winkelby

my gut is that the cap-ex build-out to ramp up "hyper-scalers" cloud computing centers will show signs of fatigue and slow down by then. the multi $100B spend on cloud infrastructure is unsustainable and unwise.  Further, there isn't much revenue coming in for their cloud AI offerings (MSFT's co-pilot is slow to gain traction) and on-board AI via smaller LLMs are in the ascendency.  As NVDIAs massive PE is built on continued growth, I see multiple contraction as their price comes back into orbit (though MSFT AMZN GOOG APPL are going to see a hit as well) and NVDIA should fall faster as AI is their main growth driver. 

While there are some great use cases in companies/govt/industries out there - I'm still waiting for the "Killer-App" that will drive mass adoption of AI . IE something that justifies all the infrastructure spend. 

israel (bibi) has been harping on taking out irans nuke capabilities for years and now he has a really good reason to. 

the US (and other partners) dont want to see israel attack oil infrastructure for fear of high oil prices in an election season.  

there are plenty of Iranian government and military sites that are valid targets. but if the israelis are going to strike iran they really need to take out the nukes. 

a key consideration is not hitting civilian infrastructure. we want to clear a space for the Iranian people to rise up - not piss them off or galvanize them to the regime.  

there have been so many highly suspicious accidents in nato countries since the war in ukraine that i think this is more than likely. (think gas trucks bursting into flames under major highway  interchange overpasses in PA and CA - and other events in europe). in fact, this has probably happened already. putin sees sabotage  (payback) as fair play given that ukraine has teams teams roaming  around in russia looking to sow havoc. cyber is just a faster, easier, cheaper, safer and unattributable way to do it 

the problem here is attribution. first, its all too easy for russian hackers to hide their tracks. and even if our experts are able to track  down, the culprits (im always blown away when we can put faces on cyber criminals and indiict individuals) , its not at all certain that the affected govts/govt depts/companies will want to pin the blame on russians because of political reasons.  

iwith iran's continued  support for terror groups who are actively engaging in combat the chances of war just keeps getting higher and higher.  with israel publiclly stating they are going to strike back for the second  salvo "significantly" puts us at the edge of the abyss. 

frankly, i'm surprised the SDF has made it this long.  kudos to everyone making that happen. i know i'm rooting for them. 

but (a) stuck between the Turks, ISIL and Assad (b) comprised of a hodge-podge of ethnic, religious and political sub-groups who might be fighting each other if they didn't have bigger problems and (c) relying on the kindness of strangers to survive - the chances of internal or external forces causing a fracture in the time-frame given (~14 months from now) is fairly possible. 

based purely on social security actuarial tables for life expectancy, a 72 year old american has a 3% chance of death on any given year.  as a president, i would guess putin's health care is better than the average american.  even so, i will stick with 3% chance of death in this upcoming year. thats the base case. 

add to that political risk. while putin has a pretty firm grip on power - eliminating, jailing or exiling anyone who might oppose him - he is a  dictator and all does not always end well for dictators (especially hated ones) so im adding another 2% for political risk factor.