no_free_lunch

I think it's worth hanging a line in medical devices / services. A lot of stuff is blowing up. Admittedly a lot of stuff was over priced but still I think there are some deals to be had. Just bought some $MLAB, a medical diagnostic company. It screens horrid, with like a 100-300 PE but that is nonsense. They are a serial acquirer so there are numerous accounting charges. In their annual report they break out their adjusted earnings and they are going for 10-12x that number. This for a company that has grown EPS 15-20% per year over the past couple decades. I think they have hit some recent challenges but yet they are still very profitable and historically that has been part of the business, it is a lumpy 15-20% growth rate. I don't know how much of a moat they have, I suspect there might be a small one based on the high margins and due and due to small size of these businesses discouraging competitors but I won't pretend to be an expert. Anyone else got any idea in this area?

Thanks for the link, I was actually looking at W R Berkley and Travelers recently, nice to see them together. I wonder why they would peg FFH so far below book value? Regarding the valuation assignment, I think it's great to have a value that misaligns as that builds an environment of opportunity.

He reminds me of some of my profs when I was in school. You leave the lecture feeling both intimidated and inspired and yet with no idea what you just learned. I don't care how much money he has I think he is full of it.

Viemed (VMD.TO) - medical device company, good little compounder with huge runway, sales hit by COVID, I estimate it is trading around 20x current year earnings and growing 20% per year. Roughly 15x next year analyst ]estimates. Sold off recently with other medical companies.

They were making giant short bets on equity indexes (I may be slightly wrong on the terminology but that was the essence of it) for years. As the market cranked forward over the past decade this was one component of why they lagged so badly. I believe they have now stopped with the shorting. This general market shorting only started in (I'm guessing here) 2010, it was not part of their original strategy. I like them for everything else, making counter-cyclical bets and buying out of favor companies. I like that they have an insurance company they can draw additional capital from. I just don't want them making macro bets. If they want to hedge I would prefer they just hold more bonds.

I think there was a style drift in ffh few years back. That's what concerned me. Am I buying the same company of the past? I only got back in because viking made a compelling argument and the share price collapsed.

So "UK", to summarize, Russia provided security .. promises (something less than guarantees) and then had the one disputed territory taken over by Azerbaijan. Now Armenia is pivoting away from Russia. Additional background, Azerbaijan is using advanced Turkish (NATO) supplied weapons to attack Armenia. Armenia is now getting closer with the US (and other NATO countries perhaps). What a complicated situation. Hopefully the current borders can hold. I just hope the west doesn't screw over the Armenians with false promises. They are in a very delicate place.

Bought some $ARE.TO. Small 1% position for now. Bought an extra sliver of $C.

Thanks for posting. Scary but not surprising. This is confirmed, here is a Canadian link to what I believe is the same event. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/06/08/india-angered-sikh-parade-float-portraying-assassination/

I've said it before, we need to trim the fed way, way back. You probably need to get rid of it and replace it with something because the corruption will just grow back otherwise. There is never an audit of their success rates, and it's hard to do. We just take it on theory that they are better than the alternative. Yet we claim to be capitalists and otherwise trust the free market. It's really bizarre. I say establish some sort of fund, pay into it each year a little bit and pay it out when we hit a recession. Something simple like that but clearly we need a reset.

Who is the Warren Buffet / Prem Watsa of Japan?

The US never sought to take over Vietnam ,they just wanted to prevent the spread of communism. So not really the same as Ukraine. It was definitely grand strategy what they did. Policy of containment. It is well documented. I for sure am no expert on it but it seems like it worked. The west was able to hold off the communists.

I actually agree with almost everything you say here. Yes, the US is headed down the wrong path. I may differ in the solution or next steps. If you look at the Vietnam war, I don't think the US really lost it in the greater sense. If it was there to deter communist expansion and push them to waste resources it worked. At least for that period.

