The TSLA Market / Economy

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5920

Yeah I can’t cause it’s halted for Day 2 now. Is what it is, I took a smaller than usual position in a deep value Cyprus-based fintech that did most of its business in Russia and the CIS that had a shaky relationship with the Russian government, figuring that meant they’d be unlikely to be targeted directly by sanctions. Which was correct, but since we’re taking down their whole economy, this is going down too.

I also put a bit of a hedge on when the war broke out, I didn’t post it because it’s not a value-based play, but it’ll offset it pretty significantly.

5921

Russia has a bunch of investment treaties that I believe would cover this. If they want to go North Korea, they could just ignore those, but otherwise you probably end up with creditors grabbing random Russian assets in various jurisdictions to get their judgments paid off.

5922

If they’re to remain as walled off as they currently are economically due to the sanctions, how far are they from being a NK style pariah state economically?

5923

I feel like the cycle of investing in autocracies is pretty well established at this point.

  1. Dictator wants money
  2. Dictator solicits foreign investment promising to play nice, respect property rights and not brutally murder too many people
  3. Investment happens, Dictator plays nice for a while
  4. More investment happens - “look how cheap!”
  5. Dictator does heinous shit and/or steals the investment
5924

So, just got off the phone with my brokerage. Am I the first person in UP history to have an investment sanctioned?

5925

I’m not even sure what that is supposed to mean. I think we need a full TR.

5926

Probably yes and details? Thread tried to warn you that sort by PE + couple of hours of analysis was a bad idea!

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5927

One of my value stocks was QIWI, which is basically a Russian version of PayPal but it’s technically based in Cyprus even though 80% of it’s business is in Russia and the CIS.

It was deep value, and facing regulatory issues with the Putin regime, so I felt they were unlikely to be in the first wave of sanctions, which they weren’t explicitly. I also felt like they probably weren’t doing Putin’s dirty work or his regime wouldn’t be fucking with them.

I viewed it as high risk since it’s doing most of its business in a non-democratic country so I took a significantly smaller position than normal.

It crashed with the announcement of sanctions but wasn’t included so made half back, but then after Russia banned the foreign sale of Russian equities (it trades primarily in Moscow and is an ADR on NASDAQ), it was halted in the US. NASDAQ said they were evaluating the situation to ensure they didn’t violate the sanctions by allowing trades.

I’ve put in a sell order each day in case the halt is lifted, and each night for pre-market, but this time when I tried I got an error to call my brokerage’s Global Investment department.

I called and they said it’s frozen by the Biden EO, it’s sanctioned. I asked a couple questions since it wasn’t named and no reporting had mentioned it by name as being sanctioned, but they couldn’t/wouldn’t tell me whether this is coming from the Biden Administration or from NASDAQ’s interpretation of it or whether it’s because NASDAQ is still figuring out the situation.

So for now I cannot sell it, nor can anyone buy more. I guess it just sits until the sanctions are lifted, I don’t know. I’d rather watch it go to zero than help Putin, so if offloading it would help him I’m glad they stopped me… But it seems to me the opposite is true. This is propping the price up by keeping all the trading in Russia.

I did a lot more than sort by PE and buy, or I’d have 3x as much of this one as I do. Even with the losses on this one, I’m beating the S&P so far on the value plays I made.

Even if it I currently valued it at zero, which may well be the eventual case, I’d be -2.41% so far vs -4.17% for the S&P.

That doesn’t include the hedge I bought before the invasion intensified, since it’s not a value play. But I’m +6.34% on that one and if you weighted it in, I’d be -1.15%.

5928

…

5929

My BP has completely tanked. But I guess that’s better than getting confiscated if they didn’t divest.

5930

I get that lots of people don’t like Powell, but it seems like the Fed leadership has been massively underappreciated since at least 2008? The stuff that sucks about the American economy isn’t their fault, at all. How on earth did Donald Trump nominate Jerome Powell!? Did he just not understand the leverage he had / how important this job is?

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5931

The sample size/timleine you need to measure performance vs. market and tease out luck vs. skill is so long that I wouldnt put any credence in these short-term measures, good or bad. Its worse than that Sklansky chapter on doing it for poker where his mathematical conclusion was like you need like five years of live poker play to even figure out if you beat the game.

5932

Update: I may not be sanctioned.

They have sent this update out. Due to liquidity issues stemming from restrictions placed on all Russian securities (not just those impacted by recent sanctions) by our clearing agents, neither buy nor sell orders on Russian securities are able to be accepted at this time. This is a rapidly evolving situation and we will continue to provide updates as they become available.

Essentially they’ve evaluated that there is too much risk to the brokerage to process trades on Russian securities. That said, trading on mine is still halted by the exchange.

1 Like
5933

Bailed on my first hedge against the war, which was WEAT, made 26% on a full allocation. That fully offsets my losses in QIWI against the last close, offsets a ballpark of 80% of them overall.

Rolled it into CORN, which proportionally has not gone up as much as WEAT thus far.

Both also serve as inflation hedges, too.

5934

russia/ukraine are wheat nedit–more than corn is why

damn should’ve bought more straight up arrow today

5935

Yeah I was going to bail at $11.50, then talked myself into $11.15 to be safe. I think above $11.50 it’s speculative and requires a bidding war.

They combine for about 30% of the world’s wheat and 20% of the world’s corn. Not as significant, but by my math from the pre-war starting point, CORN should hit about $30 for WEAT to hit like $11.50. It hasn’t yet, so I feel like it has more runway.

I also feel like they’re linked. Wheat prices can only go up so much before countries start importing different grains.

5936

lots of commodities stonking

5937

what stock do you recommend if i try to bet on a russia loss?

5938

That’s a good question. Economically I’m not sure how one would do that. Like the grain commodities are impacted by the conflict and sanctions, not which side wins. Although ongoing sanctions would impact it, given time the rest of the world would adjust.

You could go on PredictIt and bet on Putin not being in charge of Russia by the end of the year. I think you can get ~3 to 1.

The Turkish drone company is not publicly traded.

Can you think of anything that would flourish after a Ukrainian victory?

5939

you mean besides their COJONE$? everything i can think of is long term. but EU membership is in the cards, it probably makes sense to find a stock that sells them ag equipment, etc.

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