Active funds, danger of open windows, Leo does dating, Bart on world politics and a ship to nowhere

Unknown Speaker  0:10  
Hey, everybody, welcome to this week's Labour Day special the fifth of September 2022, it's time to roll the bananas. Peter, what's been happening?

Unknown Speaker  0:21  
Lots been happening. We've seen a solid two weeks down in the markets, you've seen a lot of sentiment turning negative since we have the Jackson Hole update. I've been reading articles over the weekend saying all active fund managers should quit. Because they're not adding any value. And we've got right actually, yeah, probably about right. And everything should be a tracking fund. But then that causes me to think and you'll know more about this than me, if there are any tracking funds, who's doing those other trades?

Unknown Speaker  0:55  
If I was acting alone, it would just have to come down to people. And therein lies the rub. Right? Yes, I have to say, I don't know, with the exception about three really super smart people. I don't know anybody that invests in individual equities anymore. It's kind of like, I mean, I hate to be a bit controversial, but as soon as they got rid of insider trading, buying individual equities was much harder. Yeah. And I wouldn't say that Nancy Pelosi in any way has ever used her influence to build a $200 million portfolio, which she actually incidentally, is completely removed from because it's a husband deals with the shares. So

Unknown Speaker  1:36  
it's probably litigious area, we

Unknown Speaker  1:39  
now know, Nancy, I'm agreeing with her, she literally has nothing.

Unknown Speaker  1:45  
So the markets are going down. We're expecting them to go down. There's still some fantastic trading opportunities, as we saw last week, they're going to be even better coming forward. We know that as we head into fall, the markets start moving the volume picks up again. And it's great. Few other things I've noted this week is don't stand near open windows until building seems to be dangerous.

Unknown Speaker  2:05  
It's well, it was dangerous A while ago, but it seems to be contagious. Now because it was initially it was only Russians that had a propensity, yes for fallout of open windows, but this week, seemingly. It's been extended to America. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  2:21  
well, let's start with the Russian aspect. So the chairman of LA's Boyle, who was one of the big oligarchs, and one of Putin's very close mates up until recently, when he said something a little bit negative, apparently was very ill in hospital. And while it was her phone out the window, so yeah,

Unknown Speaker  2:38  
it happens. It can happen. It can happen. Because you've got to take yourself off the machines first. Yeah, then you've got to get to

Unknown Speaker  2:46  
the wind leveraged over I mean, it's got was 78. Right. So

Unknown Speaker  2:49  
yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, what can happen? Can you know, you're probably I need a bedpan. Yeah. And in Russian that sounds quite similar to nurse, I'd like to jump over this, to be honest with you, though, I'd rather go down the Nancy Pelosi littered litigious route than the offending the Russian. So if you're listening to this, I don't know. I'm not just listening to this. I would never say you would do that Peter might infer it, but not inferring

Unknown Speaker  3:17  
anything. But the other thing, as you said, was the sad story. I mean, other ones are sad stories about the CFO of Bed Bath and Beyond, who obviously have had their meme stock days, shares up shares down what's really happening underneath. They did a big turnaround speech to the markets last week, with a restructuring plan, and he has fallen out of Manhattan.

Unknown Speaker  3:42  
Hi, do you think that probably was suicide? I mean, what what I read about it was, he was like, instrumental in Santa gotta be this huge cut back 295 stores closing, you know, I could see how that could drive somebody. You know, clearly, there was something of turmoil there. I think that that that may well have been a suicide or terrible, yeah, terrible thing to do. I mean, it's interesting, you contrast that? Here's a guy who's he's just the CFO, right? So let's assume it was some sort of suicide. It's just the CFO didn't start the company or anything like that. Look at Snapchat, which is leading the disasters of social media. So hurray for that from, in my opinion, 20% reduction in staff, and yet the founder still says, Oh, we're, we're fundamentally sound, everything we're doing is right. But they were cutting back. They've cut back on $500 million of his projects. And he was using this as an example of look at this, cutting back on $500 million of his own personal projects. Now, out to me is something we've got to start saying, Well, what are you doing with $500 million if those vanity projects if they weren't able to carry them into light wasn't working and it's sort of like shades of shades of the we work guy, you know, like, oh, well, that one's done. I'll move on to the next Yeah, I didn't like that. And I think there's a really strange contrast Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  5:17  
Because you know, there is one company there right with shareholders that you're supposed to be delivering to the bottom line for not having your own little vanity

Unknown Speaker  5:26  
and one of one of which was some sort of 3d drone scanning area mapping farming land, which was complete overlap with something other businesses already out there. Yeah. So I understand you might want to do something with your business to change it but it's a bit of a pivot from one to the other. But there we go. You know, not I'm not here to criticise Snapchat.

