Last year, egg shortages and egg prices were capturing new headlines.
“Can’t find eggs” was a common complaint.
Feb 2025 CNBC – Wholesale egg prices have ‘blown way past’ record highs
Feb 2025 Bloomberg – 56-day streak of higher prices
Wholesale price was $8.07 per dozen – Feb 21, 2025, USDA Egg Market Overview
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What about now?
Back in 2016 and 2017, M1 growth was meaningfully faster than M2 growth in China, which typically indicates a high willingness to spend or invest in the economy.
That is a bullish sign.
On the contrary, if M1 growth is below M2 growth by a wide margin, it usually indicates people would rather save more than spend or invest.
That negative gap was deepening throughout 2024 till the famous 924 stimulus.
Using revised M1 growth rate, the negative gap was about -5% at the beginning of 2024 and about -10% in Sep 2024.
That negative gap shrunk to about -1% in Sep 2025 and about -3% in Feb 2026.
Actually, looking at M2 growth alone might give you a glimpse of China’s economy pulse and sentiment.
1991 Gulf War
The actual combat phase of the 1991 Gulf War lasted about 43 days.
Air war began: January 17, 1991 (Operation Desert Storm started) Ground war began: February 24, 1991 Ceasefire / fighting stopped: February 28, 1991
So there are two common ways to measure it:
Full active fighting period: January 17 to February 28, 1991 = 43 days
Ground combat only: February 24 to February 28, 1991 = about 100 hours / 4 days
2001 Afghanistan War
Start: October 7, 2001
Initial fighting end: Early December 2001 — Kandahar fell / the Taliban regime effectively collapsed, which is the more complete endpoint for the initial regime-toppling campaign.
About 2 month.
2003 Iraq war
Main invasion / conventional fighting phase, it began on March 20, 2003 and was largely completed by May 1, 2003, when the U.S. declared major combat over.
About 42 days.
All these actions are approved by US Congress so that US can use force for over 60 days.
What gives you comfort in keeping US equity?
Trump put is not something everyone can accept.
Fed put is less certain if war keeps inflation high.
What else?
Buffett put – Berkshire’s massive cash position to support any big dip.
SpaceX/OpenAI IPO put – world’s wealthiest people/investors won’t let market close for their pay day.
From end of Fed to end of March
Fed is hard to react to oil supply shock.
1/ Fed is designed to manage demand. It cannot produce more oil or open shipping lanes. Historically, the Fed “looks through” supply shocks unless they start to bleed into the broader economy (secondary effects / expectation for inflation rises).
2/ Energy shocks often spike and subside relatively quickly. However, Fed policies take months or even years to fully permeate the economy. Fed would be slowing down the economy exactly when it might be trying to recover from the high energy costs.
“By the time the effects of a tightening in monetary policy take effect, the oil price shock is probably long gone, and you’re weighing on the economy at a time when it’s not appropriate.”
In a previous post, I said unpredictability is what Pop Mart investors must shoulder, but is there any number that can make investors slightly more comfortable?
Let’s try Labubu adjusted P/E and we need Labubu adjusted earnings.
Labubu (The Monsters IP from Pop Mart) revenue was over 14 billion rmb in 2025.
The other “good” IPs were about 3 billion rmb revenue.
We can assume there is 10 billion “extra” revenue that Labubu is earnings.
We can also assume Pop Mart’s marginal operating profit margin is 50%. Then the “extra” operating profit is ~5 billion rmb.
Subtract that from 2025 operating income will give you about 12bn rmb in Labubu adjusted operating profit.
With 25% tax rate, Labubu adjusted earnings is about 9bn rmb.
At 150 HKD per share, Pop Mart is at ~20x Labubu adjusted P/E.
If there is any unnoticed beneficiary of the current Iran / Middle-east unrest – Google search interests for Epstein files has dropped like it never happened.
Pop Mart stock plunged after earnings – down 23% on Wednesday and down 10% on Thursday.
Pop Mart’s forecast of 20% or so rev growth in 2026 is lower than what is expected and is a sharp decline after 185% growth in revenue in 2025.
Labubu is still one of the hottest fashion toy IP worldwide with no competitors I think.
However, investors can’t reliably forecast future rev and thus cash flows of Pop Mart as nobody knows whether Labubu can sustain its mojo / for how long and how far.
Unpredictability is usually a negative thing, but people disregarded it as a risk when Labubu was in rapid growth mode. The “upside” unpredictability blinds investors – they liked it actually.
Now if you really want to be an investor in Pop Mart, you need to be comfortable with this inherent unpredictability.
One way to think about this is that Pop Mart is ultimately a very good channel like Tencent. Whatever it incubates and sells, its stores will sell them well. Pop Mart stores are the product of Pop Mart, alongside the IPs like Labubu.
However, to say Pop Mart stores is like WeChat is too much a compliment for Pop Mart so far. Network effect that is so strong and unique that WeChat really doesn’t have a competitor.