Rainier

This is a big part of my strategy. CNSWF, ZS, DT, PANW, FTNT, SLP, VEEV, SNPS are the ones I’m targeting.

Thanks. I had never heard of them. Do you know happened in mid-2025 to make the price go parabolic?

Yeah, no matter how you slice it - it was a really good batch of picks overall.

Thanks. I've added it to the watchlist.

Thanks for doing this work, it is very interesting to see how things play out during the year. I was working on this as well and came up with an estimate of roughly 43%. Your calculation is more accurate and by the book (although I think you may have left out hasilp89, who also had ZEG as well as GLV). I think the main differences between your calculations and mine are: I was trying to get a weighted average for the thread, so I allotted each person who had an idea with a total of $10,000. The $10,000 was then spread evenly across all of that individual's ideas. So, in the case of kh812000, all of the $10,000 went to SNDK since that was his only idea. Others might have $2,000/idea if they had 5 ideas. I was thinking of the overall return from the mindset of the thread being a fund of funds type of thing. I used ADR's whenever possible and I think some of them had slightly higher gains. For the MSTR short, I just inverted the gain calculation using the specified $405 price. I'm sure this is not how it would actually work, but I am not an expert in shorting. So, I had it at a 60% gain. Didn't know how else to do it. I had hasilp89 picking ZEG and GLV. I didn't see those in the google doc (but I may have missed it, I am not great with google docs). I included the Strathcona special dividend (see below on my more liberal take on picks) and the ZEG special dividend. Otherwise I just used the forward dividend from Yahoo Finance as of 12/24/25 (so the dividend component of the return was slightly inflated due to any dividend growth that happened during the year). I was also more liberal with what constituted an idea/pick. If someone said they were going to hold something they already owned or if they were generally positive about the future of a stock (even if they didn't specify it as a pick), I just threw it in and weighted it. I don't think there were any ideas in this group that were home runs (it was stuff like JOE, FRFHF, NTDOY), but they largely had some level of gain. I had the same +100% list as you with just slight variation in the returns due to the ZEG dividend and using ADRs for Mako and Heidelberg.

Like you, I've wanted to start a position for years, but it has always seemed too expensive. With the recent sell-off, I couldn't make that excuse anymore. So, I made it a very sizeable position (for me) over the last couple of months. The main reasoning is that 1) it is a great business model that scales well, 2) LATAM fears are dragging it down, which may be warranted, 3) the business performance is still stellar - 7.9% free cash flow yield, high growth rates, high ROIC, etc.

Why the B shares? I have never done any research on U Haul.

Congrats on the return you've seen on it. I wish I had known about it at any point before this year! Yeah, sometimes it seems like I am the only person on the forum that uses a DCF. But it helps me to put things into perspective and to compare companies. So, for all of these I went back and looked at historical growth and tried to come to a reasonable FCF growth rate over a ten year hold period. I do this with any company I purchase that is in a stable/predictable phase of its business. Even with the run its been on, TASE isn't crazy expensive given its cash flow growth.

I agree with all of this. I have come to view these exchanges as legal oligopolies with just enough competition to incentivize them to have decent management and some innovation. Regarding the values, I tend to start with free cash flow when I am trying to think about my view of value. FCF Yield for ICE, NDAQ, TMXXF, Euronext, Tel Aviv, and ASX are all in the sub-5% range. The others range from low 5% up to 9%. CME is also sub 5%, but I bought it as a small tracker a while ago before I had done much research on the industry. So, I guess I should throw it into the same category as ICE and NDAQ as hoping I get a chance to buy more on a pull back.

I like ICE and NDAQ and I think they are likely the two best businesses among all of them. I just think they’re valued more richly than some of the others at the moment (which makes sense). I’ll gladly buy both if they have a pullback and would prefer to have those two as my highest concentrations in the basket.

LQDA CROX ZS, FTNT, PANW CNSWF MELI RDDT CPNG

I’m very interested to hear any responses to this. I’ve always assumed that anywhere that is dealing with a prolonged extreme outcome like hyperinflation would also have high levels of corruption or iffy rule of law. If that is true, then I guess you have to risk adjust your expectations on return if there is a risk of losing your asset to confiscation or having to pay to protect your claim to it.

