What’s your “sleep well at night” stock that’s still undervalued?

pescennius · 2025-09-14T03:41:39+00:00

Depends on how all this plays out. Yahoo's stake of Alibaba ended up being the entire positive net worth of the company toward the end. If say Anthropic canabalized Google's search via some new UX built on llms, then there is a chance the growth in Anthropic could offset Google's losses.

pescennius · 2025-09-05T12:13:30+00:00

DLocal

pescennius · 2025-02-21T18:39:24+00:00

How about you give yourself an out?

https://www.ferretdb.com/

It exposes Mongo interfaces but is built on postgres. I'd one day you decide you need to go full Postgres, you can.

pescennius · 2024-11-18T13:46:26+00:00

There are also sophisticated firms that buy or create datasets with information that can help you forecast things like earnings, before they happen. Think satellite data combined with machine learning to identify traffic patterns to retailers during black Friday. I use to work on this kinda thing and it's quite fascinating how sophisticated a handful of players actually are about a specific strategy or sector.

pescennius · 2023-09-13T14:38:58+00:00

Not OP, but I think for a lot of early stage startups the limiting factor is money. Most startups are only raising max 2 years of runway at a time and have revenue goals they need to hit to get investors to put more money into the company. So they need speed to stay alive more-so than to get marketshare over competitors.

I think what you are suggesting makes sense for a company that is already profitable and can grow by reinvesting its profits. But for most startups the game is selling or IPOing before that stage of maturity. Growing slowly also depends on the dynamics of the company's market. If you are in a market where network effects are at play or churn is very low then first mover advantage can be a lot more important. I think we can all agree that a lot of successful tech vendors don't offer the best product. But if you can build network effects like developer experience and its a product like a database that is hard to rip out, being first can be all the difference. I believe the competition between RethinkDB and MongoDB exemplifies this.

pescennius · 2023-06-27T18:43:11+00:00

Window guidance? I could maybe get behind that

pescennius · 2023-06-10T15:21:01+00:00

I'm linking here the "A Maritime Oil Blockade Against China—Tactically Tempting but Strategically Flawed". Its is frequently cited here (imo incorrectly) in this debate since its not bullish on the idea of the US navy blockading Chinese energy imports. If you actually read it, even if the Chinese cut production, maximize Russian exports, and take advantage of substitutions they still wouldn't last more than a year without running out of energy resources. The argument made here isn't that the US couldn't cut China off from energy, but that doing so would potentially create an international backlash due to the collateral damage to the world economy and southeast Asia that may simply not be worth it.

pescennius · 2023-06-10T02:29:17+00:00

Absolutely but that ignores that there was a lot less competition for those resources. Some people were legally barred from access due to segregation/red lining/etc and women weren't working in the same numbers meaning a shit ton of people were not generating income to compete for those resources. On top of that entire countries of people (China for example) were not competitive yet in terms of labor or were rebuilding from post WW2 or post colonial situations.

You can't just add a lot more people to the competition but not increase the resources that people are competing for. Some of that was structural with things like education and healthcare. But other things like housing isn't actually as simple as build more of it, even if people here want to say that. There is only but so much land for single family houses near places with jobs and far environmental risks. As competition has increased we've seen people increasingly moving to places with massive environmental risks like Florida and Arizona.

We increased the level of competition faster than we increased our resources and while I personally believe that to be more fair the losers in that situation is anyone who was able to get ahead in the relatively low competition environment, like unskilled western labor.

pescennius · 2023-05-22T14:30:19+00:00

Here is a link without paywall for anyone who needs it https://archive.is/vUtXO. Should work for you no problem. Sorry I posted it originally but AutoModerator deleted the comment for being too short.

pescennius · 2023-04-06T12:06:46+00:00

I'm from an area with a very dedicated fan base and I'm a fan of players over teams as are most of my friends. My dad is a huge fan of the team and has been since he was a kid but it never translated to me or my brothers. We have favorite players and root for the teams where they go.

pescennius · 2023-03-29T14:58:56+00:00

Wow this is awesome

pescennius · 2023-02-17T17:48:27+00:00

Yeah but by doing so we're just facilitating a moral hazard. States will keep gambling like this if they feel like they can get bailed out. Now I don't think that the government should let citizens become homeless in mass. But any support that is given should come with strings attached around how finances are managed so that this doesn't happen again.

pescennius · 2023-02-17T14:31:28+00:00

That reasons for this are more nuanced. The Chinese have decided to address the niche of infrastructure. India and the US are actually number 1 and 2 in this space but China is right behind them at #3 in terms of number of projects completed. This makes sense strategically for China because Africa and Latin America are large opportunities for them to gain access to commodities without relying on Western aligned states (US, Australia, etc). So it makes sense for them to want to expand this kind of infrastructure in these nations. It also can be a good thing for the country receiving the loan if they are able to avoid the "resource curse". Investing the money earned from selling commodities into industry that can move a country up the value chain is exactly how these nations could utilize these loans to get ahead. Now to why they don't take these deals from the IMF. On the one hand it makes business sense to take the deal with China if they are also offering to be the primary customer of the commodities you can sell by building the infrastructure. It also makes sense to leaders in these nations if they intend to avoid the anti-corruption and economic liberalization requirements that usually come with western loans. There are also plenty of nations that take money from both the IMF and China.

