SharperDingaan

A lot of the 'tax loss selling' is the inexperienced, and the day traders, who need to blame anything else but themselves. Human nature. It is also relatively predictable; look at the junior's who did multiple acquisitions over the last 2 years, and which have had expiring lockups throughout the current year. Lot of sellers aren't investment people, don't talk to their advisers until too late, and acquisition/lock-up information is not hard to find; most every deal has a press release disclosure SD

Just use the calendar; for most folks, a December sale that hasn't taken place by the 24th, probably isn't going to - BTC being the exception. Most folks sold by mid-November, so that the 31 day period was over by mid-December. They are the ones buying today, when everyone else is selling . Despised by the many (who didn't think), for most - tax loss selling is actually a smart thing to do. The longer term (mid November), vs short-term (mid December) orientation often realising a 5%+ cash return on the swing trade; that both lowers your cost base, and pays for Christmas. SD

European option, plus back in the day the spreads were much higher than they are today ... if you could even get a bid. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/optioninvestor/08/american-european-options.asp The reality is that if the strike on your call is much < 30% of the current market, it is a lot smarter for the would be call buyer to simply buy the stock and put up 30% margin. Your LEAP has essentially become worthless until there is a liquidity event - as it has gone no bid; if you need the exit, the bidder wants a minimum 40% liquidity discount. Of course if you don't need the liquidity, and can do something else while waiting, you screw up the bidders plan SD

What the BoC intends has been quite obvious and for quite some time; the chattering class just chose to deny it until they saw it - which is now. We have been successfully rolling into Province of Newfoundland debt for a while now, in anticipation of the coming decline. The BoC intends a short, sharp downtick of negative growth; at worst, maybe a technical recession of two quarters of negative growth. Negative growth and layoffs dropping inflation like a brick, immigration picking up much of the minimum wage work that still has to be done. Many of the laid off also retiring to the CPP/OAS/GIS, and RRSP/RRIF/Pension income much less exposed to the availability of ongoing work. Lower the yield curve by 150bp and everything looks very different. The TMP expansion will also be delivering, and an additional 300,000 boe/d at USD 70 will help out the Balance of Payments in a big way. Debt gets termed out, toxic ministers shuffled out of portfolios, and the spotlight refocuses on good governance. The chattering class also assumes ‘business as usual’. When we know there is a Canadian CBDC in the wings, the BoC has floated components of it for comment, and the US is progressing on BTC-spot ETF’s as a mainstream product. Canada already has BTC-spot ETF’s, as well as the related option market, and has had them for some time; all with no ill effect. Question is: do you make more on a bond-fund rising as the yield curve declines, or on the BTC-spot ETF as/when the next halving does its thing, and/or a US BTC-spot ETF gets approved? The surer $50, or the less sure but $700+ if the stars align? SD

Two of the better ones. Personal vs business life. Way back in the day I worked for a prominent US Company doing business in Canada. I had done very well, and was under overt pressure to move to the US HQ; resistance was meeting with very direct 'phone calls, from high placed people who refused to hear 'No'. While the US was not my first choice, ultimately I was OK with moving; but my girlfriend at the time flatly would have nothing to do with it. End of the day the company and I agreed to amicably part, the girlfriend become spouse, and we're still together decades later. Investment. Long time ago, MX-T used to be in the Nova orbit (now merged into TCE), and per common practise at the time - was overextended. There were issues, the shares were well < CAD 2, and to survive - the company sold 5 yr LEAPS at a ridiculous strike, that rapidly sank like a brick. Methanol is a base industrial chemical, it was clear to me there were no other real choices, and I put nearly all of what I could lay my hands on into these LEAPS. It eventually went my way; but I learnt that when options go very deeply in the money (& stay there) there is no market for them, and they cannot be put up for collateral. I had to sit there for years until the LEAP finally expired, with a house sized unrealised gain that changed daily, unable to do a thing about it. Hence today, we almost always use stock/margin, 'cause that sh1te ain't never happening again! Point to all this is that it's just money; you have to be able to walk away, and you have to understand that it works for you - not the other way around. Lot of ways of accomplishing this, and the colourful 5% are some of the better people to talk to! SD

Keep in mind they are private; we have no idea what their depletion rate is. Assuming their production is primarily shale, they will be depleting at 20-25%/yr. Per the article if 331K was Q2/2023 production, it was 264.8K in Q2/2022. If there is no new drilling, and depletion is 20%/yr; it's back to 264.8K in Q2/2024, plus a good chunk of existing inventory burnt. There is a reason why they are selling. The majors now largely control the US shale basins; and the same as with OPEC+, they will be managed to maximise lifetime value-add. The are also partners in most OPEC+ basins, and the US itself is the 'security' partner in the ME. They will agree a range that everyone can live with, and the more that shale is manufactured the more profitable it will be. Over the long-term, shale fields are really gas basins producing light oil as by-product; and its value is maximised when it can be blended into heavy oil going into refining. The majors are just doing the Standard Oil thing; locking up the vast bulk of domestic gas while they can, then controlling the price as the US is forced to use it - as the transition fuel from gasoline to electricity. No different to the diamond and gold fields of yesteryear. SD

