meiroy

This is how I'm looking at it now, perhaps more practical: This is a market disruption, in the sense that Amazon disrupted retail. It's not a trade war, it's the inevitable decoupling which will outlive Trump. The US has a local market, it has Mexico and Canada, and Brazil and India if it wanted to. Big enough. More than enough. American people will be better off. The only issue is the disruption process, some industries would have to pay.

Cigarbutt, Pettis is not an analyst. He is one of the best economists in the world with an amazing macro view on things. He's out there with Druckenmiller and Soros. He does have a certain blindspot which distorts his timing, but other than that, he is the best... and for sure, it is not he that agrees with me. At best, it is little me who is trying to understand what he teaches.

Nonsense. What a bunch of bollocks. Not only the US does not need it to "finance its deficit" it should tax capital inflows. If treasuries are sold, either there's no impact on the US or there's a positive impact. Either that or all the surplus countries, including Germany and Japan increase local demand via adjusting local regulation (this is the reason for the imbalances, suppression of local demand via local regulation). This is not going to happen, of course, any time soon.

Surprisingly, there was no meltdown. He handled it quite decently. #SupportTheExpansion

Powell habt mastered the art of Greenspan doublespeak to say nothing , but phrase it in a way that everyone can take away whatever they like. However given what we know, why would we even care what he says? Because it's entertaining? Someone just announced more tariffs on US goods, about 1.5 hours before the market opens. Coincidence, no doubt. Tim Duy's Fed Watch is a fantastic source to figure out all this Fed talk: https://blogs.uoregon.edu/timduyfedwatch/

60% he cuts 0.25 4% he cuts 0.5 52% he says something stupid and messes up whatever he is trying to achieve. 100% I bought popcorn.

rkbabang, Looks fantastic, comfy for a family. Other than what you mentioned, success also depends on the reviews, as you probably know. If there is something materially wrong with the house it should be fixed promptly. Disappointed it doesn't come with a goat.

If the Fed cuts by 0.50%, and soon, the recession might be held at bay. Considering they didn't raise when they should have and then raised when they shouldn't have and then belatedly cut and somehow managed to screw that up with their miscommunication... Who wants to bet that they will do the right thing this time? If the market crashes before the Sep meeting, then there's a small chance they would. In such circumstances, it might be worth it to buy some short time call options. Tough call (pun intended).

LGIH. Amazingly, couldn't find a thread on it.

Boris Johnson: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Japan did not fuck up completely because they chose not to rebalance quickly but rather go into decades of a downward spiral and it still has not been resolved. They could have been in a far better position today. They got lucky with the rise of China and other aspects but as said it's not over yet. Europe will not stagnate for years, people would vote to break it up even if they do not realize why. edit: and, of course, Japan is a surplus beggar thy neighbor just like Germany and China.

My advice is not to invest following macro tourist maps. It's fun and all, but better to avoid it unless you're Druckenmiller. The US market is big enough, especially for small investors. Of course, if you find something really, really cheap, and the risk-reward is awesome, then why not. Europe economic issues are due to German local policies, which caused a decrease in demand in Germany (rise in inequality, wealth accumulate with the rich, rise in saving rates, etc.). Until whoever controls Germany is willing to accept this, it will not be solved. Or, it will be solved the hard way. Beggar-thy-neighbor can only go so far. The UK leaving, might signal the beginning of the collapse of the Eurozone (and the forced rebalancing of Germany), but more than that it means the divide and conquer of that place called Europe so each of the tiny countries there can be played by the big economies. Read: what a bunch of idiots. It's extremely hard to time these things, which is why it's not really tradable for mortals like myself. If there is some way for the politicians in these countries to postpone the inevitable and make the eventual outcome worse, then they will do it. So, you think it's going to happen in a year or two but it happens 10 years later, just much worse. Regarding Brexit, personally, I think the probability they will actually leave is far lower than what it seems right now, maybe just 10%. Could happen.

Much if the US power grid is 2nd world standard at best. Wooden poles leaning over until they fall down, transformers that look they are from the 60’s and high voltage lines strung and cobbled together are the norm. I list power last winter in an apartment I rented for a week. However on the plus side, electricity is fairly cheap compared to Europe when you get it. Most larger industrial facilities have multiple power connections for redundancy. Which just goes to show how massive infrastructure projects could easily increase productivity. Would be such an amazing positive economic investment. What is the US currently missing? The one thing I can think of is mobile network and wifi capability. But this is already really good. Especially when you think about how big the US is geographically. And in the high population areas access to these services is already good. Practically everything needs upgrading. A few examples in this thread. Another one: http://t4america.org/maps-tools/bridges/overview/ "68,842 bridges – representing more than 11 percent of total highway bridges in the U.S. – are classified as “structurally deficient,” according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Structurally deficient bridges require significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement. A number of bridges also exceed their expected lifespan of 50 years. The average age of an American bridge is 42 years."

