RSG
Republic Services Inc.
stock NYSE

For anyone who followed the recent disclosures of Trumps stock holdings may have noticed very important stock buys as well as stock sells and what it actually indicates. Here’s what stood out to me:
Trump buys massive amounts of MA, V, BRKB, and RSG, a trash company, for those who don’t know. What do the buys generally have in common? Robust FCF today, wide moats and reasonable valuations.
He sales META, PLTR, and CME. Now the sales are more nuanced. Meta: negative FCF today and into foreseeable future due to AI CapEx. PLTR: very high valuation that’s vulnerable to compression. CME: legacy exchange being threatened by defi crypto exchange Hyperliquid. Trump just mentioned last week that the CFTC is working hard to soon have Hyperliquid approved to operate within the US.
But wait! Many are thinking but Bessent is doing QE or what he’s doing will lead to QE, therefore money printers go BRRR and stocks moon! Wrong! This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Bessent is actually doing and what it actually leads to. Here’s why:
Buying back bonds with the intent of capping yields is not the same as buying bonds with the intent of decreasing yields. QE was the buying of bonds and MBS for the purpose of dramatically lowering rates to stimulate the economy. What Bessent is doing is trying to put a cap on yields which can still lead to MULTIPLE COMPRESSION of stocks if inflation is rising (which it will) and bond yields stay capped. This is because high inflation erodes corporate profit margins, raises input costs, and lowers real consumer purchasing power.
This is also where the debasement trade kicks into high gear. Clearly many people don’t understand what’s happening and it’s evident in their shock of gold and bitcoins recent surge after Bessent publicly announced his buyback plan. Gold and bitcoin are the two direct beneficiaries of a government debasing its currency. The hedge funds that are holding ILLIQUID US government bonds are NOW buying bitcoin because Bessent has already told them that on Sept 9 the US Treasury will start buying their illiquid US bonds.
The market ALWAYS front runs what is happening and this is what’s happening now with gold and bitcoin. As usual, most retail investors will be late to the party because they are usually the last ones to actually know what’s happening (if they ever know) and just FOMO.

Anyone toying with RSG

I went down a Form 4 rabbit hole and Bill Gates' holding company, Cascade Investment, has been buying $RSG (Republic Services, the waste management giant) almost every day this month:

Aug 10-11: 501,664 shares
Aug 12-13: 362,960 shares
Aug 18-19: 378,969 shares
Aug 20-21: 400,286 shares

That is over 1.6 million shares in August. Cascade now directly holds 112,803,911 shares, more than a third of the whole company.

What gets me is how boring it is. Not a chip stock, not AI. Trash collection, sitting at all time highs, and he keeps adding.

Is this just parking cash in a recession proof business, or does he see real value in the price here? For anyone who watches big-holder buying as a signal, has following it actually worked for you?