We're back! With a lot happening in the last (checks notes) 22 months (!), but also not a lot changing, Akram's Razor and Daniel wade back into the market to talk about what's happening with Artificial Intelligence and everything around it. Specifically, we try to understand whether the cap-ex side of this trade is getting long in the tooth, and what the fundamental tensions are between different AI narratives. We go from bull to bear, tech utopia to jobsapocalypse, and lots of places in between. And we left more to talk about next time, so stay tuned.

You can find Akram Razor's newsletter at https://the-razors-edge.ghost.io/, and Akram on twitter at https://x.com/akramsrazor. You can find Daniel's RIA firm at https://middlecoastinvesting.com/.

Our second podcast of this week and 2024 covers companies not priced for perfection, but that instead have struggled.

We start with China stocks, and the question of whether China is uninvestible. We go into Akram's July 2023 Alibaba trade views and how that was also an investment thesis. We also talk about the connected nature of global economics now and in history.

From there we jump to Boeing's travails and how much of those travails should be pinned on Boeing, and how much of them are part of doing business, and capitalism generally.

Related posts:

The Razor's Edge: China is Uninvestable??

The Razor's Edge: Boeing and Regulatory Capture in Capitalism

The Long and Short of the Markets: Boeing's Bad Week, and Going Beyond the Headlines

• 2:05 minute mark – the stakes with the China trade
• 6:20 – Restarting with Baba’s position and Akram’s July 2023 thesis on Alibaba
• 13:00 – The Baba buy case
• 19:00 – China’s import beyond China-based companies, crypto and politics asides
• 24:00 – China’s lagging performance and frontier market experience
• 34:30 – The concept of too hard
• 37:30 – Getting into Boeing’s issues and past regulatory stories
• 48:00 – Boeing’s track record in context of other industries, and shared responsibilities
• 59:00 – Boeing too big to fail?
• 1:07:00 – The capitalism angle

The chip sector has been Hansel-level hot to start 2024. AMD and Nvidia have jumped 14% and 21% respectively in 2024, the SOXX ETF is up 8% in the last week, and the AI theme of 2023 is still driving things to start 2024.

What does this say about the sector, and why is it like being a favorite to win the Super Bowl? We discuss the excitement, the build out of AI, the usage, and how that all converges into questions for chip stocks.

This is the first of two episodes this week, with the second on a couple different topics, watch for that Thursday or Friday.

Referenced article: https://the-razors-edge.ghost.io/razors-edge-nvidia-pide-piper-baidu-bumblings/

Referenced presentation/tweet: https://twitter.com/akramsrazor/status/1745029272140456325

• 6:00 minute mark – Chip party
• 10:30- AMD’s spark
• 16:00 – The internet bubble comparison
• 21:00 – Feeling Peakish
• 24:30 – Hyperscalers data center build out and what could go wrong for Nvidia
• 34:00 – Apple’s Siri as an example of how AI will benefit us, vs. a new hardware assistant
• 45:30 – Are there any winners in a great AI software convergence
• 52:30 - Why it matters for chip stocks