Tremendous

An angel investor's take on life and business

  • Hedge Fund Giant Losing $40 Million a Day

    The bloodletting continues at hedge fund giant Tiger Global Management. The fund lost approximately $40 million a day in October.

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    From a new report in the Financial Times:

    Losses at Tiger Global Management continued to mount in October after the New York-based hedge fund was buffeted by the whipsawing value of technology stocks in the US and a sell-off in China.

    The firm’s flagship hedge fund lost 5.4 per cent in October, taking losses this year to a new low of 54.7 per cent, according to a person with knowledge of the figures.

    Tiger managed about $17 billion in assets at midyear. With October’s 21 trading days, that 5% loss amounts to roughly $40 million per day or over $6,000,000 per hour.

    The NASDAQ index of technology stocks rose slightly last month. This underscores Tiger’s abysmal stock picking.

    Tiger’s losses may be even worse than they appear.

    Its $40 billion portfolio of private tech startups dwarfs its public holdings. Tiger values those companies itself.

    Has Tiger really taken markdowns commensurate with its huge losses in public stocks?

    I doubt it. Why make a bad situation look even worse?

    The end game for Tiger is liquidation.

    Their fund would have to more than double just to get back to its high point. Only then could the partners start collecting that juicy 20% performance fee again.

    That fat fee is the biggest prize in hedgefundland. You can bet these traders won’t want to give it up.

    If Tiger liquidates and the partners start a new fund, they can start charging performance fees on day one. The slate is clean!

    If I were an investor in Tiger, I’d be dumping my shares. These losses are huge and show no signs of improving.

    Why pay Tiger’s fees when you can park your money in a low fee index fund instead?

    What do you think the future holds for Tiger? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    More on markets:

    Tiger Global Down 52% — Losses Over $18 Billion

    Hedge Fund Manager’s Arrest Shows How Market Manipulation Works

    VC’s Sour on China — Funding Down 44%

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    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: Tiger Global CEO Chase Coleman

  • Is It Time for a Startup Hiring Spree?

    Many top tech companies are dumping talented engineers. Is it time for startups to pounce?

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    Last year, I watched many of my portfolio companies struggle with hiring. They had raised big funding rounds in the hot market, but good engineers were all spoken for.

    With layoffs at companies like Twitter, Stripe and Lyft, the game has changed. From a new report in The Wall Street Journal:

    Kathy Zhu said she is lining up candidates for engineering, customer service and other roles at Streamline AI, the two-year-old tech startup she co-founded. They include prospects from “two or three companies that just had big layoffs,” she said.

    “There’s an abundance of talent right now, because of these layoffs,” Ms. Zhu said. “A few years ago, there was no way we could’ve attracted candidates like this.”


    It’s a welcome reprieve for startups that struggled to compete with tech giants.

    Facebook paid $500,000 a year or more to many experienced engineers. No startup can compete with that.

    But now Facebook is planning huge layoffs. That $500,000 a year offer at Big Tech isn’t happening.

    In addition to frozen hiring and layoffs, many tech giants’ stock has been crushed. Facebook’s stock is down 75% from the peak last fall.

    Facebook offered my friend a job last year. He declined, uncomfortable with the company’s impact on the world.

    That also proved a wise financial decision. His stock grants would now be almost worthless.

    The value of stock grants falling off a cliff makes Big Tech workers more willing to leave for a startup. The golden handcuffs have been loosened.

    After all, who cares if you leave before your stock vests if the stock isn’t worth much anyway?

    But despite the buyer’s market for engineers, startups will likely keep hiring limited. The funding environment is difficult, and preserving cash is more important than splurging on talent.

    The best option for startups is to snap up a couple of top candidates you could never have gotten otherwise. Keep the rest of the business lean and mean.

    Is hiring getting easier for your startup? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    More on tech:

    Bridge Rounds: The Path to Riches?

    VC’s Sour on China — Funding Down 44%

    The First Time I Used the Internet

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    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: “Mark Zuckerberg” by jdlasica is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

  • Bridge Rounds: The Path to Riches?

    We usually think of bridge rounds as throwing good money after bad. But new data shows that some bridge rounds can be an amazing bet.

