DueDiligence

Wine, Wisdom and World Peace - an idea! But day job is about finance, portfolio management, indices & ETFs, ethics, & helping students w/ careers! Proud 🇺🇸

[Mazelit Airaksinen 🎗🇺🇸 🇮🇱 @Mazelit_]

My name is Sarah Milgrim, and I was murdered by a pro-Palestine terrorist last year outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC, USA.

My killer's mugshot has never been released.

Prosecutors are trying to enact the death penalty on him, while Elias Rodriguez, my killer, has pleaded not guilty.

When he entered the museum after shooting me and my boyfriend to death, Elias wore a keffiyeh and shouted, "I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza," and "shame on Zio-nazi terror" at the people inside before being arrested.

He now faces life in prison.

I was the first American Jewish woman killed in a terror attack inspired by Israeli Derangement Syndrome after October 7th.

My killer must face justice.

Please don't forget me.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@RobbinMilne @TennisChannel @usopen Yes it was. But fixed now - obviously

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@BillAckman Completely ridiculous. Love going but it is beyond crowded and when hot and humid- super challenging to navigate. $360+ seems wrong on so many fronts.

[TECTONE 🇺🇸 @Tectone]

OLD HASAN CLIP HAS RESURFACED:

“We want more immigrants to come into your countries and then they’re gonna fuck your sisters and then your daughters.”

“We’re here to Destroy the White Race, Bitch.”

So Twitch we just banned Asmongold but we’re not gonna ban the guy that wants illegals to rape our families???

[Ambassador Mike Huckabee @GovMikeHuckabee]

This is awkward for Israel haters. When a UN (no friend of Israel) organization (UNESCO) debunks the lie that Israel was "starving kids" it's worth a read. Israel genocidal? They botched it again!

United Nations study shatters Gaza starvation narrative https://t.co/fBF9v2ql2K

[James E. Thorne @DrJStrategy]

Spot on 👇

Sec Bessent is saying what most of Wall Street already knows but won’t admit: the era of Fed whisperers masquerading as analysts has hollowed out real market thinking.

For years, asset prices weren’t driven by fundamentals, they were driven by interpretation of carefully leaked signals, trial balloons, and selective “guidance” fed to a handful of well-connected reporters. That isn’t price discovery; it’s narrative management.

When journalists become conduits for policy hints instead of interrogators of policy outcomes, markets stop analyzing and start front-running. Wall St stopped doing objective research, and relied on the Fed to spoon feed them. Wall St thus, never questioned the Keynesian dogma. Wall St became a lapdog for the Fed.

The result is a generation of participants trained to decode tone shifts rather than evaluate capital allocation, productivity, or inflation dynamics.

If the Warsh Fed is forcing that ecosystem to operate without a script, the discomfort you’re seeing isn’t dysfunction, it’s withdrawal.

Markets that can’t function without being spoon-fed aren’t efficient. They’re dependent. A new era has begun and some of the cool kids on Wall St are upset. Let them!

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@evanwch described it well in an interview recently in @TheFP

[Daniel S. Loeb @DanielSLoeb1]

Many of the loser children of my wealthy friends who see no way to emulate the success of their parents, have gravitated toward Mamdani-ism and found community and a sense of purpose by rejecting capitalism as a way to cope with their own failure. Please note they have nor however rejected their trust funds or living subsidies while pursuing their “passions” in NGOs, dabbling in the arts or trying to invest their parents money in “VC”.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

Civil, mature perspective -
https://t.co/r5EH2HOlAH

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

Maybe so, but the extreme leverage and lack of diversification certainly were drivers of the opportunity for Citadel to do this to SA.

[Leopold Stock Tracker @LeopoldATracker]

THE CITADEL GAME THAT CAUSED LEOPOLD ASCHENBRENNER’S FORCED SALE

> Citadel sees a young man in his early twenties managing a fund worth over $45 billion, nearly twice the size of Bill Ackman’s fund, which has been in operation for 23 years.

> The fund, in just 2 years, has grown from a modest $225 million to over $40 billion, with just 8 employees and no background in asset management. The fastest growing fund in history.

> Citadel sees a weakness in the portfolio ⟶ leverage.

> Citadel knows the thesis is right: AI infrastructure is where the real money is in AI. No matter who wins in the model race, the infrastructure wins.

> Now, this young man is holding billions in these assets.

> Then July 10 came after the $SKHY trade, followed by a major selloff across all AI stocks, with most down more than 30% in 2 weeks between July 10–20.

> Leopold Aschenbrenner’s short positions starts moving up against his direction, causing more losses (he was short on software stocks), with positions worth billions of dollars.

> July 24th, Leopold Aschenbrenner sends a letter to investors calling the selloff a buying opportunity and asks for more money, with that window to be open on August 1st, the same day of his wedding. With good news that the fund is up 439% through June YTD.

