Memory mania or just catching up with fundamentals?

Listen to the full episode now or follow the Saxo Market Call on your favorite podcast app.

(and yes, pardon the bad math in the podcast on how far the aggressive S&P 500 target discussed is from the current price!)

Today’s Links

• Michael McNair with a TLDR post on Sirius XM, the financially profitable, but stagnating broadcast media (from space) company, who might be an acquisition target from a deep-pocketed suitor, he proposes, due to its possession of a fat chunk of the radio broadcast spectrum. More below in today’s Chart of the Day.

• Don’t know to what degree Chinese manufacturers can make inroads into the big three RAM memory chip makers (Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix) but Tom’s Hardware has noted that Chinese chips are finally showing up in mainstream RAM memory modules for the first time. These chips are not suitable for the highest end modules, but could bring relief to PC suppliers or at least self-building enthusiasts if the prices move lower as well.

• “You know when you’re at a Kiwi BBQ when someone brings up house prices before the sausages are cooked”. New Zealand has been one of those small open economies plagued by extreme moves in house prices going back to the post-GFC extremely low interest rate era. This article from Bloomberg mostly discusses the pandemic era pump in prices from lowered rates and the subsequent bust, with policy makers struggling for the right policy to deal with the problem. Canada has seen a similar struggle and the US market is frozen, without yet seeing broad-based declines, but likely only a small recession away from being stuck in the same boat.

• Jeffrey Currie weighs in on the risks the hyperscalers are running by taking such a capital-intensive approach to trying to grow their businesses, comparing the approach of John Rockefeller and Standard Oil - Currie points out that you have to own the chokepoints (right Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix, oh and Western Digital and Seagate? - at least for now.)

• Who to believe on the Hormuz Strait? Jeffrey Currie the vaunted commodity strategist continues to bemoan the lack of opening and the risks, saying “sell the tweet [Trump social media posts], buy the molecule [oil]”, while James E. Thorne says that with every day that passes, Iran ‘s power is eroded as supply chains shift away from allowing the Strait to continue to so viciously constrict supply reaching market and boosting output elsewhere (especially US output).

• What will the Warsh Fed be about? Certainly not tightening policy, according to James E. Thorne, who suggests a battle will be afoot for the new Fed Chair relative to Wall Street expectations and others on the Fed board.

• AI Bears versus AI Bulls. Hedgie with a post on X discussing Uber’s experience with encouraging AI use, only to discover that heavy token usage with Claude Code is not seeing a productivity boost or more useful software shipping. Is it just too early days or is there simply too much compute required to drive meaningful productivity growth for larger scale organizations? And then we have James E. Thorne again waxing optimistic on the ability for an AI super-cycle to deliver massive continuing profit growth far superior to current expectations and possibly taking the S&P 500 to 14,000-16,000 by 2021.

• Cem Karsan puts in an appearance on the Thoughtful Money podcast, talking long term expected return outlook when we already sit atop high valuations and a strong market. Good long term perspective and he talks ways to position for coming risks (these I have not yet listened to).

Chart of the Day - Are you Sirius?

Not a company I have thought about in a long while, but the TLDR post from Michael McNair on the company as a potential target for those looking to buy it chiefly for its ownership of fat chunk of broadcasting spectrum far more than for its media business is an interesting one. The market may have gotten the memo recently as the stock price has picked up 50% or so from recent lows. Time will tell if this company becomes an acquisition target and, if so, at what price - it sells at 8-9 times earnings, yielding around 3.5% at current prices with no topline growth for years. The monster jump in late 2024 was on the culmination of Warren Buffett’s move to acquire a chunk of the company (revealed at 31% after he had been buying the company and the associated Liberty Media for quite some time) and the more recent surge might be on enthusiasm for all things space-related as we head toward SpaceX’s IPO soon. The company came from a near death experience in 2009, when its share traded hands for as little as 50 cents a share - down from as high as 89 dollars a share in 2004 (which was up from a low of under 4 dollars a share in 2003, down in turn from the all-time high in 2000 of…656 dollars a share). This is not an investment recommendation.