What do you mean? 
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Verneri knows what heâs doing. You can give me the nickname âlike-fisher.â @Sijoittaja-alokas
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The same in English without the sugarcoating: You wonât have a penny left by the time the moment to short actually arrives 
(in the worst-case scenario, youâll even have to sell your Substack just to pay the rent)
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Here is a small comparison of net profit margins 
https://x.com/carbonfinancex/status/2062166903821353306
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Itâs a small world. About twenty years ago, I was playing book publisher and published Riku-Mattiâs concisely titled masterâs thesis as a booklet: âQueen: the formation of the bandâs public image in the Anglo-American rock press between 1973-1992â. Itâs great that the man is still focusing on meaningful topics, like Olvi.
P.S. When I also published one of my own works about twenty years ago, Olvi acted as a sponsor and got its logo on the back cover next to Tapola. Go Olvi!
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An interesting article on what investing is like today compared to the past, and it appears to be free to read.
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The AI boom is ingenious in the sense that it has many characteristics of a perpetual motion machine. Or itâs like a âFIREâ enthusiast (Financial Independence, Retire Early) who recycles even their own urine.
This chart is coming to next weekâs spring season finale âVarttiâ (Quarter), where I will address for the second time (last time about six months ago) the question of whether AI is a stock market bubble.
In practice, all players recycle profits back to each other, either directly or through the market as investments and debt, so they can order more cloud capacity/chips/language models. In contrast, the revenue coming from the models themselves is so small so far that it in no way covers the investments. 
Because of this, one has to envision a future where a) the prices of language models rise, b) agents use tokens at an absolutely insane rate whether they are doing sensible things or not, and c) physical AI marches through the door any moment now.
Thatâs why this also looks so unstoppable. If the Big Tech companies pump Anthropic full of cash, it can order cloud capacity from them for years. Because there are bottlenecks, there is a constant shortage of capacity. Therefore, more must be invested in capacity again.
I also made a âVarttiâ about bottlenecks a moment ago.
https://www.inderes.fi/videos/rahakas-ai-pullonkaulatreidi-or-vernerin-vartti
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In the future, I will mainly strive to invest in the US only through indices and concentrate my stock picking on inefficient markets. Especially in shorter-term trading attempts, I have unfortunately often ended up drawing the short straw. That is hardly a surprise, considering that a retail investor trading on the US stock exchange is akin to gambling.
Speaking of inefficient markets, the small-cap end of the Helsinki Stock Exchange, in particular, looks wonderfully inefficient. You can contemplate stock purchases in total peace while reading the newspaper and sipping coffee from a saucer through a sugar cube. There is no FOMO because there is no hype. At least to me, it currently looks like there are numerous completely mispriced stocks among Helsinkiâs small caps. Of course, they might also stay that way, precisely because the market is so inefficient.
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This put me in a great mood while getting into the summer holiday spirit. I think Iâll brew some coffee and put a sugar cube between my lips, of course.
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Have other forum members noticed or observed a steady decline in the quality of S-Groupâs restaurants and service points?
Iâm not exactly the biggest fan of âS-eateriesâ myself, but sometimes due to convenience, haste, etc., I end up visiting them with the family. Over the last few years, I have noticed a steady downward slide in quality across several S-Group feeding troughs (ABCs, Prisma buffet restaurants, etc.). This has been the case across multiple regions, for example while traveling, so this canât really be blamed on just one local cooperative.
The quality of the food has gone down, empty dishes arenât refilled, soda machines are low on either syrup or CO2 and the drinks seem watered down, the general level of cleanliness is poor, etc.
Yesterday evening, forced by circumstances, we went to a local ABC to eat âa la carte,â and the menus were displayed on screens on the opposite wall about 10 meters away for only 5 seconds at a time before switching to the next page. I asked if they had a traditional menu since, being nearsighted, itâs hard to browse through that quickly. âNo, we donât.â Ehhhh.
I canât really think of any other reason than that the S-Group has grown into a structure that is too large and bloated within Finnish society, and real competition has been stifled under this oligopoly. This has been visible in the grocery trade for a long time, and now it seems the same is starting to bleed into the catering businesses.
