Hermes shareholders should play close attention to this one.

WSJ BUSINESS

A Luxury Giant, a Reclusive Heir and the Case of the Missing $13 Billion
A member of the Hermès family says his fortune is gone. Was it the handyman? The consigliere? Someone else?

https://www.wsj.com/business/nicolas-puech-...share_permalink

Just to repeat this once again:



https://www.ft.com/content/e7c88737-f972-43...ac-1af358a85f07

Bloomberg Industries | Consumer

LVMH’s Empty Chinese Megastore Signals Deepening Luxury Crash
Upmarket brands are scrambling to adjust strategy after being wrongfooted by the rapid downturn in Chinese spending.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/202...d=homepage-asia

Opps...

An interesting analysis on the direct-selling MLM-like business model for Tupperware.

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/TUPPERWARE...CY/lgvdjnejkvo/

Ferrari release its results today: https://www.ferrari.com/en-EN/corporate/financial-documents

Financial report to be uploaded some time later in the link above. Meanwhile, other documents available for inspection.

Presentation slides: https://cdn.ferrari.com/cms/network/media/p...resentation.pdf

Press release: https://cdn.ferrari.com/cms/network/media/p...s%20Release.pdf

Conference call/webcast: https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/phousua5/

------------------------------------

For newbie fundamental investors, let me share with you one investment tip:

Whenever you see words like "even more confidence..." in the slide deck or uttered by the executives in the conference call, that's a sign that you should run.



And indeed that's the case:



This post has been edited by TOS: Nov 5 2024, 08:56 PM

The recent Fashion Valet incident highlighted the moral hazard of VC/PE firms in boasting their valuations prior to closing deals: here's one such article.. but with paywall at the second half of the article...

明白了这些操作的背后逻辑，你就能够明白为什么VC/PE喜欢搞什么科技的独角兽企业，因为只有这些企业的商业模式才能够提供足够空间让大家吹捧估值。



https://vip.sinchew.com.my/huangzilun-kuiji...%9C%88%E5%A5%97

This post has been edited by TOS: Nov 5 2024, 09:17 PM

You have 50k USD in assets in IBKR? You enabled margin account liao?

SYEP is basically IBKR lending your shares to short sellers out there to earn "pocket money". These are safe lending usually and are backed by collaterals like US T-bills. The downside is you are helping to pull down the share price in the short-run..., so you also get hurt, at least in the short run.

Novo Nordisk results: https://www.novonordisk.com/investors/financial-results.html

MAGA president is back again... Good for those who long dollar lol

Shell investors beware:

FT The Big Read | Oil & Gas industry

Big Oil’s dirty legacy in Nigeria
Who will clean up the environmental mess when Shell and others pull out of the Niger Delta?

https://www.ft.com/content/a9850445-50be-41...f9-0238d7a0218b

And what happens if your exchange is a trader itself, playing against you?

FT Futures contracts

CME draws ire from customers with futures broker plan
Derivatives traders warn over potential ‘conflicts of interest’ after exchange wins license

https://www.ft.com/content/ff20e1fd-e778-44...40-5afa4c34c968

Luckin teaches SBUX how to do coffee business...

Bloomberg Opinion

by Shuli Ren, Columnist

China’s Luckin Shows Starbucks How to Sell Coffee
Is a Frappucino an expression of individualism or a habit? The Chinese chain is betting on the latter.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/...-to-sell-coffee

Luckin is cheap... Americans vote for Trump because they feel the heat from inflation... with 2 USD coffee, that save their budget... like 5 USD McD meals...

Can't resist... not sure how they taste though... You try before?

Extend and pretend... you hear it again...

FT US banks

Banks face growing risk as double defaults on commercial loans mount
A bank practice known as ‘extend and pretend’ has delayed a write-off reckoning but may hide a growing systemic risk

https://www.ft.com/content/185f7b12-5baf-42...dd-1c723ed90a7b

Hermes stock drops today.

https://www.straitstimes.com/business/inves...milar-to-sp-500 (Use a paywall bypass).

New info:

-There is no official figure released for the number of bags made annually, but it has been estimated at 12,000 Birkin bags a year, according to Bernstein Research.

- While Ms Joseph said the Kelly does not retain as much value as the Birkin – it can still fetch around 20 to 30 per cent less than the Birkin – it very much depends on the colour and whether the bag’s stitching is hidden or visible.

- According to Sotheby’s, Hermes Kelly bags are generally made from Epsom leather, which is less expensive than the Togo, Swift and Clemence leather used for the Birkin bags.



Bookmark the page if you are a Hermes or Channel investor.

WSJ Business | Retail | Heard on the Street

Has Luxury Lost Its Shine?
Customers are complaining that they are getting less bang for their buck at the luxury store

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/luxury-...share_permalink

-One study found that for every $5,000 increase in the price of luxury goods, the brand’s logo shrinks by a centimeter. In other words, the guy wearing head-to-toe logos is unlikely to be one of luxury’s biggest spenders.

