LC

Exactly. Essentially, you can exert some control over costs. Pricing is much more dependent on your market of customers.

I have a watchlist of about 40 stocks on yahoo finance. Used to use google finance but they decided to kill that. I also use feedly for SEC filings and various blogs which I used to follow. I rarely check this anymore (blogs are boring and the odd lot filings have fallen off). I probably should keep more invested in the spinoff filings. I use finvix for basic screening. As with anything you want this to be relatively general. Check this maybe once or twice per quarter. I get summary financials from rocketfinancial.com and then of course the investor IR website for presentations, primary source for filings, etc.

Low rates have previously made it difficult to find "true value" - asset price expansion has obscured traditional earnings multiples. This may be changing as rates are creeping up...the tide is going out. I also prescribe to Spekulatius' final bullet point. Value never went away over the past five years: however it was seen in a few different places. 1) The regulated banks and other crushed companies (FCAU comes to mind) rebounding from the crisis. 2) "Growth" "FAANG" whatever you call them - they mostly lived up to the hype. Apple, Google, Amazon all have done well and provided tremendous value to customers/society/investors. I think it is important to remain flexible and not religiously adhere to a certain view of the future. The windshield is foggy but we must make out best guess.

And that sounds like a decent compromise. The plans were poorly thought out and created in a time of extra-ordinary middle class growth, with no adjustment mechanisms. They are simply no longer sustainable, as Buffett pointed out in his letter to K Graham. But the unions also need to respect the hand that feeds - and the temporary suffering of the entire community (ch9) is the price to let the inmates know they are not running the asylum.

WM...one man's garbage is another man's....

Why are the implications if the city declares bankruptcy? These poorly constructed pension plans are generally legacy problems from the days of old, but they are a real PIA. Look what happened to Chrysler. If it were me, and the unions refused to logically negotiate and make concessions, declare bankruptcy and f*(@ em.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Have you heard of MGP Ingredients: https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/high-spirits-blog/mgp-ingredients-lawrenceburg/ They are contract producers for small label US whiskeys. You want to make Castanza whiskey? Call em up and they can make it happen.

Starter (small) position in RELX. Used to own it and had liquidated it last year as a home down payment like the business, was looking for sub-20s re-entry but for a starter position this (~21.30) is OK to get comfortable again with the business.

We need more stuff like this (sarcasm): https://www.france24.com/en/20190226-black-snow-falls-siberia-blamed-killer-coal-industry So I agree there is a chance that we NEED to cause global warming because there is an impending and unpredictable ice age on the way. But I don't buy the "symmetry" argument. The man on the street asks for my wallet. Maybe he wants to mug me, or maybe he wants to add $500 in cash and hand it back to me. :-X Even if I did buy this argument about symmetry - since we don't know which way the temperature pendulum will swing, and if you believe we are bad at predicting probabilities, shouldn't we opt for the most "nature-neutral" version of harvesting energy? The point on conservatism is that traditional fossil fuels should cost more than renewables if you actually account for the externalities like the one I linked above. Therefore, if you have a reasonable choice between the two, then you should go with the one which is more neutral. That said, I understand that some areas simply do not have a reasonable opportunity to choose renewables - therefore it is even more important to encourage it where applicable.

When wind and solar are price competitive with fossil fuel, but have the added benefit of (1) being less pollutive, and (2) have a longer future runway of efficiency improvements, why are we continuing to push for fossil fuel investment?

The Gates AMA you posted is very interesting. He covers quite a bit of topics and is obviously well informed. Good reading.

Only here could we rationalize away a guy who made billions. I mean, how many of today's top "alpha" generators are billionaires? To me, it looks like the guy followed rules 1 & 2 - don't lose money, don't forget rule #1

The rabbi was an avid golfer and played at every opportunity. He was so addicted to the game that he would get withdrawal symptoms if he didn't play. One Yom Kippur the rabbi thought to himself, "What's it going to hurt if I go out during the recess and play a few rounds. Nobody will be the wiser, and I'll be back in time for services." Sure enough, at the end of the morning service, the rabbi snuck out of the synagogue and headed straight for the golf course. Looking down upon the scene were Moses and God. Moses said, "Look how terrible -- a Jew out here alone on Yom Kippur. And even worse! A rabbi!" God replied "Watch. I'm going to teach him a lesson." The rabbi stepped up to the first tee. When he hit the ball, it careened off a tree, struck a rock, skipped across a pond and landed in the hole for a hole in one! Seeing all this, Moses protested. "God, is this how you're going to teach him a lesson? He got a hole in one!" "Sure," said God, "but who's he going to tell?"

Sanjeev, those photos look incredible. Those hotels look awesome. I wish I had seen this earlier - we have a team in Mumbai and I may have been able to justify a trip. Perhaps next year.

IRM

Difficult to get an accurate figure. You can calculate the working capital accounts as a % of revenues or assets, over a period of years (assuming no major change in business operations) to get a general sense of usage. Then you can compare your averages %s to current amounts.

On the statistical side there are excellent YouTube series on all levels of probability and statistics. Ben Lambert has an excellent series on graduate level statistics. I personally prefer video lessons to textbooks but I can recommend texts if you’d like. I would also recommend a textbook in formal logic as accompaniment. Any of the intro to logic texts will do - the Hacking text would be a good starter. I personally find the latter a really useful skillset to have - all the great thinkers had some level of logic/philosophical training, and I find it useful for investment analysis as well.

The shift away from beer doesn't really bother me. Wine, liquor, beer. All have been around for centuries, I'm sure the pendulum has swung back and forth multiple times. Wine and liquor don't create the tavern/pub atmosphere like beer does - there will always be a place for it. I generally like the Coors brand. I think it has a unique value compared to say, Budweiser. This could be my Colorado bias, however. ;D Molson I think it the worst of the Canadian beers but it's like Budweiser - it's the mass market brand. I was at a Habs game and spent my $11 on a Molson or two, when I was last up there. There is something to be said about reliable, consistent, mediocrity :) So it's basically as Liberty said: So it's basically, multiple is low, they have scale, brands should have staying power. Even if it's a bit of a melting ice cube, I think it's different from say, consumer technology brands. Something like Blackberry phones were essentially completely replaced - the ice cube totally melted. Here I think, the brands may have competition, but will not really be replaced. The worse-case scenario is that it takes longer to earn my money back. Lower risk of a permanent loss of capital, perhaps higher risk of a lower return on capital.

It's beer ;D Essentially branded consumer discretionary purchases. They have decent brands (Molson, Coors) and an established distribution network. It's pretty cheap and was 10% off today. While the business may go thru ups-and-downs, especially in terms of management's execution (as we are seeing with other CPG's like Kraft-Heinz), I think product demand will remain relatively more steady (compared to say, Tide detergent).

I did the same.

Hahah for some reason I find goat videos absolutely hilarious. Here's another good one: (bit of foul language in that one)

I really agree with this - I think this is probably the closest one could get to defining "value investing". And I think it's a really philosophical question. We all have the ability to buy or sell any publicly-traded company in their portfolio. So asking which businesses are maximizing the the intrinsic value of your portfolio, is really asking what businesses are providing the most value to society. And then of course the price paid matters, but to me, this is a much broader and more complicated question - and more fun trying to answer.

Haha! For now, yes (to both)...as for tomorrow... ;D ;D

IRM, VZ

Creating prudent incentives within the industry, establishing a global precedent, and making an effort to quantify externalities? Canada, you've done it again! ;D