Ferg's Finds
This is a short weekly email that covers a few things I’ve found interesting during the week.
Article
The Price of Certainty by Ian Cassel (I’d been trying to remember where I first read this study evaluating the effect of information on decision-making).
“The price of certainty is expensive because it slows you down. We want to know everything. If I just knew a little more. A little more. A little more. But knowing more often times breeds confidence but not accuracy.”
Podcast/Video
Enjoy hearing more about Ian Cassels process particularly around volatility and selling: My First 5X Stock, Timing a Sale, and Managing FOMO | Ian Cassel Interview
Quote(s)
“Luck is the flip side of risk.”
-Morgan Housel (Ironies of Luck)
Tweet/Notes
"My entire professional career, you buy whatever the Chinese want."
Not a bad filter for the portfolio; uranium ✓, coal ✓, oil ✓, gold ✓, tin ✓, PGMs ✓.
Charts
In writing my recent piece on dealing with volatility, I came across this chart I saved long ago. Trend following is one strategy that works if you can survive the drawdowns.
Just look at Dunn Capital Managements returns -52% in 1976 and -28% in 1977 when he had just launched. Or that whopper of -62% in 2007.
Something I'm Pondering
In keeping with Kuppy's observation of buying whatever the Chinese want, I'm betting they are going to need a whole heap more PGMs than the current EV projections would have, you believe.
PHEV currently stands at 57% of BYDs sales as of 2Q 2024.
I’ll take the production trajectory of the largest (and profitable) EV manufacturer over IEA projections every day of the week.
Combine this with the fact the crazies (Economic Freedom Fighters) have been removed from the picture with the formation of South Africa's new coalition government (20/32 seats ANC and six seats held by DA).
I continue to be as bullish as ever on the thesis I outlined here (Pulling the Trigger on Gold & PGMs).
I hope you’re all having a great week.
Cheers,
Ferg
P.S. I'm now in Ada Bojana, Ulcinj, which is my favourite part of Montenegro. You rent a little river house and then cruise up and down the river to various traditional restaurants or head to the long beach, which has different bars/ beach clubs every 100m, ranging from chilled family-friendly to all-hours party clubs.
Yes thats rakia with my eggs for breakfast at Mia’s fathers insistence (I can’t speak Montenegrin and he can’t speak English so rakia helps bridge the gap).
Re Rakia, sounds like what the Hungarians often drink with breakfast. Learned that, one thirsty morning, when I downed the glass of water my host had poured earlier ..... whoops that wasn't water.... burn ..... change of travel plans for the next hour..... LoL
My Albanian friends are careful with the Raki. No not mix. Found out the hard way....