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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.

Added to TSM and STX

Speech is conduct, which is obvious even in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions

180k shares traded today with most of that at the close.

Sold my AMUN.PA (Amundi S.A.) position

I think you missed my point. The point is, who cares about a "store of value"? If I did, it would be in the form of T-Bills which aren't very good but at least the price is relatively stable. Otherwise if you're "storing value" for a particular need or time period, BTC is a complete failure. If you're not storing value for anything in particular, stocks and real estate do just fine.

By removing a stipulation of a minimum threshold of time, all you're saying is that "anything that can go down can't be a store of value" which would exclude everything....gold, t-bills, USD. Because it IS possible to have an unrealized loss in any of those items after the point the of acquiring. Having a reasonable minimum threshold for a period of time we're measuring the storing of value across allows for that natural variation in each while still holding them accountable to inflation resistance over an intermediate/longer term. Gold is highly volatile. It was up 50+% at points last year and is down 25+% from that peak. Obviously it wasn't a "store of value" for anyone who bought int he last 2-3 months...but its intended to be a "long term" store of value. Not a store of value over 2-3 months. And over rolling 5- or 10-year periods, it tends to do a decent job. Bitcoin isn't any different - but is more volatile at this time given the emerging nature of the technology, the perfect inelasticity of its protocol, and the lack of understanding of it by market participants/speculators. Like Gold - any short-term period can deviate from that "store" narrative. But over rolling 3- or 5-year periods (cuz rolling 10- doesn't provide much observation yet...) it has worked pretty well over the majority of those varying time periods.

Fund is up ~80% as of 2Q26. Going to put out my 2Q26 letter soon.