Buying the top two seems obvious? 21%

Trump wants out, he has given some blame to Netanyahu as of late. Stupid war, complete embarrassment for Trump. Trump’s foreign policy strategy was writing naked puts with leverage, but he couldn’t steal the blinds this time. He didn’t have the guts to finish Iran off, (he feared an oil spike/stock selloff) so instead we get a lame deal that leaves things about the same as pre-war. I suspect this deal will be viewed far worse than Obama’s $2 billion “pallets of cash.”

Chat GPT had a weirdly extensive response from this prompt: “Do we measure inflation more favorably or the same now vs years ago? Has methodology of cpi data collection changed” CPI methodology has changed a lot since the 1950s–1980s, and those changes generally make measured inflation look lower than it would under older methods — especially in earlier decades comparisons. But it’s not a simple “biased now vs then” story; it’s mostly about better measurement of quality and consumption behavior. ⸻ 📊 Has CPI measurement changed? Yes — significantly. The U.S. CPI is now produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) using a much more refined framework than mid-20th-century versions. The modern CPI is not just “price tracking”—it adjusts for: quality improvements substitution behavior new goods and services changing consumption baskets ⸻ 🧠 The biggest methodological changes 1. Substitution bias (CPI vs “cost of living”) Introduced more formally in the 1990s (chain-weighting improvements) Assumes consumers substitute toward cheaper goods when prices rise 👉 Effect: Reduces measured inflation vs older fixed-basket methods ⸻ 2. Hedonic quality adjustments (big one) Used heavily since the 1990s–2000s. Example: A computer costs the same as 10 years ago but is far more powerful CPI adjusts downward for “quality improvement” 👉 Effect: Reported inflation is lower than raw price change This is especially important for: electronics vehicles medical tech housing quality adjustments ⸻ 3. New goods bias correction CPI now adds new products (smartphones, streaming, etc.) faster than before Older CPI lagged in capturing new cheaper innovations ⸻ 4. Geometric weighting (1990s onward) Replaced older arithmetic weighting in many categories Reflects real-world consumer behavior better 👉 Effect: dampens inflation compared to older formulas ⸻ 5. Housing measurement refinement (OER) “Owner’s Equivalent Rent” became dominant measure Instead of tracking house prices directly 👉 This tends to smooth volatility and often reduces short-term inflation spikes

Oh to be a mining-only L/S fund in Australia or Canada…

I have no view on Credo, just very interesting. An unrelated point: I think shorting dying names with large followings makes for nice counterparties. Seems like retail keeps slowly buying the dip in these dead end companies with a mental anchor to former prices. Stocktwits is pretty lame, but I look there to gauge retail sentiment when something doesn’t make sense. You will almost never read something insightful there. Here is what chatGPT estimates for their traffic, I would’ve assumed a sharp 2021 peak but not quite :