5-10 years ago, I think ABCs and other âS-establishmentsâ (sedulat) were still quite good places in terms of price-quality ratio. Now prices are rising and quality is falling.
Depressing. I wonât be taking my euros there anymore if there are other options.
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In many localities (for example, Joensuu), almost all restaurants are starting to fall under the S Group. Many are probably delighted because they get more of that âBONUS,â even though competition between restaurants is being stifled and the quality of service is collapsing at the same time â but no one cares about that as long as they get to flash that green card.
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I started my career as a cashier at Prisma and saw with my own eyes how people bought useless stuff just to reach the 5% bonus level (if I recall correctly, you had to spend âŹ1,500 a month at S Group locations to get there).
That bonus system is psychologically very clever and really resonates with the masses.
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There is definitely FOMO! To keep it in check, you should watch todayâs Verneriâs Vartti.
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Iâve been there! In December 2024, Lidl offered double bonuses, meaning if you spent âŹ1,000, you got a âŹ200 Lidl gift card. FOMO hit hard, had to buy in.
During the days between Christmas and New Year, after a whole month of splurging, I still had to spend another âŹ400. By then, I had so much discounted chocolate, dry goods, toothpaste, deodorant, etc., that it actually started feeling bad. I still have one last roll of dental floss waiting to be opened.
I probably canât consider myself an average consumer, considering that in January I only used those gift cards I received, in February I spent about âŹ150 on groceries and household supplies for the family, and it wasnât until late March that my buying behavior started returning to normal.
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Repurposing urine in general might be worthwhile; a couple of days ago there was an article in Hesari about Sweden, where this is being trialed. (paywall: Stadionin pisuaarit kerÀÀvĂ€t virtsaa â tavoitteena korvata tuontilannoitteita | HS.fi )
âAccording to [Professor] VinnerĂ„s, urine contains all the nutrients that crops need. In theory, it could replace up to 30 percent of the synthetic fertilizers used in Sweden.â
âUrine collected at the Eleda Stadium is dried in closed containers, mixed with side streams from Oatlyâs oat drink productionâmeaning oat-based fractions generated during productionâand processed into pellets. The pellets that end up in oat fields resemble the granular fertilizer that farmers are already accustomed to handling.â
âThe background of the entire project is the question of why we flush valuable nutrients down the drain while food production is dependent on imported fertilizers and fossil-based fertilizer production.â
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Thatâs not a bad deal if you use it on things you need anyway and that donât expire. Like toilet paper (as long as itâs not the yellow kind) or, for example, sugar.
And if that amount of sugar doesnât go down with normal use, you can always use it to make sugar wine (kilju). In anticipation of that, you can use some of the money to buy canisters like these, where you can store the brew during peacetime and water if things get tough.
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Astronauts are perhaps a larger group of urine recyclers. But indeed, peeing outside is a convenient way to fertilize yard plants. Oneâs own urine is a relatively safe substance. If collecting larger quantities, storing it for six months before use destroys harmful compounds, etc.
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These bring to mind the annual videos of âPolish Markkuâ (Oroco, Voxtur, Adoro), who is often criticized even on this forum, where the guy always reminds viewers that in small caps, you will ALWAYS take a massive hit at some point when the share price goes down the drain. People who join during a bull market chasing sudden multi-baggers might not necessarily handle it when those portfolio stocks drop, say, -70%.
And you canât really prepare for it by reading books or other investorsâ experiences, because you only see it in a real-life situation when losses start accumulatingâwhose head can handle being a small-cap investor. And of course, thereâs nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be a boxer, and for other types of people, something like clay pigeon shooting with a shotgun might be a better fit, as in that sport, thereâs no risk of the clay pigeon punching you in the nose 
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Summer vacation starts now, nearly 5 weeks in a row! 
To celebrate the start of my vacation, I bought two new pairs of jeans, the same brand and model as my old ones. I was happy to notice that I can forget about the W33 waist size; from now on, itâs W32. Itâs hard to say if that three-year extreme sugar avoidance plays a part, but this âshrinkingâ feels good. More than 10 years ago, my waist was size W34, so the direction is slow but definitely right. 
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