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As the managing partner of our family investment funds, part of our AGM has always been a letter/presentation outlining the thesis behind each of the concentrated positions that we hold; the initial premise, what has changed, expected future pro's/con's, how it has worked out, 6-yr to date CAGR (hold period), etc. Primarily as both a training tool, and as insurance against my having an incapacitating stroke tomorrow. It has worked out very well, and also become a great tool for look-back analytics. The letter/presentation similarly speaks to the overlays of dividends, swing/pair trading, and capital repatriation. Thesis, what has changed, actual vs expected results, reconciliation of inception to date capital repatriations by family member. Primarily for reporting purposes, training, and insurance purposes. It has also worked out very well, keeps discussion future orientated, focused, and the family informed. The hope was that nephews would take over; they aren't going to, and the family is OK with that. Ultimately, the portfolio will hold just index funds, a laddered bond portfolio in run off, UK real estate, and repatriate a quarterly distribution; mechanics evolving as required. I post, as I hold each of a MBA/CPA/CFA, and run the partnership the same way that a CEO might run a private investment business. Expected to have transitioned out well before age 75, and not put my lay person partners at excessive risk. Different strokes. SD

AM Best upgraded Polish Re. It is always interesting to see rating upgrades to some of the smaller insurance subs as it provides some insight we normally don't have visibility to. https://news.ambest.com/NewsContent.aspx?refnum=275297&altsrc=23 //BestWire// - AM Best has upgraded the Financial Strength Rating to A (Excellent) from A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings to “a” (Excellent) from “a-” (Excellent) of Polskie Towarzystwo Reasekuracji S.A. (Polish Re) (Poland). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. The ratings also reflect the lift Polish Re receives due to the support provided by its ultimate parent, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (Fairfax) [TSX: FFH], in particular the explicit parental guarantee in place for Polish Re. In addition, Fairfax provides technical support in areas such as reserving, retrocession protection and investment management services. Fairfax’s commitment to Polish Re was demonstrated by its PLN 78 million (USD 18 million) capital injection in 2023. Polish Re’s risk-adjusted capitalisation, as measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), was at the strongest level at year-end 2025, and it is projected to remain at the same level in the medium term. Further supporting factors are Polish Re’s low dependence on retrocession and conservative investment strategy. Reserve development has been positive since 2024. Prior to 2024, the runoff of motor third-party liability business exhibited material volatility. Polish Re’s adequate operating performance assessment is supported by a five-year (2021-2025) average combined ratio of 95.4% and a five-year (2021-2025) average return-on-equity ratio of 10.7% (both as calculated by AM Best). The company’s underwriting performance improved in 2025, as evidenced by a combined ratio of 92.0% (2024: 97.8%) (as calculated by AM Best). Robust investment results supported an overall net profit of PLN 85.6 million (USD 23.8 million). Prospectively, investment income is expected to be a consistent contributor to the company’s profitability. Polish Re benefits from a diversified underwriting portfolio, with operations spanning approximately 40 markets. The company’s largest markets, as based on gross written premium in 2025, are Poland, Turkey and Israel. Additionally, the company has expanded its agriculture line of business significantly in recent years. AM Best considers Polish Re’s ERM to be developed and appropriate for its risk profile and operational scope.

MSFT for kids and Mother in Law.

BB up 20% today on revenue beat. Wonder if Fairfax still owns it. We'll know soon enough. Close to 5 year highs:

Yes. I hadn’t realized that FIH had such a big stake in IIFL Capital, but in May they announced their intention to go from 30.5% to at least 51%, so that would be possible, assuming they have acquired as many shares as they intended to. They own 49% of Go Digit so I presume they would need Kamesh Goyal’s approval to make Go Digit a subsidiary, but it’s possible.

If IDBI owns 50.1% of each I think it would still count as a subsidiary.

Sold my BXP.L (Beximco Pharmaceuticals PLC) position

Dont get me wrong - never said Truman was wrong to use this new weapon as means by which to bring the Japanese to surrender. We had already committed to concept of destroying Japanese cities by bombing at that point as a means to get them to surrender......before the nuke dropped we'd levelled 60-odd cities at that point killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese. What was another city at that point when we'd done it to 60+? Moving to use the nuclear weapon was a no brainer simply as means to potentially change the trajectory of things away from needing to do a ground invasion. My core point was that people over attribute the Japanese surrender to the nuclear bombs dropping and under attribute the entry of the USSR into war two days after Hiroshima but before Nagasaki. The best evidence as the article covers is Hiroshima on Aug 7th produced no emergency meeting of the Japanese Supreme Council - Hiroshima it seems was just another city being levelled by American bombing. What did produce an emergency meeting of the Japanese Supreme Council was news reaching Tokyo on Aug 9th of the Soviet declaration of war. The answer is both things undoubtedly fed into their surrender. The nuclear taboo is such that we tell ourselves it was 100% the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that did it. The evidence tells a more complicated story.

