All Activity

A lot of these are great and will be fine over the long haul. It was mainly a matter of overpaying on valuation. That has been my gripe with FICO. DIS P/E reached the 40s and higher 5 years ago. Nintendo too was at very high P/E and E/EBIT 10 years ago. Even a year ago its trailing P/E was in the 50s... (I think it's cheap now)...I mean, compare with other Japanese companies and Nintendo valuation was in the nosebleeds... LVMH--same thing. A few years ago it was "European luxury can do no wrong". That's what happens when you pay a fat multiple for things. And it's always interesting to see value investors on forums like this talk about investing in companies with nosebleed valuations like that... There are industries where there are structural/secular problems: CPG (KHC, CPB, etc), and alcohol (TAP, Brown Forman, etc) seem to ring a bell. In those cases, there are real problems in their respective industries.

John - reading COBF as it relates to Trump is very much what I've read and witnessed for decades as per my interest and entertainment in my following him. As I've written here repeatedly, this is the most important thing to put in the back - and front - of your mind: Those who absolutely love Trump and think he may actually be God Almighty himself vastly overstate his successes and abilities. Those who absolutely despise Trump vastly overstate his successes and abilities. It never wanes, it is always the same. Trump always leaves a mess and he always gains a paycheck doing so. He is, without a doubt, the very best in his class as to the previous sentence.

Dominos pizza delivers, unless you're a shareholder. How long does it take for bagholders to become market visionaries? Even owning Berkshire makes me feel like a baggie at times.

Yep - nobody wants to admit it but the collapse of the MOU with Iranian's is because Captain Chaos essentially attempted to re-trade Article 5 of the MOU he signed only a few weeks ago - I mean it couldn't be clearer - Point 5: Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days, only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the tactical and military obstacles and de-mining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gy700j0eko Where in Point 5 does it say that the US in this 60 day period will open its own Oman channel in the SOH and not consult anybody on what moves through it.

Tencent, Coupang, Disney, Nintendo, LVMH, ABNB and UMG are a sample set of "great" companies that have created negative shareholder returns over the last 5 years or longer. Are these truly great companies that have merely stumbled or is there something systemically wrong with their ability to create value for share owners? Even Amazon and MSFT have done no better than the risk free rate. I understand some of the challenges these businesses face but the connection between business quality and value creation can seem tenuous at times even for investors with long time horizons. How much patience is required? Will these companies ever create any shareholder wealth?

The clown show continues. Deal or no deal? https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/23/politics/saudi-nuclear-deal-trump-conservatives He doesn’t care what he signed yesterday.

@Sweet, No, I'm as fast as a sloth on warm Friday, hanging out at the CofB&F watercooler, talking bad about somebody! - This is what watercoolers are designed for! - - - o 0 o - - - But yeah, old tarifls disguised as new ones. -You're certainly forgiven on that, @Sweet.

You're fast John, I deleted my post, I realised these were not new tariffs, just Trump trying to keep his old ones. Nevertheless, I stand by what I said, you can't trust the deals Trump does.

I vote 2, as I agree that the non-insured subs (and even the insurance subs, sometimes) are always up for sale, if the price is right. But I would say that, operationally and analytically, the investment business is divided up into two sub-businesses, which are fixed income (2/3) and everything else (1/3). And then, the everything else’ sub-business could be further subdivided as you suggest, where the consolidated businesses like Sleep Country or Recipe are qualitatively different, since they get to decide who runs them, how much capex to put into them, dividends, etc. I don’t think there’s much difference between the mark to market investments (Orla, say, 16% owned) and the associates (Poseidon, say, at 22%) ; whether they own less than or more than 20% doesn’t realistically make much difference to them operationally, even if the accounting is a bit different. I was going to give Under Armour as an example of a mark to market investment, but I see they have passed 20% (22%); I doubt they really have any more operational control or get more phone calls from UA management than when they were at 18%.)

