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As I said before, who knows? Better question is when does it end? My guess is we are much closer to the beginning than the end. Mind you, I'm, not talking my book. Only stock I own that is participating are long held shares of AMAT in my retirement account and my kids' investment accounts acquired more than 10 years ago when the stock traded at $16/share.

Yes, First Capital was the example I was looking for, with the huge gains they got from selling it to Mitsui Sumitomo in for $1.6b in 2017. Second place in terms of size would be the Pet insurance companies that they sold to JAB Holdings in 2022 for $1.4b. Eurolife that they sold to Eurobank for $945m last year would be the third. In contrast, I can’t think of any example of Berkshire selling an insurance asset. This is a major difference between the two insurance conglomerates, and I personally like the more flexible Fairfax approach better.

But for how long when the revenue is not sustainable?

OK, but companies that earn enough billions while the getting is good may wind up being trillion dollar companies without any moat at all.

Have to think that the recent changes at MSTR are going to make the BTC price less resilient, leading to bigger downs as/when they occurr, offset by greater confidence in the sustainability of the new lows. If you have the patience .... not a bad place to be. Good luck. SD

No? When you look at the current trillion dollar companies without Tesla/NVDA, you will find strong moats and recurring revenue.

"You can't take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform." Howard Marks is 100% right on that. To beat the market, your portfolio has to look different. David Swensen famously called this the "acceptance of uncomfortably idiosyncratic portfolios, which frequently appear downright imprudent in the eyes of conventional wisdom." Even on COBF, the herd mentality is real. Those are pretty bandwagon stocks to pick. It’s probably not a coincidence that the highest returns have been what only 1–2 people picked, not the ones where 5–6 people piled in. But six months is still too short to say if you are right or wrong. A half-year is a blink of an eye, and it is nowhere near enough time for a real structural value thesis to play out. At least you can hold yourself accountable after a year, although the biggest mouths on here seem to conveniently not hold themselves to account even then.

Don't most companies have little or no moat and/or operate in cyclical industries? In the mean time, they are printing money hand over fist with no end in sight. Who knows how long it lasts but earnings go straight to the balance sheet.

Ha - I don't think so - there are lots of tough people on here. I'm completely aware of the ridiculousness of it, it's a weakness on my part, but it's been very cheering to grumble about it, and hear that I'm not the only person here who has underperformed.

And so the time has come. You guys made very good points about leaving NY & staying there. But what about someone who's about the move there? Any suggestions? I've been lucky in life and my paycheck should give me the ability to afford cigarettes here ($20/pack!). I miss Iowa sometimes.

Closing the book on first half of 2026. Overall lousy compared to market index. Oh well …. 2026 H1 => 5.7% 2025 => 24.38% 2024 => 36.96% 2023 => 24.81% 2022 => -11.48% 2021 => 20.09% 2020 => 11.36% 2020-25 CAGR stands at 21%. S&P500 had a YTD gain of 10% in the same period in USD terms, double that of my gain in YTD.

Because there is no moat protecting these earnings. Barely any semi has a true moat. And the revenue is not recurring, when enough datacenters are built (and because chips are not the only bottleneck) the demand for chips will just stop, as it always has in history. Its a cyclical industry.

I didn’t try it in the end. I’m a bit like yourself, for me quality of the company is very important. I also think I’m need to know the company too, I’m not going to buy some random bank I’ve never seen or heard of, trading at 0.5 book… or whatever. So just couldn’t see myself ever actioning these types of ideas.

Thinking more about this - I remember someone wise once said to me that 4 is a big turning point, which I found very true. When your youngest hits 4, it's pretty glorious as you are out of a certain pit i.e. no nappies, no buggies etc. so moving around is so much easier for starters. It's one of the big shifts (followed by the teenage years, which are something else altogether....) So I'm sorry, because you are really in one of those super tough times with 3 under 4. The only other thing I can think - an obvious one - is I hope you and your partner are kind to yourselves and each other - it's easy for parents to beat themselves up about stuff, and worry you haven't done the right thing. It's the wild west out there - we all try our best (when we're not too tired!). Good luck!

I did for a month out of curiosity - wasn't really my thing - felt like cigar butts. I prefer quality. Problem is that these are small, illiquid things, so if every subscriber rushes to buy (esp. without reading properly), you've missed the boat. Because I'm a cheapskate, *cough* value investor, I tend to do monthlies on one or two, see as much content, and then rarely continue. But struggle to think of anything like this place, really.

The question that comes to mind is, based on current and projected earnings of some of these semi stocks, why shouldn't they trade at current prices?

@Sweet I'd ignored this thread - thought it was going to be different. I'm so sorry to hear this - I know how incredibly frustrating and upsetting stuff like this (well Parenting is Highs and Lows generally!). Hard to know what to say, but sounds like you've had lots of good advice. I know very intelligent people who started talking quite late, they were just thinking and learning in the interim. I think any reading on either side is a wonderful thing. My best wishes to you and your partner with it.

Volkswagen is too dysfunctional even for my taste.I think there are plays in the German industrial sector that are more straightforward in terms of chance of success. MTX was the last one that I bought in decent size.

Thanks - a really great post as always. Little by little I am receiving my education on this industry from you!

