Amateur dog walker, and investor. Caveat emptor, caveat venditor. Contra mundum. There is no rescue party.
Joined July 2021
- Tweets15.7K
- Following2.7K
- Followers2.2K
- Likes27.5K
Pinned Tweet
With apologies to Evelyn Waugh, a note on the moment one breaks free of the bearish inclination:
“Here my last love died. There was nothing remarkable in the manner of its death. One day, not long before CPI, as I lay awake before the cash open, gazing into the complete blackness, amid the unheard breathing and muttering of other traders around the world, turning over in my mind what I had to do that day--had I checked the ZB put spreads? Should I again add to my SPX puts? Could I trust Powell to do the right thing? - as I lay in that dark hour, I was aghast to realize that something within me, long sickening, had quietly died, and felt as a husband might feel, who, in the fourth year of his marriage, suddenly knew that he had no longer any desire, or tenderness, or esteem, for a once-beloved wife; no pleasure in her company, no wish to please, no curiosity about anything she might ever do or say or think; no hope of setting things right, no self-reproach for the disaster. I knew it all, the whole drab compass of marital disillusion; we had been through it together, the bear and I, from the first importunate courtship until now, when nothing remained to us except the chill bonds of habit and custom. I had played every scene in the domestic tragedy, had found the early tiffs become more frequent, the tears less affecting, the reconciliations less sweet, till they engendered a mood of aloofness and cool criticism, and the growing conviction that it was not myself but the loved one who was at fault. I caught the false notes in the bear case and learned to listen for them apprehensively; I recognized the blank, resentful stare of incomprehension in its eyes, and the selfish, hard set of the corners of its mouth. I learned the bear, as one must learn a woman one has kept house with, day in, day out, for three and a half years; I learned its slatternly ways, the routine and mechanism of its charm, its jealousy and self-seeking, and the bear’s nervous trick with its claws when the bull was raging. The bear was stripped of all enchantment now and I knew it for an uncongenial stranger to whom I had bound myself indissolubly in a moment of folly.”
Hyperbolic Discounter retweeted
Itinerant tenor,
Maiden Lane & Grant, San Francisco, late 2000s.
On a good day in Kensington Market, Chuckie could be found on his bicycle at the intersection of Augusta & Baldwin playing harp in his one-man band. I haven’t seen Chuckie in years, but this 2012 Christmas clip captured the man and the moment.
“Am I still blowing? Check it out. Where you been?”
- Chuckie
Interesting read on the NVDA disclosures…
Taiwanese semiconductor analyst Andrew Lu’s take on the recent scandal involving Jensen Huang:
Why the US Seized on the Scandal to Draw Its Sword: Three Strategic Objectives
The purpose of this scandal is by no means to expose an affair. It is to force through three critical objectives that had made no headway in the tech war between the US and China because Jensen Huang opposed them.
The first cut: Completely destroy the legitimacy of Jensen Huang's lobbying against sanctions in Washington
Over the past two years, the loudest and most influential business leader in Silicon Valley opposing a total ban on chip exports to China has been Jensen Huang. He has told the White House the same thing all along: "Cede the Chinese market to Huawei, and the only one that ends up dead is the American tech industry."
But the moment US intelligence labels the woman named as Huang's affair partner "a spy working for China's Ministry of State Security who sought to steer the US toward easing its chip controls," every bit of lobbying he has done for looser controls takes on an entirely different political meaning. It becomes a national security matter, raising the possibility that a foreign spy used a secret relationship to exert influence.
Huang can no longer say a single word in defense of the Chinese market before Congress or the White House. If he does, he will be branded as someone who "fell for an intelligence operation and still hasn't come to his senses."
The second cut: Reverse the H200 export approvals for China and sever the link between Chinese shell companies and Southeast Asian smuggling networks
Look at the timing of the two reports.
On November 8, the very day the Jensen Huang scandal broke, The New York Times published an investigation for which its reporters went in person to dozens of Chinese companies that the US Commerce Department had approved to handle Nvidia's H200 chips. New Matrix in Beijing was one of them. According to the report, the registered addresses of companies approved to buy the chips turned out to be empty "ghost offices," and some of the companies had close ties to entities on US sanctions lists and to firms under contract with the Chinese military.