Here are a few more details from BIAL's Girish Nair. It looks like the focus is on expanding Terminals 1/2 with Terminal 3 coming later. I suspect this will buy some time for a decision on a 2nd Bengaluru airport https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2026/Jul/24/bial-gets-nod-to-expand-flier-cargo-capacity-at-kempegowda-international-airport The proposed expansion will not be exactly split between the two existing terminals of the airport. BIAL will be investing around $2 billion, which will go towards changes not only at the terminals, but also on the tarmac as well. “When Terminal 1 (T1) at KIA is fully refurbished, we are expected to gain 10 MPPA in volume there. The second phase of Terminal 2 (T2) will allow it to hold 20 MPPA more,” Nair said. Plans for a Terminal 3 (T3) is still part of BIAL’s master plan. But the focus is not on it now. It might take close to a decade to materialise, he said.

Thanks, @Sweet, Yeah, in short. One thing I would like to hear my fellow American CofB&F members about is if this is being considered political suicide or not, related to the mid terms, for POTUS to continue down this path.

New tariffs : Reuters - World [July 24th 2026] : Trump imposes forced labor duties on 60 trading partners as 10% US tariffs expire Bullet points - Summary : White House imposes tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners, Trump administration cites unfair trade practices statute to impose levies, New duties cover 99.4% of all U.S. imports, but many goods are exempt, Trade partners say new tariffs unjustified. From the article : - - - o 0 o - - - From Google AI : - - - o 0 o - - - So : EU countries [whining and complaining] : 'You can't just do that - it's the same tariffs that just ran off, but just with yet another, different explation that is invalid! -Because we actually do have active forced labor import bans in place, up and running!' POTUS : 'It doesen't matter... - I just do it anyway!' - - - o 0 o - - - What to say? ... - Thank God - at least it's Friday! Charlies [ @dealrakers ] comments about POTUS keeping control over the narrative, and @changegonnacome calling POTUS 'Captain Chaos' just comes to mind!

Just a general reminder to members who have Substack or similar profiles, please don't pitch your site on here (paid or unpaid). If you have a thesis written up you want to share, you are more than welcome to post it in the Investment Ideas page under the ticker symbol for the idea. But hawking your Substack is not allowed. If another board member complains: 1st Warning - Temporary ban 2nd Warning - Full ban Cheers!

AI is going to kill us off...we aren't worth saving! Cheers!

Substack, Stripe, etc end up taking close to 20% of the revenue made on Substack according to ChatGPT. 5% to charity...not so good...but at least it's something! Cheers!

Maybe he's changed over the years? I'm holding him to account for stuff that happened 20+ years ago...so that might not be fair any more. Cheers!

Sanjeev [ @Parsad], Geez, What an arrogant behavior.

I would skew to the 3 engines. the latter 2 should be separate as they have different control over operational decisions. Then I would ask the following question, how do you see their use of at various times and to varying amounts: 1) holdco debt. 2) pref equity 3) minority outstanding insurance subs. stakes 4) TRS/Index shorts/CDSs 5) Share buybacks I guess technically you could call them all leverage on investments but it's more akin to what trading desks that investment banks do but over the longer term. I've said this before but I think it's all about giving them 360 optionality in capital allocation.

I feel the substack business is also helped by folks loving to read and to write. I wonder if future generations will be same with proliferation of podcasts and whatnot. feel the same way about this forum!

Every few years, there's a re-telling of why folks like or don't like Tilson. I think that's pretty cool. TIlson also gets a lot or more than his fair share of credit with the Netflix thing.

Golf, Baseball and football are boring in my opinion. Football would be fun if it weren’t interrupted so much. Rugby is much more fun to watch than football. Soccwr is the most played and watched sport in the world by a wide margin. There are reasons for it.

The Saudi’s are nuking up. It’s inevitable as everyone realizes, they need nuclear deterrence. The Saudi’s have a defense pact with Pakistan which likely gives them access to nuclear tech. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/saudi-nuclear-enrichment-donald-trump-iran-uranium-90be14a6?mod=trending_now_opn_4

Hooray! https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/taylor-morrison-home-shareholders-approve-070206651.html

I know I know, don't quote me and I'm quoting you. It's 5% to charity. I wonder how much substack actually makes on him? Substack has built quite an attractive business.

I think your assumption make sense. FFH takes a hit but the ship won’t go under. That’s one scenario where your probably get materially lower share prices for insurers like FFH. One thing to keep in mind is that Berkshire will absolute thrive in this scenario, because they have huge reserves and invest and write more insurance counter cyclically. FFH is already highly levered operationally and can do quite as much.