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The stock market doesn't seem to think China will ever take Taiwan.
By many measures, the stock market is valued more richly than at any time in history except 1999 and 1929. Yet a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would cripple the world economy and send stocks plummeting.
There is an argument to be made that any war with China would lead to massive money printing and so, in dollar-denominated terms, stocks could thrive.
But this doesn't explain the stock markets blasé attitude. In the event of a Taiwanese invasion, some companies would be affected more than others. Apple would be crippled by the loss of its supply chain. But oil and steel companies would presumably profit greatly. This is of course not reflected in the stock prices. Apple is worth $3 trillion while U.S. Steel trades at a paltry $8 billion.
Stock markets don't know all that much, that's why volatility exists. There was about a monthlong period where the Chinese locked down 100 million people over a virus and the market was barely affected. It doesn't take a genius to perceive that COVID was a big deal in early 2020, before the March panic.
Nor did it take a genius to perceive that the new AI techniques were a big deal back in 2020 or 2021. The GPT-3 paper was out then, people like Gwern were showing the vast possibilities. And nobody really noticed until ChatGPT several years later when it became blindingly obvious what was going on.
I'm determined not to miss the next big obvious thing.
I almost bought Novo Nordisk in 2022, saw that it was already overvalued and that they would have plenty of competition before they could make mega-profits. So I didn't buy. It's up more than 100% since then. I still think my thesis is correct, but the market cares about hype not profits.
I was a user of GPT-3, saw it's potential, but figured I was already late to the game. Two years later, the market bids up anything with AI attached to it.
The one success I had was buying airline puts in February 2020. I did get a 50x return on those, but the position size was small.
Of course, it's easier to see these things in hindsight. I have no idea what the next big thing will be. The rationalist community was very early on semaglutide, GPTs, and Covid. But there doesn't seem to be anything comparable today.
And for the record, I don't think China will invade Taiwan, but we are all a little too comfortable with the fact that everything is made in China. At some point this is going to cause major disruptions.
I made the same “mistake” on novo nordisk and passed it up for the same reasons
On March 9th I posted a comment talking about how I had in the past prematurely dismissed the remaining upside on Nvidia.
Ironically if I had just bought some the very next Monday I'd be up 48% right now in under 4 months. Hindsight eh.
Exactly what happened to me. Always painful, but you never know. Still don't, really, it could all come crashing down and the guys all-in on colloidal silver and bullets will be laughing at us.
I put every penny of this year's 401k contributions into a short term Treasury ETF anticipating pre-election rate-cuts, only for it to stay flat as my existing holdings gained 20%.
Flat? Short term treasuries are still over 5%, which isn't large but is better than flat. I've been keeping (non-tax-advantaged) cash in them because they're state tax free.
I know you're the wrong guy to ask with where you live, but I actually need to find a "Treasury-like" option for people without state income tax.
It's kind of a waste having your yield driven down by people who are benefitting from the tax reduction.
Honestly I'm just holding new money in a 5% money market fund now.
I buy them non-competitively, so don't blame me.
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