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Do it lol

High Praise indeed. Thanks! For anyone interested my full review is in 3 parts which you can find here: https://substack.com/@buildingarks/note/c-260954936?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=j8x31 Apologies in advance - it is overlong and needs an edit, which I hope to find time for in July.

Honestly, time to ban Blake. (Who am I? Nobody, but I've been on lots of forums, and it's not gonna end well...)

Yeah not arguing with your ownership point. But for me that falls back on immigration again. Hasn't helped us in that regard... I agree on the EU risks, just seeing a lot of those for US as well. They will lose their reserve currency status at one point...

Which freedom do you think US citizens have that we do not?

Let's see... I believe my two ideas were CROX and Nintendo. One worked exceptionally well, the other needs a longer timeframe than a year unfortuantly. I like CSU, JOE, Fairfax, CPNG for the rest of the year, not to shill my portfolio too much

Intuit. Are hundreds of thousands of small business going to decide to vibe code their accounting software?

Trading freedom for security essentially. And I'm saying this without judgment.

I really liked the presentation for daikin from Elliott and they bought i think almost 5% back.

Thanks for pointing out the Elliott presentation on Daikin - I hadn't noticed this and used to follow this industry pretty closely. For those interested, here is a direct link to Elliott's presentation on Daikin: https://elliottletters.com/wp-content/uploads/EN-Elliott-Management-Releases-Presentation-on-Daikin-Industries-Ltd.pdf Daikin and Mitsubishi have a great quality reputation (outside of Daikin's Goodman unit which has a low-cost/bad reputation) but I worry that like in so many industries the Chinese giants Midea & Gree are just going to eat huge chunks of global marketshare on price competitiveness. Midea and Gree are the manufacturer of an enormous amount of HVAC equipment that had other brand names on it. There is more to the industry than Residential HVAC and mini split heat pumps but I just see Midea & Gree killing it with their contract manufacturing divisions and they are everywhere. Price is low, quality is plenty good. When Daikin bought Goodman in the US, the best part of that deal was the overnight distribution advantage they acquired. According to Elliott they haven't done much to integrate any of those acquisitions. Anyway, I like HVAC and have my EPA 608 certification and do a lot of free HVAC repairs for friends and family and it's always an industry that has interested me. Plus its over 90 degrees F where I live so its important

CSU (+Topicus,Lumine), VEEV, Adobe, CPRT, Autotrader, Evolution AB, Hacksaw Gaming AB, KSPI, Edenred, FISV, GPN,(+JKHY,FIS,FOUR) OTCM, Karelia Tobacco, MTY Food Group, Greggs. Thats 75% of my portfolio and all are still cheap.

Don't want to turn this into an intellectual battle of ego's - I don't root for 80 hour work weeks, I'm just saying we could definitely return more ownership towards the people. My opinion is that we shouldn't take current government support for granted and I'm having a more positive image of the US in 25 years compared to EU. For EU I see more risks and less opportunities vs. US.

Yeah Adobe and SAP looks interesting

Nice! Angela tugs me around London pretty often, sometimes for an entire week. Paris too. However, we both prefer to spend the majority of our time discovering in the nooks and crannies. We plan on spending time in Llandudno also on this trip and actually can walk there from where we will stay.

The US is suffering from a similar problem though, they keep borrowing to fund their innovation. US debt to GDP is 122%, Belgium is 110%. Belgium needs to practice more austerity with their social security, too much is taken advantage of. It would indeed be better if that money is more spent towards innovation to increase our GDP, that I agree on. However, I don't believe this needs to result in Belgians working 80hour weeks to get by and pray to god they never need an ambulance.

I'm still very very bullish on Coupang. I believe many software names will have their moment in the sun from the levels as well.

You root for the team not the government. Do I really need to explain the obvious to you ? Doesn’t idiotic post like this belong to the “political thread” where wholesale destruction of people are casually discussed over coffee. Does not one root for United States (the country) to win, even with all the disgusting things (the government) does.

Makes you wonder how long that can last, though. As a fellow Belgian, you'll know we're not exactly in the strongest fiscal position — borrowing to keep all those commitments going, with growth that hasn't really kept pace. At some point, something's got to give. That's actually my main motivation for investing and building wealth in the first place — to be able to retire on my own terms, independent of whatever the government can or can't deliver by then. And to have a nest egg for the children to start with, because I have the idea that the social/economic mobility will be a lot more difficult in the AI future. And honestly, I think the EU needs to move closer to the US model. Incentives are better aligned. When people have a bit more skin in the game, they tend to push harder — I think we've gotten a little too comfortable here.

Perhaps a European perspective is more helpful here. I have 45 vacation days a year + 10 annual holidays This will increase to > 50 days when I reach 50. Get 20 days off for the birth of each child and am allowed to take 4 months off unpaid per kid (government subsidizes a little) I pay 46% taxes on my base income Companies offer a variety of additional extra-legal benefits that avoid the high taxation. In my country specifically, capital gains are taxed at 10%, dividends at 25%. My doctor visits cost me 3€ Health insurance covers almost everything, hospitalization insurance covers the rest. I am in a rare situation with a daughter that has a serious condition, probably been hospitalized >100 times by now. This literally has had no impact on our financial health.. in the U.S. I would be ruined. Despite the high taxes, most people I know would gladly choose extra holidays vs extra salary. The thing is, making substantially more money is not likely to get you a better lifestyle... we don't have 100M beachside mansions and that sort of extravagant stuff. We don't feel insecure about American exceptionalism. In fact we celebrate it... if this is how Americans love to spend their lives then this is great, you are building the future of the world. But we prefer to spend our lives more on quality time with family, friends, etc... We do consider your tipping culture borderline insane though. I think most Europeans understand that if you have a healthy work-life balance and live in a country where 'bad luck' is covered by the government, you don't really need to build a large amount of wealth. An ow, our food is just way better & healthier. Can't believe the kind of stuff you guys are allowed to put in food and sell to kids...

@SafetyinNumbers I love this chart. It shows how much more resilient Fairfax is today relative to its history to Cats. Shareholder equity has grown faster than premiums over the past 20 years. Since 2005: Shareholder equity 10x: $2.4bn -> $26bn Premiums 6x: $5bn -> $30bn. Same for float $6.6 ->$40. This is an additional reason that explains the widening gap and buffer i.e shareholder equity has grown faster than premiums/float. (interestingly buybacks will have the effect of reducing this buffer but of course increase per share value). The other aspect is that Fairfax will have 1-2% exposure to any Global catastrophe based on its size. There isn't idiosyncratic exposure as cat risk is shared across insurers. This is the latest one (a bit hazy) from the 2025 sustainability report.

I also like at the cheapish valuation: Dominos Pizza, Lvmh and Daikin Industries with the Elliott Involvement

You are correct here. Though similarly to US, high trust is still present in small towns. Immigration ruined that in the cities though...

Not to mention that the majority of people working for the EU commission have extravagent wages (even your typical blue and white collars) and are allowed to work from home...

It is a good thread every year to discuss the best ideas for the year. But right now everything changes so fast, therefore it is after the first 6 month of the year a good time to think about the choices from the start of the year or to discuss new ideas which starting to get interesting in the last months. New ideas for me. I was very optimistic about nintendo at the start, it is still a great company but with a lot of question marks after the last months, the management is not good. I bought Netflix and Microsoft the last days. Amrize still a big idea. Mgm was a big idea at the start and then came the buyout proposal. Exor was a big holding, i was frustrated before and then came the Luce, i sold all. in the last months i bought a few times S&P Global. What are your thoughts? New ideas? or comments on your picks from the start of 2026