Here’s some background

1. Global Vehicle Fleet

VW LOOKS INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH

The disruptive threats Herbert Diess saw coming for big, incumbent automakers soon after he took over the top job at Volkswagen Group are playing out as predicted -- only faster and in more dramatic fashion


In an interview, Diess said additional cost reductions and a speedier overhaul of the German industrial giant are vital to withstand new rivals with superior financial firepower

He has been reflecting not only on trying to keep pace with Tesla but on the risk that Apple adds another mighty competitor with almost unlimited resources to the automotive arena

“Despite all efforts, we are currently in a rather more difficult situation than in 2018 when I took office," Diess said

"What really has changed -- and what I had not expected to this extent -- is the view of capital markets on our industry”

In the almost 2 1/2 years since Diess told investors VW needed to aim for valuation levels more in line with Apple, Amazon and Google to still be around for another two decades, the gap has only grown

GLOBAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION - A PRIMER

We have hopefully all seen this wonderful diagram from LLNL showing the Flow Diagram of the world’s Energy Consumption in a very useful form full of diagnostic power

So how did we get to here ?

And where are we going from here ?

1. The recent history of Global Energy Consumption

Back in the 1800s the primary use of energy was to generate heat by cutting down trees and vegetation and burning them as fuel - referred to here as “Traditional Biomass”

- this was a defining feature of our World 2.0

2. And then with the advent of the Industrial Revolution fossil fuels like Coal, Oil and Gas became increasingly important

- and they started to define many of the characteristics of our World 3.0

3. Wood-burning Biomass has remained as a significant source of Energy even though its proportion has declined

4. Coal reached as high as 50% of our Energy supply and has continued to grow in absolute terms even though its proportion has shrunk to around 25%

5. Oil took over 40% of the Energy market until the Oil Shock of 1973 started changing our attitudes about the efficiency of its consumption

6. And Gas has been steadily growing its share of the market

“Energy needed a digital revolution – and we are it”

Greg Jackson, boss of Octopus Energy, says the sector was ripe for an Amazon or Uber-style disruptor, but that his version will also boost the UK’s green revolution


Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, wears the unassuming combination of jeans and trainers one might expect from the founder of a wildly successful startup

There’s also a vast open-plan central London office, easy camaraderie with staff, lots of plants

He has the enthusiasm and world-changing idealism too

With all these markers of a tech unicorn – a deal last month with Tokyo Gas valued it at $2bn (£1.5bn) – it’s easy to forget that Octopus is an energy company

Jackson, 49, says the distinction is increasingly irrelevant

Octopus is a new breed of energy supplier, built on cutting-edge technology and unencumbered by the creaking billing systems and fossil-fuel plants that plague the UK’s “big six”

Set up just five years ago, it has been free to view the energy market as a tech startup would: ripe for disruption

LEGACY AUTOMAKERS - 2020 NOVEMBER YTD

As we approach the close of the year, how do the legacy automakers see themselves in 2020 ?

Total global industry volume is down -16% so far, and the two largest players reflect that same reality

Renault is down -22%

Nissan is down nearly -30%

And Mitsubishi is down nearly -39%

Which has brought this unstable alliance down by -28.1% overall

Of course, these numbers only reflect the way the industry likes to present itself to you

And many things about them are not quite as robust as they would have you believe

Let’s touch upon a few :

1. A lot of the volume that VW likes to report does not actually belong to them

2. Instead it belongs to Chinese companies that they only have partial ownership stakes in

3. So when VW actually files its own financial statements, a large part of this volume does not get included

4. On this particular scorecard they are reporting production and not sales

5. This is important for investors to understand because you only earn profits on sales and not on production

6. Any reports of sales numbers from legacy automakers have proven to be unreliable, and are prone to “sales reporting abuses”

South Korean carmaker Hyundai on Wednesday presented the first 7 hydrogen-powered trucks to customers in Switzerland, out of 50 such vehicles scheduled this year to bring zero-emission commercial vehicles to European roads


For long haul, proponents say hydrogen-powered trucks have an advantage over electric rivals as they have a greater range and require less charging times but their uptake and mass production has been slow because they are expensive

However, a McKinsey study in January said that once relative efficiencies of the power sources and lifetime costs of a truck are factored in, green hydrogen could reach cost parity with diesel by 2030

PARITY WITH DIESEL ???

Hyundai has been partnering with Swiss companies to build a value chain covering the production of green hydrogen from hydropower, hydrogen charging stations and the service and maintenance of the trucks

The customers, which include supermarket chain Migros, will be leasing the trucks from Hyundai Hydrogen Mobility HHM to transport goods around the country, backed by the new hydrogen infrastructure

1/x The window we have been targeting for 2 months has officially opened... i Can not imagine a more textbook display of the power of Vanna at expiration as we saw on Friday. The capital building was overrun by an insurrection, but all that that meant was a bigger late day rally.

