YouSaid · the spoken record

Rupert Mitchell

lines on the record: 121
first: 2024-04-04
most recent: 2024-04-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Auto related. I'm very interested in the tire sector, for example, because I think it's a really interesting play on nominal revenue growth in a world where tyres are not a discretionary purchase. At the end of the day, when they go bald, you've got to change them. The tire manufacturers operate on margins which are frankly so skinny they're not going to get any tighter because otherwise they won't bother making them anymore but where the value of a tire is going to go up and this is I mean all roads lead back to electrification again I wrote a probably my most successful Theme this year has been the US oil refiners.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think they're really tough. I mean, the problem is that none of them can put together an electric offering where they're making a positive gross margin. You know, we've seen even with the beautiful Ford Lightning, right, we've seen Ford struggle to make and sell that car profitably. I think that all of those big names in classic OEM have got too much exposure to the mass market, which I think is where the biggest mess is going to be. I just want to stay well away. Now, I think there are other ways to play.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And actually the discipline of making an appointment to trade is one that serves me very well. Now, people that have made really good livings being more actively in the market every single day, that's their style. Apart from being sort of slightly uncomfortable with the whole game, anyway, because it just doesn't operate to normal laws of physics.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I definitely find, I mean, obviously, you can tell from my background, I'm British originally, but I find that when I'm in Europe and therefore US markets are open for half of my waking day, Tend to do more stupid shit.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Caught in squeezes is a count ending if you get it wrong. I mean, there are some people with bigger balls than me that are out there selling calls on meme stocks. Ultimately, the way I operate is, I mean, given where I am time zone, most time zone words, most of what I do in the markets is with stuff that's traded during your day. And so particularly at this time of year, our winter your summer. I have set an alarm to do something during US market hours. And I find that's a really good discipline.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A car company, and it's a very expensive car company. I have been involved on the short side in Tesla in the past. I'm not currently involved. Ultimately, the shorts have had a really good run of late. I don't think they're done yet. I just prefer not to have Elon Musk occupying any brain space. I mean, it's the original meme stock. And I have a very firm rule, which is I don't muck around with meme stocks, you know, because I'm a curmudgeonly former corporate financier probably. But, you know, they don't obey the normal laws of physics.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I still get, I still get phone calls from people given my background. I get phone calls from people saying, listen, we've got this guy. He used to design cars for Porsche. He's got this concept around a ultra luxury all-electric sports car. Who do you think we should speak to about raising some money for them? This hasn't stopped, right?”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ultimately, then you had the high profile scandals of rolling trucks down hills with Nicola. But all of the other ones, I mean, so. Whether it's the fiskers or the lucids or whatever, I was out there competing for the same investor dollars at the same time. And, you know, I knew those stories pretty well. And, you know, what the mania of 2020 was able to do with those pretty threadbare stories, let's be frank, was extraordinary. So it's like just a sort of a bad dream, which is sort of coming home to roost right now. I really think that Most of these, most of these assets are just going to be sold for scrap for patents here, a bit of technology there.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Profound irritation because the SPAC rules that we're allowing sponsors and management teams to say what they like. I mean, my background 25 years as a corporate financier, right? I mean, we were terrified of forward-looking statements and everything that came with these SPAC rules sort of ran anathema to everything that I'd been brought up doing, raising money for corporates. Being in the industry and knowing just how improbable those forward-looking statements were, but then seeing the gullibility of the market in believing them, it was completely obvious to me that they were all zeros at that point. I wasted a lot of put premium with that view over that period of time. The market was able to stay irrational for a lot longer than I was able to remain solvent in that trade.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The, I mean, I actually, I mean, the Rivian truck is a beautiful product, whether or not it can ever be made profitably is something that I'm deeply, deeply suspicious of. But I was always kind of rooting for Rivian as an asset because they'd done everything right beyond a positive gross margin. What I call the sort of spack nonsense around that sort of 20 was actually a source of.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there would be a mainstream for the conference and RJ Scaring, the CEO of Rivian, was box office. Listen, it was standing room only in the Detroit ballroom. And I was sort of green with envy at the, you know, he just announced a private raise from Amazon and from Ford. And he was the reason I was getting really tough phone calls from the boss in Shanghai. So why can't we get a bit of love from Jeff Bezos? And I sort of disappear with my tail between the leg up to take my one-on-one with some with sort of $10 million under management in, while Wisconsin or somebody like that. But it was...”