A coda to my tweets this week on #uranium contracting and the carry trade:

We care about how uranium has been bought and sold over the last decade - not just the sale price - because it informs us as to how a period of rapid price increase could develop over the next few years.

Reminder: the carry trade provides three main services.

1. Time shifting - matches supply today w/ demand tomorrow
2. Price formation - provides fixed forward prices in a market not always willing to provide them
3. Risk mitigation - decouples forward supply from mine operations

At some point in the forward price curve, newly mined supply (tied to inflation) is less expensive than financed spot supply (tied to spot price + interest).

At a constant financing rate, a spot price increase brings forward the time at which these two price curves intersect.

This is not controversial - at the locus of increased utility purchasing and decreased supply availability, uranium price goes up and the carry trade becomes less attractive. For lack of a better term, let’s call this a transition from a carry-driven to production-driven market.

A production-driven market might be:

...in contango, with a forward curve driven by mining cost inflation (input costs, depletion).

...in backwardation, with a supply squeeze in the short term but competitive sellers offering cheaper prices in the forward market.

Robinhood is not the only brokerage that limited buys on GameStop this week, so why is it catching all the heat?

Maybe because @stoolpresidente & others were quick to spread a theory that hedge funds must have forced the move? Or, Robinhood acted alone

A thread on facts 1/X

In our 20-minute interview with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev I tried to push for answers tied to their decision in 2018 to internalize a boring but important part of users' trades to boost revenue

Their decision came with a tradeoff: A spike in volatility could be very, very bad 2/X

It's a behind the scenes part of your trade, but Robinhood or E*Trade passes your stock order to what's called a clearing house

They carry some liability in the days it takes for your trade to settle. That usually isn't a problem, but can become one if a stock swings fast 3/X

Most smaller brokers forgo added revenue to outsource the duties of a clearing house to giants like Apex Clearing, which solely focus on this part of your trade

But Robinhood in 2018 decided to cut ties with Apex to build their own clearing house called Clearing By Robinhood 4/X

Building your own clearing house is ambitious. TD Ameritrade and Schwab built their own but they are industry titans

In Robinhood's own blog they trumpeted their achievement as the "only clearing system built from scratch, and on modern technology, in the last decade." 5/X

With $GME hitting all time highs, making people millions & some even billions, let's take a look at one of the gaming companies set to IPO soon.

Time for a thread 👇 👇👇

1/ Roblox is like the world’s largest:

🏨 HOTEL COMPANY #AirBnB 👉 doesn’t own real estate
🚕 TAXI COMPANY #Uber 👉 doesn’t own any cars

AND

🎮 DIGITAL PLAYGROUND COMPANY #Roblox 👉 doesn’t create any games

2/ Digital Disney World.

Remember building imaginary forts with your friends in your backyard?

It's like that except digital, pros are building the structures and your parents are spending a lot of $$$ buying gear, digital pets and accessories.

Making $RBLX very rich!

3/ Business Model.

Online gaming platform where millions of kids (and some adults) come to play, learn, communicate, explore, and expand their friendships.

All in 3D digital worlds that are entirely user-built.

4/ Highlights.

- Founded in 2004
- $589MM revenue
- +170MM monthly active users (Oct 2020)
- Freemium, monthly subscription & one-time payments
- US$29.5B Valuation

Solid session on 🇮🇳 by @balajis and @naval via @joinClubhouse

Key takeaways... 👇

1/ India will be the biggest beneficiary of the move to #remotework. Three factors driving this: the English-savvy population, willingness for companies out West to hire from a global talent pool, and the large STEM-educated workforce.

2/ India has the potential to become a media superpower. We have Bollywood, the massive audience, the content creators. They foresee India churning out media that isn't uniquely Indian, but one that resonates with global audiences.

3/ The government isn't doing foreign investors any favors with the stringent capital controls they've put in place. Additional capital gain taxes, overbearing KYC controls, and cumbersome paperwork are a few factors dissuading foreign capital from entering Indian markets.

4/ Where you choose to live, incorporate your company, and target your audience could be thought out and optimized for. They don't need to all be in the same region anymore. The world is flatter than ever before.

A quick switch to a new currency would create a risk of capital flight with people, businesses and investors moving money, jobs and investment out Scotland.

Even proposing it during a campaign would mean people move money, jobs and investment in case there was a devaluation. Just imagine the political and economic cost that would be paid.

Furthermore uncertainty for people over what would happen to their income, pension, mortgage and savings if held cross border.

