ValueArb

Among many other reasons, he wants to appease Putin. "Ramaswamy wants to cede territory taken by Russia in eastern Ukraine in return for Moscow exiting its military alliance with China. He would also block Ukraine’s candidacy to the Western security alliance NATO and end U.S. sanctions on Russia." These are positions I'd expect from an irrational pacifist leftie, not a republican candidate. Putin has broken every agreement he's ever signed or been obligated to (including 1991 Minsk agreement where Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons in return for security assurances from Russia ), which is why no one who genuinely wants peace would ever agree to end the war at current borders. Putin would just use it as a respite to rebuild his forces, continue FSB efforts to subvert Ukrainian democracy and corrupt Ukranian politicians and civil servants (and assassinate those who couldn't be corrupted) before dropping a killing military blow on Kyiv in 5-10 years. Even worse he thinks a China-Russia alliance is a huge strategic risk, even though Russia isn't even a top 20 GDP anymore, and that he somehow believes China is going to coordinate with Russia instead of taking advantage of its weakness. And worst of all his solution is to, yes, trust Putin to sign an agreement with us! https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4179994-ramaswamy-isolates-himself-on-ukraine-with-proposed-putin-pact/

Timing and building the tension, delivery, punch line, this guy nailed it!

Well, we do need some weapons. We just need to figure out a way that everyone involved in the decision chain (military staff, leadership, congress, the president) can't gain any benefit from the decisions made. If anyone ever can figure that out, they should get all the Nobel Prizes.

I think the worst part about Vivek isn't his shameless sucking up to people in power and his lack of any real principles, its that I lost money on his stupid company.

Jesus, Noam Chomsky is so deluded. Ukraine WAS declared a neutral state, by the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. But Putin didn't want that. He wanted it as a puppet state and when the Maidan revolution threw out his hand picked flunky president so the Ukrainian people could be free, he invaded the Don Bas and Crimea. The idea that there is or was some peace agreement that could be had with Putin to protect Ukrainian freedoms that he won't abrogate as soon as its in his interest to ignores his history of violating every single agreement as soon as its in his interest to.

Zelenskyy has never been willing to accept a peace deal that involves giving up the Donbas or Crimea. "President Zelenskyy denounced suggestions by former US diplomat Henry Kissinger that Ukraine should cede control of Crimea and Donbas to Russia in exchange for peace.[66] On 25 May, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would not agree to peace until Russia agreed to return Crimea and the Donbas region to Ukraine." And it's not a "sad situation". Peace on those terms would just be temporary. Russia would just use it to re-arm and prepare for another invasion. Putin has broken every single commitment Russia has made to the Ukraine, it's peddled false narratives and run fake elections. Ukraine understands this, they don't want to deal with another 4 years of being shelled from even closer, more Russian electoral interference and bribery corrupting their politicians, until Russia just attacks again. The only way the war ends is if Russia withdraws. If Ukraine stops fighting it ceases to exist. And as far as Ukraine running out of men, in 1914 France had a population smaller than Ukraine did and took over 800,000 casualties in the first 60 days without ever considering quitting. They ended up enduring over 6M casualties and 1.4M dead over five years of war. Its likely that Ukraine has suffered fewer casualties in a year and half of war than the French did in a couple weeks at either the battle of the Frontiers or the Miracle of the Marne.

This. Attrition of Russian artillery has been at incredible rates, while Ukraine is still getting its artillery replaced by the West Russia is running low on stocks to draw from. They can probably get more from North Korea but the quality is terrible, even worse than standard Russian. Ukraine forces are getting very close to being able to interdict all Russian transport in the Crimean land bridge with HIMARs, and other long range weapons. It will be interesting to see what happens to Russian forces south of Tokmak when their ammunition resupply situation turns from spotty to non-existent.

Thats a two-fer when you recommend a good video and a good book all in one post. Thanks!

Better Home & Finance's SPAC debut (BETR) was so horrific it breaks the chart.

I also admit I know little about guns as I stopped shooting around age 13. But are guns be the opposite of razor blades, where once someone settles on a razor blade they keep buying same since only specific blades fit their handle and they don't want to spend time and money switching, especially if it involves abandoning packs of existing blades. Does anyone ever buy a gun because it handles their existing ammunition, and replace it with same gun from same maker because it fits their existing attachments? In my very limited experience seems like you have a huge number of potential gun models for each caliber of ammunition, and that even custom attachments for semi-auto rifles can be used across a good number of different models.