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Funny story about Rivian. I was pitching my little company at the Detroit auto show. This timestamp, this has been January 2019. And bless them, Deutsche Bank was putting together a one-on-one schedule for a private Chinese EV company in the US at that time. That was hard yards for them, but they did a great job. And I was in had these things work. I was in one of those hotel bedrooms converted to meeting room setup in the MGM in Detroit.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen, you're familiar with my stuff. I get pretty grumpy about adjusted EBITDA metrics and adjusted earnings metrics. I mean, it's... What's amazing is that the market has started to trade on earnings before everything. And I think that's potentially a psychological shift that's waiting to happen, a normalization of this earnings before everything. There'll be a moment in time where everyone wakes up and goes, Actually, you know what? We should be looking at gap earnings again, right? And there's going to be a massive adjustment in the market because there are so many players in the market that have never known anything else. If your career in finance started post the GFC, you've never known anything else. Never known interest rates either, apart from...”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Further down, you've got various industrial and jurisdictional, whether that's tax accounting, whatever, that create additional noise as you go down the income statement. But, you know, ultimately with the automotive industry, it's a very clean revenue line. You've got units time selling price, right? And that's pretty universal.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm a sort of classically trained corporate financier. I was sort of beaten up with brilliant Myers as a junior banker. And, you know, I've sort of built comparable companies tables in the days before Kofin and Google and Bloomberg built them for you. We used to have to go to the corporate finance library and get a selection of brokers loats and historical annual reports. And it would take literally a week to build a comparables company table, something that I can pull together in 30 seconds now with the software that we have. I mean, I think it's right to look at various sectors with different multiples. And it is just for me the OEM, the auto OEM sector has, it's been less noisy looking at price to sales for that sector over the years. All of the, as you drop down the income statement and look at multiple...”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, funnily enough for Auto, Jack, I look at EV to sales. Ultimately, I've found that EV to sales for Auto OEMs has been the most reliable multiple to look at over the years. But yeah, price of sales first, EVE bit da second.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They end up looking like the greenest solution of the lot. And anyway, getting back to the stock, I mean, I'm really cross with myself for, I mean, if you just look at Toyota, yes, for most of last year, it was really just trading in line with the Nike. And I think there was a lot of lot to do with Bank of Japan ETF buying that could explain away some of the performance of Toyota. But if you look at what it's done so far year to date, I think real money has suddenly noticed that their long game around Electrification has been the smart one. It's now looking quite pricey as a stock, and I don't own it right now, but if we saw any kind of pullback to a longer-term trend line, I'd be all over it. Tend not to look at peas. I'll get my sheet up now. I've got my.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Massive, I told you so to the world about hybrids being a superior long-term technology. If you look at, I mean, if you just run the basic numbers of converting the global passenger vehicle park, that's park with a C, being total cars on the road to lithium batteries. No one's thought through the environmental consequences of that transformation. You know, if you've got literally millions of 70 kilowatt hour battery backs that need to be produced, you know. Yeah, there is enough lithium on the planet. There's potentially enough of the other battery metals available. But I'm not sure that we're all comfortable living with the consequences of mining that quantity of that stuff that needs to produce those batteries. And so. supported with smaller battery packs which is what hybrid technology is”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“During this period, going, they kind of used to show up at the car shows in Geneva and Detroit with their rinky-dink little hydrogen mirror. And why are they doing that? Not entirely convinced that pure lithium. Pure Bevs is the answer for passenger vehicle technology of the future. And, you know, if you look at their annual report now, I mean, they don't call it an annual report. I can't remember. But once a year, they put out a 120-page document, which is fascinating. It's a really good read. But now they're just beginning to say the quiet bit outline, which is a massive told you so to the world around hybrids.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Through to autonomous driving. These guys are the skunk works of auto, right? And they were there sitting on their hands.