Quebec suffered this in a major way in its referendum (with a quick change currency proposal) and the jobs and investment have not fully returned.

A further issue is the cost of borrowing for public services investment. If you ask the world’s savers to fund your public borrowing at a time when you are yet to get it on a sustainable footing and then add the risk of currency changes it will be very expensive.

Everything that I’m about to say is coming from someone that has been in the investment management industry for well over two decades now and knows the inner workings of trading and compliance. I also worked for Morgan Stanley early in my career.

1/15

As a registered representative who is fully licensed by FINRA, SEC, and other regulatory agencies, we are tasked with ongoing education, the bulk of which deals with compliance, anti-money laundering and other kinds of malfeasance that may occur while working with clients.2/15

The recent trending of #HunterBiden’s name on Twitter got me thinking back to when #LaptopFromHell was the big story. Some of the material that was released included investment/banking statements that belonged to him. The BD that custodied Hunter’s account was Morgan Stanley.3/15

This is not a conspiracy theory. I’m a believer that there’s truth and then there’s a not quite the truth. Now, every year I must attend a few Anti-Money Laundering (AML) courses to stay current on my continuing education. This is a BIG FUCKING DEAL in the investments world. 4/15

Rarely trust what you hear and always verify everything...including this tweet. MS’s internal trade review desk and other compliance groups SHOULD HAVE FLAGGED Hunter Biden’s accounts for suspicious activity. As far as we know, they didn’t. Why???

5/15

A dumb thing I did in 2020:
Saw something that wasn't there on a maiden RE trade and bot late. Should have known bulk tonnage MRE/PEA etc almost all sold news in 2020 but was busy and rushed. Need to be early to best win those types of deposits. -25%ish for my trouble. 1/11

It was small money fortunately. <---GT Gold. Embarrassing thinking back on it. Industry guy told me it was kinda dumb after.😀I would say the lesson is to never rush into things but that's not true. There's times you can rush into things but it depends on the circumstances. 2/11

Example: I just happened to be watching the trading on Kodiak Copper as I thought it was through an interesting spot then all of a sudden the stock just started getting walked up. Grabbed some. It halts a minute later and releases proof of concept assays the next day. 3/11

Context is everything. Don't be afraid to try some things but keep it small when trying. You can learn really important lessons. Save piling in on concepts for when you've been doing this for years (10+?). You might win big early and think you're smart. Most of us are not. 4/11

No substitution for the grindstone. I won on a couple positions early. Tough to lose on Claude Resources buyout & finding Nexgen. Was saying to a few of the guys last night that I am surprised I did not go -50% on portfolio next. My strength was knowing I still knew little. 5/11

A thread about my thoughts on the market:

$SPX has a rising wedge, looks really weak.

$DXY is bottoming with the short interesting going higher and higher.

$UVXY building a big base. Last time we saw this was in February.

$RUT has hit respected trendline from 1998.

$DJI about to hit the respect trendline from 1929 and 2000. These were two secular bull markets that ended.

Big tech looking really weak.

$NVDA about to break down.

$MSFT had a breakout failure, which is usually very bearish.

$FB has already broken down.

$APPL looks to have a double top. Also went outside of bull channel.

Back in 2000, there was a late rotation into $RUT and it broke out of a base and this spelled the top for the $NDX.
We are seeing the similar pattern here in 2021.

Short interest for $DXY is sky-rocketing. Such an extreme positioning has led to a rally in the past. A $DXY rally is a big threat to equities and precious metals.

R/T
@MacroCharts

Vascon Engineers; Price objective INR 30
Buy in 2 tranches between INR 14.5-12

Strong Execution record: 
The company has strong clientale  and has more than 30 plus years of experience across commercial, residential and own real estate development which include big names

like Cipla SeZ, Ruby Mills  Mumbai, Suzlon  one, MLCP Delhi Airport and various IT companies like Zensar, WNS , IBM, Mastek, Mphasis  etc.

Company has strong order book of 2000 cr which is 4x its FY20 revenue gives visibility of next 2 -3 years. The company has started

winning new orders also.

The company is confident of  reducing its current NET debt of INR 187crores substantially from revenues of existing projects only, Montization of non core assets and sale of Windermere.

The company has taken various cost measures during COVID and

they are likely to remain and would boost profitability of the company and improve margins.

The company has good real estate pipe line of more than 100 cr plus for next 12 -18 months.

75 pc of order book is largely from Government based projects where cash flow issues are

not there.

