16 Comments
May 2, 2022Liked by Quoth the Raven

All of this makes perfect sense. I can’t help but make the comment “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”. You could make a similar argument about Amazon. This retail business doesn’t make money, and hasn’t for years. Yet they continue on masking business profits with a smart idea..cloud services. It’s hard to make sense of it all really.

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“The fund remains very net short, as I continue to believe we’re about to enter a bear market for U.S. stocks as the U.S. economic slowdown worsens”

Mark Spiegel - Aug 2019

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Since inception, Stanphyl Capital is up 71% while the S&P is up 338%. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

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Thanks Chris, this is what I asked for. Mark’s BlackBerry thesis is well made. 17 years ago, I was still doubtful that the nail was really in Palm’s coffin (of course it was). In 2005, if you had told me Blackberry would be on life support in 6 years, I would not have believed it. These things last, until they don’t. At that point, the ip and hard stuff starts getting sold off. It’s a shame; there is some worthwhile engineering in both Tesla and SpaceX (and yes, they have a lot of bozo implementation). Those two companies show that Musk understood what Elizabeth Holmes did not; you need things the audience can take home after the watching the circus, not just clowns, acrobats, and lion tamers (cue memories of seeing Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at the Spectrum….the best part was the stupid flashlights my poor dad bought for us every time we went to replace the ones from the year before). Falcon 9s work reliably(though I do not believe the re-usability cost is what is claimed…I think landing and re-use is a capital burn for marketing sake and would love to be proven wrong). The Model S and 3(X and Y are derivative) have some interesting engineering. Those two niche flashlights are what is propping up the Marketing Cartel that is Musk Industries. When they run short, the clowns will be wearing frowns.

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Anyone who hasn't read the @StanphylCap twitter feed should definitely take the time to do so. This guy's Musk Derangement Syndrome make the lefties with TDS look rational by comparison.

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I like seeing the Buffet Indicator, something that can turn a bull into a bear real quick.

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