Tidbits

[UK]

 

[gfp]

I don't know where to post this exactly but this is the substack of the degenerate gambling and highly intelligent chips / data com expert over at Irrational Analysis.  If you can handle his style (worth it), there is a lot of useful information in every post.

 

One of the more useful aspects is knowledge of which types of high tech companies to avoid (or use as a funding short if you are some shmancy hedge funder)

QCOM

GFS

CRWV

etc...

 

Dude has NO problem talking some trash and he ain't wishy washy

 

New post from this morning

https://irrationalanalysis.substack.com/p/226-earnings-roundup-lite-cohr-sitm?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1509468&post_id=186945204&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=oqhe5&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

[Sweet]

The rip higher in stocks is strange, many stocks on my watchlist are up 3-4%, some are up 6-7%.  I can’t find any particular reason for it either in the news other than it’s coming off a drop.  But this kind of volatility sometimes precipitates large declines.

[gfp]

22 minutes ago, Sweet said:

The rip higher in stocks is strange, many stocks on my watchlist are up 3-4%, some are up 6-7%.  I can’t find any particular reason for it either in the news other than it’s coming off a drop.  But this kind of volatility sometimes precipitates large declines.

 

You know bad things are coming because Berkshire finally caught a bid 

[DooDiligence]

23 minutes ago, gfp said:

 

You know bad things are coming because Berkshire finally caught a bid 

 

You'd expect that over the past week but today? 

[Sweet]

1 hour ago, gfp said:

 

You know bad things are coming because Berkshire finally caught a bid 

Lol

[Sweet]

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/david-einhorn-says-the-fed-will-cut-substantially-more-than-two-times-so-hes-betting-big-on-gold.html
 

How close are we to this being over when Blowhorn is on CNBC pimping his position.

[UK]

https://archive.is/I1D3d

Prabowo Fury on Market Rout Shows Growing Divisions in Indonesia
Indonesia’s president ordered the firings of regulators after warnings about MSCI’s concerns went unheeded.

[gfp]

These two-part podcast interviews with Robert Friedland (mining executive, Ivanhoe, etc) & Jeff Currie (Carlyle, energy) are from the Davos time period, so not brand new, and may have already been shared here.  But I finally got around to listening to the interviews and thought they were very good.  They are audio only.  Maybe good for a car ride.

 

Alternatively you can get your AI of choice to listen to them both, summarize important points and then do a Q&A about them.

 

Part 1 is here.  I'm sure if you make it through part 1 you will be able to find part 2 with your brain.  Skip ahead to the start of the interview

 

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

On 2/11/2026 at 1:00 PM, Sweet said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/david-einhorn-says-the-fed-will-cut-substantially-more-than-two-times-so-hes-betting-big-on-gold.html
 

How close are we to this being over when Blowhorn is on CNBC pimping his position.

Oh boy, did Einhorn buy in near the top in Gold? Too funny

[UK]

4 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

Oh boy, did Einhorn buy in near the top in Gold? Too funny

I think he owned big position in gold as far as I can remember:)

[Spekulatius]

Insider buy (almost) from McDermott ($NOW CEO) -$3M

https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001373715/000137371526000014/now-20260213.htm

 

[Saluki]

 

Whoa! 

[Sweet]

Had a quick look at Harley Davidson this afternoon.

 

Pros:

- cheap valuation

- iconic brand

- buying back shares

- potentially at cyclic lows

- balance sheet ok, enterprise value lower than market cap.

 

Cons:

- Revenue slump is bad

- seems to be a general slow down in the sector

- older demographic

 

Overall I find it interesting, I think these things come in and out of fashion.  I don’t see HOG going away, and if they can catch a break and get revenue to turn, this could pop much higher.

 

Edited February 22 by Sweet

[dwy000]

1 hour ago, Sweet said:

Had a quick look at Harley Davidson this afternoon.

 

Pros:

- cheap valuation

- iconic brand

- buying back shares

- potentially at cyclic lows

- balance sheet ok, enterprise value lower than market cap.

 

Cons:

- Revenue slump is bad

- seems to be a general slow down in the sector

- older demographic

 

Overall I find it interesting, I think these things come in and out of fashion.  I don’t see HOG going away, and if they can catch a break and get revenue to turn, this could pop much higher.

 

Their customer base is literally dying off. 

[Sweet]

7 hours ago, dwy000 said:

Their customer base is literally dying off. 

Perhaps, but you could say that about a lot of businesses and they churn more customers just fine.  I think more important is whether there is a trend towards less bike ownership in general, similar to the way Gen Z are drinking less alcohol. This thing is trading around book value and I don’t think it will take much to go right for it to rip. I’ve got only superficial understanding of the issues at the moment though.

[dwy000]

3 hours ago, Sweet said:

Perhaps, but you could say that about a lot of businesses and they churn more customers just fine.  I think more important is whether there is a trend towards less bike ownership in general, similar to the way Gen Z are drinking less alcohol. This thing is trading around book value and I don’t think it will take much to go right for it to rip. I’ve got only superficial understanding of the issues at the moment though.

Not sure if there's a HOG thread already.   Take a look at the average age of a Harley buyer over the years and brings back memories of Sears.  Its guys who grew up in the 50's and 60's and 70's idolizing the Harleys and bike culture and could finally afford one.  This may be one that is on a slow ride to the history books. 

