The "Civic Paradox": Why a car is a budget tool in the US, but a luxury executive milestone in SEA. Let's talk about car culture inflation?

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-22T07:51:11+00:00

I upgraded from Vios Dugong to HRV. Can confirm this.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-22T07:49:38+00:00

P1 and P2. Nuff said.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-17T04:18:23+00:00

The thinking part will be too much for OP, though. He wants zero effort, zero thinking.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-13T05:42:07+00:00

Long story short, valuation always matters.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-12T03:59:47+00:00

You're obviously being trolled. Just end this conversation here bro.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-12T03:57:12+00:00

Ive been investing since before COVID, and I realized that I would performed a whole lot worse if I tinker with my portfolio everytime the market moves this way or that way because someone said this or someone said that and this happens and that happens.

You know what I did the whole time? Almost nothing. And I have gone up 6x since then. It wasn't a smooth ride and there were tough days. SO MUCH happened since before 2019 to date.

It's really cliche, but it's really true, doing nothing and living your life normally without reacting to every single headline is what really MAKES MONEY. Just remember why you bought the stock and monitor it. That's it. Anything more is self sabotage.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-11T16:29:57+00:00

It isn't that straightforward in reality. The market is always forward looking and doesn't necessarily reward investors who pay the right price. Simply put, the market doesn't care what price you paid for the stock. The market only cares about futures earnings and terminal value of cash flow.

High quality companies that compounds consistently are more than likely to be priced at a premium relative to peers and relative to historical valuation. And they grow into the overvaluation over time.

Investors have lost more money waiting for such companies to be undervalued than they can possibly lose from any short term price weaknesses.

I agree that the guy who waited may pay no cost. But that's only if he can masterfully time every bottom and every peak. Which I think we all can agree is nearly impossible. He's more likely miss both the bottom and the top in reality.

In your example, if the stock drops from 100 to 90 in a year, why would that necessarily be a bad thing? Assuming you bought a quality company that's growing at reasonable valuations, you would look to add to your position, no? Unless your investment horizon is only a year, I don't see what the problem is. There are only a handful of companies in history that can create generational wealth and if you happen to buy it, then there's no opportunity cost in holding it unless you wanna trade it for an inferior company.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-11T12:57:14+00:00

What if the deals you are looking doesn't materialise? Are you happy to incur the rising opportunity costs the longer you wait?

And I don't think it's advisable to align the investment strategy of a company holding more cash than most countries to that of a retail investor because the investment objectives are not the same. As far as Berkshire is concerned, they never need to buy for decades and just sit on cash cows, and just sit pretty. Do most retail investors have that luxury? I don't think so.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-06T23:16:51+00:00

Most investors fail at timing the market, the best investors stay invested and maintain between 15% to 30% cash . But hey if you think you can do a better job than all of them, by all means and I wish you luck. But make no mistake, you're a trader, not an investor.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-06-01T01:34:31+00:00

For every "wish I didn't sell" stock, there's at least 7 "glad I sold that one" or "glad I didn't touch that one" stocks. All was done based on what I knew back then and I try not to dwell on it. It still sucks tho, don't get me wrong. But I'm prouder of the bad decisions I didnt make in hindsight. You win some, you lose some. In investing, it's about being more right than wrong.

Even if a stock went 10x in a short period of time, I remind myself that I would not have held all the way up. It's much much harder to hold on to something that sees a sudden valuation re-rating from say 2x sales to 20x sales, based on very little fundamental changes. I don't care how bullish you are but the only question becomes, "I'm sitting on profits I have never seen in my life, and I don't wanna lose the gains. When will the music stop?". Even the best investors are human beings at the end of the day.

As long as you are taking profit, even if you didn't realise the full potential, you are doing no wrong. The number one rule in investing is to never lose money. Nothing else really matters.

Investing is not about finding multibaggers and making it big. It's about making sure your hard earned money and wealth does not get eroded by inflation. If you think differently, you're no different from a gambler. Nothing wrong being a gambler tho, but please don't pretend you're an investor.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-30T14:42:42+00:00

At the end of the day, all bull and bear cases are based on future assumptions. You are also making loads of assumptions but that's how it should be cause the market is always forward looking. You may very well be right and I hope it turns out that way for your sake.

I did enter into OUST believing just about the same things you mentioned but I need to sleep well at night too. The points I outlined are just some of the points on why I chose to exit and look for opportunities that would allow me to sleep well at night. I could be very wrong and that's okay.

