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Thank you. Just getting to know the business. Will dive deeper into your previous posts. This is an informative start.

Honestly I have no idea. I’ve never really cared for soccer despite generally liking all sports. I’ve tried watching the WC, and just keep thinking a lot of this stuff is just so stupid. Shouldn’t there be penalties for all the guys who get breathed on and act as though they got shot out of a cannon? Then you see these great made for tv moments like today, and on some bs technicalities Ronaldo is denied a goal and then one of the most clutch goals I’ve ever seen is called off?

Missed this one @adventurer. Did a little writing on Hard/Soft in previous post but we can go further. Going long brokers in a hard market and short brokers in a soft market is similar to going long Goldman/Schwab in a bull market and shorting in a bear market. Looks easy but not as easy as it looks. #1 - Its difficult to generalize overall market as Hard/Soft overall due to the subsections of insurance. Property market going hard/soft gets the most attention, especially in CAT regions because the swings are huge. So any broker/carrier who writes CAT business, are subject to large swings up or down in market cycle. Homeowners gets alot of attention but generally is not a good barometer of where market is because its typically written admitted and state governments look for votes and voters are sensitive to homeowners premium. So soft homeowners doesn't mean soft everywhere. Each "line of business" has its own cycle AND each line of business is either being placed admitted or non-admitted (E&S) which will have its own cycle as well. Commercial Auto, Property, Casualty, Umbrella, Workers Comp, Professional Liability, D&O, EPL, Cyber, Homeowners, and personal auto are all different lines of business and are all being placed either admitted or E&S. Meaning Commercial Auto can be soft while Casualty is hard. Professional can be hard while Work Comp can be soft. There are also sub-categories for each. Property is broken up by CAT/Non-CAT. Commercial Auto is broken up in Trucking (interstate & intrastate), local service, fleet (250+units), even a personal fav "non-emergency medical transport", Casualty is broken up by class as well, Habitational (Hab for short), Lessors Risk, Heavy Products Liability, ect. And the complicate things further, the regionality of insurance plays by line of business's hard/soft cycle. Meaning Commercial Auto in NY can be hard while Commercial Auto in Texas can be soft. EPL (Employment Practices Liability) is a good one because Cali EPL is much harder than other parts of US. You could take a firm with 100 employees in Iowa, EPL spend might be $12K with a $10K retention - Move that account to Cali, spend is $25K with $50K retention. If you listen to the conference calls of brokers and carriers, they will break out their own rate increases/decreases for each line of business (LOB) - some even do it by region. For example, Property could be down 5-10% while CAT Property could be down 25-35%. Long winded answer to say when someone says "Its a hard market", make them explain what area of the market is hard because I could tell you 5 other marketplaces that are super soft at any given time while others are just flat. EXCERPT FROM BRO Q1 CALL DISCUSSING RATES: From a commercial insurance standpoint, the changes in rates remained relatively consistent with prior quarters except for CAT property, which declined further than in the fourth quarter of last year. Pricing for employee benefits was fairly similar to prior quarters with medical costs up 8% to 10% and pharmacy costs up over 10%. We continue to consult and advise our customers on multiple strategies that can be employed to manage high-cost claimants and pharmacy spend. We leverage our extensive consultative solutions to deliver high-impact strategy for population health, captives, stop loss and carve-outs for certain services. Shifting to the rate environment, the admitted P&C markets continue to be in the range of flat to up 5% versus prior year but did moderate slightly as compared to last quarter. Workers' comp rates remained flat to down 3%, while we saw a few states increase rates modestly. For non-CAT property overall, rates remained down 5% to up 5%, depending on the loss experience and the location. For casualty lines, rates increased 2% to 5% for primary layers, with excess layers increasing materially more. For professional liability, rates remained similar to the last couple quarters and were down 5% to up 5%. Shifting to the E&S market, let's split the conversation between property and casualty. For property, both wind and quake rates declined -- rate declines were modestly more than we experienced in Q4 of last year. Most of our placements for the quarter were down 15% to 35%. At the end of the quarter, we saw placements above and below this range. Generally, customers are capturing most of the savings. However, some are utilizing the savings to decrease deductibles, increase limits or buy other lines of coverage. These tactics are common when rates are moderating or declining. On the casualty front, not much has changed versus prior quarters. The ability to get higher limits is extremely challenging. Pricing continued to increase. Primary layers are becoming more expensive, and carriers are decreasing the limits they'll offer. We do not expect this trend to change materially over the coming quarters. #2 - Relationships with brokers and carriers are symbiotic and very tight - not at all antagonistic. A good broker builds a super strong relationship with a carrier and thats how a broker can win new deals. A broker is only as good as their carrier relationships allow them to be good. You could have the best account in the world as a broker, but if your reputation sucks with carriers, no one will help you place the deal. Wholesale has changed this dynamic because retailer is once removed from carrier relationship. When a tough deal needs to be placed, a broker will call their best relationship and say "hey, need you on this one" and carrier will think outside the box on that account because of the relationship - Underwriter can make an accommodation based on the risk, the account, or as a broker accommodation. Brokers are constantly trying to get better terms in the risk transfer market and need good/great relationships to do that for their clients. Think about it, at the end of the day, its the insurance company who pays the broker (using client funds). So naturally, brokers have to have good relations with carriers. Generally, I do not see how brokers zig while carriers zag. If carriers are taking in less premium, that means they are paying less commissions to brokers. If a carrier is growing, that means its being fed business by brokers - carriers are bringing in more business and paying commissions to do so. Brokers are always trying to get carriers to write deals they dont want to write and ask for higher commissions. A broker can not get one or both if the relationship is "antagonistic". On a personal note, as a broker, our team may interact with a typical client a dozen times throughout the year for general service/issues/questions ect. Our team will interact with a typical underwriter 4-5 times a day via email/phone on the 10-12 deals we are trying to place that given week.

