Not so much a train of thought, more a replacement bus service of godless waffle, jokes and memes with a snifter of wine and craft-beer related stuff on the side..
Friday, January 31, 2025
Friday Smirk
London Stories
Thursday, January 30, 2025
48 years of Animals
Released on 21st January 1977 (48 years ago!!!) this was one of my favourite albums of all time, I remember listening to it with my late Father, we sat there in silence and played it all the way through (both sides) before declaring it a classic. Favourite track? Well, has to be "Dogs" I reckon, the way the voice merges into a synth sound was ground breaking at the time and still sounds great to this day!
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Value not found?
We've been riding the wave of a US stock market boom in recent years, particularly tech-stocks, and the likes of Amazon, Google, Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Nvidia and Microsoft (the "Magnificent Seven") are all at all time highs currently. Of course, whenever things go to their "all time high" we can expect a "correction" of some kind at some point, and there's no doubt that we are in a classic hype-cycle when it comes to AI and the valuation frenzy around companies that are involved in it.
I've been through several of these hype cycles now, they all look pretty similar, innovation occurs, inflated expectations are generated, the innovation flattens and we decend into a "trough of disillusionment" as it's known. I believe current AI tools will turn out just like this, sure, it's clever and useful but converting that innovation into hard revenue will, I think, prove a little harder than people think and will take time.
In recent weeks a new entrant to the generative AI scene has emerged, DeepSeek (which has an open source LLM), a Chinese firm has launched a chat platform that seems (superficially) to be as good as ChatGPT, but, the founders claim that it has been done at far less cost and with far fewer resources than it's US competitors (interesting only if true). News of this has sent the stock markets around these tech firms into freefall, Nvidia (which makes the chips used to build AI centric data-centres) lost 17% in one day and considering the market-cap ($3+ trillion) of that company, a record fall on the NASDAQ exchange.
So, will we see a "correction" now, will the magnificent seven turn into the sweaty six or even the flacid five? I somehow think that the bull market around tech is coming to an end, or at least flattening out for a while and the current volatility may provide some opportunistic upside for those with cash to spend. For those of us in pension land I suspect the prudent thing to do will be to switch sectors or to buy bonds for a while until things settle down a bit, then again, for those clever enough to spot the "bottom" a killing may well be made as these big tech firms aren't going anywhere anytime soon so a rebound (albeit perhaps over a couple of years) is pretty likely.
(PS. the stock photo above shows a trader with the number "404" which is ironic as that's the HTML error code for "Page not found", a case of "value not found" today perhaps?
Monday, January 27, 2025
London Stories
Often forgotten in the mayhem of WW2 but another London first, perhaps one that we'd rather forget...
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Picasso of Pettiness
- Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
- You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Storm Eowyn
Friday, January 24, 2025
Friday Smirk
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
London Stories
The "Cornhill Pump" established in 1799 just outside the shoping arcade that once was the Royal Exchange, financed by no less than the East India Company and the Bank of England, recently renovated it's worth a look as you make your way down to Bank station or up to Aldgate (where there's another famous water pump!).
Friday, January 17, 2025
Friday Smirk
Jesus and Mo, on point as usual examining the true nature of God, I heard that he's rubbish with money too, always needs more apparently..
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Nominated Drivers
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Zero to Hero
Friday, January 10, 2025
Leopard's spots