I've started researching the various financial exchanges. I like businesses that act like tollbooths or have an essential asset that would be extremely hard to replace. So, in theory, it looks like these companies have pretty durable businesses with decent moats. It is obviously competitive, but it seems like regional or niche exchanges typically just get bought up once they've achieved a decent size. I've been looking at: CME CBOE ICE NDAQ MKTX LSEGY DBOEY JPGXY HKXCY TMXFF ASXFY Does anyone have thoughts (positive or negative) on these or others that might be worth looking at? I know that some of them have niches that they specialize in like commodities, bond trading, derivatives, and some own ancillary businesses. But are there any other things that differentiate them? Any pitfalls to avoid?

Thanks for this. Is there a website to find merger arb/take private spreads like this?

Having said all of that, I thought A House of Dynamite was very well done (excluding one bizarre character moment). It was probably my most anticipated movie of the year. I thought Zero Dark Thirty was very well made, so I was very hopeful for this. It didn’t disappoint. I had also read Annie Jacobsen’s nuclear war game book earlier this year, and this movie scratched the same itch.

Ok, I think I understand the sentiment and no offense taken. But I’m probably an edge case and I don’t think I’m depriving myself of much. But even if I wasn’t an edge case (see my last point), I still wouldn’t subscribe to it perpetually. I make these claims based on a few facts/opinions. 1. I have a very large Blu Ray/4K collection. About 2,500 at this point. And I’m aware to a lot of people this probably sounds insane, but for about half of those movies I was able to utilize a specific method of buying over the course of a couple of years by which I acquired over 1,000 of those blu rays for either $1.00 or $1.25/movie. So from a financial standpoint there’s at least a ceiling on the insanity! So, for basically any movie that I consider to be worth watching again, I have a superior means of watching it compared to a streamer (whether you measure that as superior video quality from the disc or equivalent convenience with Plex). 2. Since we’ve always been big film nerds and because I prefer to own/watch 4K discs (due to bit rate, permanent ownership, and other reasons) and because I am cheap and watch for sales, I tend to keep a pretty close eye on new 4K releases and prices. So, I am essentially aware of every film being released on disc each month. To give a sense of that, there are anywhere from 50-150 new 4K SKUs released each month across all of the companies (both megacorps like Disney and Sony and boutique companies like Arrow or Kino Lorber). This takes maybe 10 minutes of browsing each month. So, it’s not as though I’m ignorant of what is being released that I might enjoy (so, I just act as my own algorithm). 3. Even though I am most concerned with physical releases, I am still aware of the meaningful releases from the major streamers. A few times a year I look at lists of what has been or will be released on the streamers and once there are enough for a particular streamer, I subscribe for a month and then cancel. Some of which I will purchase if they’re released on disc. 4. I have realized that, as I get older, I have less and less tolerance for certain types of movies. This is probably directly correlated with the extreme reduction in free time as a parent compared to when we were childless. But part of it is, I think, because I’m simply getting older and more out of touch culturally with the newer strains of filmmaking/writing. So, it is very likely that I’ve already seen the vast majority of films that I will consider good or great, and it’s all just diminishing returns from here. Lucky for me, there’s a period of about 60-70 years of films that have a much higher probability for enjoyment for me (circa 1950 to probably 2015 or so). And of course there are still new movies that I enjoy, but the hit rate for me is much lower. 5. And all of that longwindedness leads me to the most important point. The vast majority of films and TV produced/distributed by Netflix are of very low quality (this is regardless of whether I think they’re “for me” or not). For every House of Dynamite, there are 20 generic AI written rom coms or plotless melodramas or bad action movies. So, I just don’t agree that it is worthwhile at all to have a perpetual Netflix subscription. And even for someone who is less into movies than me, I don’t really think it’s a great proposition. The average quality is just too low. Like I said, it had been a couple of years since we subscribed to Netflix. And apparently even that wasn’t long enough to accumulate enough good content for a month’s worth of watching. Like Parsad, I also have Amazon Prime Video by default because we use the shipping benefits. I also have a “free” HBO Max anccount because of our cell phone plan. So It’s not like I’m anti-streamers. But I wouldn’t pay for any of these streamers on an ongoing basis if they weren’t add ons with other services I am willing to pay for.

I don’t understand. Is this sarcasm?

Is there anything unique to the tax reporting on these? Especially BWIN and RYAN. Are they all just standard corporations with 1099 filings? I seem to remember one of them having a different corporate structure, but I may be misremembering that.

I think it was Zions taking a $50 million charge off on what sounds like a loan providing some type of note financing. Could be Tricolor.

Agreed. I bought a small basket of regional and community banks back in August and sold them all at the beginning of October for about a 15% gain. I’m dipping back in again. Probably some more fallout to come though. These C&I focused banks can never remember how much pain note financing can cause. Small positions so far: WABC, MCBS, FSBW, HBT, PNFP, BHRB, EWBC, FCNCA Also watching closely: SBSI, MBIN, PB, NECB, PLBC, LCNB, MBIN, COLB, GBCI, GSBC, WTBA, OPBK.

I’ve really enjoyed reading through this thread. Thanks for the insights on these companies/families. Has anyone heard of Anthony Deden, who runs a firm called Edelweiss Holdings? Does anyone know anything about his holdings at this point or in the last 5-10 years? I think it’s a small fund that is primarily acting as a family office for a small group of families. I learned about a few interesting European companies from him or his firm several years ago - Bakkafrost (salmon farming), TFF Group (wine barrels), Symrise (flavors), Jungfraubahn (rail/gondala/other operator in Swiss alps). My initial exposure to him was from this interview that I heard years ago. From the interview and other stuff I read about him back then, I remember he was very focused on preserving the wealth of the families against inflation. He also indicated that he was very fond of investing in these slow moving dynastic type European companies that have outsized family control. I’m curious how he’s done in the last few years. The firm had a newsletter/blog that I don’t think has been updated in a long time. I just searched and found a MicroCap Club interview from last year that he did with Ian Cassel, but haven’t seen anything else from him or Edelweiss in years. This thread jogged my memory and reminded me of them. https://microcapclub.com/content/files/2024/09/Anthony-Deden-Transcript.pdf

I can second this book. Very interesting biography, but also gave me a lot of insight into how the business works.

I am not a fan of the business either. Feels dirty charging a poor grandma who’s on a fixed income a 100% mark up and 19% interest for the pleasure of driving a 15 year old beater. However, from a business standpoint, I’ve seen this industry work either extremely well or be a complete disaster. I have had some exposure to several operators of franchised buy-here-pay-here dealerships in a prior job. For high quality operators, the net margin was consistently between 20-25% and all metrics operated like clockwork. They have a clientele that will always exist and the key to it is to be rigorous with the (often proprietary) underwriting process and to keep the car running. The keeping the car running part is a big priority and it (oddly) builds loyalty in a customer base that is being price gouged - because they’re always accommodative in servicing cars for customers who are hugely dependent on that single car in getting to work. So these guys basically operate almost like a utility for their customers and have a pretty high degree of customer satisfaction and repeat business. If the car keeps running, they have like a 2-5% loss rate. So they place a huge emphasis on the service departments at their dealerships and buying the same make/model over and over that are easy to service. The only real risks in the industry are rates getting too high (so that there isn’t enough delta between the borrowing cost to fund the loans and the actual usury rate that they’re charging the customer - virtually all of these businesses have the note portfolio levered up 50-60%), regulatory pressure, and the used car/auction market getting too frothy too quickly. For good operators, it’s almost machine-like how they do business. On the disaster side, I’ve seen several guys get into the business and deviate from underwriting or start buying cars that aren’t easy to service or other deviations. Lots of capital set on fire. it was probably 25% top tier operators and the other 75% were either buy-here-pay-here guys who were in some stage of catastrophe or investors buying securitized pools of these notes, which rarely works out for a number of reasons. In other words, a lot of garbage in terms of business quality.

Good point. See below for my comments. Hopefully others will add or poke holes. CRSP - This is a bet on gene editing technology. Based on what I know of the technology, the only known viable method to treat a lot of these genetic disorder symptoms is through CRISPR. They recently had a success and it seems like there is a pretty large pipeline, albeit probably a low batting average will materialize. Somewhat unique to early or mature biotech, they also have a mountain of cash and no debt. I view this as 5 - 10 year hold and it’s definitely got some risk, so position size is smallish. PL (even though I sold yesterday; +48% in a day is hard to resist) - This is (I think still) the largest satellite owner operator in the world. They have best in class image resolution and latency and are deploying a new satellite (Pelican) that is set to materially improve both of those metrics. They have a subscription model, with the most important customer categories being defense, agriculture, and insurance. Good and improving relationships with US DoD, NASA, and EU governments. I don’t think this level of geospatial data will become less valuable over time and they’re currently in position for high probability of being the long-term market leader. ASTS - basically the same idea as PL (i.e. a moat built around the largest/most robust satellite fleet), but providing communication instead of imaging. Less conviction on this one, just because the runway for PL seems very tangible, with customers who value and will likely continue to pay for higher resolution/speed. OPXS, AMPX - High barrier to entry military tech. OPXS makes optical scopes, sights, housings, etc. for things like tanks and extreme caliber ground artillery. Growth has been very strong and utilization of their technology seems to be accelerating. AMPX has one of the best looking battery technologies for drones/UAVs. The big thing with them is that they’re achieving significant endurance gains without weight gain. UAV and VTOL tech seems like it is going to have a long lifespan - I am not going to say its peak warfare, but it’s hard to imagine a more effective military tech in the near future. I wish I could invest in Anduril. Like Saluki said, I would also put Kraken and TAYD in this category too. JOE - if the next 50 years of economic, cultural, and interstate migration trends are anything like the last 50 years - This one has been debated to death in the JOE thread. There are several experts (both for and against) who post there regularly, so I’m not going to add any value. I’ll just say that, even though I would never want to live there (heat/humidity), it seems very obvious that the area is going to do very well for the foreseeable future. The management team seems relatively competent, so (on the downside) I just don’t see how it crashes and burns. But my view is much more on the side of this thing being one of the very best real estate setups over the next 20+ years. RGTI, QBTS, IONQ - if this stuff becomes practical and economical, it has the potential to upend a lot of industries. I wish I was more knowledgeable about the likelihood of it ever happening. I can’t elaborate much more on this. These are three big players in the quantum computing industry. I think it is currently the most speculative of all speculative tech. But if the computers can be profitably built at scale, profitably leased, and achieve some type of networking - then it could completely disrupt most industries that rely on any type of encryption or decryption. This is the one area, even more so than AGI, that I could see being completely nationalized if the tech does what the proponents think it can. Or it could be unachievable. Much less risky but pretty big opportunity: VRT - this is just a bet on datacenter expansion, AI proliferation, more compute, etc. Without being as speculative as a lot of the other AI-related companies. They’re kind of acting as the infrastructure partner for the networking/switching, thermal management, power management infrastructure for data centers. VEEV - This is a solid company and not really speculative. They provide a suite of core software for biotech companies. Kind of like defense tech, biotech seems ripe for rapid advancements in the next decade (AI, gene editing, mRNA, etc). VEEV seems like a good way to ride that trend without betting on specific companies/drugs. RDDT - I view Reddit as having the most valuable data for AI training in the world along with an under-tapped advertising opportunity. CASH, CCB, STT, BK - Niche banks that provide valuable services over and above typical consumer/commercial banking products. CASH and CCB have subscription type services that are marketed to other banks. STT and BK are fee generation machines with custody and clearing services. CPNG - Seems like an easy bet on the South Korean economy, which I think will have a very strong next 20 years. I feel the same way about Japan and Singapore at this point, and I’m trying to find similar high return coffee can bets on their economies. Fairfax India - I am highly positive about India’s long-term macro outlook. But I don’t have any expertise with looking at Indian companies and don’t have the time to dedicate to learning the market. Fairfax seems like the most logical way to invest, given my limitations.

CRSP PL (even though I sold yesterday; +48% in a day is hard to resist) ASTS OPXS, AMPX JOE - if the next 50 years of economic, cultural, and interstate migration trends are anything like the last 50 years RGTI, QBTS, IONQ - if this stuff becomes practical and economical, it has the potential to upend a lot of industries. I wish I was more knowledgeable about the likelihood of it ever happening. Much less risky but pretty big opportunity: VRT VEEV RDDT CASH, CCB, STT, BK CPNG Fairfax India