Unknown Speaker  5:49  
No, but you talking about cutbacks and we've seen cutbacks again, haven't we? This week from Leo. Leo DiCaprio cannot hold on to a girl I say man cannot does not want to hold on. Over 25 has just released his his latest

Unknown Speaker  6:04  
girlfriend, but she you know, 25 years old? He's

Unknown Speaker  6:07  
4646 47. I

Unknown Speaker  6:08  
mean, you know, like, come right down to it kind of half is luck. I mean, he's a internationally famous superstar actor who has the opportunity to date pretty much whatever women he wants. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  6:22  
but I'm wondering whether he has children or not because when you have a daughter as you know, so yeah, and when you having a daughter daughter is key when you have a daughter gets a certain age you go Yeah, no, no, you know, you're no longer playing in that age field anymore, but he's kind

Unknown Speaker  6:39  
of setting himself up to be the Jack Nicholson of his Yes, she's ear isn't a Christian Newsom was famously or the Hugh Hefner, maybe. If it's a little bit seedy silk, I don't think I don't think he was. I think he's CD but ya know. And now he's looking to date a newsreader a 25 year old newsreaders apparently his latest target. I quite like the idea that the press says this was the old one this is the target is a bit like the acquisitions market. You're gonna buy this company but didn't quite work out. So we'll buy this company instead.

Unknown Speaker  7:17  
But there we go. Very industrial. Very. Yeah, it's

Unknown Speaker  7:21  
Laura. Somebody is the name of this new target. Laura Whitmore, right 25 year old newsreader in the United States

Unknown Speaker  7:29  
and onto other lawyers. So we have an upcoming podcast, which you did with an actress who has appeared alongside Leo,

Unknown Speaker  7:39  
Leonardo DiCaprio, and Django on change during first name is Laura. And I'm going to crucify her sign in because it sort of kind of, I think it's key wet. Hey, what are you okay, where she comes from? New Orleans, or New Orleans? It sounds strange way.

Unknown Speaker  7:55  
Yeah. It's New Orleans. Yeah, it sounds like a Creole kind of word. And that's probably done horrendous damage to what that name is. But it's got that sort of fringe.

Unknown Speaker  8:07  
Actually, if you when you watch the podcast, fascinating, very fascinating. I grew up speaking French. And her relatives, grandparents spoke only French. So I'm guessing is a real old Cajun name. Fascinating podcast, though. It's along the genre of things you can do outside of work to supplement and also just the theme is everybody's got a book inside them.

Unknown Speaker  8:32  
Yeah. And what I love about it is it's a process. And we talk a lot about trading, which eating is a process if you can learn the process, you can trade. And she tried for many years to write a book and put pen to paper and found that was really hard and started talking to a lot of people and then realised that there is a process to writing a book and guess what if you follow a process, you can write a book that can be successful. He

Unknown Speaker  8:54  
wrote five books in four years. Yes, I've known him for years. Just a fact. Fascinating, really worth watching. In terms of novels, novels, or books, I should say Gorbachev is the the biography of Gorbachev slash autobiography. I think he had like a ghostwriter. Absolutely all someone has sadly

Unknown Speaker  9:15  
passed away last week. Last week.

Unknown Speaker  9:17  
Yeah. 91 years old.

Unknown Speaker  9:19  
Well, I fondly remember the perestroika days, the Reagan. He was only 54. Then

Unknown Speaker  9:27  
glasnost and

Unknown Speaker  9:28  
perestroika. Yeah, and yeah, I thought it was it sad his passing. It's sad that his wife had been dead 20 years, which I didn't realise 20 years, 20 years, which is a long time to go without your partner. And you know, it's also sad that, you know, Putin doesn't care. He feels the Gorbachev betrayed the Soviet Union.

Unknown Speaker  9:49  
I mean, we am here on your best and we are here of Vlad the uncaring I wouldn't say you don't care. Glad you were just busy. He just couldn't go couldn't attend the funeral. Was it it was he was busy, he's busy doing other things. He's got, like pipelines to fix, because he can't rely on his engineers getting Nord Stream work. You know, he needs it. So, Brad is actually going to go and do it himself. Yeah. That's it. Pick up a toolkit. He'll get on that. Call him, Vlad. I think Vlad, the Mir wouldn't mind if I called them blood. I don't know. What would what would? Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker  10:24  
think you'd say Mr. Putin, sir. Dear Mr. Putin.