2/x that ended at ATH on the close. Between Gary the 🦍 & his RVol suppression & his hand off to late day Ivol compression & the Vanna index bid, the 🐻’s never had a chance... but Gary’s getting tired after 2 months battling complacency & Vanna’s 2 week vacation, 1 of her only

3/x 2 week departures of the year (a 5 week OpEx) is quickly approaching on 1/15 morning. That means she’ll be increasingly absent as she prepares for her trip. W/ a $59 1 week straddle & $50 1 day range on Friday, & another $30 overnight drop, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t

4/x want to take a chance on a little long gamma at this juncture. Especially given the obvious warning signs coming from the steepening of the yield curve, underperformance of the Growth complex, complacency in sentiment & positioning, anecdotal signs of bubbles in BTC & TSLA,

5/x NTM the growing exuberance surrounding a fiscal stimulus deal near $2 Trillion. The wall of worry of 3 months ago is gone. The vaccine is being deployed, the election is resolved, fiscal stimulus was passed & w/2 Georgia 🍑 🍑, ever moar 🚁💰is on the way. But what happened

What do the Atlantic, Business Insider, Vox, Salon, Slate, BuzzFeed, Washington Post, New York Times have in common? They've all knowingly published lies about me over the past four years. There's zero honesty or accountability in journalism. We're going to change that in 2021.

I'm in a unique position to know just how dishonest the mainstream media is, because I've read lies about myself in so many major news outlets. I know who the bullshitters are, on the left and right, because they've all targeted me to try to score cheap points.

I have a hard time trusting anything that's reported the mainstream political media, because I've read lies about myself most of the major publications publications, thus forcing me to question what all else they might be lying about. It's a really creepy position to be in.

What's even more disturbing is how few people truly know how dishonest the mainstream political media is. If it's from a big name publication, they just believe it. That's because they haven't read lies about themselves in those news outlets, like I have. It's eye opening.

I'm not even talking about misinformation. I'm talking about outright and intentional lies that major publications made up about me for competitive reasons, because they were worried Palmer Report was getting too big, and didn't want the competition. Truly evil tactics.

THREAD: The story of the week in finance is how a group of retail traders at @wallstreetbets, with assists from @ElonMusk and @Chamath, took down the establishment short sellers at GameStop.

A thread on the underlying mechanics of the $GME saga...

1/ First, for those unfamiliar with the business, GameStop is a videogame and merchandise retailer.

It has >5,000 stores, primarily in malls, across North America, Europe, and Australia.

The business has struggled to modernize, hurting its financial and stock performance.

2/ For a variety of business reasons, a bull (i.e. optimistic) case regarding its future performance has formed.

It really came to the forefront after RC Ventures, an entity managed by Chewy founder @ryancohen, disclosed a large position and assumed three board seats.

3/ @ryancohen summarized his case, stating:

"We are excited to bring our customer-obsessed mindset and technology experience to GameStop and its strategic assets...expanding the ways in which it delights customers and by becoming the ultimate destination for gamers."

4/ At the time of that statement on January 11, $GME stock was trading at about ~$20 per share.

Since then, the stock has surged to ~$200 per share and captured the public imagination.

But how did it happen?

There are two dynamics at play: a short squeeze and a gamma squeeze.

Lunchtime update from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry:

President of Arconic's French arm accepts customers were 'deliberately and dishonestly misled' over fire classification of cladding panels, as he is asked about email saying failed fire test must be kept 'VERY CONFIDENTIAL'

The most interesting point of this morning's evidence came right at the end of the session when Claude Schmidt was grilled about an email his colleague Claude Wehrle sent regarding the serious failure of polyethylene-cored ACM panels when bent into a cassette form in March 2010

Remember: Arconic in 2004/5 tested its ACM PE panel when bent into cassette and when bolted to a wall with rivets. The cassette version failed spectacularly, burning 10 times as fast. But Arconic dismissed this as a 'rogue result' and drew no distinction in its marketing...

... simply presenting the panel as a 'Class B' (the rating for the rivetted panel, and the required standard for many European countries). Skip forward to 2010, and this email chain.

Mr Wehrle, the firm's senior technical member of staff is told about a trend in Spain and Portugal where clients are demanding more fire resistant panels, and warned that with this type of panel "our prices are no longer in the market"

@ReformedTrader That is a long post, but well written. Real estate is a claim on the future prosperity or ruin of a geographical location. Real estate intrinsic values is its ability to generate cash or similar costs to rent in that area. Intrinsic value is above zero in most cases.

Ironically enough, the location that benefits most from property ownership are places where rising living costs expand faster than rising middle income wages. Deflationary areas are hostile to property ownership as price is falling make collateral and borrowing difficult.

Homes are bought using leverage with agencies loan subsidies by the governments. As long as you have fixed rates, the costs of living expenses for your housing is set for 30 or 15 years which allow family to budget. Wealth can be accumulate over time as asset and income risen.

Time passed, real estate become detach from intrinsic values. Monthly mortgage rocket pass incomes and growth in the area. Quick money into real estate turn into a landmine. The 2007 fiasco could have been better or worst, but the free market is effectively dead as an ideology.

At the time, investors attack the institutional that vulnerable to the MBS and structured derivatives linked to real estate bubble risks. Since many financial institution owned the agencies MBS, defaulting on these security means downward spiral for M1 and M2 in developed nations