Hoth

What a juiced up beast that was. Was that our last blizzard warning? I still remember watching the sleet line racing north from NJ early that morning and realizing our goose was probably cooked for high-end accumulations. It was a fun storm though, all the more so as the models locked in early.

You ever read Jim Grant? You can sweep a lot of stuff under the rug in a falling interest rate environment. But after forty years of doing so, rates really can't go any lower, and there's little stimulative effect from running a negative rate policy. We're left with a sea of printing and liquidity distorting asset prices everywhere, supporting loss-making zombie companies and reckless capital deployment and ultimately economic malaise. I see these distortions spilling into the real world daily in my area. We've had an explosion of luxury apartment development in the last decade and many of the finished projects still have tons of vacancy, yet the building goes on and capacity increases. As I've said before, I believe the central bankers are scared shitless at what they've wrought, which is why they have to constantly jawbone and tweak and "stimulate" and respond every time we have a piddling correction. They've made the markets utterly dependent on them, never more than in the last year, and in turn have made themselves slaves to the market. They've forced retirees and pension funds to chase risky assets at high prices in search of yield because the risk free rate has gotten them so little for so long. Conservative investors and savers have been shafted. Central banks can't afford to raise rates with the vast ocean of debt and extremely extended stock valuations, but the problem only gets worse the longer they let this charade go on. I don't know when or how the party stops; until it does I'll sound like Chicken Little. It's going to be a gut-wrenching and protracted process when it does, with real-world consequences far beyond the financial markets.

That's a gorgeous picture. Love the soft edge to the clouds with the approaching snow.

Congrats!

On the mulch or in general?

Went from splitting wood in a t-shirt to roaring wind and snow in no time. This is sweet!

Awesome pic! Also amazing to think that thing was down in Florida like fifteen minutes before you shot it.

The takeaway: No matter where you live, Bridgeport always gets screwed.

I think James had a cathartic crisis of sorts the last time he expected 2 feet in Harwich and got white rain. To protect himself, his psyche split off this George fellow, a sort of Tyler Durden-esque projection who is the unrestrained alpha weenie version of James. Gradually, James will slowly become George. Then "Project Mayhem", or rather "Dawn Awakening", can commence.

Lol GME down about $150 in a half hour. Nice smooth market functioning.

Lol, 18% move on virtually no news. Think we've buried the Efficient Markets Hypothesis deeply enough yet?

Without humanity, this thought doesn't exist...or perhaps even a consciousness to perceive the existence of the greater universe....oooooooooh.

Can't freaking wait for the next few days. The nape is nude.

It's hard to imagine something moving 47,000 mph. That's twice as fast as the space shuttle reentry velocity. The amount of energy even a small object carries at that speed is crazy. I remember reading about a cosmic particle that entered the atmosphere and was detected some years ago moving at 99.9999999% the speed of light. They said the amount of energy it carried would like like getting hit by a fastball from a major league pitcher.

I'd value their crab chip division alone at a 2.1 billion, mainly owing to my personal consumption. It's a big addressable market lol.

Bubbles are their own catalyst and EVs generally appear to be about as bubbly as anything other than crypto in this market. Tesla is still a good $2500 on a pre-split basis, this for a business that was already very expensive at $250. It speaks to the irrationality of the times that a car company that has never put up a year of positive cash flow, has a CEO who can't deny committing securities fraud, can only show a profit by accounting gimmickry, and is hemorrhaging market share to established makers, trades at a market cap bigger than the next eight biggest auto makers combined. Whether favored by government policies or not, at some point people will remember that car manufacturing, solar panels, and green tech in general, are low margin, ruthlessly competitive businesses.

Which was expected to be in my hood. Instead we sucked exhaust and got 2" of sand while LI directly south of me was buried. That month was a brutal roller coaster. Poor Ryan got raked over the coals for the March 22 bust on social media.

Yeah, if I'd partaken of that 20" fluffer I'd probably feel differently. Instead I wound up sitting in subsidence and the three inches I got melted before the storm even ended. The wind with that first storm was impressive though, especially out east.

I miss 3/7/18. The rest of the month featured an impressive rain storm and two very painful busts I can do without.

Can't stop it, but count me out. I was amazed by the tree damage caused by a middling tropical storm last summer. Cat 2+ would be a total nightmare.

Powell is more acutely sensitive to markets than any of his predecessors. He will say and do whatever he has to to keep them afloat at this point.

Never is a long time. Did you see the ISM reading yesterday? Last time it was that high oil was $140 a barrel.

You and I are generally on the same page, although as I've mentioned before I think Cathy is a solid candidate to blow up her funds at some point. She buys a lot of illiquid garbage, often taking 10% percent of the outstanding float. In doing so she drives up the price and her own returns. But she's supposed to offer daily liquidity, which she recently satisfied by selling her more stable liquid positions like Apple and doubling down on the illiquid stuff. I just think that could be a recipe for trouble if we have a period of sustained selling pressure, especially since there are now funds that mirror her portfolio almost exactly.

Thanks for posting these stats. You mentioned the nominal return for the '70s. Did the study include the real return, because I suspect that number isn't great. The early '80s to the present has been one long fixed income bull market, starting at the end of Volker's intense hiking campaign. As the cost of capital dropped, corporate bond issuance rose, magnifying leverage and returns on equity, so I suppose it shouldn't surprise us that stocks have generally outperformed in recent decades. There have certainly been hiccups, the S&L crisis, LTCM, the tech bubble. GFC was probably the first real shot across the bow regarding the dangers of keeping rates too low. I still contend that the central banks have overdone it since then, and are secretly panicked at the monster they've created. This may explain the ever-increasing frequency and size of direct intervention and incessant jawboning. With rates artificially jammed down, they have encouraged an unprecedented debt binge. The hurdle rates for investment is so low that mis-allocation of capital is rife. We see so many unprofitable businesses trading at outrageous valuations because of the expectation that they can just borrow to fund themselves indefinitely. We even see some businesses without revenue trading at multi-billion dollar valuations. The sheer volume of debt has made the market increasingly sensitive to relatively small fluctuations in rates. A sustained rise, say precipitated by a real and lasting inflationary spike, could make for some real capital destruction. I don't envy those tasked with stewarding client capital in the coming decade. It's going to be a challenging environment.