Unknown Speaker  10:26  
I think it'd be okay with flow. I don't I, who knows. But of course, the thing about Gorbachev that a lot of people forget, he was a really good guy. But he did enable all of the oligarchs by default, not necessarily deliberately, but by default, he ended the Soviet Union and as by

Unknown Speaker  10:46  
default, you know, he pulled away the communist structure, right, he pulled away the communist structure, and there becomes a vacuum before you put another another structure in place and guess what vacuums fill themselves? And they tend to fill themselves by people who can move fastest which can mean canny businessmen can also be criminals again

Unknown Speaker  11:14  
can you just gonna go and check this windows locked? Can

Unknown Speaker  11:16  
he businessman working with criminals, maybe criminals working Kenny criminals working?

Unknown Speaker  11:24  
Either I remember actually working in the Soviet Union, or the former Soviet Union just after I mean, some of the things that some of the things that happened to us out there were kind of crazy. I remember once we went with a banker, and we'd receipt with the bank and lend a lot of money to build a factory on the outskirts of Moscow, about 50 kilometres outside Moscow. And we'd had these beautiful pictures of the factory being built. And this wonderful English banker said, I will surprise them. And we'll go to the opening. Of course, we've made all the payments, the stage payments, and we get a cab we turn up when we get there. There's a field, there is literally nothing there. So we said to the cab driver, there's some sort of steak mistake. And the cab driver says no, no, that's the exact address. drive back to the office of this guy. This gentleman going in this beautiful cup glass English accent says to the best I can't remember his name. But La la la la la, look, oh, charm. We've just been out there. And there doesn't appear to be a factory what's going on? At which point the Russian businessman says I think I know the answer to the to your confusion, asked for two guys to come in and come into a clearly packing pistols about six foot six. And you know, there's no, there's no doubt in my mind at this point. We could get shot here. This is not going down very well, at which point this this guy who had served in I think it was a real green jacket. points at the business card says don't bring people in here threatening me. I'm thinking he just has and we're about to, to leave. And we left because I pointed out to him. We didn't have pistol needed. Yeah, $20 million. Basically took it spent it on whatever. Yeah. And the bank wrote it off as a bad debt written off. But that was all of course enabled by a friend. Gorbachev who was also Margaret Thatcher's friend, and today we get our own potentially get our own very new Margaret Thatcher. I don't think Liz trust, who has absolutely nothing whatsoever in common with Margaret Thatcher. No,

Unknown Speaker  13:42  
I can say no, it's it was a beautiful meme I saw on Twitter and it was Simpson. You know, most of the best memes are Simpsons. And there's Homer and Bart. And Bart is going Boris Johnson has as Prime Minister I've ever seen. And Homer correct is English and goes. Boris Johnson is the worst Prime Minister you've seen in your life so far so far?

Unknown Speaker  14:08  
Yeah. Doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, I don't know who knows what she'll be like. This is just a dearth of usable politicians at the moment. But on other matters a couple of things that have piqued my interest this week. I read an article it's called now you say that in Switzerland and apparently this is name of a company

Unknown Speaker  14:26  
but it no no, it's a it's an area in Geneva ripple. Oh, but it's actually supposed

Unknown Speaker  14:30  
to kiss and flies and flies is the ubiquitous name for turning up at an airport dropping somebody off and then driving off. And the charges in the UK Believe it or not, they estimate Luton Airport in particular, which charges five pounds, it's about $6 At the moment, was $8. Not so long ago, dollars $5 By the end of next week, next week, if we're not met, and you get a maximum of five minutes to drop people off and they say saying that they will make this year more money out of Kiss and fly than they will have actually operating the airport. Wow. It's up from a pound two years ago. Now that's inflation, right? Yeah. And that is where the public particularly in Britain are completely ripped off by these companies. And the article I read said that fundamentally that car park, it's like a layer where you just drive in you drive out whatever pays for itself every day. Good. Who, who else could make those views? Warren Buffett has always said his ultimate investment is a toll road because people have to use it and they have to pay it. Boy oh boy, as he missed the trick by not getting into kiss some fliers and infuriates me.