Perfect opportunity:

> July 27, Citadel Securities raised a false alarm, saying the Fed is gonna do a surprise rate hike.

> July 28, retail, out of fear, the market sells off after Citadel’s report & Leopold Aschenbrenner tries to raise & borrow more money to avoid a margin call for bleeding options positions. Both long and short positions bleeding.

> July 29, banks’ margin calls began. News people spread fear, the selling continues. Perfect opportunity.

> July 30, Jane Street and other market makers bid, but Citadel’s price is better. Citadel buys the majority of his portfolio for a massive discount.

> 3rd August, Citadel Securities is up more than $3 billion in just 2 days after buying Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness public book.

> Same Monday, 3rd August, Citadel Securities says, “the bull market drivers are intact.”

No AI bubble news, no market top, but buying the majority of the Leopold Aschenbrenner portfolio is the AI bottom and the start of the bull market.

Sad for those who didn’t buy the bottom. Because Citadel, as a market maker, won’t sell those positions anytime soon.

The game is rigged against retail and anyone that offers retail help.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@GadSaad Let’s see how well that works out for Canada.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@elonmusk @FoxNews But Elon he has built something- a huge following that should give concern to those who love this country and don’t want to destroy the key drivers of its success. In what country has socialism created a better world for its citizens & immigrants ? Let Mandami explain that!

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@RonDeSantis Promoting crap to your followers when you are hedged. Thats the new way, and clearly not going to promote capitalism over socialism ☹️

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@LeeKuanYimby When you say, “Zohran is a lifelong attention seeking narcissist who was handed every advantage, and he now devotes himself to reprimanding the country that gave his family sanctuary.” Actually helping or hurting his followers? I get the hurting part.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@Houseofyogi A+

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@sjkz @krassenstein True. But it is working. That is a huge problem.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@GEOSCHMIDT2 @krassenstein @elonmusk @NormS79938 @FoxNews You make good points. However, he somehow got college educated-younger cohort - to not only vote for him, but buy into & promote his propaganda. That skill will cause more destruction & too many people will sit by idly & watch. This will result in more wins for them.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@VickieforNYC A canary?

[Whitney Tilson @WhitneyTilson]

I don’t know how I missed this earlier this month, but this essay by Sam Harris the smartest thing I’ve ever read on the difference between Israel and its enemies, why it’s not guilty of the blood libel charge of genocide, and the utter hypocrisy of those fixated on Israel – and ONLY Israel. Be sure to read the footnotes, in which Harris responds to critiques of his original essay.

Why I Won’t Debate Critics of Israel
https://t.co/5g7qssT1OG

Excerpts:

What do the Jews and Muslims in the region really yearn to accomplish? What are they willing to sacrifice for? What are they willing to die for? And what are they willing to let their children die for?
When we focus on the present this way, if we’re being honest, we must concede that there are two very different realities on either side of this conflict: culturally, psychologically, ethically, spiritually—in every way that matters. Yes, Israel has its religious fanatics too. But they aren’t the same sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah, and they’re far less representative of the surrounding culture. Notwithstanding everything that can be said against Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli far right, and the settlers in the West Bank—and there is much to condemn—I believe the following remains true:
If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace.6 There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution; it wouldn’t matter. If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one eighty years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7th, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the state of Israel.

And:

If you want to understand my view of this conflict, simply ask the one question that clarifies everything in the present:
What would each side do if it had the power to do whatever it wanted?
Though many pretend otherwise, everyone knows the answer to this question to a moral certainty.
If Hamas had the power, it would perpetrate a real genocide in Israel...
Most Palestinians know this, and yet Hamas remains popular. For over a decade, Hamas diverted foreign aid that was meant to improve life in Gaza and used it to build the largest bomb shelter our species has ever constructed—hundreds of miles of tunnels—and yet no Palestinian civilians were allowed to shelter there during the war. Why not? Because Hamas was using these men, women, and children as human shields. And when Israel made phone calls and sent millions of text messages urging civilians to evacuate, the loudspeakers in the nearest mosques warned them to stay in place. And Hamas snipers murdered many who tried to move to safety. The Palestinians know all this, and yet Hamas remains popular. Even after all the devastation that Hamas has brought down on its own people, it remains the most popular Palestinian faction, well ahead of its rival, Fatah. This is why there is no peace in the Middle East.