Won't work Greg, the pitch is so large that any strong/fast striker can easily pass a defender in a one on one situation when given so much space. Additionally most goalies also don't have great odds stopping a shot from a striker in the box when there are no defenders blocking... In reality coaches will put two defenders on him. The result will be that their offensive capabilities reduce a bit by playing 8v9 and you're even more likely to end up with 0-0 games. It's a numbers game... 2v1 in the back greatly increases your defensive capabilities but 8v9 in front only mildly decreases offensive capabilities. Have a look at indoor football, which does not have an offside rule. However the game is 5v5 on a smaller pitch with smaller goals. Here a striker that stays in front does not have a large advantage going 1v1 on a defender. However that strategy isn't even used because if you do this, the opposing team will attack 4v3, making position loss and getting countered unlikely. Also scoring here 4v3 is quite easy... (I played outdoor football from 6y - 20y and indoor from 18y - 38y) I understand the frustration though, some leniency in the rules would be better but how? Gotta draw a line somewhere... However you could for instance make a rule that says that passing the ball with the upper body/head does not count for the offside rule. This would have allowed the Croatian goal and many other goals where it's borderline, without creating situations that ruin the game.

Because current and NTM earnings means very little for the intrinsic value of a stock. People focus on the low P (like rubbish commodity investors...), when the bubble seems to be in the E. Now this time might be different and all, but exploding gross margins are the hallmarks of a commodity (up)cycle. Lumber bros, met coal bros, shipping bros, gas bros can all tell semi bros a story as to what probably happens next.

You can’t get rid of the offside as it screws ups the game or more specifically how it’s played in the space. The cameras available now have made the judgment extremely precise and that alone makes the offsite trap a major gamechanger. You see now the defense teams relying on this swarming in perfect line formation. The same thing was done before the cameras were available but it was risky for defending team to rely on it, because the line referee may not be able to determine close offsite cases and let the play continue or give the goal. Its useless to complain and remember before we had many cases of questionable decision like Maradonas god‘s hand or the Wembley goal that wasn’t. So Croatia had bad luck, but the referee clearly made the right decision.

Yea lol I’ve definitely noticed some of this. Of my core positions, they haven’t really changed much over the past 3-4 years. But, thread popularity and interest? Fairfax, sure it’s a cult here, nothings changed. Joe peak interest was 2023. Nintendo is actually kinda right now. Not a ton a few years ago, everyone wanted Disney. And MSG(E/S) everyone basically lost interest after they went up 10% from $30/$150 a share…definitely something to observe.

