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Dinar

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Posts posted by Dinar

  1. 1 hour ago, Cod Liver Oil said:

    Cowen thinks DOD spending on major weapons programs will more than double between now and 2027.

    That is a pretty good tailwind for an oligopolistic industry. Which contractors are most levered to that spend?

    I bought some LHX but Lockheed, RTX or TDG may benefit more.

    RTX will probably be driven more by the engine issues.  

  2. 1 hour ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

     

    No, you a showed 'a bond' that had a monster drawdown. Or rather, a small handful of bonds, that had a monster drawdown. 

     

    No broad based index of bondS, emphasis on the plural, looks anything like that and it's disingenuous use a small sub-index known for it's wild swings to represent a whole asset class that behaved nothing like those bonds do. Just like I'm not using an index of loss-making tech companies as my benchmark for equity returns...

     

    And, no, i don't really care to provide proof. The data is out there. But just like all of my other claims about bonds outperforming equities over long time periods, it'd likely be summarily dismissed so why should I go through the effort of doing the leg work for you? 

    You don't really care to provide proof because you cannot.  Bonds did not return 10.31% per annum from 12/31/1972 to 12/31/2022 like stocks did, and you know it.  So when you asserted that bonds have beaten stocks over the last 50 years, you were not accurate.  If we use 09/20/1973 to 09/20/2023, the comparison is even worse for you.  

     

    I was a convertible bond and a distressed debt investor for a for a decade, I am happy to buy the right bonds at the right price.  But to assert that bonds do not have the drawdowns that stocks have and that bonds have beaten stocks over the past fifty years is not accurate.

  3. @TwoCitiesCapitalYou claimed that bonds are much less riskier than stocks, and that bonds do not have the drawdowns that stocks have.  I showed you that bonds can have monster drawdowns.  

    You claim that bonds crushed stocks from 1973 to 2023.  Care to provide proof?   S&P 500 did 10.31% per annum from 12/31/1972 to 12/31/2022.  How did the 30 year, 10 year, 5 year or 1 year do over that 50 year period?

     

     

  4. 1 hour ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

     

    I just don't buy that equities aren't riskier. Meta was down 80+% in 2022 exceeding even Bitcoin's peak-to-trough. Disney is trading for prices now that it first traded for 9-years ago. Peloton and Rivian are both down 90+% from their peaks and may never recover. Regional banks that were considered sound one week were insolvent and the equity worthless the next. 

     

    These are just a handful of observations  at a time when equities are generally rich - not a "market panic" type valuations. 

     

    Bonds don't have this sort of thing happen. 2022 was a bad year for bonds - the worst on record. And yet its still better than most general equity drawdowns. And unlike equities, there places you can be guaranteed to "hide-out" in bonds regardless of what other bonds are doing. 

     

    You're not gonna lose much in 1-year treasuries even if rates go from 0-12% over that 1-year.  2008 demonstrated equity correlations go to 1 in a crisis and nearly EVERY equity was sold down dramatically regardless of their business conditions. Look at Google going from $700+/sh down to $250/sh (unadjusted for splits since) despite growing revenues and profits every quarter of that time period. 

     

    Equities are way riskier than bonds for anyone that doesn't have a 20-30 year time horizon and way riskier in any given year once considering the likely impact of human emotion and response to even paper losses. 

    You are kidding, right?  30 year treasury issued in 2020-2021 is trading at less than 50 cents on the dollar.

  5. 1 hour ago, no_free_lunch said:

    I never said as a sovereign.  Always under different yokes.  Poland and Russia in particular.  However, they were always independent culturally and this is what led to the creation of the country, like so many others, post Soviet breakup.

     

    The US will support Ukraine, I believe, not because man on the street wants it to too but because the politicians know there is no real choice.  It really comes down to fighting your enemy for a fraction of the cost.  The US knows Russia is their enemy, Russia constantly reminds us of this when they threaten nuclear holocaust.  So to counteract them for $25B, is really nothing.  It's about 3% of the US defense budget.   Contain Russia so the US is free to fight China, if needed, that is I think the US thought process.

    Politicians have to respond to voters.  There is a choice, not to support Ukraine, and let the Europeans pay for it.  Russia is NOT our enemy, and has never been one.  We fought two wars against Germany, two against England, one against Japan, and not one against Russia.  

