third world capital

L/O fins, prev sellside model monkey

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

insane how this was only a decade ago

[UnstructuredCap @UnstructuredCap]

Throwback to this hilarious 2015 email Barclay's Power & Utilities sent out to their incoming intern class:

Barclays Power & Utilities: Welcome to the Jungle

The Ten Commandments for Wall Street Interns

Incoming Intern Class of 2015, Welcome to Power! I am sure you are all busy at training, but in the interest of helping your transition into the summer, and hopefully helping some of you secure Full-Time offers, I wanted to introduce you to the 10 Power Commandments. Respect them, love them, live them.

You may have heard different stories about Barclays Power – go on WSO and you’ll see us called the “frattiest group”, “top Power group on the street”, or the group with the “best PE placement” – needless to say we are a unique group at Barclays. And with that come unique rules.

For 9 weeks you will live and die by these:

1. Our group dresses very conservatively. Given that it is summer, no socks is accepted and, in fact, encouraged. (Men: On your first day at the desk, it is customary to wear a bowtie and/or suspenders).

2. Remember: this is a summer internship for a full-time offer. It won’t be easy. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.

3. We expect you to be the last ones to leave every night…no matter what. That’s what good summer analysts do. (Also getting in earlier than me would be a power move – You should enjoy your casual 9:15AM PT arrival time this Friday, but I wouldn’t get used to it).

4. During your first few weeks we ask that you direct all of your questions to Michael Lomio. Tell the other summers too, Michael is industry agnostic. If you ask me a question it will be noted.

5. Never take your jacket off at work. This is investment banking, ladies and gentlemen. Other groups may be more liberal when it comes to summer dress code, unfortunately were not

6. You will be assigned junior “mentors”. It is much appreciated if you would bring breakfast in for your respective “mentor.” Some people are more particular about this than others.

7. I recommend bringing a pillow to the office (yoga mat works as well). It makes sleeping under your desk alot more comfortable, in the very likely scenario that you have to do that.

8. You are expected to allocate at least half your seamless web order for group appetizers/snacks for the month of June. No questions asked. Once the 2nd years leave, you can enjoy your $25 allocations.

9. Have a spare tie/scarf or two around. You never know when your associate will run out of napkins.

10. When you need to leave your desk there will be a sign out sheet outside your cubes. Please fill it out including where you went and for how long. This is important come the end of your internship.

I hope it is clear from the rules above that the internship really is a 9-week commitment at the desk. You are here with the sole goal to impress the group enough to receive a FT offer.

During my summer in the group an intern asked our staffer for a weekend off for a family reunion – he was told he could go. He was also asked to hand in his blackberry and pack up his desk.

Some of you have asked for training materials to study up on before you start. Love the enthusiasm. First, I would recommend reading the GS Elevator twitter feed for some social cues. It might be seen as a joke to some people, but around here I think many people find it insightful.

Second, I have attached a fairly simple LBO for Staples. Understand this will be a bit tough for some of you without a Finance / UG business degree, but we believe in you. There’s a reason each of you was picked for the group. We expect you to give this your best shot and send us a completed LBO model with a short write up by Friday end of day. None of you will have this 100% correct, that’s expected. We also still expect you to complete a significant portion of it.

Welcome to the big leagues, boys and girls. Play time is over and it’s time to buckle up. Once you hit the desk, your lives will be your work for 9 weeks.

Please respond promptly to acknowledge you’ve received this e-mail (anytime in the next half hour would be fine) and to confirm that you are onboard for the summer. We know you have access to e-mail, so there’s no way to avoid this. If I remember correctly, you are probably doing training with Sean Clovey from IT, or Market Mark from TTS.

Other than that, I look forward to meeting you all, and I hope you’re excited to join the group! We sure are looking forward to having you here!

Yours Truly,
Justin

P.S. There are a number of typos in place in the email above. These are on purpose. First person to email me back with at least 3 highlighted typos is off to a GREAT start!

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

Seeing EU banks analysts in the Brazil webinars bc they cover Santander:

[uncoveredalpha @uncovered_alpha]

Having reached Director on the sell side before making the move to the buy side, I think this is very good advice.

One thing I’d add is that the skills that make you successful at one stage of your career aren’t necessarily the ones that make you successful at the next.

On the sell side, you can be an exceptional analyst, but as you progress, the job increasingly becomes about building a franchise, developing client relationships, generating commercial value and managing people. Being a great stock picker isn’t necessarily what makes you a great MD.

Equally, moving to the buy side requires a different skill set. Having a good investment thesis is one thing. Translating that into a position, sizing it appropriately, managing risk and knowing when you’re wrong is another entirely.

My advice would be to spend less time looking at the titles of people above you and more time understanding what they actually do every day. Then ask yourself whether that’s a job you’d genuinely enjoy doing for the next 10–20 years.

And don’t confuse being capable of reaching the next rung with it necessarily being the right rung for you.

There’s a lot to be said for knowing what game you’re best suited to play, rather than simply trying to climb the highest.

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

“Acquisition of Polish minorities” is such a funny phrase out of context

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

@dalibali2 One of the value adds of software kinda comes w the routine updates though right? (ie won’t see disparate differences vs vibe coded alternatives in short term)

[Barely Investible Capital Management Ltd @LowAlphaHighVol]

Very well written fund letter why AI is not fully displacing humans any time soon.
Have heard this from fundamental investors as well as quants. Especially about the velocity of idea (or signal) generation vs finite time for human review.

