Spekulatius

There is a VIC writeup from 2019 when it traded at current prices. The stock is cheaper know since the business has been growing. it seems to me that GSHD is more like franchise business. https://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/idea/GOOSEHEAD_INSURANCE/2028354943 I don't own it, but it does look attractive to me.

It is correct that the median US household is FCF negative meaning it spends more than it has income. The overall savings rate is 2.3% ( a 10 year low and I think we were only lower pre GFC once) and the saving rate is heavily skewed by high income households. So there is some truth to above.

Most homes in Europe don’t have air conditioning ,even a lot of offices do not. So raising thermostats in summer is not going to do all that much. As for the winter, I think Europe is already at ~25% savings run rate. Barring a very cold weather, I think Europe will get through this winter better than most expected.

I think banks will be around 50 years from now. I don't think banking as a business will change fundamentally all that much. Lending has been around almost as long as money. Of course surviving as a bank through the cycles is not easy.

BRP belongs in this basket too. It's an aggressive rollup.

Maybe I am nitpicking, but MSGS didn’t really buy back shares, their sharecount is 24.3M shares in Q3 which is actually up from 24.1M 12 month ago due to SBC dilution. The special dividend was welcome though. Companies that actually did buy back shares are COF (-11% share reduction) and PFSI (-16% share reduction) both measured over the last 12 month. COF (which I have been adding to recently) did reduce their buybacks in the last quarter though, presumably to build up capital for a pot. Consumer recession. They are in economically sensitive business like credit card lending and car lending both of which may have issues if there is a recession (used car prices are coming down a lot recently impacting collateral) I don’t like the business PFSI is in (mortgage origination and servicing) but management seems to be doing a really great job here and they vacuum shares up via buybacks like crazy (16% of outstanding in the last 12 month). Earnings in mortgage origination are down, but that also means they need less capital so they buy up shares at a high clip below book value. This is certainly one to keep an eye on. Are those LT winners? Maybe they don’t have to be - I could see both companies trading at the same market cap in 10 years and the shareholders would have done quite well.

I lost confidence in META. I did buy more at $90 or thereabouts but considered it a trade at that point. But then again I usually buy and sell too early.

Sold remainder of my META (overall loss).

We don’t have to burn text books because inflation in Turkey comes down from the ~80% annual rate. https://www.statista.com/statistics/895080/turkey-inflation-rate/ Similarly, we can’t do victory laps when inflation goes down form 9% to 6% in the US either. While the 2% target was deliberately chosen, it is a number that makes a lot of sense. It is low enough that it does not do much damage to buying power and does not cause distortion in the economy and but is high enough that it is far away from a deflationary negative inflation. So the US central bank settles on 2%. If the central bank were to settle on 5% and would indeed be able to create a stable 5% then that would be fine. Chances are however, that with a 5% inflation target, we have a much more volatile inflation environment and have 2% one year, 8% the next, maybe 5% too once in awhile, but generally speaking we have inflation jumping all over the place and nobody would know what is temporary and what is not, until you have 3 years in a row of 8%+ and then you have a runaway inflation train wreck that is very hard to stop.

The energy industry self liquidates by paying out dividends and buying back stock, That’s one reason why I don’t see it returning to its former weight in the stock market indices. Nothing wrong with this and it doesn’t mean that returns can’t be good going forward in this sector. As for the bear case, it’s demand destruction (EV transition, China pivoting away from a Capex driven to consumer driven economy) and perhaps OPEC or some OPEC countries doing something unexpected on the demand side. EV transition just shifts energy demand away from crude to other sources , some of which are fossil. I think NG might keep growing longer than crude demand for example.

I don’t think it’s the end of the world either, but it does beg the question how much hot money has been flowing into these Alt real estate assets that thinks they own an asset invested in real estate with little downside but considerable upside with almost money market like liquidity due to the redemption option. The risk that these hot money flows disappear or even worse reverse in short order is the real risk here. This could mean lower AUM flows and/or more redemption requests, BX is not to blame here and I think it would affect all Alt investment /private equity asset managers.

Nice commercial. The chat has some funny comments: “The demon has risen” “Iran has left the chat”

In the financial world it's always like this - You can have your money back as long as you don't ask for it. You can borrow money if you don't need it. When they state "our liquidity is strong", they are about to become insolvent. I am reflecting on reflexivity here.

Thx. My position is quite small at this point. Riding fully and yours and other posters coattails here, but felt it looks beaten up enough to take a small bite at this apple. I also bought KKR a while ago, similar story. Done right these private equity / alternative investment shops are terrific business, that's for sure.

It's not just about the money. If I feel I get wronged, i want blood. 1) Complain about customer with the retailer in question. Get manager on the phone if possible. 2) Dispute transaction with CC company (Amex is best for this). If this fails escalate to fraud (this always gets attention). 3) Complain with BBB.org 4) Look up company in google maps and put in scathing review.

It's Amazon, so you just return it. I would also file a complaint with Amazon and put in a 1* review.

Maybe the idea of national energy companies is making a comeback. The UK has BP, Spain - Repsol, France has Elf Aquitaine (now in Total), Italy - ENI, Brazil - Petrobas, Saudi Arabia - Aramco, Norway - Statoil (Equinor). Most Gulf states have national oil companies. Lower cost of capital is an advantage.

The thing I really hate about Reits is that the market prices driven by "yield junkies". Some of them are better than others, but there are a few that ignore almost everything else, they just look at yield and dividend growth. As with everything, it does matter how the sausage (NOI/ FFO) is made. That also leads to management teams chasing these metrics that these yield junkies are looking at, which can be a recipe for disaster. Then you have myopic markets (because of above investor base), dependency on credit markets ( to refinance), so there are a lot of factors other than underlying property that matter. For these reasons, I don't really like Reits in general any more.

I saw "The last Crusade" in a movie theatre. Great experience. I actually enjoyed the "Crystal skull". it felt a bit like a James Bond movie, but nothing wrong with that either. Cate Blanchet was pretty good in her role. "Temple of Doom" is by far my least favorite.

This has always been true in real estate, whether you buy a home or commercial real estate. The only thing appreciating is the land / dirt. Almost everything else depreciates.

Bought just a little of BX this AM.

My favorite Indy scene. Applies to investing as well.

@Blugolds11 Agreed that the Indy franchise needs a new and younger face. There is a miniseries around “The young Indiana Jones” that was pretty decent, but they stopped after 2 seasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Young_Indiana_Jones_Chronicles_episodes

One article I read stated the redemption came from Asia mostly. I guess it is sport of understandable - everything is down, but BREIT which is up 9% in USD which itself is up 10-20% against many currencies. My guess is that these funds have some hot money. From this article, it does not seem like a fundamental issue with the fund, which has $9.3B in liquidity and assets in the right places. That said, there is probably going to be some hot money running for the exits, but I sort of doubt that there really is all that much reputational damage for Blackstone. https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackstone-limits-redemptions-from-real-estate-vehicle-stock-sinks-11669920880?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

I would think that this can go easily for 7% cap rate. After all Tesla is not going anywhere and since this located in an upcoming area, why not? We have seen Walgreen leases for 5.X% Cap rates and I would rather own this one for 7-8%