Random Ramblings #3

Random compilation of thoughts & opinions of stuff around the world & in life.

1. Markets continue to be interesting. I was struggling a bit in Jan & early Feb to read the marked, but adapted great in March. This is a regime change. Obviously things are not really bad. S&P is only down 5% as I write this. 5600 is my level on S&P where I am happy to buy as much as I can. Look at the end of the day, fundamentals matter. If valuations are too high for earnings, valuations have to compress for earnings to catch up. Markets don't move in a straight line. Trump's tarrifs introduce uncertainty. Markets don't like it. Regardless, this was just a catalyst for the over valuation.

2. Nifty is basically flat & imo bottomed out from the year's lows. Someone I respect a lot thinks it will take out new all time highs & while I do not agree, it is a good shot. Bitcoin continues to be range bound & presented a great short opportunity I missed. Just could not time it. Sucks, we move on.

3. Gold. Ugh. The world continues to drive up its prices & while I own Gold for exactly the reason that the world is stupid, it is still annoying. The number of morons who think we should have a "Gold" standard is too high. It will bring nothing but pain. The fiat standard has brought peace & prosperity & security to the world. Gold continues its run & may hit 3500 by year end. I don't see downsides.

4. Bonds: Risk is more skewed to downside than upside. Neutral view.

5. Europe & China: I think their run for the year is over but still believe in owning Chinese tech & buying Chinese real estate companies as I think they may have bottomed. Europe well, is still Europe & I don't believe that they will pick up in ease of business or industrialisation. Been a great year for their stocks, I just think long term people will be disappointed with them.

6. PR War: As I said in my 2025 outlook, India is losing the PR war. And in some ways it is a good thing. People point out flaws relentlessly online. Good. We should balance it with good things done too. Wake up IT Cell. Look at what China is doing. Their PR has been excellent. Cities shown as beautiful, industrial capacity being shown, tech doing good. India needs to get better.

7. PM Modi did an interview with Lex Fridman. I don't like Lex. Modi not too much. But he came across great in the snippets I have seen. Can't be asked to watch the whole thing.

8. Interesting chart

   
   

   

   
   

9. I think most EM's will fail this lol

   
   

   

   
   

10. 10-20% index returns per year are not a god given right, sorry.

11. STOP DISRESPECTING PEOPLE'S JOBS. I am tired of people here going with the attitude like you gonna end up working at McDonalds. Like the people working at McD are beneath them.

12. GME is buying Bitcoin lol.

13. Damn

    
    

    

    
    

14. We have seen plenty of penalty shootouts these past few weeks & goddamn, some of these penalties taken by top pros are god awful.

15. I don't care about IPL.

16. The signal group chat leak of Trump Admin was funny.

17. They are making Deepseek more friendly in tone, ChatGPT like.

18. Shipbuilding industry is coming in limelight. More nations want to build ships as maritime trade & security is very important. Also, ships are cool! Here's an FT article about it: https://on.ft.com/4iWs4QR

19. From Adam Singer on Twitter: I think if you start to classify life choices that have nothing to do with politics (going to the gym, not eating refined sugar or seed oils) as "left wing" or "right wing" something has gone wrong with how you process the world - who even cares, just make the best choice

20. Did 4 second tempo squats after like years & am seeing stars.

21. This was a great article by the excellent Clifford Asness on Options ETFs: https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives/Rebuffed-A-Closer-Look-at-Options-Based-Strategies

22. Book stores are filled with self help books I hate it. They are useless.

23. Explained to a non finance person how a put option works & how it is hedged they were like wow. And I consider myself illiterate on options. Shows how different worlds can be. Wonder how many things I am wowed by that are noob stuff for others.

24. Turkey is going crazy.

25. Vietnam was beautiful I loved it.

26. You think India’s manufacturing wave is coming, but the truth is that almost no industrialist’s kid wants to run a factory when they can run the family office, and no worker wants to work in a factory if they can do gig-work.