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, the stuff that I'm really kicking myself about not owning is Toyota. While I was working in the industry, what was extraordinary to me is that there was this constant nagging going on in the back of my mind because I was trying to raise money from both institutional investors and from strategic investors for our business. And I was constantly speaking to bankers in Tokyo saying, you know, I really want to understand what the Japanese OEMs are doing, not just in China, but in electric vehicles generally. And Toyota, I mean, ultimately, you know, has understood more about lithium-ion battery technology than anyone else for longer than anyone else. The Toyota Research Institute has been at the forefront of automotive technology. And that's from everything to fuel efficiency.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As soon as China starts to trend. You can only give yourself so many opportunities, so many goes at catching knives in a given year. And I'm happy to lose a couple of fingers every so often, but ultimately I'm waiting for China to kind of show me. But BYD will be top of my shopping list. BYD is spectacularly cheap right now relative to the gorilla that they are in Global Auto.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Above, raise themselves above what is going to be what I forecast to be a bloodbath in mass market. Conventionally automotive OEMs have traded at about 1 to 1.3 times forward sales over, and you can look at it over the cycles. In recessions, they dip below, dip below one times. In a strong buoyant economy, they'll get up to 1.3 times. And then you've got Ferrari trading like an AI stock. And actually, to be fair, trading like an LVMH, trading like a luxury stock. And I think there is scope for Mercedes to make that transition out of auto AM into luxury stock. I also like the idea of owning BYD. I mean, the first stock, as soon as”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Disclosure, I have one auto stock in my personal portfolio right now, which is Mercedes-Benz. I own that it was my cheeky play on vehicle electrification when I initially wrote it up about a year ago. It was a piece was called Ben Graham's electric vehicle. And the premise behind that is that Mercedes is pivoting away from mass luxury to become much more of a luxury brand. And I do think that the likes of the Ferraris and aspirationally in the Mercedes-Benzes of this world will be able to take themselves”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Either the politicians are going to have to double, triple, or whatever tariffs to allow their domestic industries to remain competitive, right? Which may be the outcome, but it's a pretty inflationary outcome. Or you're just going to see a lot more Chinese cars on the roads everywhere.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I see his internal combustion engine. What we traditionally think of as a car that takes in gasoline, EV electric vehicle. So when you said there's going to be a bloodbath in the auto market because Chinese cars, Chinese produced cars are just so competitive.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the road for forty five thousand Aussie dollars, it was a hybrid, right? It's just a regular hybrid. 45,000, call that, 30,000 US dollars, was kitted out like a high-end EV in terms of 360 cameras, fit and finish build immaculate. Now that's going to have Toyota worried, right? Toyota is viewed as almost a domestic brand down here in Australia. They sponsor the Footy League, for God's sake. But my point here is it's not just the all-electric vehicles. Those have been, if you like, the lead product to prosecute new markets. But they've got a suite of hybrid plug-in hybrids and even conventional ICE vehicles coming in behind that.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Eastern Bloc, they're going to be sold into Africa, they're going to be sold into the rest of Asia. You know, the manufacturing capacities there. Yes, arguably there is excess manufacturing capacity in China. But the EV plants haven't been built yet in the rest of the world. So, I mean, I don't see a scenario in which China auto isn't here to stay. And it's not just electric vehicles. I was in an Uber the other day here in Melbourne. And it was a model made by Great Wall, which is a Chinese OEM, a model called the Haval. It was a family SUV, not sort of American-sized SUV, but sort of non-American-sized SUV.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“China's producing these really cheap EVs, which they want people to be driving on their roads. And the domestic versions of these things are going to be too expensive. And, you know, I think we could see a massive bloodbath in mass market EVs. I'm more positive around the luxury end of the spectrum. But in the core mass market where the lion's share of the units are manufactured and sold, I can't see a situation in which China isn't dominating that market. Yeah, we're going to see some protectionism. We're going to see a lot more protectionism out of the EU, out of the US. Of course, we've got plenty of elections this year. That may delay the inevitable. In the meantime, these cars... They're on the road here in Australia. They're going to be sold into Latin America. They're going to be sold into”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Retail subsidies would bail them out, hoping that a new administration would take the foot off the throat in terms of transforming the industry. And anyway, they'd just been completely left behind. I think that politicians in the West are now in this unenviable position of being worried about inflation. But at the same time”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Chinese auto industry had never caught up with the Japanese or the German or the US. These players were always a step ahead in R&D and development on the internal combustion engine. And so they went, okay, EVs really work for us strategically for reasons one and two. And so they pitched headlong