21 Comments

Enjoy your posts, I'm a fellow Vegas resident. I found you by way of Point and Figure as I also prefer this charting method, any trading advice for a guy still trying to grind out a buck?

Expand full comment

I am NOT trading right now. Too distracted. As an old floor trader though, I always keep one eye on the market. There really aren't a lot of hard and fast rules when it comes to trading.

The market is flexible. Trade within yourself. Don't let your ego get in the way. A lot of "Republican" traders" missed the last rally due to the fact that they were so embedded in their own opinion and confirmation bias they didn't see it-nor could see it possibly happening. Separate your opinion from the market. TheLundLoop often has some good trading advice.

One of the hardest things I ever had to deal with psychologically about being a trader was being satisfied with myself. Used to beat myself up all the time.

Expand full comment

Sage advice, thanks for the help!

Expand full comment

"I wouldn’t go that far, but it is inaccurate to say this decision means it’s fair game to turn gay people away from stores because you don’t want to do business with them. "

Inaccurate? No that is a bald-faced piece of modern leftist propaganda. This is why Weiss is an unreadable hack (in my opinion).

Expand full comment

Leftism is a man made religious ideology that is at war with reality.

Expand full comment

There has always been and always will be loose and strict constructionists. I just fear we the Court will become a second Senate, where they vote their party, not their mind, on all “political” issues that come before them.

Expand full comment

I don’t understand having Conservative and Liberal judges any more than I understand having college football refs who are beholden to a specific conference.

Expand full comment

It's not like that for the most part. I think that Liberal justices like Kagan and Breyer had well written and thought out opinions. It's their framing that I disagree with. They see the Constitution as pliant, and applicable to norms of today---subject to lots of interpretation. Justices like Thomas, Alito, Scalia see the original document as it is, not subject to a lot of interpretation. Hence, the former would pave the way to seize gun ownership in the US or limit it to the classes that they wanted to limit it to. The latter read the 2nd Amendment in the language it was written, and further understand via the Federalist Papers why it was written. Governments by man can become tyrannical and the rights of man enable man to fight viciously sometimes against that tyranny. I find it interesting how Gorsuch swings very libertarian. Kavanaugh and the Chief are reliably in favor of institutions. I don't have a flavor of Barrett, but she is a conservative however it doesn't seem like she is in the mold of Alito/Thomas/Scalia. Justices like our newest and our wise Latina are in fact like college football refs from a specific conference.

Expand full comment

Another great column. I too listened to that podcast from the Free Press. I am an entrepreneur….to me things are pretty clear cut - in business, try not to alienate your customer. Get them to like you. You do that by providing value and keeping politics out of things. I thought the gay website case was decided correctly. As a customer, the couple (now we learned it was a fake couple) could have gone elsewhere. We make decisions like that all of the time. We don’t shop at Target, Disney or drink beer from Anheiser Busch. They forgot who their customer is. All of those companies have forgotten. If they wanted my dollars, they should have kept their politics on the down low, nobody would have been the wiser….

Expand full comment

The problem with all this stuff is trying to find out who is more full of sh*t. Old Twitter was pretty bad for many of the reasons you list. New Twitter is bad too. Musk is in hoc to both Saudi and Chinese interests. How does that play out in Twitter management? And then layer on Musk's person hot takes, which tend to be as informed as an average sports radio caller. On a personal level I'd much rather hang out with Zuckerberg. The guy married his college girlfriend, has 3 kids and seems to be a normal family oriented guy. As opposed to Musk who goes through baby mamas and doesn't treat people well.

Expand full comment

Why is new Twitter bad exactly?? Is their different functionality? Just because of some investors?? Has Musk published a capitalization table? I only know a16z invested. I do know that plenty of PE/VC funds have Chinese and Arab investors, and it doesn't affect their decision making.

Expand full comment

Here's a reasonably good example: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66113460. I think Sacks has been tricked some of this stuff. One of the primary lessons of the internet and social media is that content moderation is hard. Old Twitter had problems doing it well. New Twitter has problems doing it well. The 'blue check' decisions did have some costs. And like I said, the best way for individuals to deal with this stuff is to be skeptical, even of things one wants to believe.

Expand full comment

It's just different BS. Great example was the kerfuffle with tracking Musk's plane. The story originally presented by Musk was nowhere near complete, people who just reported the story were suspended. The 'Twitter files', like so much content from all sides, was people selling their book. Some real information conflated with a lot of 'so what'. In the end it's not much different than old Twitter. Both can be used to learn stuff. Both can be used to whip up the outrage. Trolls still exist. The key for both old and new is to build a great filter. Don't follow the people who you might kind of agree with but who are clearly not out to have honest engagement. Don't be a market for the outrage machines of any ideology.

As far as ownership, this article has some detail: https://fortune.com/2023/01/06/fidelity-is-writing-down-its-twitter-investment-will-sequoia-and-a16z-be-next/

How can Arab and Chinese money, even if LPs, not influence PE/VCs? How much harder is it to raise $ if you exclude those 2 groups? Musk's China issue is more about China as car market and source of batteries for Tesla. He's no better than Tim Cook in managing China issues.

Expand full comment

Great post!

Expand full comment

"Musk has turned over the reigns to a new CEO." It's "reins", not reigns, which are royal prerogatives.

Expand full comment

Another spot on commentary Mr Carter. I hope you're right about Musk being able to resuscitate Twitter, cause the way it was run before was an impossible economic model, not to mention a stealth censorship operation for big government and all things not "of the left". An uber capitalist like Musk at Twitter might be just the thing we need in these crazy times!

Expand full comment

I believe Mr. Musk is going to enjoy another payday when ZuckerDork has to cut a check for IP theft. Mr. Musk uses the entire rule book, not just the Conventional Wisdom parts. Much fun to come.

(And I still think he’s going to get a huge haircut on his original price paid, because of fraudulent moves by prior mgmt. Very odd timing on his negotiation quit, like he got shown something by a Fed.)

Expand full comment

I think he made mistakes in the negotiation and let ego get in the way of making a good deal. He way overpaid, but his initial offer was inline with where the market was. In hindsight, given the way the market broke post offer, it certainly looks like he could have picked it up a lot cheaper. My guess is in ten years, he makes 3-5x or better on his original investment.

Expand full comment

When you are worth God-knows-how-many-billion, you may think of $44B as “what the hell, let’s roll the dice” money.

Expand full comment

You might. But, my guess is since the entrepreneurial streak in Musk is so strong and his belief in freedom stronger, he put his money where his belief was. He doesn't care that he overpaid at this point. He only wants to win.

Expand full comment