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    Bridge rounds with a top tier VC are some of the best performing investments in venture capital. They have returned a multiple of over 5x in less than 4 years, according to a new analysis from AngelList:

    …on an indexed basis, the top-tier / bridge segment is the best performing segment. We find that for investments aged 2+ years (completed after 2018), the gross TVPI of capital in bridge deals with top-tier VCs vastly outperforms all other segments:

    Case in point: a consumer app I re-invested in this summer. I first invested in this startup’s seed round last fall.

    Since then, it had more than 5x-ed revenue. Burn is low and the company is firing on all cylinders.

    Seeing the same great performance I did, several top tier VC’s joined the round. But the valuation was only a little higher than the fall of 2021.

    Given the opportunity to put more capital into one of my winners, I backed up the truck. And I hope to invest even more in their Series A!

    Why is this such a great bet?

    I already knew the company well, and I saw it execute on its plan over a period of 9 months. Meanwhile, the revenue multiple I paid this time was far lower than before!

    So what’s in it for the founder?

    They can quickly raise capital from investors they already know and trust. Then, they can get back to building.

    They’ve still preserved the option to get a Series A at a much higher valuation. And now they have the cash to get them there.

    The outperformance of bridge rounds with top tier VC’s is no accident. Many top firms opportunistically offer more money to their top performers, even when they’re not raising.

    If you’re getting the investor updates and you saw the company just tripled revenue, why wouldn’t you offer them another $1 million? What’s the point of waiting for someone else to steal the deal from you?

    But we have to distinguish these awesome bridge rounds from their evil twin: the bridge to nowhere.

    A company in my portfolio that’s barely growing and burning tons of cash raised a small bridge recently.

    Tellingly, no top tier VC participated. They were only able to raise from a few angels.

    I declined to participate. I’m happy to help the company in other ways, but follow-on capital is reserved for top performers.

    No exceptions.

    I’m excited to keep re-investing in the stars of my portfolio. I can’t wait to see them use that cash to take over the world!

    Do you do bridge rounds? Why or why not?

    Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    Have a great weekend everybody!

    More on tech:

    Bridge Rounds: Yea or Nay?

    VC’s Sour on China — Funding Down 44%

    The First Time I Used the Internet

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    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: “Fishing at Jade Belt Bridge, Summer Palace, Beijing” by Dimitry B is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

  • VC’s Sour on China — Funding Down 44%

    Venture funds are giving up on China. Funding has fallen 44% this year amid a government crackdown on tech.

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    From a report out overnight in Bloomberg:

    Venture capital investments in China are falling sharply this year, making it one of the worst-performing countries globally after the Communist Party’s crackdown and an overall decline in tech valuations.

    The value of venture capital deals in the country tumbled 44% to $62.1 billion through October, compared with the same period in 2021, according to research firm Preqin.

    …China is among the worst performers, with a venture investment drop that is worse than the global decline and the pullback in the US. 

    The US has fared considerably better than China. Venture funding is down just 27% in the first three quarters compared to the same period in 2021, according to CB Insights.

    The Communist party has cracked down on numerous Chinese tech companies. This has crushed the stocks of companies like Alibaba and DiDi Global.

    As if that wasn’t enough, neverending Covid lockdowns have taken a toll on the economy. From Bloomberg:

    China’s venture landscape has been aggravated by the Communist Party’s harsh Covid Zero policy. Lockdowns in cities like Shanghai and Zhengzhou have hampered all manner of business, from advertising and investments to the production of Tesla Inc. automobiles and Apple Inc. iPhones.

    Some VC’s are hiding out in semiconductors. The government currently favors the industry as a strategic priority.

    That’s all well and good until Xi Jinping decides foreigners shouldn’t own assets critical for national security. Then, venture fund go bye-bye.

    Investors getting involved with China are playing with fire. It is a brutal dictatorship with no respect for human rights or the rule of law.

    We should invest in places like the US, Europe and Japan. Democracies that take property rights seriously are a much better place to do business.

    Would you invest in China? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    More on tech:

    Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • The First Time I Used the Internet

    It was 1994. I was eight years old. And I was pretty sure this was going to change everything.

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    My mother and I were in the basement of a low-slung brick building. This was the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, the first place in town to get the internet.

    My mom explained that you could type any question into the computer and get an answer. I hesitated, wondering, “What should I ask first?”