Keep in mind that US Shale is now largely controlled by the majors; deep discounting just lets them consolidate the basins faster, producing field oligarchs with cash break-evens close to OPEC+. The strong-arming happens behind closed doors, as the majors are partners in most all OPEC production. Much of the cartel's power rests on its very low production cost vs everyone else. OPEC's production costs have risen every year for many years, and shale production costs have fallen dramatically as 'manufacturing' has come on stream. Start a price war, and they have to go a lot deeper if the intent is to stop shale; today it's much smarter to just do a business deal with the majors. SD

Demand/Supply thing: Most people would add an annual 1% for natural growth to global demand, then adjust for demand effects primarily from Asia and the US. For global demand growth to flat-line, Asia/US combined need to consume around 1M boe/d less. Global demand is now back to what it was pre-covid; lot of upside should global affairs stabilise. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271823/global-crude-oil-demand/ Global supply comes from 3 sources. Long-cycle oil (mostly off-shore); steadily declining for some time, for a variety of reasons. Short-cycle oil (primarily shale); currently rising as 'manufacturing' kicks in. Disrupted oil ('locked-up' via sanctions, lack of egress, etc.); about to jump by 500,000+ boe/d in Q1/2024 once the TMP expansion kicks in. In the short-term most would expect supply to outstrip demand, hence the current pressure on WTI. Thing is - that short-cycle oil has a depletion rate of 25%, whereas the long-cycle oil depletes at around 6%. Even the simplest modelling, demonstrates material price volatility if things don't go perfectly. Hence the $150+/bbl forecasts. It's also 2023. Full-cost break-evens for field consolidators 'manufacturing' shale in NA's major basins is around USD 42-48/bbl; cash flow break-evens are a lot lower. At USD 70-80 WTI, most producers do very well. SD

Managed to get hold of a signed first edition of poor charlie's almanac for this years family meeting; plus had a couple of his better quotes printed and framed. Our mum always gets a good chuckle from the old guy, as some of his quotes work far better when applied 'to friends in low places'. Which ones .. to remain anonymous! SD

One of a kind. May the rest of us bow before the master! SD

You might also want to keep in mind where your bio-metric scans are, if you have a US NEXUS card. And who is selling/benefiting from your DNA data .... were you fool enough to send it in to an ancestry.com etc. All that you have to do is offer a 'perceived benefit', make it socially popular (social media), and charge a modest sum to process (validates the 'perceived benefit'). 'Somewhat' deliver on the benefit, and the data is yours; no paying people to give it, finding them, legal hassles, etc. ... and all the lemmings rushing to your door. Dictators feed stock. Always a need for good anarchists! SD

It is much more likely he eats/drinks something that disagrees with him; some of his friends catching a similar bug at around the same time. Dictators handbook. SD

No comment, re the use of bonds. Inflation itself is just too much money chasing too few goods; higher mortgage costs have sucked much of the money away, and supply chains are now supplying more goods; significant monthly drops in the CPI should not be a surprise. When Jan data reports in Feb, we will also see the impact of year-end bankruptcies and the Jan inventory liquidations. The good news is that even if the BoC reduced rates, there is a good chance the CPI significantly undershoots the 2% target. Hence, it would appear that the Federal 15B building plan stimulus is not just to get political folks re-elected; it is also a shift away from monetary to fiscal stimulus. Not a bad thing, and well overdue. When construction season restarts, the building plan stimulus will lift the CPI; better for everyone if CPI is < 2% at the time. SD

You might want to do a little data manipulation on the BoC JSON CPI data. Today's CPI of 3.1% suggests that CPI is rolling on at around -0.7%/month, next month's CPI will be around 2.5%; when the December number is published in January - it will probably be < 2.5%. As Xmas retail sales confirm guidance, negative press coverage should accelerate; pushing inflation down further. Then remind yourself that nominal return - inflation = real return; and you could do very well over the next little while! There is a reason for the changing Bond/Equity capital allocation that is currently being touted. SD

Keep in mind that there will also soon be a debt restructuring. Argentina first ..... then others. https://ionanalytics.com/insights/debtwire/argentina-investors-foresee-new-sovereign-debt-restructuring-regardless-of-next-president/ All that is needed is a long-dated zero coupon. Benefit as the zero-coupon reprices to a lower yield, and multiple times again over the medium term; depending upon how the FX is managed. Today it's South America, next week it's Greece; no need to rush SD

