lnofeisone

I've heard about simulated kidnappings - where you pay someone to kidnap you. I wonder if we could have simulated communism. You know, put them into one of those east European-style communist 5 stories buildings, cut off water and electricity. Have them commit to how many days they want to spend in that heaven and don't let them out until the time is up. Winners get a one-way ticket to North Korea. I jest of course. I think Spek is right on. I had a friend in high school was an "anarchist" and didn't believe in Gov't and today he is a Gov't consultant. I think being contra is the popular thing, especially when few people know much about one's position.

What did you think of the ER? Lots of questions for this one and I'm watching form the sidelines until they provide new guidance.

Started to gently unload my CVE warrants and rotate into REITs (and looking at banks).

AIV and JOE.

I wonder if i-bonds will have a higher fixed component in the future and aren't TIPS a major tax hassle (i.e., you have to pay taxes on your principal adjustments?).

I'm chipper as well. Overall, I'm down 10% from all time high but 0 to slightly positive overall for the year. VET and CVE have been holding me steady. I've been trading around some other energy names selling a bunch during peak in the summer. Could've sold more ahead of the sell off. Getting whacked on some of the tech and other stuff (e.g., ABNB, ATUS) but sizing has been key here. Unfortunately, I didn't get on the VRE component of Gregmal ETF but starting to look post energy (maybe Feb/March) to start rotating into the likes of Joe and BAC/WFC.

I would certainly not oppose it if someone could swoop in and buy it out at $100/share. Realistically, I think it will be a slow and steady grind and maybe we get to $40 but the rest will be driven by NBP/TTF. Too much of VET's earnings is beholden to it.

That would be interesting for sure. I think banks will first lend at high rates while suffer losses. At some point, the economy starts to rebound and losses diminish and that's when earnings are going to start really coming through. My guess (hope)6-9 months. My strategy is to redeploy energy sells into banks and slowly building out few large positions in things like JOE.

7 hours?!?!?!? I like his data-focus but always bucket him as "top range" of the valuation spectrum. Wasn't he the one that thought VET will be at least $50 by DEC and worth $100 or so. I'm a seller at $35-40.

China has the largest extraction capability but they also have the largest reserves. 20x of what US has (on average across all rare earths) Sure, a lot of extraction IP and tech went to China, but it was only a matter of time before they would dominate. In fact, having them export as much as they can makes everyone else's resources more valuable.

Probably related to our last few posts. Looks like the energy companies are stepping up their PR game just in time before the elections. In the last few weeks I've heard a lot of commercials on the radio and billboard from companies that have no business advertising to general public highlighting energy affordability and reliability. For example, energy transfer, enbridge, Philips 66 on the radio. There is a huge poster right on north capitol st ne, a mile north of the capitol with tellurian advertisement. I asked people I'm with I'd they know any of these concerns and the answer I almost always a resounding no. Also, nobody in DC would ever be a direct consumer of any of these.

@Sweet - it's not uncommon for EM to have growing economies while stocks underperform. Brazil is a good example. Mexico too. Mexico has a couple of airports discussed on the board but investing in them doesn't guarantee anything. The investment is beholden to political whims and currency issues. If China's GDP is indeed 40% of what it is today, that has some very serious ramifications for companies like BABA/TCEHY as they are much bigger and much more important than we understood them. That's a big deal and provides a new light as to why Xi cracked down on them so much.

I agree with you SD and think energy sector should play more of a ball however they are facing hostile and in many cases uneducated counterparts (I just can't get excited about Granholm and anything she says about energy). I wouldn't consider nationalization of Rosneft refineries by Germany a trend. They are in trusteeship of Bundesnetsagentur. There is a reason why these refineries haven't been sold to Polish concerns (have to give it to Poland trying to move in and take a hyper-profitable asset on the cheap). Similarly, Shell said that they are experiencing no hardships associated with the take over. Ireland came out and said that nationalizing O&G is a bad idea. I think WFT are a fair game. Overall my bet is we will trend the same way late 70s/80s occurred more than the path of nationalization that you would expect out of banana republics (e.g., Venezuela).

Market climbs the wall of worry :). If it helps, I'm 25% of portfolio in energy which nets out to about 15% net worth.

Bought a NOV 23/25 diagonal for net credit of 0.01. Nov is reporting earnings this week and I'm expecting reaction similar to SLB.