27. Pretty cool though it was not Nat Geo's picture of the year:

    
    

    

    
    

28. I will never use AI to crop out people from the background or some shit. They are part of it. Takes away from the authenticity. Screw those features. Real is real.

29. Chinese banks offering consumer loans at 2.6% with approval times of 60 seconds. Damn lol.

30. Reading about the Vietnam War. Then the Yugoslavian history. The more you read these things, the more you realize it is all the same shit over & over again. And the same shit still going on today across the world.

31. I hate travelling. Not the exploring new places part, but the sitting in car, plane, train & bus part. Teleport me to Hanoi. Unless it is a scenic drive on no traffic roads in mountains or by beach.

32. There is an art backed lending market.

33. India beat Pak in Champions Trophy. Via Twitter: Possibly the only instance of a team winning a championship without ever stepping foot in the host nation, in any sport, anywhere in the world.

34. Roon said it quite right: People have long made the argument that “nobody will trust ai to do a lawyers/surgeons/regulators job” but the reality is more like “ai will be given otherworldly moral and intellectual authority in our collective subconscious probably before it’s deserved”

35. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

36. Chrome disabled UBlock & people still use it hahahaah.

37. Again via Twitter: People who wish for the downfall of America don't realize that the next strongest country in the world is China And they are far more ruthless and inhuman than Americans. Americans will try to protect the rights of foreigners and protest their government oppressing them. China will unhesitatingly put it's own citizens in camps if that makes it stronger.

38. Arm days are good.

39. They turned John Cena heel!

40. "Vehicles older than 15 years not to be provided fuel at petrol pumps in Delhi after March 31," The Govt has lost its mind.

41. A very reliable family member when it comes to being wrong on everything just told me Ukraine is finished. Which means this thing is far from over. I am saying this with utmost seriousness this person is the King Midas of wrong takes almost always.

42. Flipboard is great.

43. Makes sense & I think Dalio's Template of Big Deb crises made a similar point. I read it years ago:

    
    

    

    
    

44. Image generation has gotten really good. The trend online of making everything animated is annoying now though.

45. May be completely wrong on this, but I think extreme financial regulations restricting what finance pros can say in the public domain has contributed to massive misinformation. Same for people in other domains. Let me explain: When you have restricted pros from dunking on shit takes online, there is still a lot of new people seeking info. They will search up social media for their "heroes" who will save them from financial armaggeddon. But the real pros are locked in behind compliance. So the charlatans take their place as the primary source of info. Humans tend to form cults or tribes or whatever. Since the real pros are on their desks in a bank or whatever, the scam artist is now the pro in public domain. The scammer now cultivates this following & eventually this will overwhelm the system. The misinformed get into the professional roles. The misino becomes accepted facts. The cult leader is accepted as the real pro. And that degrades the institutions built & makes us all worse off. I think the finregs were well intended, they just didn't anticipate the void getting filled like this. Again, I am probably missing a few points here but broadly this is correct. I don't think this will be reversed though, the only hope is markets self correct & weed the scammers out. But don't hold your breath for it.

46. I legit think Bitcoin's days of insane returns, even what we saw last year, are over. Sure it can still outperform Equities here & there, but we are well past the life changing wealth phase. If you made it, congrats. If you didn't, still a great asset to trade. There's always oppotunities everywhere.

47. Need fitness tips from Modric. Will follow what he does.

48. What is the growing obsession with Korean skincare in ladies? Have they got some cutting edge skin meds to make us all look like IG models?

49. "Apple removes cloud encryption feature from UK after the government ordered the company to build a backdoor for accessing user data" And there was no outrage. We fall further as a society everyday.

50. Mom is telling me that this AI thing is hot & I should do a course in it since my job might be threatened.

51. I still refuse to buy a phone without a headphone jack. Call me a boomer if you want.

52. Argentina meme coin launch was funny.

53. Substack needs to improve its search. Also doing a poor marketing of its Notes feature I see no one using it.

54. Excel finally got dark mode. I used to pray for times like this.

55. Replit's agent didn't cut it for me. Apparently there is a new version out.