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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/20/2026 in all areas

  1. That reminds me of another stock. A textile business in the 1960ies. I haven’t bought for similar reasons (apart from I wasn’t born yet). The whole story of the guy buying the busibess was fun in itself: First the guy bought it becoming emotional (it was a dispute with the than owner about 1/4 dollar per share or so; I don’t tell the story to you, you won’t believe it!) Second, it got even better: The guy sticked to textile over 20 years, even though it was clear that business went to asia and wouldn’t come back! He not only held it - he even threw more money after the textile mills. The Opportunity costs over the years were as high as $200bn (no joke!). How happy I am - never buying it. What a disaster! Third, one could think he might have learned from that, right? But - no! One of the next things he bought was - a shoe business! That was 1993. And where has the shoe making moved to? Yes. Asia. Again. Can you believe it? Sticked 20 years to textile, shich moved to asia, and 8 years later buys a shoe business. So now we are at nearly 30 years of disaster and value destruction with a pause of 8 years. Fourth, he was an „airoholic“ (he claimed that word for himself as he got so many bad investments into airlines). I could go on and on… It’s always the same: People don’t change. They don’t learn. Never. They just stay like they have always been. I mean, he might have once come up with the idea of focusing on quality instead of just buying “as long as it’s cheap.” I bet he never learned that! Or buying entire companies instead of always just parts. Why not? I can’t imagine that he ever learned all that things. It's always the same with these guys. And than they get old and are as dumb as they‘ve always been. Well, okay, while he still owned the textile mills, he invested quite a bit in insurance companies. And that was rather successful. But he just sticked to all those textile, shoe business, airlines, IBM and had all that in his books. Anyway, how lucky I am I never bought that company! The guy and his shareholders certainly never struck it rich—and rightly so.
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