ICE, MKTX and TW Thanks Lance

Many thanks for this very detailed article @petec! Unfortunately I bought in here at the end of March 2020, and been watching the disaster unfold ever since, using it as a lesson in humility regarding my own modest abilities. Just to clarify a detail from your article: Helios (the asset manager) posts an annual loss of around USD 8 million, yet was carried on the books at a valuation of USD 104 million at the end of 2025? Is that a correct summary? Honestly that makes me worry about the potential gap between valuation and reality for the other assets... It would have been interesting to see a peer comparison included in your article, for instance with "The Bidvest Group Limited" (BVT.ZA). While buying into that stock during the COVID lows would also have been a mistake, it at least held up reasonably well and paid out some dividends since then.

haha i can do that already. I have all my financial institutions pushing via API into google big query. and have created a google gem called family CFO that can analyze probably 80%+ of my financial picture at almost any given time. I have been a big fan of journaling through my life and find a good amount of benefit from writing down my own thought. Granted my own writing style and grammar sucks so ive often taken to having AI rewrite things for me so they are more coherent to others. I think the exercise of writing my own thoughts on my investments on an annual basis would have some really solid merit from a self reflection standpoint.

Let's add another two months to the trend.

Sounds like they would be merged: "offers to make GoDigit and IIFL Capital subsidiaries of the bank."

This is worth a read (if you can get over the paywall): https://www.ft.com/content/b7a788de-0f31-4b31-992b-45ddf92ccdcb I mean, I don't want to be too much of a doomer, but it's a cycle isn't it: 1) Relax rules and let people buy homes who can't afford them because they only go up. 2) Relax rules and let people violently speculate on the stockmarket, because it only goes up.

Actually, after ready the above further it looks like the highest bid with 10-12% premium over current book. The reported book was rs67/share, which suggest a bid between rs73-75/share. So the new rs77/share is not much higher but the structure with IIFL and Digit is much different. This would also help explain why Fairfax increased their equity interest in IIFL last month to 51%. Doesn't Fairfax own only 49% of Digit?

They have been consistent in saying they are not interested in bidding on the multi year full season contracts. You think that will change? Or are you saying you think they will bid on more one-off sporting events in more sports? Like golf, or tennis or whatever else besides football.

See above for prior post on this. There was an article from May where the government was considering reducing their reserve price of rs94/share by 20%. The new rs77/share bid would line up with that. Adding IIFL and Digit to IDBI bank would transform IDBI to a larger financial company. This would likely be of interest to the Indian government.

If your portfolio up less than 2.5x since then, arguably you have effectively reduced your position when the risk reward has improved. I’m not very good at sizing and unfortunately too good at adding to losers so this is simply an observation assuming you agree with the premise.

Was that bid posted somewhere? I must have missed it.

@Maverick 47 Is it truly a blind spot or merely wanting to protect your own interests? People choose to believe what they want about a lot of things. It is entirely logical to protect yourself based upon your beliefs. Even Blake is taking a rational approach to investing based upon what he believes. The same can be said for so called Trumpers. If they (we) believe that the alternative to Trump would have been much (MUCH!) worse, why is that a blind spot? What I find baffling is the people who tend to criticize Trump the most by and large have no alternative ideas of their own about just about anything.

If accurate, the ₹77 per share bid is 20% more the the prior highest bid when Fairfax and Emirates NBD submitted their bids a few months ago.

This came up in another post, but deserves it's own post. Why CME Is Really Suing the CFTC Over Perps Anyone have any comments or questions about it? Feel free to chime in and if helpful, I'll answer legal questions from the perspective of a derivatives lawyer here's my take: Perps ARE swaps, not futures. The CME wants them regulated as swaps because they are set up to trade (and clear) futures AND swaps and the newcomer exchanges, like Kalshi, are set up for futures only, so classifying them as swaps would cut down the pool of potential competitors The CFTC called them futures because of regulatory capture (Trump Jr is a paid "advisor" to Kalshi and Polymarket) and to keep out defi protocols like Hyperliquid. swaps can be traded off-exchange or on-exchange, but futures must be on-exchange. so by calling them futures, you make protocols like Hyperliquid illegal in the US. The license Kalshi has lets them do futures too, not just prediction markets Most exchanges don't trade 24/7 which is one of the reasons why some of them see Perps as a threat. Perps are easier to understand than options, so market heavyweights think it will suck retail order flow into these products

Shorted MU, small position this morning I'm ready for the pain, searing punishing squeeze pain