A little mental framework that might be helpful for others.

Basically how hedge funds think about their PnL, amongst other things, boils down to 2 concepts; slugging ratio and batting average.

Slugging ratio = average nominal $ amount that you win vs average nominal $ amount that you lose

Batting average = your winning ratio - how often you win considering all your trades

Basically, slugging ratio x batting average = PnL

This means that while you have to get a majority of your trades directionally right (though the best PMs only have a batting average of 56%), more importantly, you have to have the guts to absolutely size up when you have conviction (maximize wins), or to have the humility and discipline to size down when you have low conviction (minimize losses) for a high slugging ratio.

What separates the top 10% of PMs from the rest is probably their ability to manage sizing and execution, and not whether they get the stock price directionally right or wrong initially. With positive slugging, you can be a winning investor even with a 50% win rate, or even at <50%.

It’s hard to buy higher when you are right or sell lower when you are wrong, but to win at this game this mental barrier must be completely removed (it’s hard). Some totally reasonable examples of sizing up can be adding after a fantastic print, adding as the market comes to see your non-consensus view, adding as reality outperforms your initial expectations.

One of the things that helped me was to calculate my batting average and slugging ratio on a stock basis. It helped me to figure out where I needed to improve.

If your slugging sucks, improve your execution (are you taking the appropriate amount of risk for the level of conviction you have?).

If your batting average sucks, improve your research/lower your trades turnover (take only higher conviction trades).

Good read if you’re interested:
https://visioninvesting.substack.com/p/batting-average-versus-slugging-average

Short term, low-mid conviction, mid risk

On China, added some semis exposure and AI tech this morning

$1347.HK (Huahong Semi) @$36.06 HKD, $603501.SH (Will Semi) @$153.33 RMB, $2158.HK (Yidu Tech) @$8.28 (Similar to Tempus AI of China)

Semis are a good bet here (tho slightly late) as the gatekeeping of chips from the U.S. will naturally lead to domestic solutions — DeepSeek is a great example. In this day and age, it’s very hard to keep technology within closed walls imo.

Also, I think China will likely beat US in creating AI usecases relevant to the consumer given how open and integrated their apps are + willingness of consumer to surrender private data + US priority on finding AGI first.

Eyes on $BABA Q3 2025 earnings tonight. High stakes event

I think bad print gets ignored for the bigger story and thus gets bought up quickly, while good print will be a pleasant surprise - so I’m long into the print and will buy post print if it falls. Gut says up post print. Focus is on e-commerce and cloud/AI commentary. E-commerce deceleration prob priced in, while cloud/AI “true” upside unknown to outsiders and thus can be hyped up by mgmt.

Only concern I have is that in China, news/earnings almost always get leaked early to those on the ground (sometimes even by mgmt themselves), so the stock’s price action before the earnings (negative here) may be indicative of the print — though this could also just be general risk off into print after a huge run up so not really a reliable signal.

We’ll see, godspeed

Call live

Mgmt trying to position a transformation from e-commerce co to AI/Cloud co. If successful, multiple rerating will also drive upside. Market liking the AI focus thus far

BABA’s increased AI infrastructure capex spend will also be positive for our China semis names tmr. $1347.HK, $603501.SH

$BABA still only trading at 16x NTM P/E before revisions, prob ~14x NTM P/E after revisions from today’s results. Not forgetting their $52bn USD cash fortress for share buybacks/AI capex

Can easily see >$200 imo

Seems like a nothing burger, iPhone 6e? Lol

Forgot to mention this but also trimmed some $TEM at $87-$89. Stock is up a lot and as I think this upcoming Q results will be a nothingburger (stock isn’t priced for near term results anyway but may still be a downside catalyst), I sized down going into next Tues earnings to take some risk off.

There’s also quite some insider sales going on, not definitive but not a good look. Also wanted to have some ammo to buy huge dips post print if it happens.

I don’t really talk about exit price as entry price/target price isn’t really the purpose of this channel, but the volatility of this stock + earnings makes me slightly wary

$1347.HK up 12% to $41.3HKD off $BABA capex speak. Examples of the impact of read throughs in a value chain

Added $BILI to my China basket @ $22.34 USD. Something like the YouTube of China, beaten down stock with low expectations from street. If AI can be a step function gain that creates a positive flywheel for their advertising business — better content matching -> better click through rates -> higher advertisers share -> greater advertising revenue — then this can be a surprise small-mid cap. Small cap so sizing should be aligned

$BILI stock price has mostly followed Street’s NTM earnings revision. This current dislocation means either one is wrong;

1) stock price is wrong (street’s accelerating estimates are right, but market doesn’t believe it yet - stock price will catch up when a catalyst happens to make the market believe, usually through repeated beats)

2) stock price is right (street estimates have gotten ahead of themselves, and as stock price is forward looking, it is front running the incoming decel in st’s earnings estimates)

I’m betting on the former here because of potential AI driven step function

Last week saw correction in popular stocks that were multibaggers in 2024. Stuff like CAVA PLTR APP VST HIMS RDDT RKLB LUNR ASTS. Many of these stocks are from different sectors - so it does seem like a market-wide unwind in momentum stocks. Friday was also the worst trading day of 2025 for the U.S. market.