[Spekulatius]

12 hours ago, dwy000 said:

Their customer base is literally dying off. 

It’s an inconic brand for a $2.4B market cap. No net debt. Trading below book. Share cannibal. Maybe they can pivot to become a retro brand and sell more accessories etc. I just took a quick look and like it here. It’s deep value and not a lot has to go right here to make serious money, imo.

 

Some insider purchases would be nice.

[dwy000]

7 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

It’s an inconic brand for a $2.4B market cap. No net debt. Trading below book. Share cannibal. Maybe they can pivot to become a retro brand and sell more accessories etc. I just took a quick look and like it here. It’s deep value and not a lot has to go right here to make serious money, imo.

 

Some insider purchases would be nice.

The set up headline is great but its fighting a negative trend.  They traded market share and volume for margin over the past 10-15 years but theyre hitting the limits of what boomers will pay for a nostalgic toy.  With volumes down double digits the margins are going to be under a lot of pressure. I normally love high cash flow, share cannibal businesses but the headwinds here are too strong for me. 

 

[Sweet]

You don’t have to fall in love with the stock to make money from it.

 

These levels are approaching those of Covid and 2008 and from looking at the chart it has historically bounced hard at these levels.

 

Granted the revenue looks terrible the last 12 months, but I struggle to see how you lose much money.

 

Caveated of course that I haven’t dug deep, but I do think there is a brand moat here.

 

Not at all minimising your view, I don’t have a position here, partly because I just hate buying companies with declining revenue.

Edited February 22 by Sweet

[Fly]

Interesting thought experiment

 

https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic

 

[Marco Van Basten]

2 hours ago, Fly said:

Interesting thought experiment

 

https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic

 

Hard to disprove a negative, but I have trouble understanding two things:

a) How on bloody earth he gets to an estimate that 15-20% of premiums earned by insurance companies are due to people not shopping around and hence will be eliminated by AI agents.  So if we just lop off 20% of premiums for US insurance industry, combined ratio gets to 105-115, may be 120, so the entire industry not only writes at a loss, but investment income is not enough to cover it.

b) He states that AI agents will eliminate 2.5-3.0% interchange fee.  Ok, but how will credit cards make money and what rails will replace V/MA/AXP/Discovery?

 

 

[KJP]

3 hours ago, Marco Van Basten said:

b) He states that AI agents will eliminate 2.5-3.0% interchange fee.  Ok, but how will credit cards make money and what rails will replace V/MA/AXP/Discovery?

 

 

 

His scenario does includes this explanation:  "Agents went looking for faster and cheaper options than cards. Most settled on using stablecoins via Solana or Ethereum L2s, where settlement was near-instant and the transaction cost was measured in fractions of a penny."

 

This scenario seems to imply the elimination of the consumer credit function of cards and the conversion of all transactions to something debit-like using stablecoins.  In that world, there is no AXP or Discovery.  I have no comment on his scenario's likelihood or plausibility or whether different geographies might adopt something like it at different speeds.  

 

On the insurance point, I don't know how he's getting his numbers, but I assume he's relying on some data about how insurers price new business relative to existing business, which I further assume insurers base in part on estimated LTVs given churn rates, etc.  As you suggest, those historical trends (and pricing disparities) presumably would no longer hold in a world of much higher churn, because there doesn't appear to be 15-20% available in the system for even constant AI-generated churn to wring out.  

[Libs]

On 2/20/2026 at 8:59 AM, Saluki said:

 

Whoa! 

 

Dang. That was rough! 

[Marco Van Basten]

1 hour ago, KJP said:

 

His scenario does includes this explanation:  "Agents went looking for faster and cheaper options than cards. Most settled on using stablecoins via Solana or Ethereum L2s, where settlement was near-instant and the transaction cost was measured in fractions of a penny."

 

This scenario seems to imply the elimination of the consumer credit function of cards and the conversion of all transactions to something debit-like using stablecoins.  In that world, there is no AXP or Discovery.  I have no comment on his scenario's likelihood or plausibility or whether different geographies might adopt something like it at different speeds.  

 

On the insurance point, I don't know how he's getting his numbers, but I assume he's relying on some data about how insurers price new business relative to existing business, which I further assume insurers base in part on estimated LTVs given churn rates, etc.  As you suggest, those historical trends (and pricing disparities) presumably would no longer hold in a world of much higher churn, because there doesn't appear to be 15-20% available in the system for even constant AI-generated churn to wring out.  

If I recall Chubb's 2024 annual report correctly, it gives the underwriting ratio for the company and the industry for the previous decade.  According to memory, industry's underwriting ratio was north of 97 over the previous decade.  So, now you take $20 of revenue of the top, you have $97 of expenses on $80 of revenue, which is 121.25 underwriting ratio.  I don't know how the insurance industry can survive, let alone have a positive return on shareholders' capital under those circumstances.  So clearly the writer of the report can't be bothered with facts, so if I know that he is 100% wrong and flat out lies in something that I know, how can I take anything else that he says seriously?  He might be right on something, but not because he has bothered to do the research like a card counter at a casino but like someone who bets on zero at roulette and gets lucky.