Spekulatius

SYF, ORCL, HPE, DDS, CASH are a few that pop up in my screen. AZO doesn't make the cut because they are valued too highly so the speed of their buyback the last couple of years is too low. PFSI is another interesting one that has recently started to buy back a boatload of shares.

Sold most of my COF to reduce risk here.

I do agree that CVX has done better than most on capital allocation and that’s why Buffett bought the stock, imo. However, buying back <5% of the shares over more than a decade isn’t exactly a cannibal. If you want to look at cannibals look at something like COF which reduced shares from 510M shares in 2016 to 383M shares now. That’s a 25% reduction in shares. I do have a cannibal screen looking for companies that reduce their share count at a rapid pace and there are no commodity companies in it.

This is going to be interesting to watch. The inflation in Japan is picking up steam - the latest print was 4.2%. It’s interesting because they didn’t have inflation even past the epidemic until now. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-consumer-inflation-japans-capital-234353233.html

CVX dilutes shareholders when shares are cheap and buys back shares when they are expensive. This is the way.

The Abraham tanks were sent because Olaf Scholz (German chancellor ) stated that no German tanks would go on the battlefield unless US tanks go first. Quite honestly, I think it was an excuse for the Germans to not sent tanks because they didn’t want to (at least thr SPD - ruling party had this line). So this created a stalemate and now when the US announced to sent Abraham’s tanks, that excuse was negated. I do think what the Ukraine needs to Leo tanks. It is lighter and way simpler to run. The diesel engine needs less fuel and can be swapped in less than 30 minutes, basically on the battlefield. I don’t think the tanks will be used near Bahkmut, thatsjust a stalemate killing field with little strategic value. The Ukraine is likely to use the tanks else where and I think severing the land Bridge to Crimea seems like an obvious target. We will see in a couple of month.

Reduced my position in CMCSA a bit pre-market. These quarterly results weren't really that great. Still holding most of my shares.

Some moves from the bottom have been astonishing: $TSLA almost 50% from it's bottom around $102. $META - 50% from the bottom around $92 $BABA almost 100% from the bottom around $62. $ASML - ~85% up from the bottom around $365. If you know how to bottom fish, l there is a lot of money to be made here.

I count 31 Abrahams, 14 Leo's, maybe some more Leo's from the Poles. Any ideas how many they will get? It will also take a while to get them operational. Guderian knew his stuff and said " Nicht kleckern sondern klotzen" - as it referred to tanks. This means loosely that tanks should be used en masse and not piecemeal like the French did in 1940. I think the best use of tanks is to use them to severe the land bridge to Crimea and get the Russian troops there bottled up there and destroyed. Taking out the bridge to Crimea would be necessary as well to accomplish this goal.

I bought 2/3 (roughly) $CPT and 1/3 $ESS position after pupil posted is multifamily Reit trade. I think i will do Ok, but probably not great on that one.

Whether tech stocks are dead (money) or not depends on if earnings in this sector will be growing or not. I don't think tech will be dead. Tech wasn't dead in 2002 either.

Looks like BRK sold USB close to the bottom. Another incidence where cloning does not seem to be a good idea. Results look pretty good and union bank will be a nice acquisition. Now USB needs to get their capital levels back up again before resuming buybacks. https://ir.usbank.com/static-files/8cd68595-d3df-4682-a972-4c6d0cdc3624

Operation Blau 2.0: Some good stuff getting some action - Abrahams, Leopards, Bradley's etc. I think Abrahams were sent to force Olaf Stolz to sent Leo's as well since he had the lame excuse he didn't want to go alone... https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-germany-approves-sending-of-leopard-2-tanks/a-64506202

I finally finishes this limited neo western series (The English) and think it's a masterpiece. It kept getting better each episode. Highly recommended. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11771270/

I owned the closely related $VTRS but sold out of the stock. It's a tough business and there is a ton of debt to be serviced. I think they are a better bet than TEVA, if you think the generics business will improve. Maybe I have given up too early on $VTRS but the disappointments did keep coming. VTRS at least pays a decent dividend.

Well, the Burrito at Chipotle next to my work went from ~$7.5 in late 2018 to $11.4/7.5 - up 52% so that's about right.

@dealraker - if you never sell anything basically, where do the funds for new purchases come from? Dividends? BAX chart does not bombed out, but they do carry a lot of debt.

The English (On Prime Video) is a first rate Neo Western. I watch it now and highly recommend it.

Not a podcast, but Clare Hart from JPM sounds pretty good:

Marmon is a conglomerate on its own. Marmon within Berkshire is a nested doll - a conglomerate within a conglomerate.

I watched it when released on HBO. It’s a pretty good movie. In the similar genre, I watched the second season of Wiking Valhalla and wasn’t impressed. The first season of Valhalla (and of course the original series) was very good, but this one just didn’t cut it. I scratched Treason off my list. Looked already questionable and generic, so I am not going to put time in it @Xerxes

China (most just China) got to keep the lights on at night: https://www.wsj.com/articles/shining-a-light-literally-on-how-much-dictators-manipulate-their-economic-stats-11674183190?mod=economy_lead_pos5 A recent paper, published in October, by the University of Chicago’s Luis Martinez shines a light on the extent to which autocratic governments might be juicing their estimates of gross domestic product, the commonly used measure of an economy’s size and might.

This probably means that Ajit does not want to die in his office chair in Farnam Street like Warren. Also Interesting: The Fiorenzas paid about $9.9 million, or $2,080 per square foot, for the unit in August, which means they sold it for a 60 percent markup in about eight months.

I agree. It is much better than the reviews indicate in my opinion. It has an ominous feel throughout with the blueish color palette and the casting is strong as well.