    I typed in question after question, amazed as answers popped up like magic. Before I knew it, our hour was up and we emerged back into the light.

    I was pretty sure this was going to be big.

    All week, I wrote down question after question. I could hardly wait for Saturday, when we could go to the computer lab again.

    About a year later, we found ourselves in a downtown office. Cables hung from the ceiling and boxes were half unpacked.

    These were the offices of NorthNet, a new internet service provider. We were going to be one of their first customers.

    I don’t know how we ever afforded it. But even back then, my mom must have seen that this was the future.

    Soon, we were hearing the screech of the modem and interrogating Webcrawler at home.

    By the late 90’s, my mom had switched to a new search engine called Copernic. Copernic aggregated results from a bunch of different search engines.

    My mom began to notice that most of the best results were coming from a new search engine.

    It was called Google. And it was just a few months old.

    She wrote to them to tell them how great their results were. They responded with a care package full of Google swag: hats, shirts, you name it!

    If only we had been accredited investors. We could’ve put a check in! 🙂

    Those were great days on the early internet. The future seemed limitless and tech could only do good.

    I didn’t know it then, but those hours in the computer lab would help form the rest of my life.

    I worked in medical software after college. Later, I became an angel investor.

    Today, I look for startups that can be as transformational as Google was.

    They’re rare. But it only takes one.

    Do you remember the first time you used the internet? What was it like?

    Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    More on tech:

    What I Don’t Invest In

    Andreessen Crypto Fund Down 40%

    Why Now Is the Best Time to Invest in Startups

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    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photos: Webcrawler in 1996

  • What I Don’t Invest In

    Being an angel investor is never boring. I see everything from spacecraft to nude resorts.

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    But I can’t invest in everything!

    I focus on the areas I know best. And I want to back companies building the type of world I want to live in.

    Here are some areas I don’t touch:

    1) Gambling. I don’t believe in it, simple as that.

    To me, gambling startups are tech at its most predatory. Many people struggled to stop gambling even when the casino was hundreds of miles away.

    What happens when it’s in their pocket?

    In a free society, I don’t have a problem with adults making the decision to gamble. But I don’t have to fund it.

    Gambling is also a tough business. You’re offering a commodity product – the ability to take a bet.

    It’s a race to the bottom and margins are razor thin.

    2) Drugs. There may be incredible applications of illegal drugs like psilocybin and ketamine for conditions like depression.

    But I don’t have the scientific background to evaluate these claims. What’s more, in our enthusiasm, I’m concerned we may be glossing over the risks that come along with some compounds.

    3) Space. Who doesn’t love spaceships?

    I look forward to a world with lightning fast satellite internet for everyone and resorts on Mars.

    But I don’t have a scientific background. How would I know a good space company from a bad one?

    Better leave it to Elon.

    4) Biotech. I would love to invest in biotech.

    I find it fascinating. And its potential to improve our lives is limitless.

    But my background is in software, not medicine. How will I know if a company is good or bad, or what a fair price is?

    Instead, I stick to what I know. And when I see the occasional biotech startup that gets me excited, I pass it along to investors I know who are experts in the field.

    5) D2C. Selling physical goods direct to consumers online used to be a great business model.

    Not anymore.

    Apple stopping ad tracking has caused customer acquisition costs to triple for many companies. Supply chain issues crush margins and make filling orders difficult.

    Even the biggest successes, like Peloton, have been crushed. Its stock is down 90% from the highs.

    I’m better off in a pure software business without the messy “stuff”.

    It’s hard to succeed if we don’t focus. And in startupland, it’s easy to lose a fortune investing in exciting things you don’t understand.

    I stick to my knitting and invest in pure software companies. Most sell software to businesses (SaaS), the area I worked in before becoming an investor.

    This gives me the best shot at identifying a great company, since I know what great looks like in my field. It’s also easier to add value in an industry I know well.

    What areas do you invest in? What areas do you avoid?

    Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    There will be no blog tomorrow. I have an acting gig.

    See you on Wednesday!

    More on tech:

    Andreessen Crypto Fund Down 40%

    Why Now Is the Best Time to Invest in Startups

    How I Help Startups

    Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: “sand hill road sign” by stevendamron is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

  • Why Now Is the Best Time to Invest in Startups

    Venture capitalists and angels are running scared. Venture funding is down 53% from last year.

