This coiled spring is ready. Needs a bit more pressure.

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Either everything is priced in and we stay flat or we pump a bit before open and we free fall without parachutes after

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I’m honestly taking all this news to mean that battery tech is *still* too expensive to sell broadly to the general public *without any* governmental assistance in adoption. That’s honestly heartbreaking for any future-focused or environmental-focused people out there. I’m guessing R&D costs along with resource mining (Lithium) is still too high to start discounting EVs like normal ICE cars. It’s a bit frustrating… nearly the entire automotive industry bet the farm on EVs completely replacing ICEs within a decade. Even Volkswagen is taking something of a beating on going full-EV, too. Congrats to Toyota for taking things slow… apparently their slow-to-adopt-new-tech strategy has fucking paid off massively. -signed, An F and GM bag holder

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At his level of capabilities, tokenisation infrastructure (once fully operational and reliable) enables financialisation of absolutely everything, while regulation on tokenisation will inevitably be late by years and decades, due to inner complexities of infrastructure. If a banker can collateralise (via tokens) **everything** and make \~50x in credit funny money, while having little or no regulations (like crypto in early days), that is a business that gets all his attention. Just random examples. A gold mining company (a thing for the next 10 years) needs one or ten billion dollars to build a mine. What do they do today? Sell a stream or royalty, sell equity and warrants, or mostly they get a credit line. Slow, complex and holds them back. Now Mr Fink's minions can make a deal, tokenise the whole contained gold in the deposit (after the usual bankable feasibility study), and with a little bit of banking magic they can sell it today, get the money tomorrow, fund the company's mine build, and get some 0.01% commissions at every step. But 0.01% of a 2Moz gold deposit will be worth $1M soon (almost there), so any further trading in these tokens between holders can bring $1M every day, or every hour, whatever the tading volume might be. Then there are copper mines that are costly to build ($10\~20b), so a major pain to get funding for. And again, Mr Fink's magical tokeniser machine will turn it into tokens available for trading, and backed by real copper in the ground. This machinery unlocks illiquid high-quality assets with guaranteed demand, and once operational and reliable, it does it repetitively like a factory robot makes cars. Mr Fink can replace most of the private credit community that has been funding such mining projects, should he decides so. Next obvious market is real estate: fund the development by tokenising unbuilt buildings, sell it in open market to anyone interested, get his 0.01% on each transaction. In this one, Mr Fink will eat commercial bank's food, all of it, anywhere on the planet, not being limited to one country or something. Another thing is tokenised metals, all of them, from gold to minor metals that don't even have futures. Some XYZ Co may be sitting on several tons of iridium, and the only buyer is a refining company that will not be named here. A call to Mr Fink's minion, and bam! - iridium stash is tokenised, now freely traded by anyone interested, Mr Fink gets his 0.01% from each trade. In terms of financialisation power, this is like a klingon battleship vs blonde in bathtub - who wins is not a probability. Mr Fink wants to win, so he wants his klingon battleship ready asap, and not become the blonde in bathtub when someone else does it first.

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Few questions. 1) why aren’t you using a CAPM for the cost of equity as it seems like some factors such as idiosyncratic risk and size premia are missing? Also the cost of debt to get the WACC. The 7.4% seems a bit low compared to the high on! growth / high assumed base case returns. 2)40% base case growth for on! products seems like an extreme bull case, no? 20% seems like a bull case even, given pouches were a big trend from ‘22–24. My co workers/ friends were big into Zyns during that timeframe but I’ve since seen them quit. 3)Younger Americans (18-30) would be more likely to convert to Juuls/nicotine pods than cigs in my opinion. I don’t see many people smoking cigs routinely, but I do commonly see people sneaking in a shameful Juul hit in public places. 4)Total debt is high, but coverage ratios are pretty goodish. What are the current maturities? Also what % of par are their bonds trading at? (You said this is a long term play but still a good indicator to see how much lower it could go). 5)Revenues have been declining since 2020 but net of excise tax they have barely increased? Was this due to a specific legislation? The current admin is beneficial to the tobacco industry but is a 14% excise tax a realistic projection? I do like the high div as that will incentivize long plays and gives the company an extra lever to pull incase on! doesn’t grow and the situation becomes distressed. This is well put together and very thorough. I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you.