Look I'm always willing to admit I'm wrong. If TA works I'd be a fool not to use it. But so far you haven't given me any reason why you think TA works or any specific ways you use it. I can "get in and out" of a position without TA at all, they are called buy and sell orders. TA can only help if it provides me a reasonably accurate reason to believe today is a bad time to buy or sell, and it can only do that if it has some level of predictive value about what the price will do tomorrow or anytime in the near future. Show me how it does this, or how it is useful without predicting future price action, and I'll become TA's biggest cheerleader. Edit: And a "value screen" isn't predicting price action, either short term or long term. You are trying to find companies trading well below their true value, which means if I buy company A for $60 believing the present day value of its future owner earnings are $100, and it the stock price does nothing but decline to zero and the company goes out of business, I still win if I'm paid $100 in present day value dividends before it does.

Also claims that Russian Air Defense shot the plane down. That seems like an extraordinary thing to do when the FSB could have just planted a bomb in the cargo hold. Bad week already for Russia. Lost Robotyne putting HIMARS even closer to cutting off the Crimean landbridge, lost its first top of the line S-400 SAM system to a drone in Crimea, lost a Backfire bomber to drone attack forcing an entire air wing to move deeper into Russia, lost a helicopter full of fighter plane parts due to defection or navigation failure, has suffered drone attacks on Moscow for six straight days, and is sinking six ferries alongside the Kerch bridge to protect it from attack.

Every example of TA predicting something has always been historical, if only you had seen what I saw in Carvana, Alibaba, etc. Its trivial to predict the past, but no one puts out real TA predictions publicly that offer market beating returns. And I have seen zero evidence Burry has used technicals at any time within the last twenty years. He came from an FX trading background where all he had was TA, then he learned value investing. He still wrote about using technicals a little during his first year or two of value investing but hasn't since. He's clearly a deep value investor and very intelligent. So it's likely he quickly figured out the same math that I already gave you, that waiting on an investment at a large MOS due to a technical indicator carries a huge opportunity cost that can't be recovered. And lastly, Carvana has never been a value investment because you can never trust the financials of a business run by people who have previously committed fraud. Buying Alibaba based on sentiment would have been silly when you had 7 years of deteriorating margins indicating it's growth rate was artificially supportedl and its IV was far lower.

Again, if it can't predict the future TA is worthless. That doesn't mean it has to be 100% accurate, but it has to be accurate enough to give you a positive future expectation or it can't help you at all. What positive expectation means is that your TA "entry signal" has to indicate when the price change you want is more likely to occur than the price change you don't want. That could mean its more likely the stock price increases in the near future than it decreases. So for example, if you find a signal says its more likely the stock price will increase in the next two weeks than it will decrease, if that signal was 55% accurate (55% of the time it occurs the stock price is higher in 2 weeks and 45% of the time it's the same or lower), then you have an actionable entry signal telling you its more likely than not the stock has bottomed out. Problem is signals that strong don't exist. Academia and Wall Street have looked for them for decades and they find nothing but the most tenous relationships that are usually impossible to trade and the exceptions either don't last or don't offer a large enough edge to overcome transaction costs to produce market beating returns. So all TA involves predicting price action, ie the future. That's why Buffett doesn't believe it. But if I'm misunderstanding you, please give me a detailed example of a TA signal you use and explain how it's useful while not predicting the future.

If it’s not predicting the future it’s worthless. As far as the Meta example, if your intrinsic value estimate was $200, and you were about to buy a full position at $120, it would be great if TA could tell you it’s headed under $100. But it can’t. Look at the TA “predictions” I responded to. Flipping a quarter would be more accurate. The reality is that the greater the discount to IV, the less often it happens. The market is usually efficient. So odds are far more likely that a large discount narrows than it widening even further. Betting on TA telling you prices will continue lower while already at a huge discount is swimming uphill against the current while wearing meat shorts in piraña infested waters. If you “got in too early” and it widens it’s a strong sign your IV estimate wasn’t very accurate, and TA can’t save you from poor analysis.

This is a great example. In the week since this post where its said Charter technicals say it's going higher, its has dropped $8 down to $420, and Expedia which technicals indicated is a sell is actually up a buck, and Generac is up $4 since the sell signal was noted.

