LC

Yeah Vuori was all the rage in Colorado a year ago. No idea if it still is or not. Apologies for the long upcoming post, but here is what Google shows me: google for "lululemon" google for "vuori" google for "alo"

I could see LULU doing OK - Sanjeev had a post that it's the dominant retailer in its category. I'd say unless there's a competitor emerging to take that spot, LULU would remain a decent bet. But I don't know the womens yoga clothes market well enough

Well I'd say if the goal is to convince the market that management is not making poor decisions (e.g. equity hedges) then they should be more transparent. But otherwise I agree. It's not a tiny deal but it's not a huge one either. I am not a huge fan of the mattress business in general. Does SleepCountry own its Real estate? Maybe Fairfax sees value there. I am just thinking - if I had 800MM or whatever to invest on Fairfax's behalf - is SleepCountry the best I could come up with?

Yeah I don't like the acquisition much - even if everything goes right and they are able to improve the mattress biz. 19x earnings for Mattresses vs. 8x for Fairfax.

Carson Block cashing that commission check from Prem as we speak (kidding)

I still use a $100 4weight rod and reel combo! Half the fun is getting out there...actually more than half the fun considering I am not a great angler. Plus there's a learning curve so better gear isn't really going to make a difference at this stage. Orvis has some great articles and videos on their website/youtube. Have fun! East coast fly fishing is the best

Not sure where you sense envy, but I'll say if I had kids who wanted to be doctors...I wouldn't be advising them to become electricians or mechanics instead. If you feel differently then that is your prerogative. And @thepupil : I totally agree. In fact even the "edge case" you refer to - probably still better to take on 300k of debt and go to a great school. You are buying a practically-guaranteed worst-case outcome of a 200k/year position, with plenty of upside potential. For a fixed debt that can be extended for decades and withered away by inflation? That's a smart bet in my opinion.

Not sure what flavor of MD but doctors have some of the best prospects amongst the professions - from great financing deals (my ex was getting offers 0% down market rate 30 year mortgage deals), the ability to write off so many "expenses", inflation+ pricing power... doctors complain about having 300k in student debt but tell me what other profession can buy a home, have 2 nice cars 2 well educated kids, great financing and retirement options available, all while easily handling 300k of personal debt? And they can pick up and move somewhere anywhere to hit some untapped demand, start a practice, and rake it in. I know a guy who was an ER doc, started an urgent care in a mountain town - bought the building, eventually sold the urgent care biz to a University...rakes in 50K+/month just leasing the building to his old business. A doctor with a business mind can do really well in this country. I think also the situation around tradesmen is not as great as it was 2 years ago. It's still possible to do well but simply less real estate activity is naturally going to dampen activity for builds & renovations.

COVID tests are/were weird. Anecdotal nonsense: I recall getting exposed - testing 2 days later (negative) - developing symptoms over the next 3 days (negative test) - clearing symptoms and testing positive 2 days after having zero symptoms.

I admire your gusto Will you account for growth? I imagine one benefit of using a small cap index is finding companies which may grow into mid/large caps. Low earnings, low book, high buybacks...these metrics may ignore these.

I like this one:

AI is a cost reduction tool - it is not even a risk management tool. Stress tests are responses to macro factors: how will portfolios/positions look in a recession/depression environment. GDP, HPI goes down by 8%: What happens to your consumer book? Treasury yields go up 4%: What happens to your loan portfolio? You have to look at the variables the regulators are flexing, and the response on the bank's capital ratios. But ultimately this is a reflection of the bank's business: One bank may have a large CRE book, another may have a large unsecured consumer loan book. Different books of business will respond differently to macro factors. It's up to each investor to assess & get comfortable. Regarding Basel, and regulations in general: Nobody is telling banks how much risk to take, but regulators do put a price (capital) on risk. The higher the cost, the less risk banks will take. Or, they will do something creative to take that risk. Frankly I am of the opinion that banks are in a strong position. The entire globe went thru a year long shutdown of human and economic activity, and I didn't see a real major bank issue.

I guess the "giving pledge" can be expanded to "I pledge to give all my money to my kids"

I have a small Japanese stock basket that I bought on JPY margin - effectively short the yen. It is in no way intended as a currency trade, but I do agree with @brobro777

Saw that too end of day and took a few shares. I think that's just how some of these lesser known but good value stuff trades.

I was going to ask if you've been buying more DFIN sub-60. I have been taking bites as well.

Regulators will essentially control the capitalization of the various insurance agencies. That said, Berkshire has in the past been successful taking over insurance books and re-aligning the investment portfolio to "something more Buffett-esque". Regulators generally have allowed it given Berkshire's sterling reputation. The play here as I see it: 1- Buy well functioning insurance companies with significant long-term customer relationships, who have a conservative investment book, at reasonable valuation multiples. 2- Leverage the existing customer relationships and re-align the investment portfolios, perhaps repricing some coverage (thanks, Ajit!) 3- Sit back and sip Coca-Cola

Those are on the bedside table. These are just pictures of the books he never read and stuffed away in a bookcase

I would break up the ecosystem into its components. What is needed for AI: -Energy -Compute -Data -Model(s) -End uses Energy strikes me as a race to the bottom. Compute not far behind (although I am surprised Nvidia has such a large lead here. It's been a year already and nobody has put out a competing product? Data I see as potential opportunities. Who has the latest/greatest data? How is it gathered/filtered/accessed/sold/used? I think there is opportunity there. Modelling. Kind of goes hand in hand with data. The modelling techniques themselves are well known. So this becomes an exercise in who has the most computing power and data size and quality. End uses. I see a lot of opportunity here (as does the rest of the world). Video is the next step. Who will own the best AI video generator. Adobe? Google/Meta/MSFT? A bit of this circles back to data: how will these models learn/license from all the existing privately owned video (think movies, tv shows) that exists? Are the major film and TV studios going to be big winners here as they (1) License their data for $$$ and (2) use the end product to save $$$? Is someone like Adobe or one of the Tech giants going to control the ecosystem? Perhaps the tech co's get the data for free in exchange for use of the model? Would be a huge win for tech. Of course there are other end uses as well. Curious what some ideas are for winners/losers there.

I don't like it either. Please post IB's reply, I am curious what is driving this.

The company should be compensating Gill as they would any other IBank bringing shares to market. Gamestop was able to raise a significant amount of funds due to Gill, should he not be compensated?

Outstanding find, dartmonkey

Looks like it was founded Nov 2010.

Looks like 15.3% annual return, inception->date Outperforms his benchmark (MSCI world index) https://www.fundsmith.co.uk/factsheet/ Not sure when inception was.

LOL this is hilarious, thank you for posting. It's hard to believe there are people out there who behave like this