Random Thoughts: Howard Marks Invest w/o People, Facebook gets EPL, Narrative of the Stock Market, Economics, BTS
Howard Marks Memo
I am still digesting my thoughts with his latest memo.
I do not know if I necessarily agree with each and every point that he makes
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I see computer decision making as a function of human decision making. Because it is programmed by humans based upon the rules instilled within a program.
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I love doing number crunching, chucking factors into a model and seeing what a screening shoots out.
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Meeting with management and spotting the next steve jobs is indeed not possible for computers, then again it isn’t possible for 99.9% of the human race either.
But perhaps his viewpoints come from different investing arena. The majority of Oaktree’s investments are in the debt market and specifically a private debt market and perhaps in that specific investment environment AI won’t work as effectively, but in certain asset classes i.e. FX.
Source: Oaktree
Facebook gets the EPL
Facebook’s astonishing £200 million (8.78 billion baht) deal for English Premier League football broadcasts will change the entire industry for digital and pay TV in Thailand in the near future, say media analysts.
The world’s most powerful social media platform just clinched the deal, acquiring streaming rights to broadcast all 380 Premier League matches for the 2019-2020 season. Facebook plans to broadcast in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Source: Bangkok Post
Goodbye True, if even my parents are saying “Why are we paying for True cable TV when it doesn’t work so many times within a year”, when my friends say “We only have True to watch sports”, if Facebook and others get into this game, only local regulations can save a firm such as True.
Economics – Trickle up
Was going through my random thought scribbles from the weekend, and this came to mind.
Random thought: So we constantly hear about trickle down economics, what about trickle up economics? The majority of economies are based upon the average person spending power in order for an economy and domestic businesses to grow, so when the low-mid income earners don’t have that spending power it is only natural that the bigger businesses suffer and therefore mid-high income spenders aren’t earning as much as they used to and therefore not spending either. Would this theory impact all economies…no it may depend upon the structure of the economy and the stage of development, but I think it applies to places such as Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia, unless the poor spend the businesses don’t make money (yes we can chuck in international business and then it goes to another level of discussion which will take a book’s worth of discussion material). Why this thought? GDP #’s look great but we have been reading about issues in the low-mid income targeted businesses, SMEs loans are issues for the banks especially if IFRS9 comes on board, even CEO’s of businesses targeting mid-high income consumers are struggling for growth. So what for Thailand? It’s a good thing that the government is continually funding and providing welfare support throughout the country because if they didn’t this country would very quickly fall into a recession.
Narrative of the Stock Market
Another random thought, the narrative of the stock market, looking at the market is like reading a who dunnit murder novel. We start with the murder occurring and then work our way throughout the novel to learn who did it, and thus we finish with the murder as well. And in between we have the shocks, gasps, twists and turns. The parallel to the market is that we start with a recession and we finish with a recession, typical business cycle, and inbetween it we have the ups and downs i.e. Europe, china slowdown, political news etc etc that create the shocks, gasps, twists and turns of the market.
BTS
Hey, remember the wifigate? When the BTS didn’t work for 1.5 weeks because the NBTC didn’t realise that having both a telecom and a mass transit co on similar frequencies would lead to issues? Yup its forgotten, shows how quickly things are forgotten in todays world.
Les
Trickle up economics, now that is a neat idea! It is indeed an affluent lower and middle class that provides an environment for most business to thrive. The only people who are in favour of trickle down economics are the people who won’t be on the receiving end of the trickle.
Pon
Nothing really new, been around for a while, a quick google will show you multiple papers on this, and in reality a combination of both up and down is the best for an economy. But naturally it is rarely accomplished.
Xavi
To be fair, Truevisions has been wildly unprofitable for a number of years, perhaps it would do them some good just to throw in the towel and focus on the internet side of things?
Pon
Yes.