Tidbits

[Spooky]

https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-annual-chairmans-letter

 

Larry Fink's annual letter was pretty good this year.

[Gamecock-YT]

9 minutes ago, Spooky said:

https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-annual-chairmans-letter

 

Larry Fink's annual letter was pretty good this year.

 

Quote

Target date funds are a great place to start. People love their simplicity: You just pick the year you plan to retire—2040, 2055, 2060—and let the fund do the rest. That simplicity makes target date funds ideal for introducing private assets. 

 

lol

[Spekulatius]

20 hours ago, Gamecock-YT said:

 

 

lol

Private markets= lots of fees and no liquidity. Stuff them in target date funds which already have a fee layer on top of the mutual fund fees. Exit from private equity funds at Target date TBD. Great for Blackrock but my guess is that customers won’t be able to afford yachts.

[Spekulatius]

The world is coming to an end - no more pad Thais for $30 or 2” fingernails for who knows how much.

https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/women-spending-recession-economy-e492cc1e?mod=economy_feat3_consumers_pos1

[Gamecock-YT]

6 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

The world is coming to an end - no more pad Thais for $30 or 2” fingernails for who knows how much.

https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/women-spending-recession-economy-e492cc1e?mod=economy_feat3_consumers_pos1

 

Need to know how much student loans they are carrying too, I bet they are significant. 

 

Also, just checked my delivery app and I can get Pad Thai for $2.30 delivered. Geo arbitrage ftw. 

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, Gamecock-YT said:

 

Need to know how much student loans they are carrying too, I bet they are significant. 

 

Also, just checked my delivery app and I can get Pad Thai for $2.30 delivered. Geo arbitrage ftw. 

I think their idea of belt tightening and mine are quite different.

 

What is interesting is the mentioning ChatGPT as a therapist. I saw a stat that therapy and personal advice is one of the most popular use cases for the AI chatbots.

 

Thats somewhat scary if you are a therapist.

[Saluki]

36 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

I think their idea of belt tightening and mine are quite different.

 

What is interesting is the mentioning ChatGPT as a therapist. I saw a stat that therapy and personal advice is one of the most popular use cases for the AI chatbots.

 

Thats somewhat scary if you are a therapist.

 

What's interesting is that it's probably preferable to seeing a physician. Studies show that women get prescribed painkillers about half as likely as men for the same symptoms. There is a discrepancy by race too, but not as bad. An AI that is gender or race neutral in dealing out diagnosis and treatment sounds like a blessing. Also, a lot of Drs stop learning after medical school which is why it takes so long to get rid of old ideas like "ulcers are caused by stress" or "eating fat causes heart disease". It's in old medical textbooks and new doctors learn it isn't true, but old doctors never get their software updated. But AI is always updating. 

 

I don't know about therapists though because I've heard that people try out several before they find one they like. So if there is a one size fits all, then maybe not, but if it knows about you and your personality, then maybe it can adjust it's approach?  

[Ulti]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/buyout-and-venture-capital-investing-in-japan-and/id1454112457?i=1000703428265
 

I thought that the podcast on visits to Shanghai and Tokyo to check out investing on a local level was very interesting…. Did not realize how advanced manufacturing was in China…. I mean I did but the podcast added some color to a black and white picture 

[Ulti]

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/buyout-barons-are-finance-now-good-ill-2025-04-17/
 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vanguard-blackstone-wellington-partner-private-220000334.html
 

Personally, I don’t think this helps the average investor/ person 

[Spekulatius]

https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/042625-ConsumerandFirms_v2.pdf

[Blake Hampton]

12 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/042625-ConsumerandFirms_v2.pdf

Thanks for the link. Those are some nasty looking charts.

 

 

[Blake Hampton]

"Source: Me"

 

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/042625-ConsumerandFirms_v2.pdf

I would like to know how the three musketeers are able to differentiate between the impact of cutting government spending and jobs (DOGE, consultants, USAID, et all) from impact of tariffs, as well as from the negative wealth effect of falling equity markets.  

