Hacker News Reader

Comment by shubhamjain | Hacker News Reader

> Foreigners poured a record $290bn into US stocks in the second quarter and now own about 30 per cent of the market — the highest share in post-second world war history. Europeans and Canadians have been boycotting American goods but continue buying US stocks in bulk — especially the tech giants.

I fail to find any plausible explanation for this other than the fact that yes, it is a bubble. Tesla, a car company facing declining sales, an executive exodus, and a CEO who’s more of a liability, is almost a $1.5T company now. An absurd P/E of 259. Sure, P/E isn't the most realiable metric. But, for a company with declining sales, and onslaught from Chinese competitors, a P/E of anything above 50 is absolutely ludicrous. Do people actually buy into the absurdity of humanoid robots and robotaxis?

"Be fearful when everyone is greedy." I’ve cashed out of U.S. stocks, and I think it's wise thing to do when craze is at its peak.

View on HN

> "Be fearful when everyone is greedy." I’ve cashed out of U.S. stocks, and I think it's wise thing to do when craze is at its peak.

The man who said the thing you are quoting also repeatedly advised never to bet against America, and to never try to time the market...

Although Buffett's company is currently holding about $348bn in cash and equivalents. He also has ~$300bn in stocks so a little over 50% cashed out.

I think he'd say he's more into pricing things than timing - he probably thinks the market is expensive.

> Do people actually buy into the absurdity of humanoid robots and robotaxis?

Have you ever taken a Waymo? You see them on every street in SF now.

I've never even seen a Waymo and I haven't left North America for half a decade. Popular in SF does not mean inevitable everyhwere.

It remains to be seen whether robotaxis can 1. scale outside of certain cities 2. make a profit given the apparent teams of actual human remote drivers that robotaxi companies employ to get their robots out of trouble. I would love to see it, but the lack of speed and momentum points to it having some serious growing pains.

I rode a few in SF and can’t wait for them to come to Seattle. They don’t use actual human remote drivers, and the support person I spoke to when I had an issue had a Filipino accent, so I’m not sure they were even in the usa (although that totally could have been California also). I don’t think they wound need that many people anyways to do live support. Waymo is definitely being cautious, but the cities they move into seem to all be success stories.

They say they don't have drivers, but they do admit to having actual people that solve live issues that the car cannot understand, which seems like a semantic difference to me. If its one support person per 1k cars, its probably a non issue, if its one per 5 cars then its a totally different problem.

In any case, the "can it make money" question is still unanswered (at least according to Waymo as of March). https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/20/waymo-ceo-tekedra-mawakana-1...

If those faults are limited to 1 5 minute session every 20 or so rides, then it isn’t a big deal to cover them.

> Have you ever taken a Waymo? You see them on every street in SF now

Man I can tell you 99.9999% of people in real life outside of silicon valley tech hubs do not give a single shit about these things. City dwellers are already so disconnected from reality, but silicon valley takes it to a whole other level.

Only terminally online tech solutionists get a hard on for these things

I live a long way from silicon valley and think robotaxis are kind of interesting.

Bears always sound smarter, but making money in the markets is a whole different game.

Im a bear of LLMs, doesnt mean I havent made money off it.

I have. Intrinsic valuation and pricing are not the same thing.

Musk's greatest achievements are in the field of financial engineering. I wish he could write a book about it, because it's the only part about his life that's remained invisible.

Why don't you short everything, if you are so sure the bubble is about to burst?

Because of another adage: "markets can stay irrational for longer than you can remain solvent".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com