13 Comments
User's avatar
AssidiousSamba's avatar

As for Mag7 think Apples lack of growth stunning given rise multiple and lack of participation AI.

Nvidia overowned retail.

Tesla massively overowned.

Meta had such a wild momentum last year should not defy gravity 2 years in a row.

MSFT and Alphabet need to do something wild with AI/results not to stall out, but they could one would think.

Not as much retail hype honestly from my vantage point these stocks despite performance.

Expand full comment
Gulo's avatar

China for Jan is a great idea.

Longer term, I'm extremely skeptical anything good happens while Xi is at the helm. He doesn't like or understand markets.

https://twitter.com/WuffettBarken/status/1741129297392206298

Expand full comment
Matt D's avatar

Shrub great as always. Any thoughts on profits and earnings in 2024? My thoughts is there is considerable downside given waning top line growth (CPI/PCE) very limited pricing power and no pick up in volume (demand). Combine that with high and sticky wages and you have a recipe for disappointing earnings especially in 1H as base effects are really bad. Do you think the market shrugs it off? It has in certain periods but def didn’t in 2000-2002 when multiples were elevated like today

Expand full comment
Le Shrub's avatar

Agreed on the downside to earnings. At some point gravity wins, Tamagotchi Yellen or not !

Expand full comment
Adrian's avatar

I signed in to write about this as well. I'm in the same camp as Matt, thinking corporate earnings should suffer in the near term. Curious what the Shrub thinks about this scenario.

Expand full comment
Josh's avatar

Thanks. I know a lot of people on this shrubstack have jumped on the China bandwagon, but I don't think that it is a very widely held viewpoint. At-the-money FXI March calls were only $1.39 which is 5.8%. If HSI rallies I expect it will cover that in 2 days, so, calls not super cheap but reasonable enough.

I was already looking at buying China and then your comments here gave me a little extra confidence that it was not such a crazy idea. I called the HSI low last year almost to the day but lacked the cojones to pull the trigger.

Expand full comment
Agent 007's avatar

If China does well, US no/soft landing let’s see how oil performs out of the gate after the 2H23 price drop.

Expand full comment
Andrzej TheFakeKlaus's avatar

Contrarian Consensus or the Unknown Knowns

Expand full comment
AlphaPicks's avatar

Enjoyed the ideas and thought processes

Expand full comment
Craig Smith's avatar

XI apparently likes to remind the world of his Black Swan play. https://news.usni.org/2024/01/01/xi-jinping-pledges-reunification-with-taiwan-in-new-years-message

Expand full comment
Przemysław Sroka's avatar

I'd add dissolution of NATO to the Black Swan category.🫣🤪

Expand full comment
AssidiousSamba's avatar

No way happens in 24.

2025 I can have it as a Black Swan for sure. Black Swan.

To go from where we are now to dissolution is way too far.

I can see France etc. getting closer to China if Xi commits to economy and charm vs Russia and wolf warrior diplomacy and US not liking that in 24.

Expand full comment
EdwarDiGi's avatar

So M7 to be avoided at all costs in basically every scenario. That makes sense as EPS est for 2024 just recently went back where they were in Oct 2022

Expand full comment