One exposé says Nvidia's CEO was having an affair with a female spy from Megaspeed, the Singapore company that handled the chip smuggling. The other says the Chinese companies Commerce approved to buy H200s are nothing but shell companies trading on behalf of the Chinese military. The aim of these two reports is clear. They are meant to pressure the Trump administration and the Commerce Department into fully revoking or freezing H200 export approvals for China and, going further, to force a sweeping overhaul of the loophole that let chips be diverted through data centers run by third parties in Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
The third cut: Put Nvidia on a national security leash through congressional oversight and an independent investigation
As the world's largest company by market cap and the dominant force in AI, Nvidia has until now enjoyed broad autonomy in how it runs its business. But in the wake of this incident, the three congressional committees responsible for China, foreign affairs, and intelligence have begun examining Nvidia's internal security measures directly. They have even pressured Nvidia's board into forming an independent investigation committee to look into the company's own founder and CEO.
In effect, Washington's national security establishment has planted a watchdog right inside Nvidia's board. From now on, the goal is to make sure that everything, down to where each and every one of Nvidia's high performance chips ends up, conforms strictly to US national security strategy. It also means there is no more room for skirting the edge of the rules or releasing chips with specs specially tailored to regulatory thresholds.
Conclusion
"The scandal was a detonator set off right on cue. The real goal was to plug the holes chips were leaking through."
Jensen Huang made the fatal mistake of letting his guard down in his private life and personal relationships. In the end, he fell into a honey trap, the textbook tactic of intelligence warfare, and was compromised. America's national security and intelligence agencies ruthlessly exploited the weakness his private life had exposed. As a result, they solved three thorny problems in a single stroke: Nvidia's lobbying at the White House to ease restrictions on China, the flow of H200 chips into Chinese shell companies, and smuggling routed through Singapore.
The closed congressional hearing set for November 18 will be the decisive turning point at which the US moves in earnest to tighten its sanctions on China's AI compute even further.
Best thing Jensen can do is come clean and wash his hands of this affair.
BREAKING: Jensen Huang admits affair as Nvidia launches independent investigation into CEO axios.com/2026/11/08/nvidia-…
This is a must watch - best discussion and analysis I’ve seen on the interplay of US federal and local politics on AI policy and related market implications.
You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet 🚨
On episode 267 of The Compound and Friends, @Downtown and @michaelbatnick are joined by Dan Clifton of @BairdStrategas to break down the post-midterm market chaos, the AI stock selloff, growing backlash against data centers, and why stocks could be setting up for a rally.
Plus, the future of the Fed, oil prices, healthcare stocks, and what Washington's political shakeup means for investors.🎙️
Hyperbolic Discounter retweeted
It seems clear that the CBO and others have underestimated the loss to the US Treasury from profit shifting to low tax jurisdictions.
Micron's US (federal) tax on $100b in income? ~ 250m
Apple's US tax on $160b in income? ~ $12b
1/ many
s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files…
Hyperbolic Discounter retweeted
Tu t'appelles Charlotte. 23 ans. Tu étudies à Sciences Po Paris. Tu milites à La France insoumise et tu vas à la techno-parade contre la vie chère ce weekend.
Ton père, Philippe, est ingénieur chez Total, à côté de Bizanos.
Il travaille depuis 36 ans dans l'énergie, a commencé foreur et dirige maintenant le projet "Exploration puits 2035" avant de partir à la retraite.
Philippe te fait un virement tous les mois pour financer ton 2 pièces à 1350€ dans le quartier latin et tes cours de pilates reformer.
Tu as un tote bag « taxez les riches », un iPhone 17 Pro et un abonnement à Mediapart.
Tu considères que les grandes entreprises sont "une catastrophe sociale et écologique". Tu as d'ailleurs écrit un mémoire de 42 pages sur les violences symboliques du capitalisme.