    But let me tell you why now is the best time to invest.

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    1) Lower valuations. Companies only get so big.

    There are fewer than 50 private tech companies worth more than $10 billion (“decacorns”). We can treat $10 billion as the approximate ceiling for an exit.

    So if you get into a startup at a $50 million valuation, you have just 1/5th the upside of someone who got in at $10 million.

    Right now, I’m seeing seed round valuations cluster around $10-12 million. Last year, I routinely saw seed rounds between $20-35 million.

    So, our returns from the 2022 vintage should be far better than usual!

    Think of it like grocery shopping. If you love eggs, you’re going to buy more if they’re 50% off, aren’t you?

    2) Less competitive rounds. It can be hard to get into the best startups, no matter how much you’re willing to pay.

    But these days, I get into almost any company I want. Investors have the bargaining power in today’s market.

    3) Easier recruiting. The biggest problem startups have isn’t raising money.

    It’s finding awesome employees!

    When Facebook was offering every Tom, Dick and Harry $400,000 a year, startups couldn’t compete. But now that most of Big Tech is doing layoffs, startups can snap up top engineers.

    4) The job is easier! Many of the least viable startups have given up raising money and will probably go out of business soon.

    This means fewer deals in my inbox than last year. 2021’s frenetic pace has been replaced with a more stately one.

    So what’s missing? Mostly, it’s the $100 million seed rounds in crypto companies with no product or customers.

    Fine by me!

    5) History is on our side. Time and time again, the most iconic companies have been founded in downturns.

    Uber, Airbnb, LinkedIn, the list goes on and on. Maybe it’s a coincidence.

    Or maybe downturns really are a better time to build.

    Either way, I like my odds in a down market.

    What do you think of today’s bear market in tech?

    Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 👋

    More on tech:

    Andreessen Crypto Fund Down 40%

    How I Help Startups

    Big Problems at Divvy Homes

    Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: “A Street Called Awesome” by moonlightbulb is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

  • Andreessen Crypto Fund Down 40%

    It’s crypto winter, and Andreessen Horowitz is shivering. Its main crypto fund is down 40% this year.

    From a new report in The Wall Street Journal:

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    As cryptocurrency prices soared last year, no investor bet more on the sector than Andreessen Horowitz.

    The timing wasn’t good.

    Andreessen’s flagship crypto fund shed around 40% of its value in the first half of this year, according to people familiar with the matter. That decline is much larger than the 10% to 20% drops recorded by other venture funds, which have largely avoided the risky practice of purchasing volatile cryptocurrencies, according to fund investors.

    Many of the firm’s largest investments have been crushed. Coinbase stock is down nearly 80% since its IPO. Solana has dropped 82%.

    NFT marketplace OpenSea may be the best investment Andreessen’s new crypto funds have made so far. Its valuation soared over 100-fold in ten months to $13 billion.

    But now, OpenSea trading volumes are down 99% from their peak. The platform is a ghost town, and one of Andreessen’s best investments may be a total loss.

    Andreessen likely scaled its crypto funds too quickly. It went from a $515 million fund in 2020 to a $4.5 billion fund this year, the largest ever.

    The benchmark for a decent return is a 3x fund. Can Andreessen make $13.5 billion in crypto?

    If the firm gets a 10% position in a startup, that requires a $135 billion outcome. There isn’t a crypto company in the world worth anything close to that.

    Andreessen isn’t just buying shares in crypto startups. It’s also buying their tokens, a rare and extremely risky move.

    These tokens confer no ownership in a company. Their prices are very volatile.

    Andreessen’s one saving grace is that it distributed Coinbase shares shortly after IPO, locking in billions in gains. That should preserve good returns in the early crypto funds.

    But the picture for the new funds is bleak. Andreessen has made fewer investments since the crypto crash, and no one knows when prices will bottom.

    I’ve been deploying capital faster in this weak market. Andreessen may be missing great opportunities by pulling back.

    Perhaps its limited partners (LP’s), the investors in the funds, are telling the firm to stand pat.

    I think Andreessen is over-committed to crypto. A $4.5 billion fund is too big for this nascent industry.