    In any case, it is irrelevant what you and I think.  What matters is what man on the street in US wants, and he wants nothing to do with Ukraine.  Let the Germans & the French and the Lithuanians/Latvians/Estonians/Danes/Czechs and company for this is.  This is their problem, not ours.

  6. 1 hour ago, no_free_lunch said:

    Oh well, actually it has existed for centuries and in fact, it's now a sovereign country.  If Russia wants it in it's sphere better ways to do it than at gun point but I know that's how Russia rolls. 

     

    Here they even made a wikipedia page to help clear things up for you.

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine

    When has Ukraine existed for centuries?  Your own link shows that it was not an independent country before 1991.  In any case, you can argue whatever you want, but the point is there is no support on the American street for helping Ukraine.   

  7. @UK, @no_free_lunch, there has not been a poll done in at least a year of US citizens asking whether or not they would be willing to pay $100 per person per year to support the war in Ukraine.  You may think $25bn per annum is a small price to pay, but US citizens think otherwise.   Also, nobody is talking about handing the region over to Russia.  However, it is NOT the job of US taxpayers to support Ukraine.  It is the job of Ukrainians.  

    Yes, we are obligated to defend Poland and the Baltics due to treaty obligations.

     

    Meanwhile, let's not forget, Ukraine has never existed as a country.  Western Ukraine was part of Austro-Hungarian empire for centuries, and eastern Ukraine was called Little Russia for centuries, and part of Russian empire, and was Russian speaking.  Hell, Kiev was called the mother of Russian cities.  

     

    • Like 1
  8. 18 minutes ago, no_free_lunch said:

    It's not so black and white.  There are options for escalation between current support and some type of direct NATO-RU conflict.  That is what we are witnessing in fact.  Increased supply and more sophisticated weapons can be delivered to Ukraine.  Some type of private military, a parallel to Wagner could be employed, it already is to a very limited extent by virtue of volunteers.  Drones play a significant role and can be upscaled by western donors.

    Who is going to pay for all of this?  Ukraine needs $50bn per year to fight and probably a trillion for reconstruction.  There is not a chance in hell the US will come up with $25bn per year for the next five years.  

  9. 3 hours ago, cubsfan said:


    Tough one, but important question.

     

    I’d say beyond significant material support- should Russia prevail. No, but the west would need to figure out a permanent penalty to make it very painful.

     

    Europeans entitled to a different viewpoint, since this never should have happened and threatens them the most. I certainly wouldn’t feel good living in Poland or the Baltic States.

    Why?  Baltics are part of Nato and so is Poland, that's a big difference!

  10. 1 hour ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

     

    I agree with you, but with nuance. 

     

    If you ask someone about inflation, often they'll point to the cost at the pump. 

     

    But average price for fuel in the summer of 2008 was $4.11/gallon. Today it's ~$4/gallon. So I ask, what inflation? It's been 15 years! 

     

    Same things can be said for food. Some things are more expensive currently - some things are cheaper. I'm regularly seeing beef/chicken at my grocer stickered for 30-50% to get it sold before the sell-by date. 

    So yes, prices are more expensive - but if you wait a day or two it's 50% off? What inflation? 

     

    CPI is a better way to view average prices overtime than someone's opinion on inflation. But for short-term movements in prices, I agree with you that all that matters are consumers' attitudes and their views on what is likely to happen next with rising prices. 

    You are cherrypicking, and also saying things that are not true.  For instance, in 2004, gas was $1.25 in NJ per gallon and today is it $4 per gallon.  In terms of food, in 1990, the grocery bill for my family of 3 was $350 per month in NYC and we ate very well.  Today, it is closer to $2000 for a family of 5.  I challenge you to spend the same amount of money on food that you did in 2008.   Yogurt that I buy has doubled in price in the last 5 years, tomatoes and chicken as well, fish more than doubled, and the list goes on and on.  

    What food products are cheaper today than they were in 2008?

  11. 16 minutes ago, sleepydragon said:

    watching on YouTube the CNBC interviews with the CEOs with these defense companies -- all old white men..  

    Your point being?  Microsoft, Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, Berkshire, and the list goes on were all created by white men.  

