Spekulatius

It might be time to have an ounce of prevention and vaccinate the portfolio a bit just in case this has consequences beyond just India. it is not that we never have seen this before.

Yes, my wife is a user of Etsy and said the same thing. More and more generic items from chinese sellers are in their platform. This dilutes their offering and brand.

Weed competes with booze, not with nicotine. I do think that weed will become legal (on a federal level) within this decade - the demographic trends make it almost impossible not to legalize it.

..and of course the general federal tax increase from 20% to 25% but that's not exclusive to MO or BTI of course.

Central bank policy makes no sense to me. QE makes no sense (imo) but it does not prevent central banks from trying.

There is nothing wrong with changing your mind of course, but $150M isn’t exactly small change nor is buying an entire company usually an easy to reverse decision, so I think this episode reflects very badly on how much he knows about what he buys or owns.

I sold the MO held in my tax deferred accounts around $48. A legislation like this was a latent threat, but now it seems an imminent one. I am not sure how a switch to alternative products is going to play out, both in terms of market size and profit margins. Also note for the Menthol cigarettes , MA already banned those last year, so changes are possible and relatively short order. I do think some haircut is well justified for the increased uncertainty. This stock came of a tremendous run from ~$36 to $50+ with some dividend payments along the way. If the stock really craters I will happily get back in again.

I guess “cinches” have replaced the “spawners”.

Read the 10-k. Actually 2020 itself was OK but subsequently they lost ~$4/share related to the ERCOT/ Texas disaster. I don’t really think this business model works and the structure (external management) sucks. No dividends or share buybacks either, so the capital is stuck.

Looks like the peloton treadmill has no cover at both ends where the endless band turns around and moves underneath the machine. This looks like a lousy design safety wise and all those treadmills probably need to be pulled from the market.

Yeah, the updates continue, they will get it right eventually.

LOL:

Shots fired for wireless offering. This looks quite attractive to me, even though I am not currently a Comcast customer. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/comcasts-xfinity-mobile-unlimited-5g-plans-125738155.html

Increasing/ eliminating the SALT cap while increasing the federal income tax rate to pay for it is a no brainer for the democrats, imo. NYC and other cities would be beneficiaries, Florida a relative loser. When housing cracks, we will see it in CA and perhaps FLA first. I do think it will take a couple of years to get there.

Einhorn was in easy mode with respect to shorting for a while, because he could short a stock in size, then present his thesis on a conference which would tank the stock due to all those ridealongs. this would allow him to cover his position almost for a guaranteed profit. This reputation is not there any more as he (and his coattail shortsellers even more so) have taken a bath on stocks like Green Mountain. Ever since then, he has been struggling and it hasn't helped that his longs weren't that great either. Just look at how GLRE has done. https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/07/greenlights-david-einhorn-gets-roasted-on-keurig-green-mountain-deal.html

So the logic is - the opportunity exists because regulators do nothing, but that's going to change once I am short the stock. My own experience is that stocks don't care if I own or short them however.

The Rocky mountain states are all great in their own way and would be my favorites. I love CO, Northern AZ, OR and in Canada Lake Okonaga and I am sure WY and others are great in their own way. The beauty of those areas is unmatched. On the east coast, NC would be my favorite (Asheville area). NH is also underappreciated and I like where I live (MA , close to NH border). I don't know FLA well but it is probably my least favorite state of those I visited (Orlando area, Tampa). I am sure other areas are nice ,especially for boating, but the weather for 9 month is just too brutal, imo. I have lived in Germany, CA, NY (Long Island) and now MA for perspective. In terms of pricing, I think real estate in the US as whole is still undervalued. there may be pockets of exuberance in some areas, but for example in the East coast, houses in many areas still have to crack their 2007 peak values 13/14 years later. So it is hardly a bubble. If you want to see what a bubble looks like Canada, Australia and NZ are much better examples.

Why PRX and not Naspers (NPSNY). NPSNY controls Proxus and seems to trade at a larger discount. I do agree that Proxus seems interesting as well. Naspers/Proxus are a great way to get tech/VC exposure with a good capital allocator at a discount. Tencent itself is great capital allocator and holding so you get this nested doll of Tencent->Proxus-> Naspers with discounts at each level.

Sold FROG and KVSA (both for small gains).

Lillian went as far as stating that $BABA is a boomer value stock, which of course makes it an autobuy.

Yet again we learn to buy the dip with big tech. Scary headlines make great buying opportunities. These companies are tremendously resilient and hard to kill. Regulation hits the bigger guys first, but often the smaller guys more in the long run. Alibaba could be different, but I think it is the same. We have seen this movie many times and this one looks like a rerun. First time?

Why is Flipkart that relevant? They bought it for ~$20B and now IPO it at $35B. Even if IPO’d at a $50B valuation as some contemplate, this is not all that much for a company with a ~$440B EV.

The dip was when INTC was in the mid forties.

Marmon was shopped around by Byron Trott from GS (back then) before it end up with Berkshire. Byron Trott is called WEB favorite banker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Trott

The VIE structure is not ideal for sure from an investor perspective, but it neither a new risk nor is it specific to Alibaba. The VIE structure is clearly sanction by the powers so it isn’t really a separate risk from the CCP calling the shots, imo. I am more comfortable than I was a few years ago with the VIE structure because China actually has done a good job in making the Chinese stock market more investable, Imo. Ironically, the increased scrutiny of the regulators may have played a large a large role in getting Alipay into crossfire since the regulators put any business that applies for a stock market listing I to the X-ray machine and find out who it operates. They did t like that Alipay’s essentially runs an unregulated bank/ consumer lending and asset management business with a lot of intransparent ties to regular banks as well as with Alibaba. I am guess this has to be restructured in a way that is more appealing to the. Regulators. It will be interesting how this plays out for Alibaba and even more so Tencent. Tencent in many respects is even less transparent than Alibaba and has more platform power through Wechat as it has become the quasi operating system for e-commerce in China.