In the last 24 hours, two of our leading media sources (NYT & WSJ) have produced research pieces with hard data on why the U.S. should ban TikTok.

Here is the NYT's killer chart. Tiktok systematically censors 80-99% of posts on certain viewpoints, relative to Instagram.
1/3 The worst problem is not censorship, but rather actively promoting propaganda. The WSJ covered that. Here are charts showing the evolution of Gaza/Israel content on test accounts. The key fact is: those videos ran 4:1 against Israel.
2/3

A true story about me and $XPO:

A long, long time ago, $XPO was my fund's largest holding. Back then it was a tiny little trucking and 3PL business located in a tiny little town. But it was exquisitely run, with an A+ management team for a business that size.
1/x They somehow made their business much safer & less cyclical than most peers. Growing fast. Their drivers loved them. You could sense great things could happen, even though you couldn't know what.

The great thing that happened was, Brad Jacobs bought a majority share in 2011.
2/x

Every day I skim through 100+ automated info-push emails, 100+ blog posts, 1000s of tweets, & various other sources of stock/crypto/macro/general news & analysis

One of *the* core active-investing skills is being able to decide in 1-5 seconds of skimming a headline or title:
1/4 1. Is this topic important to me?
2. Is this writer likely to be correct/insightful?
3. Will it say anything I don't already know?
4. If so, will the *new parts* be important to me?

That decision requires weighing multiple conflicting variables yet is almost instantaeous.
2/4

Wow, in looking at the implementing regulations for the Inflation Reduction Act's green-hydrogen subsidies, I see a new & potentially big new source of demand for nuclear power and therefore #uranium. We're gonna need a lot more nukes. Explaining why requires a thread.
1/x Hydrogen is everyone's dream for how to green-ify energy uses that are impractical to electrify. If they practically must burn a fuel to do their job, better that the fuel be a very clean-burning one like hydrogen.
2/x

Here's the most important thing I can say about #uranium stocks:

Lots of bearish or uncertain posts over the last month, simply because prices fell a bit. Narrative is chasing price. WTF are people thinking??! Get your heads out of the short-term weeds.
1/5 Over *any* recent time period - a week, a month, 3-6-12 months - the outlook for #uranium demand has been unchanged at worst and has usually improved. Same for supply. Over the last month, the demand outlook is unchanged and the supply outlook is *greatly* improved.
2/5

The primary skepticism I've seen about $VTY on X - unresearched assumptions that
*The US funds owning it are UK noobs that will get blindsided by UK idiosynchracies
*It's a "hedge fund hotel"
*It's a pump & dump because you're just hearing about it now -

is 180° wrong.
1/x

https://twitter.com/Blue_Velvet_Cap/status/1747919084535083481

The truth is the opposite.

Let's start with me, the least important semi-public legacy shareowner. (I'm an anonymous wizard running a PA.) My $VTY value-add is to provide the clarity of saying $VTY is my favorite current stock idea and crisply highlighting the reasons why.
2/x

After reading the $SAVE / $JBLU post-trial filings, I was hoping Mr. Market would let me buy a few more shares in early January near $15. Now he has, and I have.

Everyone with a publicly-shared view has said the filings were favorable for $SAVE.
1/9 I think all of them have understated *how* favorable. I'm buying only a bit more stock because even the very best cases can go the wrong way (numbers below).

I was stunned when I read the filings. They significantly strengthened $JBLU’s case on the merits,
2/9

Sending missiles at container ships but not tankers is a sneakily smart move by Iran's proxies.

All the major container shippers have ceased sailing through the Suez; they have to go around Africa instead.

Container ships move manufactured goods from where they are made...
1/4 - which is not the Middle East - to where they're used - also largely not the Middle East. No harm to the home team.

Vs. tankers are transporting Iran's and the Middle East's oil out of the region. Hitting those cuts off their primary revenue source.
2/4

Now that so many of my favorite stocks (i.e., large positions) have ripped 20-30% higher in 2 weeks, what is my new favorite stock? That's easy. It isn't even close. $SAVE. It has fallen 40% in 2 weeks (from $16 to $9.50), despite only modest changes to its expected outcomes.
1/9 I owned a small position pre-trial at $15-16 & tripled down in the last few days at $9-10.

You probably can't have as much confidence as me unless you're also a former antitrust litgator and M&A litigator. But enough analysis is out there publicly to take a small position.
2/9

The EV market will be stagnant and disappoint expectations for the next 5 years.

Existing battery technology leaves range anxiety, inadequate charging networks, and dying battery packs as real issues.

Car makers are running out of early-adopter buyers who don't care.
1/4 Today GM abandoned its EV sales target for 2024. Other OEMs are making similar noise.

But wait, there's more: Toyota this week confirmed that EVs with *much* better batteries are on track to start prod'n in 5 years. WHICH WILL MAKE ALL EXISTING EVs BADLY OBSOLETE OVERNIGHT.
2/4

Wow, I am having my fourth "this price is stupid, buy" moment in 2 weeks. This time on something I have never owned before but know extremely well: $PLNT, Planet Fitness.

