need real economic calamity…it’s pretty obvious that first sign of a hiccup they’re slashing and dashing. So to me, it’s probably not a super popular view, but I think we re kind of in a win/win as long as you’re not playing the quarterly numbers game. I’ve got my good old reliable core but have added positions recently in more torquey stuff like Citi and LPX which should spin nicely off of the new normal. VAL warrants I’ve added to as well. There’s too much stuff that still just isn’t priced for a normal outcome but everyone’s missing it because they’re trading bitcoins and crying that Nvidia is overvalued.

3M

I’ve also generally over time grown skeptical of the guys who really only outperformed during that 1999-2004 period. Seems like a period of time when it was just very easy to follow the textbook value investor stuff versus actually having to making a lot of qualitative reads and skilled trades.

I actually really enjoyed Kuppys latest blog on how it framed a lot of the noisier market participants out there today. The pod shoppers. So true and so accurate how these snake oilers operate and what they look to do. As it relates to this subject, I think inflation is firmly in the 2.5-4 range and not really going up much or down much…rates will gradually grind lower, but it will play out over several years, not quarters. You kinda just want to take the 30,000 foot view that this is the environment you’re playing in. What you don’t want to do is fall for the subscription sellers and snake oilers at the pod shops into extrapolating these arbitrary short term fluctuations like “CPI came in at .3 vs .2 which is 50% higher!!!!!”. Or that “inflation is still 40% higher than their mandate and this month we reaccelerated!”(with implications it’s headed back to 2022 levels but no commitment to a firm number mind you). We saw how all this played out when we had real issues back in 2021 and early 2022 and these guys got left in the dust and now theyre pissed they look like idiots with SPY at ATHs…just focus on the bigger picture and play in the playground that’s most fun. Fun for me is making money. Not selling people subscription or getting followers and liked tweets. There is plenty of stuff that’s just gonna print money in a 3-4% inflation, 4-5% FFR environment.

IDK...Ive just always thought, at least since this whole saga began, the steady state new norm is like 3-4% inflation with some inconsequential noise occasionally. That kinda works for everyone. The bigger thing in housing is that the FED is the reason its currently weighing in where it is. So I suppose the important read here is whether housing prices reaccelerate if rates come down, or if merely it allows more supply to hit the market at or around current pricing? Whatever it is, the lag is gonna require 12-18 months to get answers on, and as always, the market will price it in well before that.

So much of the current “inflation” people are talking about is because of the heavy weighting in housing related inputs. And housing is elevated because of rates being high. Ex shelter we re probably sub 2%.

The Wagyu of feces. Top notch.

No. Rather buy after the bottom is in because it lets other people figure out where the bottom is. I still hear cult like chants of “price is what you pay, value is what you get” from the BABA thread going back YEARS now. Stuff like LU just gives people false hope.

Smoking starts out as a social thing. This element alone has been greatly eroded as far as the smoking bull case goes. Kids today compared to decades ago really don’t smoke cigarettes. As far as the list. 2 works. And I’m bullish on 4 but need an inflection first.

For instance, my friends father in law, was a high school principal in NYC til he turned 60 and retired. In his 20/30s he did tons of camping and RVing in the summers, a lifestyle he enjoyed living and one made possible by all the time off teachers get. He boasted about having to be thrifty early on, but his quality of life was definitely acceptable. By his 50s he had several homes and was financially thriving. He’s currently in his 90s and still collecting 6 figures a year from the tax payers JUST from the pension!

Yes. 20/30s isn’t sunshine and unicorns but once you get your 7-10 years in I don’t think I could find better or easier all around jobs. The mid 40s gal who teaches 1st grade at my sons school makes $130k a year… And the thing is too, the 20/30 crowd it often not the crowd put through rigorous training and academics…but the state schoolers and party animals. This isn’t an “I hate teachers” declaration by any means, but there’s little question in my mind that between the low barriers to entry, high level of political gatekeepers, and an overall entrenchment within the “public funding” sphere…ugh…yuck.

Within reason, yes I agree with you. Where I differ is when you get these scumbag types who have more than enough for themselves to be comfortable already, yet continue to worship money and take advantage of others for more. Theyre definitely parasites

Like think of the ones who get mad if you dont call them "doctor" even though they do literature or philosophy LOL

Yea, not here....Here even high school teachers get great benefits, job security, and time adjusted pay....they whine, but leave out they get off weeks for the winter, months for the summer, spring break, and all the other typicals. But the private school ones along with college/university...especially in the grad schools, are where you find the real enemies of the people.

Yup...the biggest grift in America right now is the guys getting paid 6 figures with amazing benefits and complete job security to drink craft beers and teach/hit on young adults 4 hours a day, 3 days a week.

Its not random. Nobody on Main Street really knows or cares who Bristol Meyers is. But "standing up to evil big tech" like Amazon or Apple is a sure win even if the case is BS. Same with the airlines "jackin up y'alls rates"...even though we know labor and oil are the real reasons....Illumina IMO is an actual monopoly, thats the only one I kinda see. The rest of these are just for show and political points.

LOL

Eh I disagree. If he was going from 100% exposure to 75%…I agree selling Fairfax here is dumb. But when you’re playing with margin anything over that 100% exposure marker is money that’s not yours so you do what you gotta do.