@Dinar The short version of the two main points is - there is likely no over-representation of black students in Harvard (at least not 40x) and what you are seeing with Stuy is a reflection of the process in place more than the quality of students. Let me elaborate: 1) Harvard has a much bigger pool of applicants than Stuy and is thus more likely to have a population of applicants that's reflective of the population as a whole. You are right, if 10% of applicants are black somehow results in 15% of black population, there is some skew. But it is not 40x skew. 2) The applications are structurally different and that has a real impact on what the applicant pool looks like. Anytime processes like these are introduced, there is high variability in actual populations. Getting into Stuy is an elaborate process with real risks that need to be weighed and Harvard is generally a free market. Students in NYC get to pick and rank 12 high schools in order of preference. If I qualify and rank Stuy as 1 but don't get in, I may also lose out on choices 2, 3, and 4. I may end up going to my #5 choice, which is brutally inconvenient. However, If I were to rank my number 2 school as #1, I may have a great chance of getting into a decent school that isn't Stuy but one that is more convenient for me. There are further restrictions, with some schools having auditions (La Guardia?) and some schools requiring SHSATs. Every applicant (and their parents) has to weigh all these factors. When you apply to Harvard, it's a free market. I can be a kid from Brooklyn with a terrible GPA, and poor SAT score and still apply and there would be no penalty other than a loss of the application fee. Or I can be a student with 4.2GPA, and great SAT scores coming from Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. No ranking, no prioritizing, just straight-up applicants. This will cause a much bigger pool of applicants that is likely representative of the student population of the nation and thus Harvard class will generally reflect that. If you want to validate this thinking - look at HBCUs. Why is the black student population of HBCUs higher than any college and higher than % of black population as a whole? You will find your answer in the applicant population demographics. Your applicant pool will drive your student body demographics. You can also invert this logic and ask a question - why do some schools in NYC have an over-represented black student body? Applicant pool demographics.

Just to put some color on the Stuy application process, rough back of the envelop calculations. There is roughly 90k freshman across NYC high schools. 30k of them applied to Stuy and 800 got in. Because the acceptance criteria include a test, the 30k that do apply will probably have a skewed distribution wrt to the population, i.e., more white and asian applicants will qualify. There is roughly 10,000,000 college applicants every year. Of these, 60k apply to harvard. Of those 60k, 11% were black. There is bound to be 6k very strong and competitive black students (you are starting with a 10M pool) who think their credentials are strong enough to be viable candidate and apply. So 0.06% (6k/10M) of students are qualified students that are black. Of the 6k that applied to Harvard roughly (1984 (current size of Harvard accepted class * 0.15) = 298 are black. So the acceptance rate for black students is roughly 298/6000, which is roughly 5%. Going back to the Stuy analysis, If you start with a population of 90k 8th graders applying to Study and let's assume the same 0.06% of qualified black student applicants, you only have 54 eligible students that would qualify to apply to Stuy. Only 800 total students get in into Stuy, and you said 1% of them are black, that equates to 8 students. The acceptance rate then is 8/54, which is roughly 15% (curious number given the population composition). So statistically, Stuy is less selective than Harvard when it comes to qualified students who are black. Of course, what I'm ignoring here is the fact that we did this analysis using vastly different populations and sample sizes.

The answer to they Stuy vs. Harvard question boils down to how schools are set up in NYC and self-selection of college process. In NYC, most students will attend their zone schools and the demographics of those zone schools will reflect the zone they are in. For example, PS 150 Christopher is located in Brownsville that's about 60% black and the school has roughly 60% black population. You can fairly quickly figure out the demographic of Lincoln High School near Brighton Beach. Stuy is a select school, as you mentioned, with an exam to get into so only top students across the city will get in. Colleges do a great job of self-selecting. Everyone has to go and complete HS, not so with colleges. Only 70% or so go to college out of high school. This hits differently across various demographics but what ends up happening is schools that are over-represented on minority will lose a lot of non-viable candidates. Other schools, such as Stuy or Bronx Sci, will over-represent this same minority group. This becomes a wash at a national level and that's why you see schools like Harvard having minority split that's reflective of national demographics (roughly 15% black). Sure, one can argue preferential treatment, which could cause minor over-representation but it's a minor factor. The only demographic where this doesn't work is Asians.

@Pelagic - thank you. Added to my weekend reading.

Can you share the rationale and why ONEW over BC?

There are some grewsome and very NSFW videos you can find on reddit and telegram channels. Shows everything frontal assaults to ambushes to damage inducing (to armor and soldiers, the latter is the worst) artillery hits to granade dropping on soldiers in trenches by both Russian and Ukrainian drones. I've been watching the evolution and looks like the Russians have adopted many of the Ukranian tactics wrt to drones beyond just observation.

It's not. Spain consumes 12x what it can store. Draw your own conclusions as to how long those tankers will stay there full.

Spain is now rejecting LNG shipments. Germany is near full. The Europe is as ready as it can be for the winter (and this is why prices of TTF gas are in the downtrend). Winter months begin next week. https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-energy-spain/spains-gas-grid-operator-says-it-may-rejct-lng-unloads-due-to-overcapacity-idUSL8N31I5I1

Prices of Euro NG will be driven by the weather. It may go lower but overall it will still be high. The demand is there and if prices start to go down more, industry will start ramping back up thus providing price floor. VET's earnings are going to be interesting. Equinor is also reporting on 10/26.

Indeed, my fellow VET holder.