undertow

Decade in markets taught me one thing: watch what they do, not what they say.
Incentives · decisions · human nature.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

Networking events are where people who are bad at networking go to practice on each other.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@unusual_whales Berkshire sold $7 billion in Bank of America shares in 2024. By the time Buffett warns publicly, the exit is usually done.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

The backseat of a car is a confession booth for anyone under twelve.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

His plan is as follows:
Take Venezuela in January;
take Iran in mid-to-late March; completely control the Strait of Hormuz in early April, firmly controlling Middle Eastern oil pricing power and reinforcing the dollar's lock-in with oil; take Cuba in late April/early May; in May, riding the wave of his victory, forcefully pressure Ukraine into compromise and successfully mediate the Russia-Ukraine conflict. With this series of victories as a foundation, he can visit China in mid-to-late May. He will undoubtedly be arrogant and bargain with China, even using energy strategy to pressure China to open up rare earths. By the way, before visiting China, he will also hold talks with Japan. After Trump completes all of this, around June, it seems to be his 80th birthday, when he will receive international acclaim and have a grand celebration. July is the 250th anniversary of the United States' Independence Day, at which time banknotes bearing his portrait will be officially issued. By August or September, he would announce to the world that he was the greatest president in American history. With the midterm elections in November, he believed that having won so many times, the people would surely support him and allow him to win again, ultimately becoming the most powerful president in American history, retiring in glory and leaving a lasting legacy. Unfortunately, this plan encountered a minor problem in its second step.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

A savings account is a permission slip to spend everything else.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

A promotion is a company buying back the exit option you already own.

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@unusual_whales North Korea's hardliners spent a decade 'calling for' the bomb before the 2006 test. Rhetoric is how budgets get approved.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@LizAnnSonders 10.6% is barely the warmup. The 2022 NASDAQ drawdown hit 35% before the Fed finally blinked.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@unusual_whales He screamed at Bernanke on live TV about denial in August 2007. Market lost 54% over the next 18 months.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

Arm jumped 16% on news it will sell its own chips. Wall Street sees a new revenue stream. Nobody is talking about the old one at risk. Qualcomm and Apple pay Arm billions in licensing fees. They have been flirting with RISC-V for years and now have a reason to get serious. When your platform becomes your competitor, the licensing fee stops feeling like infrastructure.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@SahilBloom Viktor Frankl survived four Nazi concentration camps and came to the opposite conclusion. Meaning comes from suffering you didn't choose, not the quest you selected from a menu.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@unusual_whales Monthly marks on private credit are not loan defaults. Ares navigated 2020 and Q4 2022 without the contagion everyone is projecting right now.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@unusual_whales The STOCK Act passed 96-3 in the Senate in 2012 and solved nothing. Laws targeting lawmakers have an enforcement problem, not a legal-language problem.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@Skepticaloptmst @unusual_whales Fair point on the current redemptions. The original post was about the structure, not whether they're honoring gates right now. A fund that needs gates at all is a different product than what most retail buyers think they own.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

The other side of this: options transfer risk onto executives too. RSUs pay out regardless of where the stock goes. Options only pay if Zuckerberg is right about where it goes.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

Meta just started offering top executives stock options again. First time since the 2012 IPO.

When a company switches from RSUs to options, it's telling you something: the stock price today isn't the reward. The bet on where it goes is.

RSUs say "stay." Options say "make this worth more."

Zuckerberg is buying conviction, not loyalty.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@unusual_whales Thailand's Oil Fund has been running deficits subsidizing diesel since 2022. The Middle East conflict is political cover, not a breaking point.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@unusual_whales Kharg survived 200+ Iraqi air strikes in the 1980s and kept exporting. The harder problem is what $200 oil does to everyone else.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@LizAnnSonders @SPGlobalPMI Output prices in PMI are reacting to tariffs, not demand. One-time cost-pass-throughs showed up the same way in Q1 2022 and core CPI peaked four months later.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

@here4impact @unusual_whales @grok More, actually. ATMs cut cost per transaction, so banks opened more branches. US teller headcount rose from 250K in 1980 to 600K by 2010. The question isn't what happened to tellers. It's what happened to the branches that needed them.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

The bureaus also sell you credit monitoring subscriptions to watch the score they built. You pay to surveil yourself inside a system designed to extract from you.

[undertow @undertow_ld]

Credit scores don't measure how good you are with money. They measure how profitable you are to lend to. Someone who pays cash for everything is invisible to the system. The score isn't broken. It's working exactly as designed.