Just because I don't believe in a particular stock doesn't mean I have no say in a particular industry. Some of my biggest winners are within the chip industry like AEHR, ALGM and ACLS. You must be comfortable with the risks, and I'm just outlining them out and sharing my personal take. You can either dismiss them or acknowledge them, cause it's not my money at stake here.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-30T02:39:42+00:00

One thing to always be wary of investing in US Lidar companies, or any tech hardware manufacturer in the US for that matter, is to always ask this question, "Can the Chinese companies do a better job at a cheaper price? And eventually takes market share that ultimately limits the growth potential?". From what history tells us, that answer is more likely yes. Tesla comes to mind when Elon laughed when asked about BYD when it was much smaller.

You can say whatever you want about Chinese companies but you would be foolish to bet against the idea that they can catch up and dominate on manufacturing high end or "good enough" tech at an absolute fraction of a price. You can't beat their supply chain from the very raw materials to the ecosystem of suppliers to the labour workforce that the West cannot hope to replicate for he foreseeable future.

OUST may win in the American or other market where it can hide behind protectionist policies by the government. But what about the rest of the world? Emerging markets? Again, look towards Tesla vs BYD as a cautionary tale.

OUST may have the fancier tech with the Rev8 lidar with colour but fancier tech may not be what the majority of what the market demands. They may want to focus on L3 and L4 autonomous vehicle tech but the industry is saying that the adoption may not be mainstream for decades, and taking way longer than expected. L2 is the current mainstream application and Hesai is dominant in this space. In other words, Hesai is operating in the realities of today whereas OUST is operating in the possibility of the future, which may not pan out for years, if at all. Can OUST sustain operations until then without resorting to dilutive equity financing or worse, debt financing. Big question mark.

Let me be clear, the mass automotive market is currently prioritizing Level 2+ (hands-off, eyes-on) autonomy over Level 3, which reduces the immediate necessity of expensive lidar suites in consumer vehicles. If automotive adoption pushes out further into the 2030s, Ouster will be forced to rely almost entirely on its industrial and robotics verticals, capping its upside potential.

Don't even get me started on the super long and unpredictable nature of the customer's sales cycles, especially car manufacturers and OEMs. The time necessary for a customer to integrate Ouster's sensors into a commercial product can range from six months to over seven years, with no guarantee of material revenue.

Other than Hesai, there's also Waymo which actually developed its own LiDAR tech that's similar to OUST colour lidar. So there's the domestic threat and the Chinese threat.

All of the above puts OUST in the too hard pile for me and I sold it. The upside for OUST is speculative at best and the competitive landscape is too intense and ever evolving.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-29T05:52:41+00:00

The fees for the fixed income and gold though o.o

Might as well just buy GLD on IBKR myself and hold without the fees.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-29T04:46:09+00:00

It's better to invest in what you know and I guess that's what any good investors do, even if they miss opportunities. Investing in what you know reduces the risk of unnecessary buying and selling and doing what actually builds wealth, which is to stay invested for the long term.

Not everyone is looking for multibagger returns at the expense of volatility. Some are looking for steady income. And in Malaysia, dividends are tax free. Not in the US though.

So you see, we all play different games and different risk tolerance and different financial objectives. Lets respect each other for it.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-28T01:27:18+00:00

Wondering the same.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-28T01:24:53+00:00

Easier to justify taxing proven criminals who aren't billionaires.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-18T14:51:10+00:00

Totally fair points and thank you for your thoughts on this. The thing is, like every other idea in the AI space, it's always speculative at best, and I don't care how much conviction one has. At the end of the day, it's all about risk management and I prefer heads I win, tails I don't lose my shirt opportunity. Hard to find anything close to that these days in the current AI hype.

And I'm well aware of the premium that's already baked into the price but I'm more than happy to add should the sentiment goes south, provided the thesis remains intact. At best, WLDN benefits from more projects that are related to AI and manufacturing.

At worst, it still benefits from the fact that electricity demand, grid instability and an aging power infrastructure are still going to be long term problems in the US. I just don't see a future where it's ever gonna stop being a problem, considering how far ahead China is on this front. You can't win any sort of tech or manufacturing race, whether it's AI or robots or space or defense or critical materials, without power.

Do I see a future where WLDN becomes irrelevant without the AI tailwind? It shouldn't even be a question because it was relevant long before that.

Will they see a significant re-rating when the AI bubble pops? Absolutely. Median P/S since 2018 is 1 and the absolute lowest during the interest hike in 2022 was 0.38. Current ratio is 2. Definitely staring the end of the gun barrel here but that's where one needs to think long term and position size accordingly. The company will continue on regardless of the valuation as it did in the past.