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, Dinar said:

I would like to know how the three musketeers are able to differentiate between the impact of cutting government spending and jobs (DOGE, consultants, USAID, et all) from impact of tariffs, as well as from the negative wealth effect of falling equity markets.  

Does it matter for the outcome? The negative wealth effect is also most likely triggering the falling equity markets anyways, so same root cause. The Doge impact is very small compared to tariffs.

[Spekulatius]

Another unrelated to above tidbit - aircraft deliveries are far below 2018 and were so even before the 737 Max issues started to bite.  true even for Airbus itself. Apparently, the aerospace supply chain never recovered from COVID-19 shock, it seems.

 

Just my guess, but the Chinese SOE COMAC will be making a lot of planes 5-10 years from now, because apparently both Airbus and Boeing can’t.

 

Edited April 28, 2025 by Spekulatius

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

Does it matter for the outcome? The negative wealth effect is also most likely triggering the falling equity markets anyways, so same root cause. The Doge impact is very small compared to tariffs.

Yes it does.  People who are sloppy in one area, tends to be sloppy everywhere.  The work is probably riddled with mistakes, it is just that they are not as obvious.   (I am not defending tariffs, my point is that this research is garbage.)  Cuts in government jobs are necessary, tariffs on Canada are hard to understand.  There are millions of households where someone is employed either directly or indirectly by the government.  If 25% of these households are worried that they will lose income, most of these households will cut consumption materially.  These households also tend to be high income households.  A friend's brother has been a lawyer for the IRS for more than a decade and the brother's wife is a nurse.  The IRS guy is worried that he will be fired and they have started to cut consumption.  

Edited April 28, 2025 by Dinar

[Spooky]

15 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/042625-ConsumerandFirms_v2.pdf

 

Thanks for sharing, very interesting. So far there has been a down trend in soft economic data which looks worrisome. US economy flirting with stagflation.

[Dinar]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Another unrelated to above tidbit - aircraft deliveries are far below 2018 and were so even before the 737 Max issues started to bite.  true even for Airbus itself. Apparently, the aerospace supply chain never recovered from COVID-19 shock, it seems.

 

Just my guess, but the Chinese SOE COMAC will be making a lot of planes 5-10 years from now, because apparently both Airbus and Boeing can’t.

 

Who do you think will buy the Chinese planes?  By the way, the moment GE/Safran/Pratt stop selling engines to China, how will Comac fly?

[Spooky]

15 hours ago, Blake Hampton said:

"Source: Me"

 

 

Interesting chart but in this scenario I would not automatically assume rates will need to go up / stay up. The inflation is not being caused by an overheated economy so the Fed could decide to look through a spike in inflation caused by tariffs. Raising interest rates wouldn't address the source of the inflation but could hurt the demand side even more.

[Gregmal]

12 minutes ago, Dinar said:

Who do you think will buy the Chinese planes?  By the way, the moment GE/Safran/Pratt stop selling engines to China, how will Comac fly?

True. It will be a neat tell on the bullshitometer. After all, if we claim Chinese EVs are a national security threat, surely planes would be a total no no for pretty much the entire world no? 

[Gregmal]

5 minutes ago, Spooky said:

 

Interesting chart but in this scenario I would not automatically assume rates will need to go up / stay up. The inflation is not being caused by an overheated economy so the Fed could decide to look through a spike in inflation caused by tariffs. Raising interest rates wouldn't address the source of the inflation but could hurt the demand side even more.

Exactly. This is a purely academic/textbook type theory. Nothing more

[Spooky]

1 minute ago, Gregmal said:

Exactly. This is a purely academic/textbook type theory. Nothing more

 

Also, who knows if the tariffs will even stick around.

[Gregmal]

11 minutes ago, Spooky said:

 

Also, who knows if the tariffs will even stick around.

Everyone here apparently…they’re certain. 

[dwy000]

1 hour ago, Dinar said:

Who do you think will buy the Chinese planes?  By the way, the moment GE/Safran/Pratt stop selling engines to China, how will Comac fly?

Why would Safran stop selling them engines?  They're made in France

[Dinar]

8 minutes ago, dwy000 said:

Why would Safran stop selling them engines?  They're made in France

No, it is ge/safran joint venture