Russia is threatening to nuke us and you are questioning the rivalry. It's not a rivalry it's survival and it's based on experience.

I agree with Luca on the sanctions. They simply do not work. Not with China / India avoiding them. The rest I think is short sighted. It all boils down to whether the US & now NATO should interfere or simply stay in their zone. Our rivals are not staying put, they are expanding. If we do nothing, then you face irrelevance and then who knows. Certainly Ukraine, Chechnya, Georgia, Tibet, etc. teach us that we cannot sit idle and expect to be left alone. We have to have defenses. Just a question of where we draw the defensive lines and what we are willing to do to protect those lines.

I like globe life. Trading at just over 10x projected earnings for the year. They are a cannibal buying back 3-4% of shares each year. Berkshire has a stake in them. Long term results are outstanding. Obviously I am a bit late, the market is pricing some of this in. However, I think relative to the market some of these insurance companies can offer reasonable returns of ~10%+ with fairly low risk.

Insurance, the effects of rising rates are positive and still trickling through.

The issue is these are not legal risks but actual legal settlements piling up. They are not theoretical they are happening. If you look at this link they are estimating $10B for forever chemicals plus $6B for the ear plugs. Then this article says there could be up to an additional $30B liability further? It's substantial, even for a company with $5B of net income. You also have stagnant earnings so it's not reasonable they can just somehow grow out of this. They could be in the doghouse for 5+ years is my concern. Capstone estimates 3M’s total PFAS liability risk is nearly $30 billion, beyond the existing settlements. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/3m-faces-more-legal-headaches-after-earplug-settlement.html

Well this part of the debate I think can be resolved amicably. I do not intend to mislead. As I understand the history, Poland was an independent country for hundreds of years up until 1800 or so. At that point it was split up by several countries including yes, Russia. However, I would not call it Russian territory historically or ethnically. It would be like saying that Russia is really a Mongolian country because they ruled for a period.

The only one that I would consider removing is MMM. I don't like all the lawsuits, hard to handicap the cost. You could consider adding some O&G or pipelines.

John, If you watch the video, the conditions to NOT invade was removal of all allies from the block that had joined since 1997, this includes Poland, Romania, Hungary, and other Eastern European countries. Why does it matter to him so much, this is not his territory. and these territories were not traditionally part of the Russian empire. They can join up with whoever they want to. The EU needs to be a little bit assertive, you are up against a tyrant, you do not need to bow to his rules or demands.

I am sure you can protect both your own border and arm Ukraine. These are not linked. At the US border, I suspect we are seeing the far left Biden agenda play out with the open borders. I would support and encourage you to secure your border. However, that in no way is prevented by the Ukraine spend.

Right now, it feels a little like early 2008. Back then they were raising rates, home prices were shaky but still stable, the stock market was doing ok, just a little dip here and there. I am watching Canada to see what happens here. 5 year mortgages (or less) are the norm and by most metrics we have higher mortgage debt levels, so we should see sooner the impact of rising rates. Perhaps though, rates will push through to commodity prices and that will soften the blow but I think this Canada is a good bellweather.

One important part of the history is the mass murder of Ukrainians by the Soviets. Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials vary greatly. A joint statement to the United Nations signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7–10 million died.[e] However, current scholarship estimates a range significantly lower, with 3.5 to 5 million victims.[8] The famine's widespread impact on Ukraine persists to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor Pick your number, either way it was a genocide. The soviet system continues to be honored in Russia..

There is a jewish leader in the country and a Muslim defense chief. The other meme going is that Ukraine is run by Satanists. I am not kidding. So it's run by Jewish Nazi Satanists according to these theories. Really this is all an obvious attempt to derail the conversation. These theories are made by fools and for a level of iq below anyone on this board. Let's talk about the tens or hundreds of thousands killed this year and last. This ongoing casualty count. If all you got is some made up history I got nothing much else to say to you other than I know what you really are doing. It's not to get to the bottom of current events.