And:

We haven’t seen all the dead children in Yemen, Syria, or Sudan, where the numbers are far worse than in Gaza, but everyone has witnessed the pornography of misery and death that has been steadily manufactured by supporters of Hamas. You might think that your special concern over Israel is due to the fact that we (Americans) supply many of the weapons the IDF uses to kill Palestinians. But we supplied arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE for a war in Yemen that has killed an estimated 377,000 people. Where were those protests? Where was the celebrity sanctimony over Yemeni dead? Why didn’t Zohran Mamdani trumpet his opposition to this evil while campaigning to become Mayor of New York? Yemen was the world’s worst humanitarian crisis for years, with American weaponry and logistical support fully implicated, and yet it never became the organizing moral obsession of universities, media institutions, activist networks, or leftwing politics the way Gaza has.
To point this out isn’t to commit the rhetorical sin of “whataboutism.” Rather, it exposes a glaring moral disparity: The world simply does not care when Muslims kill other Muslims—amazingly, it doesn’t much care when they kill Christians either—but it does care, enormously, when Jews do it. The General Assembly of the UN and its Human Rights Council have passed more resolutions against Israel than against all other nations combined, including North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. A few of these countries have committed actual genocides. None of this makes sense. But this is the world we are living in.

Footnote 1:

One common objection here, which is just a point of confusion, holds that I am giving Israel a blank check to commit war crimes. Obviously, whether a war is defensive (and just) and whether it is being fought within moral limits are different questions. When insisting that the ethical difference between Israel and its enemies remains vast, I’m making a claim about their respective aims, not issuing a blanket approval of everything Israel might do in its defense. Any focus on Israel’s conduct in this war tends to be misleading, because activists and critics routinely lie about it, inflating the ordinary horrors of urban combat into a false charge of “genocide.” This specific claim is nothing short of a blood libel, and it is often intended as such. The fact that organizations like the U.N., Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch endorse it doesn’t make it true. One can condemn everything that Israel has done wrong without denying that Hamas is a death cult bent on genocide—but, crucially, Israel’s critics can’t seem to manage this. This is why I see no point in debating the specifics of what the IDF has done in Gaza on any given day. War crimes are war crimes, and they should be prosecuted. And Israel is precisely the sort of society that we expect to prosecute such crimes—unlike its enemies, which revel in them.

Footnote 2, response to the charge of genocide:

As for the allegation that Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza, I also see nothing to debate, apart from semantics. Whatever one thinks about Israeli politics and the war—again, there is much to criticize here—the claim reflects serious confusion, or just frank dishonesty, about what the word “genocide” means. “Genocide” is not a synonym for a war you don’t happen to support, or even for one that produces an unacceptable level of civilian casualties. “Genocide” entails intent: the intent to destroy a people as such. That is what distinguishes the Holocaust, and what happened in Rwanda over the course of 100 days in 1994, from the long list of wars in which enormous numbers of innocent people were killed.
The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 100,000 people instantly, and another 100,000 gradually—by fire, infection, and radiation poisoning. Most of those people were civilians who were just minding their own business at the time. Whatever you think about that as means of bringing World War 2 to an end—and the ethics here are certainly debatable—no serious person calls it “a genocide.” Why not? Because despite the vast numbers of innocent men, women, and children that we killed, we were obviously not trying to annihilate the Japanese people—as witnessed by the fact that once they surrendered, we helped rebuild their society, and by the time our occupation ended in 1952, Japan had moved from being a defeated enemy to being an ally.
So groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch do not consider the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be acts of genocide, and yet they pretend to believe that this term applies to Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
I’ll just point out a few things that are obvious to everyone, whatever they pretend: If the Israelis wanted to eradicate the Palestinians as a people, the way the Nazis wanted to eradicate the Jews and the Hutus wanted to eradicate the Tutsis, they wouldn’t send millions of text messages warning civilians to evacuate before their neighborhoods were bombed; they wouldn’t pause their military operations to create humanitarian corridors; and they wouldn’t send their own sons and daughters to clear booby-trapped buildings when they could just obliterate everything from the air. For decades, Israel has had the power to kill all the Palestinians. And yet, in the meantime, the Palestinian population has grown at a rate that is nearly twice the global average. That is a very strange genocide. As I said above, whatever your criticism of Israel, calling what they’ve done in response to October 7th a “genocide” is nothing less than a modern a blood libel.
Of course, Islamists and many of their apologists on the Left know that they are lying about all this. However, some of the people they are lying to appear sincerely confused. Many seem to think that collapsing the distinction between genocide and the sheer awfulness of war increases our sensitivity to the latter—and therefore constitutes some form of moral progress. But it doesn’t. It is just a way forfeiting our capacity to make crucial moral distinctions. If we redefine “genocide” to mean that too many innocent people have been killed in an otherwise just war, or that war itself is intolerable, we’ll need to invent a new name for the furthest reaches of human evil.

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

Important and satisfying information from @satyanadella -
Sharing with
@RutgersNB @RutgersMQF @RutgersEMBA

[Satya Nadella @satyanadella]

https://t.co/vLmiBKTtX3

[DueDiligence @RonneeA]

@BillAckman @mihaschw @BernieSanders @elonmusk @SpaceX 💯I’ll happily watch people become mega wealthy if they take less fortunate with them. He has done that, has created jobs, products, and services while others just run their mouths.