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The issue is that Trump had a path to do something, to take a shot...and he did. 6 months ago...That was it. Instead his ego couldn't let him walk away as long as the pundits kept gaslighting everyone about "Iran winning"...and then the Israelis duped him into continuing their forever war.

@changegonnacome, I've got say, that I appreciate reading your stuff on the actual Strait of Hormuz situation, and how it evolves over time. Certainly - every time from you - food for thought. Thank you. Crazy times.

Yea I think the subject @Cod Liver Oil raised has been completely redirected into something its not. It's not about high PEs finally having a few years of cooling off. It's about management teams staring in the face of proper capital allocation and shitting the bed. If the business is fine and everyone executing and the stock isnt going up...no big deal. If things are inconsistent and allocation sucks and management wants to "be conservative" or thinks shareholder returns are secondary to "stakeholders" like Disney, or even more embarrassingly, that shareholders are speaking about early access to games and Pokemon cards like Nintendo...theyre nimrods. The Coupang guys cant seem to get out of their own way. Tencent is a Chinese ADR, ABNB the issue is Chesky wants to burn cash on fantasy projects rather than just return it....the only one thats "too big" is LVMH. UMG is run by foreign schmucks.

Amazon returned 35%~ annually for 2 decades ish and was down by a third from 2004 to the end of 2008. Teledyne did 28% for almost 3 decades and went to 4 p/e at one point in the 70's. Nvidia went nowhere from 2007 to 2015 and was even down by half to two thirds in 2013; that's after holding for 6 years. But who would be unhappy with the end result there with 40% annually since the dot com bursting lows? These things happen, it's part of the game. Of course any fund manager with a massive position in them probably would have lost most of their clients before the value was realized. It's not always valuation either. Nvidia was both very popular among investors and went up to 100-200 times earnings in 2023, an exceedingly cheap price. Tencent and to a lesser degree LVMH aside, most of these just are not that great of business models or have rotten cultures.

agreed. my 401k (about 10% of my portfolio) is entirely TIPS and has been. And yesterday I supplemented w/ some LTPZ calls to increase the duration of my exposure because the TIPs fund in my 401k is only a duration / maturity of 6 to 7 which is too short for my taste (though has been nice in terms of not drawing down as reals have gapped out over my ownership). added to some individual TIPs for my parents....I also think TIPs relative to some blue chip REITs (enjoying the rare bit of outperformance) are quite attractive....your WELL's data center stocks that are yielding 1.2% (WELL) or 2.4% (DLR) look pretty dumb to me when you can get govvy guaranteed 3% real. At 2-4% CPI and constant real rates, long term TIPs are paying you 5-7% with no credit risk...that's nice carry and you get like 20% upside if reals drop 1%....let's say you exit @ 2% real in 5 years and inflation avg's 3%...that's 6%/yr of carry and 4-5% / year of capital appreciation for a double digit IRR on government guaranteed instrument...if reals go to 4 over same time, you're breaking even (roughly). one weird thing about TIPS is you'd think they'd be pretty different than bonds, but empirically, they actually end up being almost the same. Even over last 5 years (which has seen some decently high CPI), TIPS have "only" done bonds + 70 bps / year (0.4%/yr vs -0.4%)...over that 5 years 10 yr real went from -1.1% to +2.4%....so someone who bought a TIPS mutual fund 5 years ago didn't lose nominal $$$ despite a 350 bp increase in real rates over the hold period. now you're starting from a much better place. they're pretty much bonds outside of extremes....a little more return......a little more protection from inflation tail...at expense of not as much punch in deflation a little less liquid (sometimes matters in extreme market moves)

Apologies if this was already shared, but someone might find this interesting: https://limitededitionjonathan.substack.com/p/apple-is-the-king-of-ai-and-nobody?triedRedirect=true

Thanks for posting this.

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?