Philippe qui se lève à 6h depuis 1987, te paye tes études grâce ses à anciennes stocks-options chez Shell.
À Sciences Po, tu as enfin rencontré des jeunes qui partagent tes convictions. Leurs parents sont avocats, médecins, hauts fonctionnaires ou dirigeants.
Vous avez fondé un collectif de "house music" en résistance au néolibéralisme.
Vous vous réunissez chaque jeudi dans un café du 11e pour discuter de la lutte des classes autour d'une bouteille de vin naturel orange à 38€.
Tu n'as jamais travaillé dans une usine, mais tu connais parfaitement les conditions de vie du prolétariat grâce à tes stages à l'ONU et au PNUD trouvés par les contacts de ta mère Christine à L'Oréal.
Tu expliques à ton père que les grandes entreprises exploitent les travailleurs.
Il te propose de venir rencontrer les techniciens de son usine pendant les vacances. Tu peux pas car t'as anniversaire de Julie à Santorin.
À Noël, tu rentres au "pays".
Ton père vient te chercher à la gare de Dax avec sa nouvelle Tesla.
Pendant le trajet, tu lui expliques que les cadres supérieurs sont complètement déconnectés des réalités populaires et que Elon Musk est la lie de l'humanité.
Philippe sourit nerveusement.
De retour dans ta maisonnée de famille, Philippe demande si ta recherche de stage en cinéma militant avance en te proposant du foie gras et du serrano-manchego.
Tu lui dis que tu es vegan depuis cette année et qu'il est insensible à la cruauté animale.
Philippe se sert un verre de Jurançon, s'asseoit sur son fauteuil Roche Bobois et te demande si tu es pour la taxation de l'héritage à 100%.
A fitting end to the week. Dinner with my oldest pal, best friends since age 5.
Argentine steak and wine, but first a Negroni and an Old Fashioned.
You can’t make new old friends.
$ORCL jilted by Microsoft.
Beware an old man in a hurry.
Taps sign ⬇️
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
Nuts to see a first rate compounder like Oracle reduced to issuing common stock under an ATM.
Over the past 30 years, buybacks have reduced Oracle’s share count by half, leaving Larry Ellison with approximately 40% - nearly 50 years after he founded the company.
Imaging betting the farm at 81 on the slowest nag in the AI race.
“Beware an old man in a hurry.”
- Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston’s father
Hyperbolic Discounter retweeted
Wrote a deep-dive on #copper which has been a great trade for us since 2022. We are now likely approaching 3.5Y cycle peak with lots of red flags:
1) Ideal 3.5Y cycle shown below (small sample size but consistent with other markets). We are in the red (weak) part:
This is an appeal to bear porn merchants - you know who you are - to cease and desist scaring the hoopleheads.
Through next week, let SPX pause, draw breath and rally hard into SPX 7600s. Let market participants big and small reload puts. Above all, do not let SPX fall through the 7250 level before November opex.
Think of the butterflies.
This market tumult has awakened even a wingy 97.5/99 Z8 call spread. Left for dead, it has pulled back to par with 25 months left to go.
It ain’t over until Trump liquidates those still hiding in the copper trade by waiving proposed tariffs on copper imports to support AI capex spending.
mining.com.au/copper-price-c…
The good news on days like today is that the relative cash balance in most people’s portfolio increased.
Itinerant tenor,
Maiden Lane & Grant, San Francisco, late 2000s.
On a good day in Kensington Market, Chuckie could be found on his bicycle at the intersection of Augusta & Baldwin playing harp in his one-man band. I haven’t seen Chuckie in years, but this 2012 Christmas clip captured the man and the moment.
“Am I still blowing? Check it out. Where you been?”
- Chuckie
Hyperbolic Discounter retweeted
I suppose we can't make a clean low in QQQ until Anthropic announces they've postponed their IPO?
Out of Nov opex SPX puts and spreads. Long small SPX calls for this afternoon and tomorrow - looking for a bounce to reload puts into Dec opex.
Keeping the Nov and year-end put flys as dirty hedges.