To The Moon

My Investing Muse (24Feb2025)

Layoffs & Closure news

CNN is running nonstop stories about the “stress” and “trauma” of federal employees being laid off… META just laid off 3,600 employees. HSBC fired 70% of their investment bank. Welcome to the real world. - X user Geiger Capital

PENTAGON CUTS 5,400 JOBS AS TRUMP MOVES TO STREAMLINE FEDERAL WORKFORCE The Pentagon says 5,400 civilian employees on probation will be let go starting next week—the first big move in Trump’s plan to shrink the federal workforce. DoD Official, Darin Selnick: "We expect approximately 5,400 probationary workers will be released beginning next week as part of this initial effort, after which we will implement a hiring freeze while we conduct a further analysis of our personnel needs, complying as always with all applicable laws." Source: Reuters

Joann, which sells fabric and craft supplies to millions of Americans is shuttering 500 of its stores across 49 states.

The above are some snippets of news about layoffs, and closures in the past week.

America struggles with debt

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Delinquency updates from New York Fed's 13 Feb 2025 post.

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US households are drowning in MASSIVE debt: US credit card debt surged by $45 BILLION in Q4 2024 to a RECORD of $1.2 trillion. Credit card balances rose by a whopping $430 BILLION in 3 years. The credit card debt would have been higher as rejection rates hit 22%, 12 years high.

JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America say they’ve lost $5.188 billion from customers who have been declared unable to pay their bills. The banks outlined the Q4 losses in “net charge-offs” statements, revealing loans that the banks have declared as uncollectible and removed from their books after exhausting efforts to recover the owed amounts. - Daily HODL

The debt of one man is the asset of another - Ray Dalio.

There can be a point where it is (near) impossible to recover from a debt spiral. Let us monitor.

DeepSeek refuses to go away

The DeepSeek team reportedly verified that Huawei Ascend 910C performance reaches 60% of the Nvidia H100 chips. - Huawei Central

China now connects everything – from chatbots and smart vehicles to government departments and schools – to DeepSeek. - Asia Times

China looks to DeepSeek as it directs applications to DeepSeek’s platform. With over 1.3B global users, the size of a growing user base can offer a competitive advantage. I am monitoring this closely as China stand a chance to lead the world in AI like any other country.

My final thoughts

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Top holdings of Warren Buffett ／ Berkshire.

This was published recently and recent data advises that Berkshire is sitting on a cash pool of over $330 billion. Are there no good opportunities available? What are the concerns of Buffett? Is the market overvalued?

These are questions that I keep running into.

This leads me to a (great) quote:

"You might think you want a fancy car or a nice watch. But what you probably want is respect and admiration." - The Psychology Of Money

The best return on investment can not be merely money. The learning, connection and gaining of more “free” time are my motivations for investing. It took me years to understand that time is finite. Realizing that time is NOT on my side is sobering and helps me to calibrate my values accordingly. This may not apply to everyone. Apart from money, what else do we need to be “successful”? What is our definition of success?

Let us research before investing. I wish you all a great week ahead.

@TigerStars

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