Look at this horrendous chart. It's a buy today, finally, on big news. I just bought in the low $51's.
1/6 The long-time CEO just "resigned" & the stock is puking as a result.

I am betting this is good news, not bad.

PLNT's huge problem lately is that franchisees are opening less stores, because their new-store ROI has been cut in half by rising costs & rising interest rates.
2/6

I have been following $AAPL as a professional investment analyst for a long time. Here are my personal anecdotes on how clueless we all were, before it happened, about the rise of smartphones and of $AAPL as a software business.
1/8 1. In 2006 I went to multiple meetings with the Motorola CEO. It was his job, more than anyone else in the world, to worry about coming mobile phone handset competition. It was already clear in 2006 that software-heavy phones were coming.
2/8

Some second-level thoughts on the 30-year mortgage spread to 10-year Treasury yields. It's currently ~100bps above the historical levels. If it fell to the average, mortgage rates could fall from 6.5% to 5.5% without the 10-year moving.

Great - but when might that happen?
1/4 Behind that question is: Why is the spread so high now? I know two obvious drivers. I might be missing more.

1. Banks own a ton of mortgage-backed securities. Many are forced sellers as they lose deposits, slowly to money-market funds or rapidly to panicked flight.
2/4

"You can make a lot of money buying frauds."

These words from a fellow hedge fund manager terrified me when I heard them in 2010, when I was short a lot of fraudulent Chinese small-caps. Because it's true, to an extent I hadn't internalized until he crystalized it for me.
1/6 The prices of fraudulent stocks often rise even after they've been publicly exposed, sometimes by triple digits. If management is really working at the fraud, then they have a *great* story to tell, and they keep telling it. Some people keep believing, and a few don't care.
2/6

On the massively-overdone #bigflip macro thesis (higher growth & rates tanks stocks), let me try this, using Levine's writing style:

If the numbers a year from now are GDP +2-3%, CPI +3%, and Fed Funds 5-6%, that would be, like, pretty normal? For any time prior to the GFC? On the 2 replies with counters - both valid:

(1) "But then S&P500 at 18x is too high": Yes indeed, which is why I still own almost all high-cash-flow or high-hard-asset stocks and own none of my old high-growth / low-or-zero-current-profits tech stocks.

It's never funny. Whether or not the stock is getting yeeted, >30min of reading scripts is a huge red flag for me; I am unlikely to invest in their stock. Put it in the @#$% press release and take some questions. 30min of public Q&A 4 times a year is not too much to ask.

https://twitter.com/buccocapital/status/1626219891299864576

The refreshing opposite extreme was (maybe still is) América Móvil, the big Mexican mobile telco. Highly detailed releases, then the CEO would kick off the calls with "I assume you read the release, let's start the questions. One question only, we've got 30 ppl in the queue."

One smart macro guy I read is (seemingly) claiming 100% odds of a bad 2023 recession, which will tank rates & stocks.

Another is (seemingly) claiming 100% odds of growth reaccelerating & interest rates rising - which will tank stocks.

Opposite macro calls, same stock call.
1/5 They are both wrong in 2 ways today, even if one of their scenarios comes true.

(1) Implying 100% odds for your base case is never right. The macro future is always uncertain, even if you know all the facts and do the best possible analysis.
2/6

Here's my biggest-picture, most important macro point for the next decade, + how it might affect investing in 2023:

30 years of disinflation pressure from baby boomers in their peak working years & increasing globalization are now done. Inflation is now structurally higher.
1/10 "Increasing globalization" means developed economies could increasingly access emerging-market labor, as that labor pool was growing & getting much more productive.

Boomers + globalization kept increasing the effective labor pool size & therefore reducing labor prices.
2/10

U.S. macro risk is genuinely lower than a month ago, or a week ago. The obvious bad scenarios were:
1. The economy organically falls into a bad recession.
2. The Fed over-hikes and pushes the economy into a bad recession.

After yesterday, both are now much less likely.
1/3 All 3 key items have improved: Inflation, Fed reaction function, and growth.

Investors have been oscillating between worrying about interest rates and worrying about growth; good news on one raised fears about the other. Now everyone can stop caring as much about both.
2/3

With the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000 now up 20-22% from the October 13 bottom, it's safe for me to complete the back half of my victory lap for my bottom call. Even if stocks turn back down later this year, I can lighten up now at a nice profit.
1/8 October 18's thread said you needed to be invested because the odds & payoffs almost always favor being invested, you won't see a market turn coming, and probably won't even recognize one when it comes.
2/8

https://twitter.com/BeenThereCap/status/1582366099714154497

On TV stations and inflation/macro:
$NXST and $GTN both have a lot of debt, half of which is variable-rate. Years ago I concluded the interest rate risk was less than most ppl thought, in part b/c rates weren't likely to rise materially unless spurred by inflation...
1/5 ...and inflation would boost their operating profits by more than the jump in interest expense.

But there's a catch: The inflation benefit has a large lag. Their pay TV retransmission-fee contracts (~50% of rev) take 2 years to fully renew/reprice.
2/5