China, Coke, Gold … And The Winter Solstice

CHINA

From the Economist: 

China proved its strengths in 2025—and Donald Trump helped

The extraordinary thing is that Mr Trump has played into Mr Xi’s hands, both with his tariffs abroad and his wrecking-ball at home.

. . . [His] attack on science will impede American innovation.  Framed as an effort to eliminate inefficiency and woke ideology, his efforts have curbed financing for vital research. His hostility to foreign scientists, especially ethnic Chinese ones, [has also hurt].  China has already benefited.

COCAINE

I’m no fan.  I tried it a few times but was lucky — I didn’t love it.  It didn’t grab and ruin my life as it has so many.

That said, I think it should be legal.  (Shouldn’t Americans be free to drink or smoke, or even do coke, in their pursuit of happiness, if they want to?)  And that attempting to transport it from Venezuela to Trinidad for eventual export, presumably, to the U.S. should not be punishable by death-without-trial.

Legalizing coke is understandably controversial.

But the death-without-trial for Venezuelans part?  It blows my mind that House and Senate Republicans are fine with that (or pretend to be).

HYMC

A lot of our speculations crater (see, for fun, Google Puts and Soap Slivers from 20 years ago).

Others, like PRKR, ANIX, OPRT, CNF, UNIT, RNGE, VERU — even BOREF, I guess — “remain to be seen.”

But every once in a while we get lucky.  The latest example: HYMC, which reached $17.11 in after-hours trading Friday — up from $3.20 when suggested six months ago; $2.20 a couple of years before that.

By now, I’ve sold about half in my tax-sheltered accounts — though it’s certainly acting as though it wants to go higher, and very well may.  Not only is it “a potential gold mine” — literally — with the price of gold more than double what it was when we first started buying . . . it now seems also to be a potential silver mine, with the price of silver also going through the roof.

This recent HYMC write-up offers fair market valuations ranging from $4 to $40 a share, so what it’s currently worth seems to be anybody’s guess.

I haven’t sold any in my taxable accounts, but Friday I sold some “covered calls” against about a quarter of my position.  Specifically, calls that paid me $778* each and gave some nameless faceless buyer the right to “call away” from me 100 shares at 25 a share anytime between now and January 21, 2028.**

Let’s say you gambled $2,500 to buy 1,000 shares a couple of years ago.  It’s grown to $17,000.  Now, worried it might drop — but not eager to pay tax on the gain or miss out on possible further gains — you don’t sell.  Instead, you “write covered calls” on those 1,000 shares at $8.  You get $8,000, and here’s what could happen:

1.  HYMC goes to $60.  Whoever bought those calls from you at 8 is pretty happy.  He limited his risk to $8 a share, in case HYMC collapsed; and he had to pay you $8 for the right to buy your shares from you at the $25.  But that left him with a $27 long-term gain in a year or two on an investment of just $8.  But you’re not miserable, either.  Instead of selling your 1,000 shares today for $17,000 you got paid $25,000 for them — and got an $8,000 premium (taxed as a short-term gain) — all on a $2,500 bet (made with money you could truly afford to lose.

2. HYMC never gets much higher than $25 (so is unlikely to be called away), but limps across the finish line on January 21, 2028, at exactly $25.  He loses everything, but you — you lucky bastard — wound up with $33,000 (before tax, if in a taxable account) on a $2,500 investment.

3. HYMC has fallen to 9 by January 21, 2028.  You keep the $8,000 and either sell the stock, if you want to, or hold it and are not much worse off than you are today (though in a taxable account you’d owe tax on that $8,000) — and it still might go up to $25 or $60 or who knows.

The only way this can work out badly is for HYMC to crater.  Even then, you’d keep the $8,000 — not the worst result on a $2,500 bet.

*No tax is due on that $778 until the calls are exercised or expire, or I buy them back for less than I was paid. 

**Because these are long-term calls, they “suspend” the holding period of the underlying shares . . . but that’s not an issue for me, because I have already held them more than a year.  If you’re thinking of writing calls against shares in which you have a short-term profit, the IRS will “stop the clock” on those shares if the calls you write have a long expiration date or are “deep in the money.” Not the end of the world, but something to consider.

AND A HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE TO ALL