Company has witnessed good traction in real estate biz post Maharashtra Government announced stamp duty reduction from 5 pc to 2 pc.

Company is confidence of achieving FY20 numbers in FY21 as execution is now at normalcy with sufficient labor availability against

There is a serious misreading, particularly on the Left, as to what is going on with Gamestonks, $GME, $AMC, $BB, $NOK, the whole kit and kaboodle. Equating this with the Capitol Hill insurrection or with Trump or 4Chan is a mistake. Thread.

A lot of leftists are imposing their ideology on Gamestonk, rather than analyzing the conditions. This is a good explainer by @JamesSurowiecki. Using social media, options, and discount brokers, the mob figured out a way to exploit Wall Street.

Of course it's not so simple. Wall Street loses, Wall Street wins. @alexisgoldstein explains how some hedge funds make a killing even as some take a bath. But 1000s of retail investors are being screwed by Wall St and Washington in all of

Additionally, three Wall Street oligarchs have made a collective $2 billion of GameStop alone. Michael Bury, one of the famous traders from "The Big Short," has also apparently made $250 million. So, yes, rich are getting richer.

But if all you focus on is the wealthy, than you cannot explain why there is blatant market manipulation going on with many brokers suddenly preventing retail investors from buying "meme stocks" like GME, AMC, BB, NOK, BBBY. In fact, they can only sell. Who does that benefit?

Mkt view :
Only 290 companies trading above dec 2017 prices which was top of overall broader market. If one looks at nifty which is concentrated in 5 stocks, then it may scare them. Whereas individual stocks have yet lot of room to grow.

In history of markets, when interest rates can not grow and remain so low for another 1 year minimum then stock prices are bound to soar.

How to play in current markets :
1. Debt free and low working capital companies ( as% of sales) with less receivable days and small cash conversion cycles . This ensures company always has money to operate n stay afloat.

2. High growth companies with above 1st condition. Top line of 10% plus and bottom line of 25% plus consistently with increasing or stable operating margins make the company do better in robustness of share price.

In such pandemic corona conditions or earlier demonetization, nbfc liquidity crunch, ilfs, small & midcap dwnfall from 2018: if all of these situations can not stop these companies then What will?

1) As the miserable year of 2020 reaches its end, it's time to return to the offices of Hindsight Capital LLC.

For those unfamiliar, this great, albeit imaginary, hedge fund invests with the benefit of a style guaranteed to beat all others: hindsight

2) As such perfect vision would allow infinite returns, certain limits are imposed on Hindsight Capital’s managers:

🚫It can't trade during the year
🚫It can't use leverage
🚫It can't invest in individual stocks
✅It must make broader or sectoral

3) Hindsight can, however, make “long-short” trades.

But the hedge fund must be able to explain how someone might have made such a trade based on only what they knew at the time. Foreknowledge of earthquakes and hurricanes, for instance, is not allowed

4) As for the pandemic, Hindsight Capital’s managers were aware of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan and had little difficulty in predicting how the world would react and what its effects would be.

That was crucial, as will be seen in this thread

5) Hindsight Capital always bases itself in the country with the year’s weakest currency.

In 2020, that was Brazil, giving its managers a great excuse to live out the pandemic from an office overlooking Ipanema Beach

I've been trying to understand for some time the impact of $GBTC (Grayscale Bitcoin Trust) on the price of $BTC. Here's a good article to start, and here's a thread on my current thoughts...

There's no doubt that $GBTC has been a driving force in allowing investors to gain exposure to $BTC. For many investors, it provides the easiest way to get crypto exposure. As a result, $GBTC often trades at a large premium (20%-30%) over spot $BTC 2/9

Recently in January, $BTC prices have declined from a high of >$40k to <$30k (now back near $35k). $GBTC's premium to NAV has also dropped to <5% 3/9

It's worth understanding the mechanics of $GBTC. $GBTC allows accredited investors to buy private shares for 0% premium to NAV, and in return the accredited investors are locked up for 6 months. If you are a non-accredited investor, i.e. retail, you don't have this option 4/9

Many sophisticated investors have taken advantage of this arbitrage opportunity. One way an accredited investor can buy private shares of $GBTC is by depositing BTC (often times with leverage). In doing so, they can collect the $GBTC premium 5/9

$TSLAQ Instead of having an accrual palooza, I will dribble these out as I have time and available information. The first account to be reviewed: Automotive Leasing Revenues. The remainder of the planet calls this Sales-Type Leasing (ASC 842.) (1/n)