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All of the big 3 do a shitty job with EVs. Let me explain. Either they don't actually want to make a good car. Or they don't know how to make a good car. The EVs have been underpowered, with middling ranges, with prices that are too high to make sense for almost anyone. The hybrid is what they should have been doing 20 years ago. but instead they laughed in oil. They kept full ICE vehicles and put an outrageous markup on EVs and anything close to a Hybrid. Teslas would probably still sell really well if Elon hadn't gone and got into politics. The problem is, conservatives tend to dislike EVs. And there is a lot to dislike EVs from a visceral level. 1.) They take at a minimum 30-45 minutes to fully charge. At best. Is that a long time, well, when you're used to 2-5 minute fill up times, yes. It's a long ass time. If you run out of energy on the side of the road, a tow truck or an electric generator is the only thing that can help you now. 2.) They cost more than comparable ICE Cars. They use less parts, but the parts are more expensive. They also know that people who want an EV will pay through the nose for it. At least that was the thought. They saw Teslas and thought - Boy, I bet we could crank out a piece of shit EV and it would sell like hot cakes... Except, The reason why Teslas were so coveted, is Elon made an expensive car, that was fun. It seemed futuristic, and it didn't feel like he was shitting them out as the lowest bidder. And the ones that he was shitting out, those were priced similar to a midsize sedan and STILL went faster and further than the Big 3's EVs. paying an extra 20k for a car, just doesn't work. 3.) They don't have as many options as ICE cars. They are so worried about making a car that goes as far as an ICE car, that they cut out all the bells and whistles because it reduces range. 4.) They are heavier, and thus cannot pull as much as an ICE vehicle. And lose charge when under load (not much different than a big engine using more gas, but the difference is, the ICE F150 has a towing capacity of 8,200lbs - 13,500lbs. vs the Lightning of 7,000 -10,000lbs.) 3,500 lbs is significant. especially if you're buying the truck to tow. 5.) They have a maximum range that is less than a current ICE vehicle, and the re-fill structure isn't nearly as well developed as ICE vehicles. And they haven't cracked the code on fast refill. 6.) EVs are a direct competitor to most of the secondary market for the auto industry. - The companies that make the parts (replacement and otherwise) for the cars are suddenly not going to have as many parts, meaning hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs are gone. Your car doesn't need an exhaust, anything in the engine block, it needs 4 identical motors, (well maybe 2 sets of 2), you need chassis and suspension, you need, electrical, a heater, an AC, a wiper system. But the big ticket items of a transmission and engine are gone. replaced with a battery pack and wiring harness. 7.) Range anxiety is a stupid but real thing. Oh no, my car only gets 200 miles to the charge. The average rural driver drives around 40 miles per day. Do some drive more than that? yes. But we're talking averages. That is from home, to work, and all side trips, 40 miles. In the harsh winter that means you're probably needing to charge due to the 39% drop in efficiency (ICE vehicles tend to use 15-24% more gas on cold days). But it's still WELL within the range that most people drive per day. but because it's not 500+ miles, we all freak the out. 8.) The Oil and gas industry is literally a MAJOR part of the american economy. It is one of the largest employers in the US, and you won't find most of its workers switching to EVs anytime soon. That's like watching someone from GM drive a Toyota. Here's what Tesla did to make themselves successful. 1.) They pulled an APPLE. They made something fun, that just seemed to work. 2.) They were a vertical monopoly. They build all the components themselves. ALL of the software/hardware was developed by Tesla, all of the batteries were built by Tesla. That's HUGE difference in how the software worked. It's why most other makers touchscreens and media centers feel like total dogshit. Because every component was made by a different manufacturer. And all told to "Just work together". Instead of building a single unified software/hardware package. They had tons of individual lines doing a segment, then slapped them into a different hardware package. And it feels clunky and unintuitive. Because they KNEW we'd buy it no matter what. afterall, almost no one chooses a car based on the media center. So why spend the money on it, just make it mostly functional. The problem is, most of the parts to these cars are the same way. They work, and they mostly work together, but they don't feel made for the vehicle they are going in. instead they feel like they are just sourced from a big bin of "generic parts" and made to fit. It's really just a slap in the face of anyone who wants to be in one. They are actively made them underpowered. You know what sold 50% of the people on a tesla. Insanity mode. The ability to go from 0-60 in about 3 seconds. That sold more Teslas than ANY OTHER THING. The next biggest thing was "He released an update over the air, increasing range , no need to take it in, it just updates wirelessly." It was cool, dangerous as fuck and not a great idea to allow a car to be "always tied to the manufacturer" but cool. It is hard to sell "We purposefully made your life harder, to help you". Hybrids are a good route for them to take. it allows them to figure out the fucking battery problems, it gets everyone used to the angel halo sounds, and excitement at getting more than 20mpg while still driving a big ass SUV. and they can charge "a bit" more. Not waaay more, but a bit more. Politics of the current admin wanting to gobble Oil Exec's giblets while handing their asses to OPEC. All while basically cutting out ANY price incentives AND adding tariffs to all foreign cars and any EVs and EV parts. It makes sense that for the next 3 years or so Ford, and GM are going to say "We can't survive a lack of demand" And instead of learning the "lesson we keep trying to teach you old man" they are going to just stop, and switch only to hybrids. Which is still a step, but a 1/2 step at best. But you know what... maybe this will give them the chance to figure out how to make a decent car.

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I bought a bit too many puts on QQQ and META at close, did I f' up

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you're the fool if you think the released data is the least bit real

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Bears are getting a bit too cocky. Calls at open

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Even if employment data is bad, as long as it isnt insanely bad, markets could steady and start to recover, since it could lead to more likelihood of future rate cuts… idk how people think this is for sure a crash (i guess people say this every time qqq has a bad week) if it continues to fall days after job data comes out then ill start to be a bit worried

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