    Deploying sums that large will require real products with real uses beyond speculation. Any day now…

    What do you think Andreessen should do? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    More on tech:

    How I Help Startups

    Big Problems at Divvy Homes

    How I Source Deals

    Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: “Chris Dixon” by jdlasica is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

  • How I Help Startups

    You’ve decided to back a startup and wired in your money. So you’re done, right?

    Wrong!

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    The best investors help their portfolio companies throughout their lives. This collaboration has helped Silicon Valley dominate the technology industry.

    Investors want to help you! It’s one of the most fun parts of the job.

    So be sure to update your investors monthly (or at least quarterly) and include things you need help with. If investors don’t know what you need, they can’t help you!

    Here are some ways I like to help:

    1) Fundraising. This is the most important way I can help.

    When a founder is trying to raise a round, I put the word out to the many investors in my network. The founder gets a bunch of meetings with VC’s without having to do anything!

    Many VC’s don’t respond to cold messages. So warm intros are critical.

    These intros also help me. By feeding these good deals to other investors, I ensure they’ll feed me their best deals!

    Everybody wins.

    2) Promotion.

    This blog gets significant traffic. When I invest in a company, I like to shout them out here — with the founder’s permission, of course.

    This can bring in customers and employees. My site linking to theirs also builds their domain authority, which is critical for position in search engines.

    3) Finding customers.

    I meet new startups every day. Some of them are struggling with issues that my portfolio companies are solving!

    When that happens, I like to introduce the two founders and see if they can work together.

    4) Recruiting. Finding great employees is the hardest thing a startup will ever do.

    With the right people, everything else falls into place!

    So when a startup is hiring, I blast out the job requirements to my network. It can yield some great candidates!

    5) Advice. I’m careful with this one.

    I never offer advice unless the founder asks. Too many cooks in the kitchen means burnt food and a grease fire!

    But when founders do ask for guidance, I’m happy to spend as much time with them as they want.

    Recently, the founder of one of the top companies in my portfolio asked for help with investor updates. It’s his first venture-backed company, so he had no idea how to write one.

    He showed me a beautiful document that ran on for many pages. And I had to tell him that was massive overkill!

    A brief update containing mostly numbers is best. It takes less time to write and is more informative.

    As an angel, it takes a long time to get a return. If you ever get one at all.

    In the mean time, have fun with the job! And what could be more fun than helping a great, hardworking entrepreneur!

    Investors: how do you help your portfolio companies? Founders: have your investors helped you?

    Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

    More on tech:

    Big Problems at Divvy Homes

    Russian Engineers Are Fleeing the Country

    How I Source Deals

    Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

    Photo: “Help wanted sign” by andjohan is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

  • Europe Has…Too Much Natural Gas?

    Russia has cut off Europe’s gas supplies. But despite Putin’s best efforts, it’s looking like a toasty winter on the continent.

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    Ships carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) are lined up in ports across Europe. The only problem: finding a place to put it all!

    From a report out this morning in Bloomberg:

    Europe suddenly has more gas than it can use.

    Starved of the Russian imports on which its long relied, Europe has rushed to import liquefied natural gas from around the world to fill up storage. Now, a combination of unusually warm weather and successful bidding for cargoes means facilities are almost full before Europeans have even turned the thermostats up. Gas prices have also fallen back sharply, and are less than a third of their summer peak.

    Bloomberg’s index for loaded tankers on the water for 20 days or more has risen to the highest since at least 2017. Last week, Spain’s Enagas SA warned it may need to limit numbers as it has little room to absorb excess imports.

    This sudden turnabout shows how well markets work. Natural gas prices spiked in Europe, so suppliers sent their gas there.

    After all, why not get the best price?

    But so many sent gas, the price has plummeted. It’s now lower than when the war in Ukraine began.

    Russia has lost its best bargaining chip. If it can’t freeze the continent, what other options does it have?

    Russia has also damaged its economic future.

    Europe will never view it as a reliable supplier again. Putin may struggle to find a buyer for his gas, given his prior treachery.

    Russia should keep in mind that there’s an expiration date on that gas. Solar energy is already cheaper in many circumstances.

    Governments are working to limit CO2 emissions. Renewables are scaling and getting cheaper every day.

    In a few decades, there may be little demand for fossil fuels.

    The future for Russia looks bleak. Meanwhile, with its energy supplies diversified, Europe will be more secure than ever.

    What do you think the future holds for Russia and Europe? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know.

    More on markets:

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