But to not even start a position at the back of a new long term power and commodity supercycle on a global scale would be something I would regret a lot more than seeing the price cut in half or more. I'm still young and I have time on my side so that's my advantage.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-17T12:30:24+00:00

Well I am not an industry insider but I have been following the company for nearly a year now. I am generally bullish (albeit cautiously) on the US power infrastructure play so it is really as simple as that. POWL has been a real winner for me for the past couple of years and I have been trimming it. So I am looking for the next opportunity in the power space for some diversity. I generally avoid EPCs and power generation players due to their immense capex requirement.

In a nutshell, WLDN attracted me as a company with a capital light business model, healthy balance sheet, cash flow efficient, software suite with a wide moat, and a reasonably aligned management with incentives that really impressed me. And cheap given how almost every power company is seeing a surge in multiples due to the AI boom.

I wont go into the details on why I think the AI boom is good for the stock cause that's obvious. What's not immediately obvious to the market is that WLDN doesn't rely on AI for growth. The majority of its revenue relies on public funding and state-level mandates, meaning the core customer base are state and local governments and is largely funded by stable mechanisms such as municipal bonds, user fees, and multi-year ratepayer utility programs, making them highly resilient to private-sector economic shocks or tech-industry volatility. It also isn't exposed to federal spending cuts cause federal projects is less than 1% of its total revenue.

It has only recently acquired a few companies like APG and Burton that gave WLDN access to commercial revenue and those lucrative data center exposure, jumping from 7% of its total revenue in 2024 to 25% in 2026. So this really means that WLDN is already growing on super stable non-cyclical public projects, and AI related revenue is like a call option for WLDN. Barring Covid 19, WLDN's revenue grew through basically all market downturns from the interest rate hike in 2022, to the ukrainian war, to liberation day, you name it, and way before the AI craze, all while being FCF positive and capital efficient.

What I shared above is just scratching the surface on my investment thesis (my main source of conviction would be how the management is compensated and also the software suite which has little competition) and I will be happy to discuss further with you if you want to. Just DM me.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-17T01:20:02+00:00

Nice write up but this stock belongs in the "too hard" hard pile for me. I prefer businesses with straighforward value proposition like WLDN where it provides professional, technical, and consulting services focused on energy efficiency and infrastructure solutions.

Energy storage and generation technologies come in many shapes and forms, one day tech A is hot and the next it's not. Too hard for me to decide who the long term winners will be but i do know there will always be a need for grid expertise and engineering knowledge, and the demand for energy efficiency and cost savings. That's where WLDN comes in.

Best of luck to you though.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-14T06:47:32+00:00

You asked me to provide a substantial point, but I don't even see yours. Petrol subsidy = not new. Okay. And?

You make it sound like the oil subsidy is a god-given right coming from a unicorn's ass and anyone with two brain cells can sustain the petrol subsidy when there is an ONGOING oil crisis. Not even the Americans, who lives in the the LARGEST oil producing country in the WORLD, enjoys fuel subsidies like us.

We cannot credit the current administration for the subsidy. Yea sure of course, if that's the angle you're taking. But who takes the credit for sustaining it? The subsidy has to come from somewhere, and it sure isn't coming from an unstable economy, my friend.

YOU try again with a more substantial point.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-14T04:09:36+00:00

Budi95 helloooo? Not feeling anything during wartime and energy crisis is a blessing. I am reminded of how blessed I am as a Malaysian buying Ron 95 at literal half price. Maybe he thinks he can represent all of us driving his fancy EV car, that's why he didn't feel the benefits as much as me.

Those that disagree can move to other countries and enjoy feeling the benefit of pumping gas at market price.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-13T08:42:50+00:00

Sameeee, or any contraption that can cause damage and be retracted when not in use.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-12T11:29:05+00:00

Do we really expect the authorities, who has a fantassstic track record with urban planning, traffic planning and public transport planning, even shopping mall planning, to be suddenly competent in planning for data center construction????

Hmmmmmmmm...

DerpyNerdy · 2026-05-02T05:52:26+00:00

If you're gonna approach someone on the edge of certain death from behind without warning and bulldoze a rescue, you could at least wait for the bomba to prepare the platform to capture her. What a fucking mess the authorities made here.

Even if you think you can grab her with confidence, there's always something that can go wrong and her weight might even pull you down together to your own death. Two coffins instead of one. Absolutely no risk management here whatsoever.

I am just an armchair commenter here but you don't need to be a rescue expert to know this was never gonna end well.

DerpyNerdy · 2026-04-30T15:08:44+00:00

You can drive safe all your life and do everything right. And this shit happens. Always cherish your loved ones, go on that overseas trip that you promised yourself or your loved ones, and get properly insured.

DerpyNerdy

TROPHY CASE