-13 karma · joined March 10, 2023
the companies who can't fill their openings are places like Chipotle, McDs and Walmart
the places laying off are Google, Amazon, GM
really wish these talking heads would talk about SPECIFIC high quality jobs that can't be filled...don't pretend scrubbing a toilet at Burger King is a rung up the economic ladder for anyone
if Tim Cook wants $10 bln in new profits, he can simply pass some arbitrary judgement like "the next iPhone will only be compatible with new AirPods we will introduce at the same time" and everyone will comply
but Grantham has also been declaring an imminent correction as long as I can remember, literally decades
you have to remember that these older analysts hail from another era...and it may be that in that era, our financial system was more "factual"...but you can't contextualize the world of 2023 (bullshit laden as it admittedly may be) by contrasting it with 1982...many of today's investors weren't even born
its no big deal to make a little bet based on that, but SVB seems to have bet the farm
had they even diversified their duration they would have been fine
SVB wasn't even operating at the level of the typical individual investor!
in this case, Intel's situation on GPUs is so dire that it makes total sense to clear the bench...the status quo was bleak
a sale would be ridiculous, there is zero reason to fire-sale a bank with 28% margins
they could easily lure back half of the 40% of closed accounts...these were panic moves, easily undone
FRC was giving high-touch personalized service, these customers aren't going to get that at BofA, where they'll be told to use an ATM or dial a call center
it may take years to get back to full strength, but with the new capital infusion, they can run the business and just let this shitshow blow over
if anything, replace the CEO with someone who has balls, there is no reason for FRC to be cowering in the corner
I would be more concerned by the opposite - presuming to fix the company using the same people who were responsible for the decline
every layoff so far has had a month or more between announcement and implementation
Why would you hear about a confidential layoff plan??
they should be grateful they were paid so well for so long to do so little...chances are they will never see comp like that for work like that again
...and hopefully no one is naive enough to think Google is "done"...after next earnings I expect an even bigger round
the same thing is happening all over tech - go down to a reduced staff of essential contributors and re-hire later for much lower comp
commercial users know full well a team of less than ten people can never hope to track down license violators while still doing dev work
they did after he trash talked Trump
apparently saying "grab her by the p----y" is worse than starting two wars
now its playing catch up and seems to be flailing around a bit
Pichai really is just looking like a good-times placeholder CEO
FRC was listing at a P/E of under 2 yesterday...either its collapse is imminent or this is one of the strongest fundamental buy signals I have seen in twenty five years of investing
icing on the cake is all of the Robin Hood kids who are just stumbling upon the blogosphere of bearish Fed critics, thinking they are the first to discover that fiat currencies are basically a faith proposition...and then coming to some conclusion that FRC is a great short
folks I too was hoodwinked by the Fed critics on sites like safehaven.com twenty years ago, none of the "sound money" blog fodder is new
will FRC ever regain its top of 174? who cares, anyone entering in now will be printing money if it only ever retraces 50%
if enough Robin Hood kids shorted this, it could easily hit $200 on fake short-covering energy alone
List a stock whose trade price was $0.00, I'll wait
their customers are high-net-worth so this would basically means almost all customers have left FRB, which is obviously not the case
at this point the stock is so cheap you don't even need it to get back to previous levels to make a killing...even if it ends up at a 50% discount from its peak, thats 4x from the current price...which gives you an indication of how irrational the panic selling has become
its the same bank they were two weeks ago, but with a $30 bln buffer
why do anything?
so what, the stock collapsed...if the business is still basically sound (and I have yet to see material evidence to the contrary), then it will move back up
maybe there is evidence not brought to light...but otherwise, we're talking about a mid-size bank on good terms with regulators that has a P/E under 2 (!!!)
this almost feels manipulated to the downside...
and please don't respond with "bank run blah blah" every bank in the world is subject to that risk
FRB seems actually better off in that its depositors don't need to empty their accounts to pay off the lease on a used minivan
if that happens, society will not be run by people with BTC, it will be run by people with AR15
FRB is the same bank it was two weeks ago but with $30 bln more in deposits
there is no material evidence that it is dire straits
there is no material evidence of malfeasance
there is no material evidence of a run on the bank
the P/E for FRB is now UNDER 2
re-read that...UNDER 2
you either believe FRB's collapse is IMMINENT (and if so, what is the evidence?)...or this is the strongest insane buy signal I have seen in years
the stock is trading for $16 and most analysts still have a price target of over $120
this is literally a panic selling mania that seems to have no basis in evidence at all, its crazy
even NYT commenters are pointing out...there's nothing wrong with First Republic
you can't wish this away
who is to say the reason why? maybe Andy Jassey just went for a long walk and came back and decided 9k more were out the door
for all you know he may want 25k more gone and is just figuring out the how/when
and yet this is exactly where the layoffs are happening...AWS, ad tech, twitch
Other than the "run" scenario (which has existed since the days of Venetian banking), there is no material evidence of a special risk that has emerged in the last two weeks.
Look at how SCHW was driven down 20% for nothing...talk about easy money...thank you for selling me SCHW at a 20% discount
Now its FRC...please show me tangible material evidence that it is going to collapse
This feels like a contrived sell off to give some traders a new entrypoint
Once again, it makes sense for CS to let this go scorched-earth
Their CEO can just turn this into a game of chicken, since it is the depositors who are at risk, not him
And if the sale is being forced, why even offer $1 billion? Just threaten jail time and take CS for free
GPT4 is basically Pong. Within a few years we will be nostalgic for its surprise value
HN has a God Complex when it comes to people like Carmack though, so you can't really survive disagreeing with him