ValueArb

This guy tracks losses from both sides, supposedly verified with photographs. https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop

These takes are aging badly. Where the russians have made progress is entirely in the south, where they are poised to linkup Crimea with a landbridge. But the long term trends are not in their favor. They've blown almost their entire inventory of precision weapons and long range missiles, they fired hundreds of Kalibers the first nights and have only fired a few the last few nights. They have been unable to establish air superiority over a massively outmanned Ukraine Air Force, and continue to lose helicopters and jets, with little signs they can replace them. The russians are failing to encircle cities, their troops are getting trapped deep in the Ukraine without resupply. They sent in a 40 mile convoy to resupply the troops outside Kyiv at the beginning of the week, and the resupply convoy is stuck and getting shredded. They have turned to bombing civilian targets in the cities with dumb bombs to maximize terror and damage. Their entire logistics are unable to support the operation, in part because of endemic corruption. There is a great twitter thread on their truck tires, cheap Chinese knockoffs of quality Michelin military tires that are falling apart just days in. It's clear from the tire failures that the Russian maintenance groups did not do the monthly repositioning and retesting of the truck tires that's mandatory to keep them from having the sun destroy their flexibility and durability. Their troops are hungry, cold and low on ammo, and their armor is slowly being attritted by Javelins and MLAWS, and their troops by ambushes and snipers. In some cases they abandoning even their best equipment and latest tanks to try to walk out. There is no way 150,000 troops can hold a country of 45M people, they have probably lost close to 10,000 troops already and will lose thousands more a week as long as they stay. Their entire plan was to sweep into Kyiv and appoint a puppet government while the population either welcomed them as liberators or placidly allowed it. Instead they got Vietnam times 100.

China isn't funding any part of Putin's war. They are taking advantage of his failure to pickup oil at half price. And by all accounts they never thought he'd actually invade. The Ukraine is a Putin solo project, with small conributions from border countries he controls (Chechen and Belarus)

Russia just proved the old saying true. There is no such thing as a "forward PE".

Taiwan has 170,000 active troops, over 1M young men and women fit for service and in an emergency could arm 5 to 10 million more out of their 25M population. Amphibious landings are hell and are the only way into Taiwan (unless you prefer suicidal air-drops against a robust air defense system and mass of MANPADs), across 100 miles of ocean where they have to traverse under hours of anti-ship missile attacks. Okinawa is one twelfth the size of Taiwan and it cost 80,000 casualties to defeat 110,000 Japanese troops that had zero naval support, zero air support and zero resupply. China would be looking at 1M casualties minimum to invade Taiwan, and hundreds of thousands more during a multiyear insurgency. And for what? TSMC and anything else of value will be rendered useless by demolition charges, while the engineers flee the island. And there is no way China would be buying replacement equipment from the Dutch, their sanctions would be nearly as tough as Russia is getting right now. Taiwan hasn't been a threat to China since before the 70s, it's nothing more than an irritant now. They have almost no incentive to sacrifice a third of their active troops just to make a political point.

Sold part of my SLVM position (28%). It's runup about half way to my end of the year goal, and reconsidering how much weight I gave it due to its debt load. Edit: Oops, I originally wrote SILV and 8%, first was a brain fart, second changed when I decided to sell more. SLVM is a spinoff where International Paper loaded it with debt. It should have no problem paying down the debt and start buying stock back to move it's PE up from 5 to 8 next year, but I don't like to hold large positions in anything with balance sheet risk.

The golden horde were immune to sanctions. They did what they want.

I think to be fair the Ukrainian leader is concerned about causing a panic, but he's definitely preparing for war. He doesn't know what Putin will do any more than we do, or maybe not even Putin does. I thought Putin was originally just posturing to push the Ukraine around and get some easy concessions, then declare a great victory without his forces even broaching the border. But I was shocked that his demands were so absurd I now wonder if he needs a war to bolster his political support at home. I don't see how this ends well for anyone unless Russia stands down, and then it doesn't end well for Putin. But if he invades I think he's got Chechnya times ten on his hands and gets Russia bogged down in the Donbass for years with heavy international sanctions. That will eventually be terrible for him but it's going to be terrible for the Ukraine from the beginning, and not great for NATO. How will Germany react, and will they really agree to cut off that pipeline? Biden seems to be writing checks that he won't be able to cash and NATO's relationships may fray terribly. And this has to be terrible for the Russian stock market. Why can't we all get along and trade each others markets in peace?

If rates go up, houses become more expensive to own at same price but how does that impact prices if there is still no inventory? i can't imagine how higher rates is going to create more inventory to sell.

It's certainly proof I forgot my sarcasm tag;)

I think Lichtenstein and Morgan should have sent 100 BTC to 1,200 random accounts, including a couple of their own. They wouldn't have gotten away with billions but would have gotten something and probably not caught. And they would have fueled quite a few small investors!

Between Deficits Donald, Borrowing Joe Biden, OweBama, and George "natiional debt went woosh" Bush, there has been a lot to criticize the last twenty years for a fiscal conservative.

Proof that crypto is useless is the Lichtenstein and Morgan bitcoin theft from Bifinex. In over 5 years they were unable to launder more than 20% of their BTC. If Bitcoin doesn't work for criminals, who does it work for?

I'd pay more to disable ads than they can possibly pay.

I three this thought!

Airport concessions are great businesses. I know this because I used to play high stakes poker with a guy who owned a bunch at our local airport. He was making so much money he never had to fold a hand!

Crypto enthusiasts have to wonder if this signals the end.

I never said the Ferrari was proof his clients did well. "Where are the customer's Ferraris" is a good title for a next book.

When your investment manager is driving a Ferrari, you don't need the license plate for proof he's done very well.

I'm pouring one out just for them...

The man who said Cathie Woods is a genius and Elizabeth Holmes is the next Steve Jobs. I admit I'm being unfair, he has a lot of time to fill and is just an entertainer. Any true value investor replacing him would get a rating of zero.

How did he do in 2007-2008? I can forgive someone with his style trailing during a big bull market, but isn't the point of his approach to outperform during bear markets/

For the people here who sell covered calls on BRKB, what duration do you usually target and how far above trading price?

Many investors would like Michael Dell to take a deep dive with lead weights tied to his ankles.

Spotify "100% Lounge" playlist. I am a big believer in only listening to instrumental music while working because there is good reason it assists concentration and "deep thought", so I have a bunch of instrumental playlists mostly smooth jazz types.