Our China exposure was built up at the right time, by luck, as a hedge to American supremacy, and the gains from China thankfully managed to negate the losses from US (ty $BABA $BILI $1810.HK). I’m still bullish on China, but wouldn’t be surprised to see a pullback given the run up - tho I think this pullback, if it happens, will be more aggressively bought up than October 24.

I’m less so bullish on US in 2025. US faces a variety of issues; tariffs, DOGE, potential inflation resurgence, strange foreign policies etc, and all these while stocks are at more than remarkable valuations with SPX/QQQ at ATHs.

Not calling for the top yet as I think next week’s price action will be telling. But I’ve entered into some shorts on Friday to partially hedge out the US longs. $FIVE @ $88.77 and $APP @ $441.98. I think most people should not short as shorts are VERY hard to manage, and there’s also the risk of unlimited losses. I’m not as good at playing the short side (esp in the market environment of the past 2 years), but I’m trying to train myself.

China’s pullback yesterday getting bought by Southbound investors. Think ytd’s ADR pullback was partly due to fear contagion from the continued momentum unwind in U.S.

Lets see if this dip buying is sustained

Changes to China basket:

Trimmed: $BABA $BILI $1810.HK

Cut: $2158.HK

Added: $9660.HK $9880.HK $2498.HK. Added robotics names based on thesis that best & most affordable — mass market — robotics/humanoids companies will come out of China vs US, similar to EVs. These names have already ran up a fair bit, so should be careful with sizing.

China’s dip continues to be bought - hope I don’t jinx it. $BABA back above $140

Added: $1833.HK @$8.65HKD (Ping An Healthcare)

Very volatile week, barely enough time to stay on top of everything.

The momo (momentum) washout is deserved for some stocks, but for others it has helped to return it to a buyable level.

Adding: $HOOD @ $47.36 after exiting @ $57

Holds: $TEM — we were right to size down into earnings, valuation and expectations were very high. Space stocks — continue to be moonshot plays in our portfolio.

Keeping an eye out for $VST and $VRT. AI infrastructure stocks that have retraced a fair bit of their parabolic moves on news of MSFT reducing AI capex. Though there’s conflicting info from META and MSFT on AI capex.. Not touching atm but these could be potential longs/shorts — will wait for NVDA’s earnings tmr to decide.

Short attack on $APP

https://x.com/culperresearch/status/1894749368579658023?s=46

Trimmed half @ $324 for +26%

Adding $U long @ $26 to hedge the other half of the $APP short

While $APP reported numbers have been so good that there’s cause to doubt their legitimacy, I also think that there’s some real benefits to AI in adtech through ads matching.

$U and $APP are pretty much the only 2 players in the apps ad space. $U has been a beaten down stock caused by pricing missteps which led them to lose some advertisers, but mgmt has been changed, pricing missteps walked back, and they just announced their move to their AI engine (Vector) to be completed in Q1’25 — same thing which supposedly drove $APP’s accelerating revenue from 2023-2025.

At these levels, $U r/r seems good for a long. Using just $U (~$10bn) and $APP’s ($120bn) mcap comparison as napkin math, seems like market pricing <10% probability that $U succeeds in executing a successful turnaround. I think it should be closer to ~20-25%.

$1810.HK correcting on a report stating that… its founder Lei Jun has become the richest man in China from XM’s share price rise.

Probably some market PTSD from Oct 24, when $PDD’s founder Colin Huang became the richest man in China, and their next quarter’s results was an absolute bomb - rumor is that the founders were purposely pushing down their share price, so that they won’t be the richest man, as it attracts attention from the CCP.

These market quirks are kinda funny, but I think the environment then and now is quite different. That’s why it’s impt to note the signal change from the CCP 2 weeks ago; allowing founders to “get rich first”. So in short, I think this XM dip is a nothingburger.

Ytd $NVDA delivered one of the most boring double beats. The market is clearly not impressed, and the magnitude of their beats has clearly gotten smaller. I think the most impt question now is “what’s next”, how much growth is really left.

I’m starting to build shorts on AI infras plays that used to be low margins, low growth companies that managed to ride the AI tailwind in 2023-24 to expand their multiples to 20-30% above their historical range.

These are small short positions, as I don’t have much insight into whether AI capex spend/buildout will slow significantly tbh. I just think the r/r makes sense for shorts here. And I also want to hedge out more of my longs. I will cut quickly if I’m proven wrong.

So starting with short $VST @ $142 and $DELL @ $112. Short means I’m betting the price goes down btw

Shorted $CAVA @ $95.58 too as an economy slowdown play

Nikkei 225 getting pearl harbored, not fun. Will short more US tonight, if things bounce. Looking at $NVDA $SMH