into getting ahead of the game in terms of battery technology, the supply chain, the material supply chain around the lithium-ion battery. And fast forward to where we are now, you've got the Chinese industry in a relatively unassailable position right now. And so we've got this situation whereby, you know, BYD can put a $10,000 EV on the road. You know, ultimately the rest of the world has been hoping that, you know,”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Communist Party controls China at the will of the people. And if mothers in Shanghai are getting frustrated that their two-year-olds have asthma or chronic asthma, you know, this becomes the whole livability index of these megalopolises on the eastern seaboard of China just became a real issue. So I don't think it should be underplayed. The third point is what we're reaping right now, which was the industrial logic. Now, China, in case you hadn't noticed, is really good at making things, you know, the highest value item on any household expenditure outside of the house itself is a car. And I think it's a source of real frustration that the”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Geopolitical and industrial logic perspective. China is massively a massive importer of energy. That is a strategic headache for the country. So, you know, being a massive consumer of gasoline is a problem. Secondly, and this is an environmental point, by the time you got to the late 90s, early 2000s, air quality in the coastal Chinese cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, I mean, you know, when I first used to go to Shenzhen in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was like driving into the Blade Runner set. If you were catching an early morning flight from out of Shenzhen Airport, you'd cross the border up from Hong Kong and into the smog. Now, China's not a democracy, but”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going on obviously the names that people will recognize now are names like Neo Xiaopung, Li Auto. At that time, BYD was really focused on primarily on its battery business. And now it is the 800-pound gorilla in Global EV that we all know. And so the whole China electrification story made perfect sense to me, which is why I was so attracted to it, because ultimately Tesla was going on in the West and it was a sort of a lifestyle. It was a lifestyle sort of pro-planet kind of vogue that was going on in China. The whole electrification story made perfect sense from”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So via a former client of mine as a banker, I ended up as chief strategy officer of a Shanghai-based electric vehicle startup, which is called WM Motor. It doesn't really exist anymore. Ultimately, We were a pure EV company. We had when I left we had two and a half factories. We were making all electric city SUVs. We had three models out of the time. But I was absolutely in the chaotic cauldron of China AV world in, let me timestamp this in 2018, 2019, that starting late 2018. At that point in time, I think there was something like 400 Chinese EV startups.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I think, I mean, I wouldn't categorize myself as a China bull, but I'm more inclined to be drawn to a positive China narrative because ultimately I'm a value bore at the end of the day. There are some excellent companies trading at spectacularly cheap valuations right now. If it goes, even if it half goes, it's going to be a phenomenal money-making opportunity.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is the system in China whereby your rights to state services are determined by your residency, right? And so, you know, for example, in a mega city like Shanghai, only a very small percentage of the population actually has huko status where they're entitled to the childcare and healthcare that comes with that, which means that a huge part of the population in expensive cities has to deploy huge amounts of their disposable income towards stuff that elsewhere in the world they would get from the state. If we do and caveat that people have been talking about Huko reform for a very long period of time, if that does happen, that could have a massive impact on domestic consumption, which is really what the China economy needs.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, no, no, the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming train again, but I am seeing some light. We're at a point on the path where I can see some degree of recovery. But ultimately, the construct that we were just talking about with Chinese wealth predominantly being held in real estate ultimately is not really healthy. I mean, you've got an economy that has been the factory to the planet and I think will continue to be the factory to the planet. But where there hasn't been a natural domestic consumption market. And, you know, that is something that happens to all economies ultimately. And I don't see why it's not going to happen in China. My friend Kevin Mule wrote a really interesting piece the other day about Huko referred to.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I feel that we've seen the worst and there's going to be an ongoing grind. It's funny, I mean, for almost as long as I was in Hong Kong, people were calling the top in Chinese real estate. And it was a complete widow maker, a shorting evergrand. I mean, shorting evergrand was one of the original widowmakers along with short JGBs and short Aussie banks, right? The great widow maker in macro. And, you know, all of those guys, super smart guys were absolutely right. But, you know, I'd say 95% of the people that been negative on Chinese real estate never made any money on that view. Then it came hard and fast. It may be the light of the train at the end of the other end of the tunnel, but I am seeing a bit of light.