A thread with some key quotes from the Stanley Druckenmiller 2023 Sohn Interview:
1. On the impact of free money:
"When you have free money, people do stupid things. When you have free money for 11 years, people do really stupid things. So there's stuff under the hood, it's… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
"It's hard to look at that constellation of factors, know that we've only had a few soft landings since 1950, all of them were proceeded by what I would call proactive rather than reactive fed policy and believe we're going to have a soft landing"
3. Is this like 2008?
"I am not predicting something worse than 2008, so I don't want to see headlines tomorrow that I said something worse than 2008 is coming. But I think it's naive to not be open-minded to some sort of possibility of that effect"
4. On AI:
"I actually think there is a very very real possibility and could be every bit as impactful as the internet literally going forward. And it could be a beautiful opportunity in a hard landing, just like in 01, 02 were a beautiful opportunity when the tech bubble burst"
5. On his market outlook for the next 10 years:
"When I look at the market at 20X earnings. When I look at margins as high as they are. When I looked at the fiscal challenges...it's hard for me to envision stocks being higher in 10 years"
6. On his current positioning:
"I'm in gold & silver right now. They historically have not done well In hard landings...I'm betting for the time being against the history of silver and gold in hard landings. Could be wrong...I could change my mind in a week or two folks"
7. On investing in copper:
"Copper is in the tightest position frankly, I've ever even studied. I'm actually afraid to have a meaningful position in it at this point as we approach the hard landing. Only because I'm not an idiot"
8. On fat pitches:
"I like concentrated bets. I like fat pitches. And then to swing big. And I also like when you don't see a fat pitch, stand there and let the pitches go by"
9. Reflecting on how he has managed to succeed in life:
"I managed it with ridiculous levels of luck. I married someone who I was in love with and I knew she was very intelligent and had great values, but I had no idea what a great mother she would be"
Key Quotes from the Alphabet [@Google] Q3 24 Earnings Call:
1. It was a "great, quarter guys!"
"We had another strong quarter in Q3 with robust momentum across the business. Consolidated revenue increased by 15% or 16% in constant currency" - $GOOG $GOOGL CFO
"Google Cloud...This business has real momentum and the overall opportunity is increasing as customers embrace Gen AI. We generated Q3 revenues of $11.4B, up 35% over last year with operating margins of 17%"
$GOOG $GOOGL
3. Google Cloud saw strong mrgin expansion:
"The first is scale. Obviously, as we scale the business, we have more opportunity for margin expansion. But the second... is the work the team has done to drive efficiencies across the cloud business..."
Some Key Quotes & Charts from the TSMC Q3 2024 Earnings Call:
1. AI demand is real:
" The demand is real, and I believe it's just the beginning of this demand, all right? As one of my key customers said, the demand right now is insane"
"Third quarter revenue increased 12.8% percent sequentially in NT, as our business was supported by strong smartphone and AI-related demand for our industry-leading 3-nanometer and 5-nanometer technologies"
3. Strong demand outlook:
"We continue to observe extremely robust AI-related demand from our customers throughout H1 2024, leading to increasing overall capacity utilization rate for our leading-edge three-nanometer and five-nanometer process technologies" - $TSM CEO
Key Quotes from the Alphabet [@Google] Q2 2024 Earnings Call:
1. Solid Quarter Overall:
"For the second quarter, our consolidated revenues were $84.7B, up 14% or up 15% in constant currency. Search remained the largest contributor to revenue growth" - CFO
@sundarpichai @finchat_io @TrinityAssetMan @carlquintanilla @SamRo 2. On integrating AI into Search:
"We are pleased to see the positive trends from our testing continue as we roll out AI overviews, including increases in search usage and increased user engagement" - CEO
$GOOG $GOOGL
3. YouTube is growing nicely:
"YouTube advertising revenues of $8.7B were up 13%, driven by brand followed by direct response advertising...We had healthy watch time growth continued to close the monetization gap in Shorts & had continued momentum in Connected TV"
"think of a stock; it's a time series...it has a value every day, it goes up, it goes down. You can analyze time series mathematically, and especially if you have hundreds or thousands of these time series, you can compare them & so on"
3. On why he never hires investment industry people:
"You can teach a physicist finance, but you can’t teach a finance person physics...we wanted smart scientists & we had some astronomers, we had some physicists, we had some mathematics people & they would learn the business"
Key Quotes from Apple [@Apple] Q1 2024 Earnings Call:
1. Finally some growth:
"Apple is reporting revenue of $119.6B for the December quarter, up 2% from a year ago despite having 1 less week in the quarter" - $AAPL CFO
@DisruptorStocks @carlquintanilla @LeoNelissen @SamRo @ConsensusGurus @eWhispers @EarningsScout 2. On growth in services revenue:
"Services revenue set an all-time record of $23.1 billion, up 11% year-over-year. When we take into account the extra week last year, this represents a sequential acceleration of growth from the September quarter"
3. On growth in Mac sales:
"Mac generated revenue of $7.8B & returned to growth ...This represents a significant acceleration from the September quarter when we faced a challenging compare due to the supply disruptions & subsequent demand recapture we experienced a year ago"
"...I picked ~25% ...not so much that I can control the company. but it's enough that I have a strong influence...what I'm aiming for, is a strong influence, but not control" - @elonmusk
@Tesla @teslaownersSV @WholeMarsBlog @ConsumeOwnTech @finding_value_ @ChrisBloomstran @Prof_Kalkyl @john_bresnahan @SamRo 2. Fremont factory is the highest output car factory in North America
"...we made 560,000 cars. This is a record. In fact, it's the highest output of automotive plants in North America..the highest output car factory in NA is in the San Francisco Bay area" - $TSLA
3. Tesla CEO @elonmusk when asked about margin expectations:
"If the interest rates come down quickly, I think margins will be good. And if they don't come down quickly, they won't be that good"