All Activity

On this interesting topic I have spent some time with Whitney the past year, at Roland Garros and at the value conference in Italy. I have also heard a lot of negativity about him from others but my personal experience doesn’t match that. Maybe he was different 20 years ago with a bigger ego but the couple of times I engaged with him he was warm, friendly and helpful even though he didn’t need to be to someone like me. I like his bite sized investment daily’s, I find them sensible. So my opinion is contrary to the popular negative opinion , maybe he has changed over time.

If you insist on buying the popular names, at the same time as everybody else is, you are almost assured of an extended period of disappointment. For it to work out, the company has to more than beat the inflated expectations of the time, and deliver earlier than expected .... maybe it will, but more likely it will not. Time goes by, there's under-performance relative to the expectations (inflated), the blush comes off the rose, this thing is a dog! ... sell; the buy when there is blood in the streets . Nothing to do with the company, which may well be very solid ... purely a supply/demand group think miss-pricing thing, and exploitable. SD

It's one thing to pay 50x earnings for growth in some nascent business that has yet to expand into TAM and lots of white space ahead of it...but DIS? LVMH? NTDOY? MCO? SPGI? These are very large and mature businesses--good luck underwriting high growth for them.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/pakistan-iran-explore-path-towards-new-talks-with-us-china-initiated-push-2026-07-24/

The 20 year duration + TIPS are now at the highest level for quite some time. I think they are interesting in tax deferred accounts . I bought some 2044 TIPS and LTPZ (15 year duration TIPS ETF) . I think the sweet spot is 15-20 year duration. You can get some inflation adjusted real 2.5-3% yield here.

You can add Mco and spgi to the list. I own both and expect them to do well on a going forward basis. And yes, you can make a ton of money paying a fifty p/e, you just have to be right on earnings growth

Washington signed a document acknowledging Iran's administrative authority over the Strait for at least the 60 day period of the MOU, then immediately executed operational maneuvers to strip them of it via the Southern Channel. We wont waste our time assessing Article 5 comma by comma.......the reality when it was signed was that GOP deal opponents singled it out as a glaring concession to sign by any American President.....the Southern Channel game Trump started playing after signing looks alot like buyers remorse to me and a re-trade of what was agreed. I do think the Iranian response, which started this tit-for-tat, was extreme in its escalatory speed when diplomatic channels we're open to try and resolve it.......I take it as a sign that the hardliners inside Iran once they saw this re-trade behaviour from Trump essentially 'took over' from the doves and I suspect they are now wedded to a maximum pain path before ever coming back to the table. Let's see if Trump has some brilliant strategic plan under his comb over to get Iran to throw up their hands here....so far we've had regime decapitation, then 60 days of aerial bombardment and then a blockade of a blockade all of which hasn't resulted in surrender (in fact one can argue Iran has become ambitious for what a post-Epic Fury M.E. could look like, ambition being the opposite of surrender). Anybody out there seen a military plan articulated that changes the reality of the situation here? Note...more of whats already been done is not a new plan AND conversely a plan where the Middle East is functionally destroyed in rounds of eye for eye energy and desalination attacks is not a plan either. Genuinely curious haven't seen Fox recently to hear the hawks explain a solution - did see a clip of JD Vance pretty clearly saying that there is no military solution here, only diplomacy which is indeed the right take.

Are they over 20% economic interest in UA or just in a particular class of shares?

Accurate. There's still hope that I'll look like a genius in another decade.

Where does it say that Iran will continue to attack ships and other countries in the region? Cuts a couple of ways.

John, no surprise but I have a different take than most. Each political party bears responsibility for its own successes and failures. IMO both parties fail miserably from time to time. These days it is the Republicans who are failing to properly communicate its strengths and longer term objectives to supporters. They don't drive home issues that are what the media refer to as 80/20 issues that they, along with most of the Country support and that the fringe (now becoming mainstream) Left oppose. It is easy to blame Trump - no other President or elected official in my lifetime has been so closely followed, analyzed and hammered. Yet those who do, fail to understand that Trump isn't, and never was a Politician. One would think that after nearly 1 1/2 full terms in office people would begin to understand the way Trump works. They don't because their ideologies - mostly Left but even some on the Right don't permit them to view the man for what and who he is. Those of us who only care about policies that are important to our lives can reconcile some of Trump's more ridiculous comments and actions with what really matters to us. Personally, it is quite easy to ignore the rest but it is entertaining to comment on some of the more unhinged posts I read here on this forum.

Yep...the question should be why investors create negative or underperforming shareholder returns even when buying great companies with at least decent management... How much patience to listen to people that buy stocks at 50x and blame the company? Will these "investors" ever learn?

He doesn't understand what he signed yesterday either. 'member when? https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/431283-trump-trade-chief-changes-trade-terminology-after-president/ Nothings changed...

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. People were acting like it was the best thing in the world, Marvel movies would continue to rake in billions forever, and Iger was the messiah... 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...another lesson on avoiding groupthink and herding 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 and the future may not look like the past.

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!