You can expect that every Argentinian who has not done so already; will be putting everything they have into crypto, ideally BTC. Mortgage money poured into BTC, and local banks pressured to do everything they can to NOT call in the loans. Today, an Argentine mortgage ($1,000), and a BTC asset ($1,000). Argentine currency devalues by 2/3, 1/3 of the BTC asset sold, $1,000 of Argentine money repatriated and the Argentine mortgage repaid. The true 'intrinsic value' of BTC. All that it requires is someone willing to accept Argentine currency for USD, and there is nothing the Argentine central bank can do about it. They pay for the bribes and whatever Argentine goods they can for export in Argentine currency, and wholesale the cargo for cents on the US dollar as soon as the ship is back in international waters. Within Argentina, good for exports immediately rise by 25%. Outside of Argentina, the price of those goods immediately falls 25%. High value goods (meat) travelling by air. SD

2024, we expect that both the US and Canada end up with new government; primarily from existing incumbents losing, vs the opposition winning. No matter what, both end up more conservative; toss up as to whether Canada has another minority government, versus a majority. We would also expect the faces to change fairly soon after the governments do. Most of the incumbents are toxic; losers have incentive to toss early after their loss, winners after they find out who the new opposition is, Darth Sidious when it serves his purpose. O/G fairly low on the mischief list, independence challenges to the BoC/Fed Reserve (heads on sticks) much higher. Energy wise, our own candidates are reinstatement of Keystone XL, dropping of Kyoto commitments, and a two-stage more rationale energy policy/carbon tax regime; Canada wide first, then Canada/US integration. The industry objection to carbon sequester is the truly-gifted, incompetent policy implementation; the idea itself, is generally well supported. The Kyoto thing, primarily stemming from a realization that the climate models upon which Kyoto was based, are so deeply flawed as to be unusable. They did not adequately allow for the multiple global firestorms of late, arctic melting releasing spumes of methane, ocean waters as warm as bathwater, volcanic activity, etc. Good intent remains, but implementation needs to change. Comes back to strategic swing trading, and the use of liquidity/options to exploit the extremes. One of the better avenues being the sale of out-of-the-money puts, with the intent of getting called; simply 'cause if you were going to buy anyways, you might as well get paid for it as well You don't own O/G, you rent it. SD

Oil is the most manipulated commodity price on earth; wouldn't read much into the current price level. The big inventory build is per an EIA report, following a two-week reporting silence. Whereas, the intervening API reports showed a cumulative crude build that was well under the EIA number; and is consistent with the reduced demand of the concurrent refinery maintenance season. Most would surmise it's simply market overreaction to EIA modelling quirks. The US wants prices < USD 70 for SPR refill; the ME wants prices in the USD 80-90 range for budget purposes. Most would expect WTI range bound between USD 70-80 with periodic spikes up/down; all nothing new for o/g! Within NA, heavy oil is the temporary exception, Demand continues to rise, and supply essentially remains flat (why Cushing has been draining); the imbalance showing up in smaller differentials. Cushing storage is currently so low, that it will take months of expanded TMP flow to restore normality. Global oil prices aren't going to change much until Iran/Iraq egress is reduced. OPEC+ can extend cuts for another 6 months, but until there are reductions in the sanctioned flow ... don't expect price hikes to stick. Iranian oil flowing out of an Iraqi pipe, looks like it is Iraqi oil ... especially when both flows come from the same reservoir. The US is in a tough place, and will act accordingly. Welcome to higher volatility. SD

It would a lot better if they also published a card deck; a named bounty on each card, and each card/suite ranked. Competition to rank well on the deck, individual incentive to move up by informing on the guy above, and collective incentive to greater fame by raising the bounties on all. Yes, ABC was scum; but his bounty was only 100M, whereas mine is 150M! Then .... just let the market do its thing ... SD

One of the biggest issues around blockchain and AI is the lack of discussion around the ESG and CSR impacts. Just because you could do repetitive tasks cheaper, more efficiently, and with fewer people 'does not mean that you will be allowed to'. Those menial jobs feed millions of people; take them away via the poor use of technology, you get violent civil unrest, and regime change. A great many people on minimum wage can no longer afford the cost of living; they live in trailers/tents, and rely on both public transit to get to work, and food banks. Furthermore, as work is either eliminated, or displaced (WFH); transit volumes sink, ticket prices rise, and the social issues rapidly worsen. Depending where you live, regimes will act differently, but they will/do act. Ant Financial discovered the hard way, that size is not protection. NA has tremendous new technologies in the wings, and is very good at implementing. Tossing sh1te against the wall to see what sticks, is just messy execution of 'agile project management'. It ain't pretty, but it optimises practical solutions very quickly, and the US is very good at it. We have the technology, and failure is not an option. Another roaring 20's is inevitable; but 100 years+ later, don't expect it to rhyme. SD