Unknown Speaker  15:48  
Yeah. You don't he doesn't believe his fun. They mentioned that has been seen a massive influx from hedge funds in the last couple of weeks. Because

Unknown Speaker  15:59  
guess what? He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. He can imagine the meeting card. Yeah, the hedge funds. So what are we going to do? Well, I mean, we've tried being long when everybody was short. We tried being short when everybody else was being long

Unknown Speaker  16:12  
did that crypto thing that didn't

Unknown Speaker  16:15  
quite work out? I mean, it's been hammered. This guy, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, I mean, like, they're only 89 and 91. So there's got plenty of future doing what they're doing. Why don't we give that a go? Yeah, I mean, I can see that but it's like

Unknown Speaker  16:30  
what works toll roads. What Works Heinz tomato ketchup, right?

Unknown Speaker  16:35  
Back on that? Yeah. Very queen was another one. This is one of his favourites and that a Dairy Queen for several years? Really? We're talking about now, Coca Cola, Coca Cola. Mac, going back to Russia in a second there. But and I consider doing that. And the other article that actually kind of astonished me was there's a cruise ship being built. I'll put an image of it here. Believe it or not a cruise ship? That cost $1.8 billion. I'll put it there and posted it. So I was pointing up there. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker  17:10  
I was doing this to look at it.

Unknown Speaker  17:11  
Oh, no, no, no. That's very good. I like that. Yeah, that's good. I don't think Leo DiCaprio has to worry too much for his acting career. Lindsey did for me. Very fair, different book. So so they paid 1.8 billion, they've actually almost completely finished the ship as in. It's a ship that could float and go places. Yeah, the company that ordered it has gone broke. And so you know what they're gonna do with the ship? I'm gonna give you three options. Are they a going to sell it to somebody else for $1? To see if they can make it work? Are they be ludicrously going to just scrap it? Or see are they going to float it somewhere and allow 5000 people, maybe homes that haven't got homes at the moment in

Unknown Speaker  18:03  
areas where I like the idea of see, based on a previous podcast, I like the idea of D flatten the top and make it an aircraft and aircraft has been missing one. But I'm guessing you're gonna say the $1 sell it for $1

Unknown Speaker  18:18  
incorrect, they're going to scrap it. They're going to they're literally going to scrap it because the demand for cruise ships is now so low, that this was specially built for a company. They're going to scrap it and they're going to get back about 100 million so the investors are going to lose well over a billion dollars. Wow. Yeah, it's completely crazy. I just can't comprehend how you could do that. To think that there isn't a single cruise ship company anywhere in the world that says I would like a It's might be 4000 capacity cruise ship, not one company anywhere in the world. We'll touch it. And apparently they've tried

Unknown Speaker  18:57  
those bunkers because all you need to do is really sit on that for five years. Right?

Unknown Speaker  19:01  
You would you would think it's not even in the sea at the moment. So it's not rusting, right? You know, maybe you can leave it in drydock or something. demand will recover and at some point, it's going to be an asset you're surely going to be able to sell for fuel

Unknown Speaker  19:14  
because as you say, you're gonna take a bath right? If you can recover 100 Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  19:18  
I mean, I think they're missing a trick surely that I can't remember who it was on the Concordia the ship that fell on its side? Surely they're one ship short of a fleet? Give them a ring. You want this for a quid? It

Unknown Speaker  19:31  
probably doesn't exist the name is not the same. The United cruise ship shipping disasters don't you their names child a

Unknown Speaker  19:38  
couple other Concordia was broken up that had to be broken. Yeah, because it had gone on its side. But I don't know if the now I mean, the name

Unknown Speaker  19:45  
of the company that ran like I remember who it was. Now I bet they don't exist anymore.

Unknown Speaker  19:49  
Oh. battery, battery exhausted. All saying Oh, well. On that note. Let's say we're only about 15 sec. He's away from the end anyway. So that's it. That's the end of the podcast. We've rolled the banana.

Unknown Speaker  20:05  
So probably just edit it. Maybe we're at a more logical stop because we were like,

Unknown Speaker  20:09  
Oh no, I'll add a bit on at the end too. So it just gave and that's it from relevant honours this week. 20 minutes in, has ever.

Unknown Speaker  20:17  
It was good. I enjoyed it. I thought we covered a fair range of topics there,

Unknown Speaker  20:21  
indeed. And it's good night for me.

Unknown Speaker  20:23  
It's good night from him.

Unknown Speaker  20:24  
Cheers. Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai