coffeecaninvestor

Well that was quick back to fully invested. Since we are pretty good savers I don’t see the need to hold a ton of cash. 3 of the largest in dollar terms stock purchases I have made JNJ, NSRGY, and RTO. Wake me up in 3-5 years, or if the market crashes. If RTO pans out it’s probably pretty close to a never sell. JNJ and NSRGY are more of a place to put cash for the time being.

Starting to buy RTO.

NSRGY - another boring company at a reasonable valuation and what I view as limited down side risk. Both JNJ and NSRGY are now 5% positions.

I work as an underwriter for a large health insurer so we deal with brokers all the time. It’s always amazed me how much they get paid, and how the situation still exists what seems like lazy work by them. I do think the product is complex enough that most CFO/CEO/HR don’t want to deal with it. Especially when they go to market the process is chaotic with requests for data, spreading all the bids, most large brokers have huge questionnaires and in some cases their own online portals to aggregate all the data. It is not an efficient process for someone to do. Some carriers will play games and try to hide costs so being able to identify that when spreading bids is important as well. The implementation process is also a nightmare so the broker and account manager work closely together because usually the sale happened because the broker stuck their neck out to move the business to a new carrier when the easiest thing to is stay with the current carrier. The relationship part is more important. It’s all a big game, and some are better at playing it than others. I can’t tell you how many bids that I’ve sent out where we’d save them millions and they don’t move to us. We only close 5-10% of the quotes we send out. It’s not always the relationship between the decision maker and broker typically it could be between the HR person who has to do the day to day dirty work. I don’t see anything changing as long as the current dynamics exist. The whole industry would have to be disrupted which is hard to do as you can see from the Amazon/BRK/JPM thing that failed awhile back.

I don't currently. I haven't spent the time to really dig into the business other than reading the thread. It's on my to due list. FFH may be cheap, but it seems to be more volatile, and that is what I am aiming to avoid. I want some upside and limited downside until I can find a fat pitch. Sounds good in theory for now at least.

Do you know if these 3x leveraged single stock ETFs have any magnified effect on the day to day movements?

Started buying JNJ this week up to a 4% position now, and will likely buy more. Figured a 3% dividend that is growing is better than holding cash in a sweep account with interest rates about to be cut. Wanted something with less downside risk than the S&P500.

JNJ

I read Poor Charlie’s almanack for the first time after he passed.. which made me sad he had passed, and because I didn’t read it earlier in life. I think it might have changed things for me. Looking back I was right to question my professors and what they were teaching. But I didn’t put things together quite like Charlie. Then again I am no genius. Great book though. I plan to to re-read it every year.

Founded in 1784… I’d say your probably right on the longevity of the business. No major purchases from me just small adds, but I have some cash looking for an opportunity.

Read this last night.. “It’s ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain its own until the very end. For such a soul will never be at rest—by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 98.5b–6a ..and the first thing that came to mind was this thread. Personally I struggled for awhile with always trying to predict the next top or market crash, and letting it impact my day to day life. I can't imagine the toll it takes on those that worry about every new indicator reading, and worry about quarterly performance.

Selling some index funds. I have had very little cash for a while now. I'll have about 8% after the sale today.

During COVID I had similar feelings.. It was clearly an error on my thinking as there was plenty of cheap ideas although maybe not the best businesses. I am coming around to being more agnostic about what I am buying. For a while I wanted to really only buy quality that is growing at cheap multiples, but at the end of the day I just want to make good investment. I was too locked into one investment philosophy and missed some good opportunities. Buying an Apple like company at 10x earnings might come around every decade or so. Obviously I am always looking for that opportunity, but I have to do something else in the meantime.

Yes, in hindsight clearly a mistake, but I think he makes a lot of errors of omission and he’s done ok. But I am a little biased. I was also waiting for lower prices.

I think he was lightening up in some of the more cyclical companies in the hopes that he would have an opportunity to put a large amount to work if things really got out of hand and went lower.. I think he probably regrets buying so early in 09', but once when the fed stepped in he knew he wouldn't get his opportunity so he turned to the next most logical thing and bought BRK. It was pretty logical, and cool headed. I don't think he was scared to pull the trigger. He knows how resilient and well capitalized the business he built is..

I think what you will probably find is a bunch of mediocre or cyclical businesses that are tough to evaluate without knowledge of the business cycle. I like to use quickfs.net it has the company description and a nice chart of historical ROIC. Some thoughts to look for when looking a snap shot of a company 1) incorporation date. On average I like companies that have stood the test of time, and see how they have evolved. I typically will dismiss anything without 10 year financials, but may follow them to see how it develops. 2) Asset growth - especially if it is a more capital intensive industry you don't want a ton of growth 3) Consistency in margins especially gross margins 4) Profitability over the past 10+ years

Small adds yesterday to FRPH, OTCM, and IQV. blows my mind how long FRPH has been trading sideways..

I only reallocated once when I started this new approach. I didn’t have to but I just wanted each position to be equal to what my new contributions would be. I had a much more concentrated portfolio before a lot of it was in BRK and a couple others. I won’t rebalance from here on out I will let the winners run and losers fade away.

I had to buy a few positions in the first year as I reallocate the portfolio to equal weight. Honestly it’s pretty hard to not be more active. It’s a new skill to learn to sit on your ass and just watch the market. My circle of investing stocks also shrunk since I am typically either looking for 100 bagger type stocks or 100 year type businesses. That really limits my universe of investable stocks for the coffee can.

Over the past 2 years I have simplified my portfolios (just in case I die my wife will have a easier time figuring things out) I sold out of a lot of my individual stocks that were larger positions. I also took almost all my cash and parked it in index funds. My coffee can portfolio is my Roth IRA which means those positions are small since contributions are capped (I buy one new position per year). When I find a high conviction high return bet I plan to sell out of some of the index funds and purchase up to a 10% position, but so far I haven’t found much that meets both return and conviction criteria. 90% index funds 1% CI 1% LHX 1% IQV 1% CNI 1% MKL 1% VRSK 1% NNI 1% FRPH 1% OTCM 1% CACI

+1. I listened this morning since my son woke me up at 5am. I didn’t know much about him before but seemed down to earth and I really liked the conviction he has in his investments. It made me want to buy some JOE.

It’s definitely not the only way. I think it comes down to the individuals temperament, the amount of time they have to devote to studying investments, and manage their portfolio. Personally I don’t have that much time with full time work and a family. I also studied my historical performance when I was more active and using macro for market timing. I realized I wasn’t outperforming and that strategy wasn’t going to work as my free time became less and less with a family and career.

I was thinking about this recently.. I’m lucky my wife talked into a third kid. They grow up so fast. Having kids isn’t easy but it’s easily the most rewarding thing I can think of.

I used to spend quite a bit of time tracking spreads, yield curves, and value metrics in an attempt to market time. I read enough books to know this is a fools errand. Buying quality businesses that have good balance sheets seemed like the easier endeavor. I think it’s normal in a market like this to get smart and try to time things but Dealraker is right that riding the market is the way to go. It also definitely matters where you are in life. I still have 30+ years to invest, but if I was on the verge of retirement id have a generous pile of cash. In the mean time I’ll set and forget my investments and go bust my ass at work so I have more cash flow to invest when the time comes.

Moved some of my FDIC insured cash to SGOV. Getting an extra 2-3% yield