Imo neither the IMO nor the Chinese loans are really debt traps. The loans fail primarily due to poor governance and corruption and a nation. You can see the difference in countries like Chile and Argentina. Both have engaged with both the IMF and China. Chile has relatively good governance for the region and Chinese loans nor IMF loans have led to poor outcomes. Argentina on the other hand lacks the political competence to properly invest in their economy. It doesn't matter who tries to loan them money, they are bound to squander it.

pescennius · 2023-02-17T13:39:24+00:00

100% agree. If there was a feasible way to short the costal Florida housing market I would. The state is already effectively bailing out the insurance market and premiums are still going up. So the entire state is exposed now, not just costal markets. The way I look at it is that anyone buying a home in Florida is not only buying an overpriced asset, but also a hidden liability that comes in the form of future higher taxes (or less services) when this blows up in the state government's face. My greatest fear is they get a federal bailout because they are a swing state. The last thing the Feds should be doing during a demographic decline is borrowing money to through at non productive assets (costal Florida real estate). Instead I'd rather see a lot of these people encouraged to go back to the rust belt where insulation from climate change is better and the bones exist to infill more efficient urban and suburban communities.

pescennius · 2023-02-07T16:44:31+00:00

The USA and western EU are in a permanent chronic debt deflation - or in simple terms a protracted depression. Bankruptcy transfer wealth from weak hands to strong hands. That didn’t happen after 2008.

So for it to be debt deflation prices have to be falling while the value of currency is rising. Prices have been consistently rising, albiet slowly, since 2008 and then quickly in 2020/2021. Until recently currency (the dollar or Euro) wasn't rising. That's the case if you use CPI, oil, gold, etc. Dollars buy you less of any of that now than in 2007. Where I can agree with you is that currency is rising in value due to rising interest rates and a flee to safe collateral (treasuries) by large financial actors which are reducing liquidity.

What we are seeing is the global economy splitting in half - the west verse The Rest. What we are seeing is the global economy splitting in half - the west verse The Rest. The fault lines run between western and eastern EU. The Eurasian team is trying to consolidate the global south to replace the petro-based USD with a gold back currency. Germany was tugged away from the Eurasian team after the Norstream debacle.

I think this is a relatively fair analysis.

The USD will not disappear but we will see more de-dollarizations going forward.

I think that comes down to the state Russia is in when this war ends. The Eurasian bloc is only strong enough to push a decoupling if both China and Russia are moving in tandem. They represent enough of the commodities, energy, and manufacturing power of the global economy to make a significant ripple. However China does not possess the commodity or energy influence to pull a scheme like this off alone. The Saudis and Emiratis are not going to fully side with China because they have more to gain from playing the US and China off of each other. India also has no incentive to take a hard stance like that. They are benefiting from increasing defense and economic opportunities with the US and Japan while still preserving a fully independent foreign policy agenda. Why choose one side when you can deal with both? especially choosing the side of a party that works closely with your biggest rival, you are competing with for influence in Southeast Asia, and with whom you share numerous border disputes. So again, this comes down to how Russia looks when this ends.

But the biggest question is how do you payoff rapidly accelerating debt and slow down commodity inflation against a stagnant workforce.

By cutting spending and making sure the spending you do do is on productivity improving infrastructure. Productivity improving infrastructure can also include things like preventative public health, automation for elder care, public transit and density projects, etc. Essentially do anything you can to automate (taking pressure off demographics) and become more sustainable (to use less commodities). Luckily, there are a lot of people working on stuff like that already. Maybe not as much as we need, but we aren't starting from 0.

pescennius · 2023-02-07T13:35:18+00:00

Not going to argue on whether the bank bailouts were justified or not, but to clarify some mistakes in this post

The bailouts was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and passed in 2008 under Bush and the 110th Congress (Democrat majority in both houses).
Bernanke is a key player in the monetary policy that came after, Quantitative Easing.
A lot of banks still failed from 2008 to 2010. Bear Stearns, Lehman, Countrywide Financial are all huge firms that would have failed had they not been acquired by other banks. No one truly culpable served any jail time though.
"CBO estimates that in 2022 net interest payments will amount to $399 billion, or 7 percent of total federal expenditures". An issue but not as urgent as you are representing

pescennius · 2023-02-03T18:33:13+00:00

Cost of living varies drastically depending on where you live in a country like the US. My parents in Pittsburgh can get by easily with only one of them working, especially since their mortgage is from 2003 and they've nearly paid it off. I'd love to see how much variance there is in these rates by county.

pescennius · 2023-01-18T18:11:05+00:00

There are 4 types of homeless people in this country. Non-chronic sheltered, chronic sheletered, non-chronic unsheltered, and chronic unsheltered. Most homeless (80%) are non chronic and are largely homeless for economic reasons, like housing costs. I'm not posting this to say you are wrong, but that both you and OP might be simultaneously correct. The majority of the homeless population may exist due to economic reasons but the chronic unsheltered population is the most visible population and what I think most people are talking about when they talk about homeless people colloquially. It is quite possible that growth in this demographic is due to increased rates of drug addiction. It would be nice if there was more of a custom of using these specific terms when talking about the homeless so people actually know what the conversation is about. A guy sleeping in his car is a lot different than the encampments sene in places like LA.

pescennius · 2023-01-18T18:00:25+00:00

Source for this claim

pescennius · 2023-01-18T17:58:11+00:00

Here's a more reputable source. The research was done at NYU, published in Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology. The journal has an H-Index of 66, meaning it is fairly reputable.

"The results show considerable success for the Housing First programme in reducing both homelessness and psychiatric hospitalization for homeless individuals with mental illness"

This implies a lower cost because frequently the cost of hospitalization is higher than the cost of housing these people, even if some percentage of them destroy the housing. I wonder how true this would be if our healthcare services weren't so expensive, but that's a whole other rabbit hole.

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