They always work against each other. Anything that tells you not to buy when you have a rare value opportunity, or to not sell when you own something that is fully valued, is degrading your value investing performance. Value investing is based on buying at a large margin of safety to your estimate of intrinsic value. IV estimates are inherently inaccurate, so a 10% discount is simply not enough, very easily you could be off by 20% or more. You need a large MOS and those are rare, if your MOS isn't rare you need to increase it. the larger your MOS the higher your returns and lower your risk. So assume you demand a margin of safety of 40%, which provides an average excess return of 67% and you find a stock that your IV estimate is $100 trading at $60, giving you exactly that MOS. But lets pretend you have a technical indicator that tells you that the stock will decline another 10% to $54, which increases your MOS to 46% and excess return to 85%. The problem, is how accurate does that technical be? Well if it's wrong, and the stock goes up 10% you've entirely missed out of your opportunity (since you aren't accepting a 34% MOS). So your choice is between a 67% excess return in hand, or taking a chance at a 85% excess return that will cost you your opportunity if its wrong. So how often does your indicator have to be right? In this case it has to be correct 79% of the time. So how often are technical indicators for individual stocks correct? A lot less than 79%. In fact, if you can find a technical indicator that is correct even 55% of the time, you should never do any value investing because trading that signal alone should make you the wealthiest person in the world within a few decades. The reality is that technical indicators that are common and long lasting aren't accurate enough to be tradable, because if they were tradable the market would likely trade them away. The few that hold up under academic scrutiny simply aren't accurate or common enough to be part of an investing process, which is why there isn't a TA version of Warren Buffett in the world. Value investing is about finding investments you can accurately and confidently value, buying them when they are at large discounts to ensure good future returns and selling them when they reach intrinsic value. Any tool that predicts price movements has to be very accurate for it to add value to this process. There would be nothing more catastrophic than valuing META at $165, having it drop to the $90s for eight days but instead of backing up the truck you wait because a "technical indicator" tells you its going to drop to $85. You'll never see that opportunity again, and your next good opportunity is likely months away.

Maybe the pushback is because it’s such an idiotic waste of resources and attention when they have so much more important things to be working on?

My youngest wants me to take her to see a "singer" called Jazmin Bean. I am now officially a crotchety old man.

The intrinsic value is dependent upon some missing information 1) your risk free return rate, so without that can't do a DCF. 2) Are earnings dividended out or re-invested at the same ROIC? Valuing them relatively is pretty easy. Assuming you pay book value, and all earnings are retained by the business (tax free) in 20 years Business A reaches a book value of $672, while Business B (assuming alternating +30% and -10% years) reaches a book value of somewhere in the $470-$480 range. Plus Business A's consistent performance is evidence of a strong moat, while Business B's performance is evidence of a weak moat, or very cyclical industry. Now that was unfair to Business B, because alternating -10% and +30% years produces a 17% gain over those years instead of the 21% two +10% years produce. So in reality we need to alternate -10% and +34.44% years to get equal returns over alternating years. But even in that case I think you give Business A a higher relative value because moat and consistency mean future returns are more trustworthy.

Because work visas are recorded, and they can easily keep a database of who is entering and leaving the country? It also mean you have been vetted and don't have a criminal history. And that when you get pulled over by the police for a minor traffic infraction, there is no reason to run for fear of deportation. And when you witness a crime, you can be a cooperating witness without fear of being deported. Imagine all the resources work visas free up? Resources that can be focused on finding and dealing with the real bad guys, and who can now be found and dealt with much easier since they can't hide in an ocean of illegals.

"OpEn BOaRdErs" is such a dog whistle. I would suggest work visas so we know who come in so we can better filter out criminals and let good workers return as long as they stay in Mexico half the year. That would destroy the coyote business, unmask the wolves hiding amid the sheep and eliminate the need for a border wall. I once had a family member killed by a migrant, the community knew where he was, hated him but none could say anything out of fear if they went to the police they'd be deported.

We'd have to more than double spending to get to $2T in a decade. And its popularity should always outshine Afghanistan, where we spent what, $1T? I've always said this is a 3-5 year war. Russia's history is the political collapse occurs in the 2nd or 3rd year, after the mothers start marching in the streets. They can't keep it up for a decade, Ukraine can because it has no choice, Russia does.

Even $100B is a tiny fraction of federal spending since the war started. And for a much better cause than a large amount of federal spending, I’d happily cancel the SLS and Orion capsule for money would go to Ukraine.

Circular migration was extensively studied and documented over the 70s and 80s. The reason most would not stay here is they didn't want to uproot their families, there are schools, healthcare and hospitals in mexico too that are far cheaper. Fentanyl is a product of the "success" of the war on drugs. It's a cheap substitute that can be cut into other drugs when they are hard to get. Its so potent its easy to OD on, if we really cared about overdoses we wouldn't push drugs onto the black market where no one knows what they are really taking, instead we'd demand they are packaged by legitimate companies so drug users know exactly how much is in the dose. No different than bathtub gin killing hundreds of thousands during the Prohibition. And if it wasn't coming from Mexico it would be coming from Canada, the UK, Caribbean, south america, etc. The problem with illegal drugs isn't the suppliers, its the users. When demand is this high, black market drugs are so massively lucrative that knocking out one supplier just creates an opportunity for two more to sprout up.