And I’m duly guilty of this as well…honestly with life being busy it’s never been easier to be lazy and simultaneously convince yourself that you’re not lazy. The algos and curated echo chambers are your own worst enemy. I know for sure I could take my portfolio and find countless other investors on X, YouTube, Apple Podcasts or even COBF that share similar rational and holdings. I’m just not certain how good or bad that is. End of the day people have always had preference or “circles of competence” as Buffett would put it…but now it’s quite easy to find your herd and get stuck in an echo chamber.

Idk, hard to see how you screw up a game more than we just saw. That was pitiful. Totally ruined what could've been a classic. If someone wants to hang back, put a defender on em, plain and simple. Such a dumb rule.

Problem is if you get rid of offsides everyone just keeps a player out there to cherry pick and it screws up the whole game.

Ask me this question 3 days ago and I'm underperforming the SPY, end of day today I'm outperforming by 100bp. Been holding too much damn cash (15% start of year; 30% now). Nothing hitting me in the face, though. But ultimately can't get too caught up comparisons...at this stage as long as I maintain my purchasing power then the rest is gravy, as they say.

Never been a big soccer fan, but still trying to watch, and holy shit this offsides stuff in soccer is the stupidest rule ever. Ruining an otherwise exciting Portugal Croatia game. Like you really can’t have a step on the other teams defender? No wonder every game is 1-0 or 2-1. How lame

The buybacks are a significant part of my interest, and they obviously have some very valuable IP. I spent some time looking at valuation (P/E, EV/EBITDA, FCF yield) against their own 15 year history and compared to Hasbro. Hasbro has better gross margins, partially due to product mix, but I’m not sure that supports a 50-60% premium. And MAT is unquestionably cheap against its own history. I could see them being taken out if this valuation holds or drops much further. Also, The Masters of the Universe movie was the disaster I expected, but MGM/AMZN are the financial losers on that deal since it was a mostly licensing financial event for MAT. It’s probably fair to say that merchandise pull-through was a disappointment though. I expect their next couple movies to be more successful and drive more pull-through, but Matchbox and Hot Wheels are actually performing pretty well on their own. Ultimately it’s a similar set-up to Nintendo……great IP, actually much cheaper valuation, but a competent and shareholder-oriented management team. What are your thoughts? And can you link this to the MAT thread? I’m technically challenged!

I added to bntx and funding it by selling lqda puts.

I looked at MAT today. Do you have a theory or any suggestions where to get started?

Quite the sector rotation again the last few days, with everything that had been struggling (software, insurance brokers, even consumer staples) getting a boost and semis/AI struggling. Just a blip/short covering again? Looks like a much wider rotation this time, not only software.

And bought NBIS too

Thanks for your perspective here! I have some of these Nordic RE plays in my watch list but never pulled the trigger because of their indebtedness after so many years of extremely low interest rates in Europe.

You're right, Egon [ @EgonKuhn ], So, the question is really, what is [almost] dirt cheap, and what is really dirt? I'm trying to find out, over time. Eventually , over a period, I'll find out, over some time. [I have done the same with something as much out of favour at times as banks, it has [net] played out quite well, so far.] [This approach may cause some [minor] scars, but that's the Terms & Conditions of Trial & Error Approach here. [ I'm not even trying here to cover it it up as anything else.]]

"total failure" 'sToNkS'

I took a look at them on TIKR and was a bit alarmed to see that they actually even more debt now than during the last downturn in 2022. Doesn't that worry you a bit? As long as interest rates in Europe remain relatively low, everything will likely be fine. But if we ever see a period of higher interest rates again, there won't be much left over for dividends.

Doubled up my MAT position

In USSR/Russia, many people do love local censorship and live in peace with it. It's just never called "censorship". Many are thrown to jail for "terrorism", "extremism", being a "foreign agent", "mentally ill", which sounds just right for the majority. Most convictions for speech have zero public awareness, because the government controls 100% of mass media. And the same media love to discuss "censorship" in Europe, because everything is transparent in Europe. That's why "bad" Europe "doesn't have free speech".

Ya one of my pet hates is when I see some wall of text from Gemini cut and pasted into a thread as if this is supposed to add insight or back up an argument. All of us on the forum are well able to ask questions to Gemini/Claude etc and get similar answers so I don’t know how it adds anything to the conversation. I think AI is a great tool but should be used as an add-on to people’s investment research not a replacement.