Nice to read, Mike [ @boilermaker75 ], Great service! - I hope Lyn and you enjoy it.

HaHa! - You just made my morning, @aws! Let's hear what you think! ...- Great deep value investment in a ... shiny turd

Check out spirit of math too. My three kids are still in it, oldest at the grade 11 level. Less rote than Kumon, more problem solving focus. Highly recommend it

Consider Kumon - reading and math. I put my daughter in at age 2 in the reading program. Now at age 4 she can read at a grade 1 level. Will be starting math next month. They are short exercise booklets, designed for repetition and developing focus. Students progress at their own rate. Fosters a great parent bond with the child, but requires patience to get through the daily homework. Would not underestimate what a child can learn. The brain is mysterious.

Listened to this podcast, RYAN section only. I'm, self admittedly, a tough critic. They are directionally correct with a few things however they make assumptions that are not accurate. Again, bodes to the thesis that distribution and the consumption of P&C insurance is greatly mis-understood. Property Casualty insurance overall is just mis-understood. There are just mechanics to insurance that are 3 & 4 layers deep that can confuse the highly intelligent investors/buyers of insurance which supports a role for brokers in the digital world for the foreseeable future. One assumption made was "Admitted vs. E&S" and why business flows into those marketplaces respectively. #1 - Every broker is incentivized to place business in the admitted market. Typically, not always, but typically an admitted placement has no wholesaler so theres no split on commission. There are certain niches/carriers who pay as high as 22%-25% commission and as a retailer placing that direct, there is no split with wholesaler - typical commission is 15%-17.5% admitted - E&S varies but 10%-12% net to retailer and 7.5%-10% net to wholesaler (Gross 17.5% to 22% is norm in wholesale + FEES....many transactional E&S policies have a $250/$500 fee in addition to commission that goes to wholesaler - some have $2500/$5000 placement fees). The extra kicker is the contingent commissions paid as well in both scenarios - when retail places admitted direct - contingents go to retailer, when placed wholesale - contingents paid to wholesaler. The reason for "preferred wholesalers" is driven by an arrangement with retail/wholesale where there could be a split on contingents so naturally a retailer will want to load up with 1 wholesaler if the retailer participates on contingents placed thru wholesale channel. Bored yet? Putting folks to sleep? Probably....thats the opportunity...insurance transaction usually just ends with "okay, lets just buy this already and deal with it next year. Its so odd actually. Its true not every retail agency can have the expertise to write up every deal that comes across the desk so naturally a wholebroker is engaged to work on accounts where no admitted market will write OR a retailer does not have an agreement to place with the admitted market who potentially could write that business. But the retailer will not "disclose" to buyer of insurance "Hey, I know XYZ admitted carrier can write this well for you but we do not have an agreement to place business with them so I recommend you call Bob down the street, he can help you and I will pass". That never happens, the retailer will just send deal to E&S market and put a deal together, and if the relationship with client/broker is decent and the price is right - the deal will trade E&S. When a large broker purchases an agency, the first thing they are gonna do is cull the E&S book and see what admitted's will offer terms on whats already there. The accretion on revenue is significant. Recently acquired broker who has $10M of premium spend E&S and getting paid 10% ($1M revenue), if that can be rolled admitted, and make 15%-17.5% or even 20%, that is a large increase in revenue for the recently acquired shop to a favored admitted carrier who has a large relationship with admitted XYZ carrier and immediately appoints newly acquired retailer. In those situations, folks like RYAN, AmWins, RPS, Bridge - will lose - but retail broker/client win. Directionally correct because E&S has been growing significantly over the past 7-10 years. Mostly because the playbook relies on a lazy retailer. Theres lost of follow up and convincing that needs to happen to get an admitted carrier to write "new" business - they just ask lots of questions (they are underwriters...obviously they ask questions). But many times an E&S brokered deal can be put together faster so if speed is the game, E&S is the cure. RYAN, AmWins, CRC have been building an army of sales folks getting weekly meetings with retailers saying "let us do the placement of coverage, you manage the client relationship."

Well, semi's are now 19.7% of the S&P500 and 0DTE's are over half of daily retail volume. Something tells me this won't last. Overall the market is not that crazy expensive but we have earnings growth coming out of our ears through semi's. One has to wonder what would happen in a couple of scenario's that people just aren't willing to put much stock in currently as all capital gets sucked into the same sector, leaving big pockets of the market completely discarded. There is only one prevalent scenario that many currently seems to accept: AI technology will keep improving at the same rate and hardware demand for it will far outstrip supply for the near future. I'm agnostic on it all but I do know semi's becoming 1/4th or 1/3th of S&P500 is likely to be exuberant and not sustainable unless we actually magically get true AGI. Good luck to all participating though. So I kinda wonder what the rational upside from here could be for momentum guys, AI bulls, trend followers, passive investors blindly following the indexes, ... because at some point we reach a sudden stop and people will likely once more be surprised that no bells get rung at the top. I've been selling off most of my passive investing portfolio since a few weeks as I was up nicely for the year, albeit still lagging the market of course. I'd rather hold some cash and specific individual investments than have 20% of my net worth in semi's. I've enjoyed some upside through this exposure but I'll let others bat for that extra sector market cap doubling here!