[Masa’s Son @masayoshisson]

I have another unsettling thought on this

the below market sizing projects from some of the most extreme users on earth, often competitive male SF/NYC entrepreneurs, often already productivitymaxxing the shit out of their lives

I mean we’re talking about mark fuggin zuckerberg people 😂

and the investors buying into this narrative live the exact same way, so it feels right and obvious to project (yea, looking at you pod boys)

but most people are not productivitymaxxing - they’re leisuremaxxing, often finding enjoyment in the very random exploration that assistants like muse eliminate (and that I despise)

to give you an example: my gf has to this date not cared about openclaw or muse - not once. she'll happily scroll websites for hours and hours, just to end up not buying anything. when I ditched her for dinner to hatch my claw earlier this year and created soul mds late into the night she looked at me like I was a bit of a freak lol. I’ll leave it at that - you get the point

the below math assumes you and me are normal

turns out, we are probably the outliers

just sth to think about

[SouthernValue @SouthernValue95]

Even for someone optimistic on AI in the long term, objectively Ant went from adding 10B rev per month to ~2-3B of rev per month. Growth has slowed significantly in real terms, it’s not just “law of large numbers” deceleration, it is actual slowdown. On 70B base their recent rate of growth is possibly <50% forward annualized, which is slower than the Hyperscalers entire businesses are currently growing (CSP AI biz growing much faster obviously).

Data indicates potential acceleration for Ant from Aug-Sept levels in Oct, and there are 1-off headwinds they have absorbed contributing to slower recent levels of growth.

But that the business can decel by ~8B/mo almost as quickly as it accelerated highlights the risk, and why mkt is so jumpy on datapoints.

Not irrational at all that AI stocks are down this much. Add in rates/debt markets, politics, supply chains, lots of reason for elevated discount rates.

For the bull case for AI supply chain stocks in the short term, you need to see:
- Successful Ant IPO / OAI fundraise
- Rates to calm down and appetite from debt markets to support current rate of issuance for a few more years as buildout > monetization.
- Blowout cloud earnings and positive EPS revisions
- A few more “Claude code” moments unlocking new TAM from better models / harnesses / applications to re-accelerate AI token monetization trends out of current lull.

The trend is no longer your friend unfortunately.

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

@masayoshisson buy @ msd, sell @ hsd PE (I’m a caveman that doesn’t do tmt)

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

@LongOnlyLarry the wonders of effective altruism (also he’s like 37 if you backsolve his graduation)

[TechStockFundamentals @TechFundies]

@jukan05 This exchange:

Analyst "So, should we expect a re-accel to maybe 100-110b by year-end"

Anthropic CFO: "We aren't commenting on forward looking figures but believe in a large opportunity over time"

Analyst "Got it" [Writes down "management didn't talk me down from 110b"].

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

@masayoshisson ppl actually use their real name here? 💀

[Notsu @Notsu311406]

Kospi dumped so hard that president posting dont die

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

@ClimbngThePole @UnstructuredCap Even $25k in equity would be worth $18m on that logic lol

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

Jesus Christ

[strictrope @strictrope]

Lmao. See you guys after midterms

[S-Curve Capital @S_curvecap]

AI has already made the average pro investor so lazy they can't think through the bridge/implications from last print, intraquarter developments & setup into next print. This is showing up as I chat setups into prints w/ peers.

Using LLMs to help you catalog the evidence is smart, leaning on them for synthesis & conclusions is dangerous.

I maintain that creativity in interpreting the mosaic & execution (assessment of timing, sizing, hedges etc) are all that have ever really mattered. Explains why Tiger Cubs all used to have ~same longs but significantly different performance.

IMO that "last mile" is where the battle (& potential value-add) will always be in active mgmt. I'm still not convinced you can really have great interpretation or execution if you don't thoroughly understand some critical mass of the facts yourself -- which for most ppl I interact w/ seems to involve less fiddling w/ LLMs & more time spent finding & validating differentiated research sources.

[Keir @thefeniangmbno]

Obviously the pints you fucking idiot

[Negligible Capital @negligible_cap]

“You’re absolutely right to push back. After double checking the $70B ARR claim, it looks like I was overstating that by about $20B. Apologies for any confusion”

[third world capital @thirdworldcap]

@kevingatestan69 @leveredbetaboy2 When u meet one scary one it probs overshadows the other 15 nice ones in one’s head (can agree 95% of ppl I’ve met have been lovely)

[Paul Enright @pmje73]

You have to match the personality of the analyst with the industry they cover.

Let’s say you have a stock earning $1 in 2026 with consensus at $1.20 in 2027 and $1.35 in 2028.

Analyst A does work and says I think 2028 can be $2

Analyst B does work and says I think 2028 can be $1.50

As 2027 unfolds, analyst B gets more bullish and raises their 28 estimate to $1.60. Analyst A gets a little more realistic and tightens their number to $1.80. This happens after the stock was already up 50 and it was full size for analyst A and half size for analyst B.

Ultimately the stock is up 2.5x between mid 26 and early 28 and ends up printing $1.70. The stock traded at $20 or 20x $1 and now trades at 30x $1.70.

Analyst A went from $2 to 1.80 to 1.70. Analyst B went from 1.50 to 1.60 to 1.70.

Which one would you rather have covering the stock? In the beginning you want Analyst A and in the end you want Analyst B. It’s the PMs job to possess the skills of both even if only one of them is covering the stock for you.