-“Prices were used as a way to cope with an avalanche of demand for luxury brands during the pandemic,” says Luca Solca, luxury analyst at Bernstein. “But if customers have to pay higher prices, you have to give them something new and surprising.”

-But social media is making it harder for luxury brands to maintain exclusivity. “Social media makes it easier to see what others are wearing, but when part of what you are selling is scarcity, that can be challenging,” says Jonah Berger, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania. “Things can feel less scarce, and smart companies are trying to think about how to manage this.” One way to lower the risk of overexposure is to sell fewer items at much higher prices.

-The problem is, brands’ shift toward democratization has made them much more reliant on comfortable, if not rich, consumers for a huge chunk of revenue. More than half of the luxury-goods industry’s sales are from shoppers who spend less than $3,000 a year on designer products. Alienate them with price hikes and sales will inevitably suffer.

FT High frequency trading

Is Chicago’s Don Wilson the smartest man in trading?
From cleaning up after Lehman Brothers to early bets on Bitcoin, DRW has become an industry colossus

by Costas Mourselas in London (7 hours ago)

https://www.ft.com/content/4001099b-12a9-4a...21-7333e88b536d

-------------------------------

The complete series of "New titans of Wall Street" can be found here:

https://www.ft.com/content/e86a8960-fd66-49...80-a7098d4a40bd

FT The Big Read | Oil & Gas industry

How oil and gas companies disguise their methane emissions
FT analysis shows that firms regularly hide leakages of the deadly greenhouse gas — despite this being one of the easiest climate fixes there is

https://www.ft.com/content/374e78dc-69ae-41...83-0842b3833d9d

The same link above already stated

Different accounts should have different numbers beginning with the letter U (e.g. U1223456 and U13445678 are separate accounts).

Anyway, the first 10k USD won't earn any thing, and if you have more than 10k USD, you are better off buying ultrashort term T-bills ETFs or buy US T-bills directly, so you won't bother keeping cash balances in IBKR's account anyway.

Yes, transaction fee is 5 USD minimum: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/prici...nds.php?re=amer

For comparison, buying some 500 USD worth of stocks on IBKR usually cost about 0.3 USD = 0.06%

To achieve 0.06% commission fee as a percentage of your purchase amount, with a 5 USD commissions, you gotta buy 9000 USD minimum worth of T-bills (remember T-bills trade with a minimum denomination of 1000 USD, and increments of 1k USD).

So, if you don't have minimum 10k USD cash, it's a lot cheaper to gain exposure via BIL ETF or SGOV ETF. These T-bills ETFs give you 1-2 month USD risk-free interest rate exposure by buying various US T-bills with 1-3 months of duration. The effective duration is 1-2 months.

With ETFs, now I can purchase T-bills at the same commission level as a US stock on IBKR, even with fractional shares if I want to although I don't recommend that since the ETF price is very low at close to 100 USD a unit.

--------------------------------

To address your question on opportunity. Yes, that's the purpose why I park huge sum of USD in US T-bills ETF as well. You can sell 23 hours and 50 minutes for each trading day (barring trading holiday the next day if you are in Asian hours trying to trade in US Overnight session, as the trades are supposed to cleared the next day following US time). If you spot a crash, you can always sell and get cash instantly even without margin account. The USD can then be used to purchase say VOO or QQQM etc.

There is one caveat, you cannot withdraw the cash or buy stocks/bonds/ETF or anything denominated in other currency on the same day you sell your BIL or SGOV ETF units. The selling trade settles at T+1, so you can only withdraw the cash the next day. They also don't want to bear any overnight FX risk, so they will only allow FX conversion once the selling trade is settled (which means you will have real USD in your account by then, T+1).

They do allow same currency purchase, like sell BIL ETF and buy VOO/QQQM or other US stocks which I stated above. This "contra" trade is allowed, provided the settlement period is the same, i.e., in this case, T+1.

Now, if you have margin account however, the restrictions above do not apply. If you sell BIL and say buy Nestle stocks (SIX: NESN) on SIX in Switzerland the same day, you are effectively shorting USD.CHF overnight forwards, i.e., borrowing CHF from IBKR (or some other market participants) with any outstanding cash/stocks as collateral for one day to buy NESN, and repay back at T+1 with USD proceeds from selling your stake in BIL/SGOV the day before. IBKR will charge interest on the overnight loan I believe, but sifus here can give you more color on this topic.

Relevant info from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/interactivebrokers...ant_settlement/

This post has been edited by TOS: Nov 13 2024, 12:36 AM

Shhhhhh.... Don't tell people...

My profits have dropped to zero for the past 2 weeks... Someone here has clearly manipulated both the bid and ask side of the trading books, the spread has narrowed dramatically...

And no, it's not gaming the system, it's called making markets "more efficient" (Wall Street bros love to say that eh )

This post has been edited by TOS: Nov 12 2024, 10:09 PM