GAAP allows revenue recognition if a manufacture or dealer leases the preponderance of useful life and economic value of inventory. Computer manufactures are significant users of this accounting treatment. The journal entries for this type of leasing are: (2/n)

The sales are the present value of the payments plus down payment. COGS is the cost of the equipment less the present value of the residual payment. (3/n)

The final receivable entry is the residual value added to the lease payment receivable to remove inventory from the financial statements. $TSLA classifies the lease receivable as an Operating Lease Vehicles, net on the balance sheet and they are subject to depreciation. (4/n)

The assumptions in the calculation that can be subject to manipulation: the implicit interest rate of the lease and the residual payments. Lower rates increase capitalization of the lease which gives higher revenues. Larger residual decreases cost of goods sold. (5/n)

THREAD: Unless you think $XRP is actually going to zero (spoiler- it's not), it doesn't make much sense at all to sell here. "But Credible, I can put the money elsewhere and it will make me money! Why hold this rotten, centralized, scam coin! It's just going to go down (cont.)

forever!" Well good sir, let me put this into perspective for you. Even if you think $XRP will never see ATH, or even past $1 again, chances we see a dead-cat bounce at the bare minimum, are high. Aside from the fact that we are now in a full fledged bull market, we can (cont.)

see that sell pressure on XRP is waning at this time- not just on the BTC pairing, but also the USD pairing. Bullish divs are popping up everywhere, across all TF's. This indicates that at the very LEAST, we will likely see a dead cat bounce here shortly (if not reversal) (cont.)

. So, lets take the chart below for example. If you hold here, even a dead cat bounce to .40 would increase the value of your position by near 100%. If you moved your funds elsewhere, say ETH for example, you would need to ride ETH from current prices of $750 to (cont.)

$1500 just to get the same rate of return. Or, you would need to ride BTC from $28,000 to $56,000 to get the same rate of return. Do you see what I am trying to say? The ONLY reason you would be selling here is if you think that there is actually a decent chance that $XRP (cont.)

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT INTERVIEW FOR INVESTORS
Especially new ones!

I disagree with most of it, but ULTRA-IMPORTANT!

Here's why
1/
https://t.co/THWfs2SI2y
@stevenmarkryan
@jpr007 @stekkerauto @garyblack00 @TeslaBest @iamtomnash @TeslaPodcast @EvaFoxU @WR4NYGov
$TSLA #Investing

2/ Grantham from GMO is labeled as a value investor, but don't let it fool you. Unlike other "geniuses" he doesn't just check P/E or P/S, but also factors in growth, including possibly huge growth.

Ultimately his preference or bias is for dividend stocks, but he's doing it right

3/ He sees the current condition as a bubble that should burst in. 2 months - unless further inflated by the fed.

If you disagree don't stop reading. Important!

4/ Before pointing to where i agree and where i don't, i think it's ULTRA IMPORTANT for investors to hear opposing views, when they have firm grounds

Fine to disagree but bad to just dismiss or ignore - do that and you might lose everything

(that's the only ADVICE i give, BTW)

5/ Grantham sees the market as a bubble that should burst in. 2 months - unless further inflated by the fed

History shows that on bull mkts once everyone is HUGELY optimistic and put EVERYTHING they have in the mkt, there is nowhere else to go (unless fed gives even more money)

1/7: I understand that #Ripple's selling concerns many people. But the question is... how do you responsibly distribute Ripple's 50B $XRP? Ripple holding so much #XRP is one of the biggest complaints about XRP and why so many people don't like it and may also prevent ODL adoption

2/7: Escrow was introduced to help this, but that $XRP is still in Ripple's custody. They really need to distribute it. But how? Ideally, it should already have already been done years ago, but you can't go back in time to do it. @JoelKatz has talked about this challenge before.

3/7: So we're against them holding it and we're also against them selling it. So how do they distribute it? They can't give it away, who gets it, how do they choose? Giveaways this late in the game also negatively affect prices. Higher supply = lower demand = lower prices.

4/7: Ideally, they would only distribute this to Financial Institutions for use in #ODL, but unfortunately, there's not enough demand for the utility of XRP through ODL. Perhaps because Finacial Institutions don't want to hold it/use it due to regulatory uncertainty.

5/7: As I see it, there are a few options for distribution:
a) Incentivize the use of ODL despite regulatory clarity - such as giving incentives to #Moneygram,
b) Lock it back up in escrow, effectively reducing supply, but giving #Ripple custody.