  12. @RichardGibbons, I grew up in the Soviet Union, you do NOT want to live in a place where everyone is equal.  The US does have serious problems and this is how I would begin to address them:

     

    a) Stop immigration.  Immigration expands labor supply and depresses wages, particularly for unskilled and the poor.  Raises cost of housing, again impacting the poor and middle class the most.  

    b) Fix public school system (just don't spend more money - NYC spends USD 40K per kid, and outcomes are awful, Newark tripled its spending per pupil, nothing improved.) and give vouchers for private schools to kids.  Break the monopoly of public schools.  Mandate personal finance classes in every grade starting with 5th in every school, and teach personal responsibility.  Classes how to choose a spouse, a job.  

    c) End federal guarantee of student loans which just serve to enrich colleges.  Use the money to reduce budget deficit.  

    d) End personal income tax on the first USD 50K of income of you are single, $100K if you are married, and say $100K if you are single + kids, $200K if you are married with kids.  End all personal deductions, including for charity and mortgage interest.  

    e) Fix healthcare system which is dysfunctional and a cancer on the US.  Three quick solutions: 1) Every hospital/medical practice should have publicly listed price list and law of one price - you have to charge everyone, ensured and uninsured same price, no $50K bill but $10K if you have insurance (80% discount negotiated by your insurance company) and $50K if you pay cash.  2) Mandate that for every medicine in the US, pharmaceutical companies cannot  charge more than say 30% more than the same medicine costs in Canada.  3) Ban rebates and other abusive practice in the pharmaceutical industry in the US.  

    f) Reform welfare and other social programs.  It should not be that in the US, a single mother with 2 kids gets so much generous support that she needs to earn $150K per annum in NYC before she is better off working than sitting on the dole.  

    g) Stop the whole switch to solar and wind which is very expensive, particularly for the poor, and build nuclear power plants - cheap, environmentally friendly electricity.

     

    I am sure that there are a number of things that should be done that I have missed.  

  13. 1 hour ago, tede02 said:

    I bought TIPS for the first time this week with real yields over 2% (chart is slightly out dated). When you think about earning a 2% real yield on cash, that is pretty damn good historically. image.thumb.png.8fef89ea24a494324490ef7838e65c42.pngaven't been in this range much historically. 

    TIPS are NOT cash.  They are bonds, albeit inflation indexed ones.  

  14. @RichardGibbons, what do you think the implications of a 99% inheritance tax will be?  I will bet that you will 

    a) see tax collection decline

    b) people move out of the country (like Eduardo Saverin did)

    c) massive misallocation of resources and economic destruction.  (If I had a net worth of $200MM and could only leave $30MM to my kids, I would move out of the US.  If I was prevented from doing so, I would then buy $170MM worth of apartment buildings or a really scarce commodity and burn them down.  Most of the kids I know from high school would do same thing by the way.)  

     

    By the way, I came to the US as a penniless immigrant, and 70% of the kids in my high school were penniless immigrants.  We all became doctors, lawyers, programmers, etc....  I have yet to meet someone in the US (excluding people who are very ill) who worked hard, saved and did not do well.

     

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-09/norway-wealth-tax-pushes-the-rich-to-move-to-switzerland?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=230914&utm_campaign=wealth

  15. 1 hour ago, no_free_lunch said:

    The real cheat code would be to ignore Ukraine and focus on problems at home.  Build up the economy, education systems, reduce corruption,  so much more.  With its energy and other resources they could be very wealthy. 

    For the moment I thought that you were talking about US.  You are absolutely right of course, that's what Russia should have done.  It needs Lee Quan Yew and so do we.

  16. 1 hour ago, no_free_lunch said:

    This is good.  It provides additional leverage for negotiations.   

     

    Reading the coverage, I feel that when Russia gets attacked it's always spun as though they have been cheated.  "The UK is supplying weapons..."   Yes, they are.   All predictable responses for attacking a country with which defense alliances exist.  Russia can stop this immediately by simply removing themselves from Ukrainian territory.  I have no sympathy for their position.

    Would you mind providing proof for your assertion that there is a defense alliance between UK and Ukraine?  I was not aware that one existed.  

  17. 29 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

    What makes you think the CEO (Hayes) is incompetent? UTX did quite well when he was CEO from 2014-2020. I would even state that the merger with Raytheon was a good capital allocation move, as was the spinoff of Carrier and RESI.

    Really?  Why do you think that UTX did quite well from 2014-2020?  I do not recall the company posting good operating performance.   Sure it was good that Carrier & Otis were spun off, but Otis organic revenue growth has been below peers for years.  

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