Spekulatius

Familiar is too strong of a word, but I have owned them for a little while. I was attracted by the cheap metrics. I sold after reviewing the first earnings after they announced their LXFT acquisition , which had not closed yet at that time. ( it was a negative earnings surprise). I felt this was quite complex and the business may be in rapid decline. Also, the Luxoft acquisition felt like a desperate measure. I exited flat, so avoided this dumpster fire. This company feels like a bunch of crappy IT companies held together tight duct tape. The buybacks have significantly worsened their balance sheet. I don’t feel like I have a handle if this can turn around and managment isn’t exactly inspiring either.

Maybe they are too deep in? If rates increase, the value of those low/no/ negative interest rates bonds would drop and the bagholders owning them wouldn’t broke. Maybe all that can be done at this point is dig deeper.

I think Buffet hates commodity business , after all they are just price takers.

I had some Oct SPY $285 puts. Bought it with SPY at 3000 about 2 weeks ago. In sold them yesterday when the SPY his 2850 (too early). So far, I had good luck with SPY puts but then again, I am playing with a small sum (0.15% portfolio position). It was a 2.5 bagger. One thing I look out for when I buy puts is low volatility. When volatility goes up, the put prices quickly gets prohibitive. I regard these puts as partial portfolio insurance when I consider the chance of a drawdown to be high.

Adds: BRK.B, BAESY REZI and WMB. New position: MOG A - aerospace component supplier with a reasonable valuation.

I owned this in the past but I feel like other distributors like MSM are better values. WCC seems to rent out their balance sheet to customers - their cash flow they stable and they have a fair amount of leverage.

BRK‘s result were pretty mediocre. Industrial/other business earnings were flat, Railroads were up a little and insurance underwriting was down quite a bit. KHC earnings are missing from their last earnings, but that’s only $185M. Not, that one should buy BRK for one quarterly earnings, but still - it seems that the slowing economy leaves a mark on the income statement.

Glad some politicians are pushing on this - the ACH system with a 3 day lag is a disgrace and should be replaced by a faster almost instant payment system. Might have implications for Fintech, banks and payment companies like Visa and MC? A faster payment system will cost the banks float. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sen-van-hollen-to-powell-get-moving-on-faster-payments-195229023.html

Bought some LYB ( I felt the earnings report was way better than the stock response to it) and a little more WMB. $$$Dividends.

Is that safe to do? - Wouldn't it be more safe buying some 30 years negative yielding German Bund? [<- J/K] Is it safe?

Happy BRK.B <$200 Friday.

Almost $6B in debt at the Holding Company, up from $4.8B. This is a pretty substantial leverage.

I think the investment is done now more in nonpublic startup companies or those just past the IPO hurdle than it used to be. Space X, Uber and other Unicorns all these biotech startups spent plenty and perhaps some what foolishly in come cases, but some work out and will mature into major companies. In the past we had Xerox Parc and ATT labs but those didn’t really benefit their parent companies all that much, although they created plenty of benefit for others. now it’s outsourced and institutionalized kn dedicated startups. Then the other fact is that companies have become way more capital light, and more profitable at the same time, which generates higher FCF and hence allows for more buybacks.

WMB (added in size) and a bit of Berry. WMB was funded from proceeds of ENB sales a while ago.

Bought some CWGL. Hoping for $8 quickly:

I agree that Tobias Carlisle podcast production quality could be better. if I find myself in an episode where the quality is unacceptable for my ears, I just delete it and move on. The “ Meb Faber show”, “Compound Investing” and “Invest like the best” have excellent production quality.

Individual names are <> stock market indices, You can find quite a few good companies that are off 30% from their heights and probably valued lower than their LT averages. With respect to the overall stock market, I agree that Europe does not look that cheap and differences in quality account for much of the difference in PE ratio between Europe and the US (foremost the lower representation of faster growth tech companies in Europe vs US). Anyways, it is a good idea to keep an open mind for opportunities.I mentioned already 50p other GBP property companies. Another one are hidden champions in cyclical sectors, imo.

Yeah, but isn't that like Adjusted EBITDA returns? He would've done great except for all the losses and bad stuff that actually happened... He may be a decent stock picker, but it still doesn’t change the fact that he is a lousy investor , if he frittered away his gains with hedges or selling too early. In the end, only $$$ count.

Interesting! Any suggestions there? DJAN.L. Very clean balance sheets owning residential and commercial real estate in the UK and to a lesser extend in the US (East coast). They readily publish NAV. The stock has an interesting history and was initially a plantation (hence the name). It became a property stock after WW2. It is run more for wealth preservation than returns, controlled by an owner operator. I own a little. 3rd Avenue‘s real estate owns some U.K. property stocks as well. It’s worth checking out their letters and holdings.

U.K. is a great Real Life Experiment on leaving the EU. They have elected Boris Johnson, who is going pursue the exit, either hard of soft by October this year. We can watch the show from the sidelines and take positions as we fit, as some volatility can be expected. There are quite a few cheap stocks in the UK, like property companies with very little leverage trading at ~50% of NAV. I think there is a setup for some great investment opportunities. I would caution on the banks, but if they fail, they will just be nationalized. Contrary to the US, thats not a big deal in Europe.

Hussman may be Smart, but he is a lousy investor. He got lucky in his in his career, but had been wrong ever since basically betting that the world goes to hell in a hurry. He is the financial snake oil salesman of the 21 century. It is obvious that investment process is flawed if cant capitalize on the GFC. Folks like Druckenmiller or Howard Marks who are certainly skeptical too, but are able to capitalize on opportunities as they see them are way better investors. The problem that goes like Hussman (and Mauldin) have is that their views are part of their “branding” and they probably would see very adverse reactions from their investors, if they would change. Those static opinions are a strong impediment to being a successful investor imo. People should avoid everyone who claims of implies they have hey can predict how the future unfolds, as it will very likely be hazardous for their health, even if those prophets are right.

Whats the reason for the switch? You see more upside with PayPal? Long term yes. Short term also capitulating to any bearish ideas. The original idea was to invest in some recession-resistant dividend paying companies with at least some pricing power. But growth has totally outperformed this idea. Mostly I think I need to move towards a more passive (indexing) option, at least for the near term (3-5 yrs I'd guess). Over the last year I haven't really had the time/energy/pleasure to actually do any investment research, and the results reflect it. Even worse, I haven't really cared... The reality is given my situation (age, net worth) my ROI is higher concentrating on my career than on my portfolio (ROI both in terms of amount and volatility of cash inflows). Something about whole-assing one thing vs. half-assing two things ;D ;D Staying out of the politics section saves a lot of time. Even watching shows on Netflix is more productive.

Agreed, GOOG at a bit more than $1000 seemed like an obvious value - almost $50 in real earnings run rate or 20x earnings for a 20% grower. I had some from the dips in 2018 and loaded up more, such that it became one of my largest positions on par with BRKB. I take this any day over these money loosing tech stocks that may not grow all that much faster and trade at mind boggling valuations with huge GAAP losses. Same with FB last year. Of course even these things can go wrong, but odds are pretty good they those bets work out.

I sold all my shares a few weeks ago around $35. I wish I had your optimism regarding line 3 and 5, the way things looks right now, there seems to be real risk they shut down those lines and will never get the replacement assets in operation.

Bought a starter in COST clone BJ, possibly just a trade.