Much if the US power grid is 2nd world standard at best. Wooden poles leaning over until they fall down, transformers that look they are from the 60’s and high voltage lines strung and cobbled together are the norm. I list power last winter in an apartment I rented for a week. However on the plus side, electricity is fairly cheap compared to Europe when you get it. Most larger industrial facilities have multiple power connections for redundancy. Which just goes to show how massive infrastructure projects could easily increase productivity. Would be such an amazing positive economic investment.

In my household, I would say that 99% of circulating photos, clicks, likes, searches, videos watched (the number of which has been growing sequentially and quasi-exponentially) should NOT be counted in GDP. Unless we made it to the leisure society but I think the economic possibilities are not quite there yet. I like the anecdote (which seems reasonable for him) when he decided to sell all long exposure and buy treasuries instead, on the spot, while playing golf. He says it was a tweet and I guess he felt the wind change. That's a good point. So, let's say you don't have these free services anymore. Are you not going to print pictures and would it not cost money? How much information are you getting now free that would have cost you money before? How many times have you looked up some info and used it, instead of relying on paid experts? How many free youtube videos? Email? What would be the alternatives and would they be free? etc. Even if you somehow not spend any money if all of these are turned off tomorrow (unlikely) it would not negate the fact that they added value and increase productivity, for free.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. His ability to see things systematically is unparalleled. I was aware of his views on inflation, innovation, and productivity but it's the first time I hear him using arguments trying to quantify it. (amount of google searches, it is free and thus not included in inflation etc.)

Nothing so far during this dip. I don't see any max pessimism or anything like it.

The problem with the strategy is that if the stock goes straight up, you just get 10c/ share. Plus you have to pay short term capital gain tax, and tie up the cash in the account until put is expired. Like Warren said, if you like the stock, just buy it. You don't have to wait till expiration, you can buy the put back to free up the cash. I do that on occasion. Also, Buffett may say that but he has written about $5 billion of put options over the years. Buying it back depends on the spread and liquidity. May I ask what market data are you using for these? Just the data provided by Schwab—quotes, volume, open interest. I've never had an issue trading options on stocks such as WFC, BRKB, AMGN, BAC, GILD, BK, etc. my usual suspects. Thanks.

The problem with the strategy is that if the stock goes straight up, you just get 10c/ share. Plus you have to pay short term capital gain tax, and tie up the cash in the account until put is expired. Like Warren said, if you like the stock, just buy it. You don't have to wait till expiration, you can buy the put back to free up the cash. I do that on occasion. Also, Buffett may say that but he has written about $5 billion of put options over the years. Buying it back depends on the spread and liquidity. May I ask what market data are you using for these?

https://lexfridman.com/ai/ Lex Fridman's podcast is fantastic.

https://fs.blog/2015/01/richard-feynman-knowing-something/ Richard Feynman: The Difference Between Knowing the Name of Something and Knowing Something

The EU will slowly break apart (might be 15 to 20 years from now, the way these things go) unless Germany acknowledges it is the cause of the main issues and the only one who can fix it. The core issues are economic, as they are in the UK and as they are in the US. Politics is just a more visible layer.

I personally can’t tell what is a symptom and what is the disease, but I tend to think of inverting interest rate as a symptom. Just my opinion, but every time, investors put their hope into Fed, they tend to get disappointed. I suspect the market will take a real dump, if indeed the Fed starts to lower rates. I think it can be be both right? At first it's a symptom - it's markets being concerned about future growth/inflation and predicting a rate cut; however, it can also become self-fulfilling and contribute to the slowdown because the inversion strangles credit supply further slowing the economy Reflexivity. In this case, there are definitely fundamental issues regardless of expectations. Rising rates would have a serious impact, no matter how they do it, the only question is how bad. The method the Fed uses makes things worse, because, well, they are clueless as the past few months have shown. The big unknown here is not the Fed, it's Trump. He called an emergency on the wall. He just nominated someone to the Fed that no doubt he believes will support his views. What else is he willing to do for us to get a happy dead cat bounce? That's my bet, it's not going straight down from here. We will have fun first.

It seems that recently fuel-cell noise is rising. It was all so quiet for so long. Is there some breakthrough or regulation coming up?

wrister, you're saying that if for example, HFTs used 0.1 spreads now they will simply go for 0.2, and as all the HFTs will simply increase the spread it won't make much difference? What about taxing trade cancellation even with the intent of purchase (i.e. it was not spoofing)?