The reality is that the more 'comfortable' living becomes; the less participants 'apply' themselves in useful every day activity. To significantly change a standard of living, requires a change in mindset; and the more 'comfortable' you are, the less incentive you have to do so. The middle-class will continue to do very well/thrive, but it will look nothing like it does today. Most would expect a great many of today's fat and lazy to drop out, replaced by a new crop of the lean and mean, and a smaller total number. Simply the well-know rags-to-rags in 3 generations; and not a bad thing. Those < 15 have an entirely different mindset, long absent from more recent generations. One of the more striking differences is trades school first to get a ticket, then a gap-year of decisions, then university/profession/post-grad. Greater maturity, confidence in decisions, and more of the applied versus academic. Expectation that the professional will also hold a trades ticket, and never be out of of work for any extended time. Multiple short/medium term careers, of conventional employment, and continuous side hustles (electrician, plumber,welder, etc.). Treat employees poorly, and you bankrupt as your employees walk out the door. Also notable is the much stronger sense of family; they've seen the failures of mom/dad, gran/gramps, and are not about to repeat them. Most would also expect a secular decline in both the wedding and legal trades, as attitudes are very, very different. Then add to it, that this is the generation that will be implementing today's new technologies ...... All good. SD

BTC is around 40% of our cash equivalent by market value, 25% by cost price; most of it bought over Q3, Q4, Q1, Q2 via systematic reinvestment of 25% of realised o/g gains. We subsequently reallocated an additional 25% of our cash equivalent into UBS when CS imploded. The BTC weighting looks different today, simply because the market value of BTC has risen faster than the rest of our cash equivalents; it would he higher still were UBS also not performing. Ideally the rumoured US spot BTC-ETF funds get approved, BTC runs up quite a bit, and we sell/reallocate to treasuries to get BTC back to 15% or so. Add another 10% on a subsequent market wide sell-off, and we're back to a 25% weighting at cost Thereafter, 1/2 the cash equivalent gets liquidated and the funds repatriated and applied against outstanding mortgages. SD

We just flatly refuse industry convention, and think for ourselves. Fiat cash -> Issued and guaranteed by the Central Bank. T-Bill -> Issued and guaranteed by the Central Bank. Cash and T-Bill are cash equivalents, differing ONLY in liquidity/ability to convert into cash without loss. Agrees with industry convention. GSIB (Globally Systemic Important Bank) -> Shares issued by the bank -> solvency guaranteed by all Central Banks that are part of the Basel Accords; systemically the same as the Central Bank guarantee supporting a T-Bill. T-Bill and GSIB are cash equivalents, differing ONLY in liquidity AND inability to convert into cash without loss. The $100 T-Bill could go to $95, the $100 GSIB share could go to 1 cent. Industry convention says it is not a cash equivalent, 'cause industry convention DOES NOT ACCOMMODATE inability to convert into cash without loss. BTC is the hated/direct competition to central bank fiat, differing ONLY in degree of utility. The $100 coin could also go to 1 cent, and industry convention again says it not a cash equivalent, 'cause industry convention DOES NOT ACCOMMODATE inability to convert into cash without loss. Industry convention ALSO says BTC has no value, 'cause there are no quantifiable future benefits to PV. BTC at USD 34,000 says otherwise ... We just recognise the emperor (industry convention) has no clothes, and call the bluff. Always the good anarchist! SD

We hold BTC for cash equivalency diversification, and because we think it will go up over time; volatility is part of the attraction. T-Bills (US Fed Reserve), UBS (GSIB guaranteed by most CB's), and BTC (via an ETF). Keeping 1 of the 3 entirely independent of reserve banking is just pragmatic. Net of inflation; over a 2-yr hold our real return on the T-Bills might be 50bp, 75% on UBS, and 250% on BTC. We hold 'crypto', primarily for experience in its use; no different to choosing to live without a car, yet being familiar with how/where to rent and drive one. The reality is that 'crypto' implements using agile project management, and that most all today's crypto apps will either no longer exist, or look quite different five years out. We have no idea who tomorrows winners/losers might turn out to be. Almost universally, blockchain and smart contracts are recognised as a key technology that will both change the world and drive the next industrial revolution. However, we're still in the very early stages, the technology is still largely a toy of the IT silo, and the business/industry applications are still evolving. Hence, this is where we spend much of our energy. SD

Like anything, the higher up you go the less enjoyable it gets - when everyone is playing patterns and the very technical, you might as well just play a computer; then they meet the disruptive (applied game theory), and the technical/pattern players all have a tough time. After that, match two disruptive's in a fast game; and you have entertainment! Funded quite a few pints back in the day SD