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Feel ripe as a target there. And all it would take is a bit of shift in confidence around Chinese equities. And I know where that's getting funded. It's a trade that didn't work when I tried to put it on towards the end of the summer last year. I got stopped out of that, but it's a trade that I absolutely expect to put on again.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do think that India is in the context of global emerging markets priced for absolute perfection right now. I think there's a huge amount of uninformed optimism about the way in which the country is being run. I look at a currency that has been a serial devaluer over years. If you look at a monthly chart of the USDINR, I mean, it's just a country that always wants to go down. I look at the reliance on imported energy. I look at the fragility of Indian agriculture and things go pear-shaped pretty quickly if they have a bad monsoon. We had one last year. 30% of exports are in the IT services business process outsourcing space. If there is a space which is likely to get disrupted by artificial intelligence, back offices in Bangalore or”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a go last year at a long China short India pair, which I got stopped at. It's still a trade that is absolutely top of my watch list for the reasons that we discussed a moment ago. I think that if China does go on a bull run, it's going to come at the expense of a very expensive Indian, a very crowded and expensive Indian equity market.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I bought the bottom. I took quite a lot of it off about a year ago, which is why it's still a China trade that's still in the green, right? But there's not a lot of value to the stuff that I didn't sell a year ago”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, essentially, you get all of the other stuff, which is stuff that you might or might like or loathe, but you're getting it for free. I got into that trade in October of 22.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so that's a cheap way into 10 cents. Amazing story. So it's a bit like Massason and Alibaba, right? NASPAS, which was a South African media company, ended up owning a very large stake in Tencent through a fantastic deal 25 years ago. And for years, the NASPA's 10c stub trade was one of the big sort of risk-arb trades. And NASPA's because of its 10 cent holding, ended up becoming a huge part of the Johannesburg exchange. Eventually, what NASPAS did was to spin their stake in 10cent plus all of their other private and public tech investments into an Amsterdam listed holding company called Process. But the guts of processes still their stake or their residual stake intense.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't view it as a model portfolio. I really try not to position myself as giving sort of asset allocation. What I do is I track the individual trade ideas that I write up. And so that's my scorecard on an individual idea basis rather than a portfolio basis. But sorry, yeah.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Through a different prism. I've spent half of my adult life in Asia, so I'm going to have naturally much more comfort with the risk there. But, you know, I know that Hong Kong, where I spent much of my working life, is not the place that I arrived first in 1998, and it's certainly not the same place. But at the same time, I'm more relaxed about the overriding macro risks there.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Times bigger in China. As a few people have said, very smartly, all you need is for that market to go from dire to slightly less dire. And you could hear this enormous sucking sound of offside liquidity moving back into that market. I mean, it could be spectacular to the upside. In terms of the broader picture about sort of owning the market for 10, 15 years, the classic, well, could this go the same way as Russian equities, et cetera? I'm a little bit more sanguine about that. But then again, I'm not a fiduciary managing pension fund money out of Minnesota.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Still, I think that there are some really interesting businesses there. The drawdown led by the real estate market has, well, firstly, the anti-corruption clampdown, then the sort of cram down on the tech monopolies, and then the real estate has been been a triple whammy for that market. But you're at this point now where there is... Almost, I mean, there's negligible foreign institutional participation in the market beyond, you know, people there for a trade. You've got global emerging market dollars all crowded into Indian equities when historically they would have been, you know,”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the way liberty media quotes Formula One these days, right? That's FWNK funk, funk is a tracking stock out of it. Now, you don't actually, what the tracking stock is designed to do is to give you all of the economics of owning that business, but you don't necessarily have a lien on the assets of that business. That's still sitting within liberty media. The variable interest entity is, if you like, a legal construct to give you the same outcome as a tracking stock. But they've been around for so long. I mean, the first VIEs were, you know, were put together in my first tour in Asia in the late 90s. That's when that was when there were first put together because it was literally the only way to get. Yet an overseas listing executed for certain businesses within China at that time.”
2024-04-04 · Forward Guidance · Blind Squirrel Macro: China Will Unleash “Bloodbath” On Global Automobile Market | Rupert Mitchell on Electric Vehicles, Tires, Refiners, And Gold · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT