John Hjorth

Thank you, @ourkid8 ! - - - o 0 o - - - [Just mentioned your response to the Lady of the House, her reaction : 'My god, you're all soo dumb!' ]

Small starter position in JOE [finally].

And likely somebody have now asked 'daddy' for permission to follow suit : RBC-Ukraine [November 17th 2024]: France and Britain greenlight Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow missiles against Russia: Le Figaro.

Pretty striking, how clumsy some Russians have become as of lately.

Stuart [ @Stuart D ], I would say : Yes. Not 'extraordinary hard', but 'incredible hard' to maintain. It's about competition and innovation dynamics, and to be where the puck is going, not where it is. It is about the life cycle of companies over the long term. Buying so-so companies or even shit-cos [turn-arounds, that may eventually not turn around] may require quite some work, and may require accept of / cause some more mental load along the way. Each to our own, luckily, depending on style, personality and personal situation. There is also an element of facts checking combined with math embedded in it, - there is no way to achieve a long term 15 per cent return on a company running at 5 per cent ROE over its business cycle. The best book I've ever read about this is: 'Investing in Value Creators - Time Tested Principles for Long Term Stock Investments' by Oddbørn Dybvad, Oddbjørn is Norwegian, Investment Manager at REQ AS, Oslo. If you don't like math, the book likely has no personal appeal for you. The book is available on Amazon. - - - o 0 o - - - If you look up Brett Gardners [ @Brett ]s Linkedin profile, on his wall you'll find gems, that for reasons explained in Bretts new book by him, did not make it to Bretts new book. One of these gems is a letter with attachments to a closed, private group of guys, back in in Buffetts early days, where Mr. Buffett met regularly with Munger, Schloss and a few others to discuss investments in private, in and under casual circumstances and surroundings. Already in Buffetts early innings he was mentally occupied by this, despite of what he was then buying himself. I have been really flabbergasted reading this not so long ago.

Here, I'm using both quoting and screen shots, to provide objectivity together with contextual fairness and accuracy to the posts up stream by @Xerxes and @UK, I'm commenting on here - I'm sorry for the late reply here : You guys are very good at thinking out, likely [I hope] low probality, thought provoking outcome elements of the total outcome space in this mess, thank you for sharing! @UK, If you should reply in a heartbeat here, from the top of your head and your immediate thoughts, where would you go?, if you felt compelled to act immedially? Wagons West [to the other side of the Atlantic Pond, Joe Land perhaps?], south bound in Europe, or something totally different?

Yep, @UK, Finally! - And likely meant as an appriate response to what happened all over the place in Ukraine last night.

Exactly, @Spekulatius, Statista : Male and female population in Russia as of January 1, 2024, by age group : There is really fired up in the stove for Mother Russia for the future. Please note the small vintages 0-4 [It looks like Russia has partly stopped reproducing the last few years.] Small vintages 20 - 24 and 25 - 29 likely also separately affected further by war casuilties. Mother Russia sits on a giant time bomb with pension liabilities, that gets gradually triggered, when the large vintages leave the labor market for retirement, and the small vintages shall pay for those large vintages' pension entitlements comming due. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock...., Boom! - - - o 0 o - - - And the guy running the circus is more interested in getting more land instead of caring for the people living on the soil he already control. - - - o 0 o - - - There will likely happen a collapse of societal structures in Russian hinterland to the East, whole villages and small towns will go defunct and cease to exist, and going on vacation in Tjernobyl in Ukraine will be marketet by LVMH to the Russian people as luxury. I actually went to the town called Kysyl in Eastern Russian, - close to the border to China, I think -, the town mentioned in WSJ article posted by @Pelagic. [At warp speed - Google is my friend]. Wikipedia article about Kyzyl, looks fairly nice by the pics in the article. I landed in the crossing that Google Earth cursor indicated as the center of the town, and looked around - the Google Mobile has actually been in town! Ohh-my! - Roads in the town aren't paved, cars run on gravel, tilted poles holding airborne power lines in one huge mess in the air, a couple of old Ladas, hedges and bushes haven't been cut for ages, small kids hanging out together at a street corner, a huge dirty concrete truck taking the corner nearby the kids, absolutely nothing maintained, absolutely everything looked like crap in all directions, except one building. - Welcome to Russia! I was paralyzed by it! I'll spare you for screenshots. I tried to look around about 5 other places, some places a bit better, the same depressing experience all places. I would go nuts living such a place. The mental downwards drag for the citizens living such a place must be huge. - - - o 0 o - - - In stead some eye candy here : The lightning up of the Christmas tree at the central yard yesterday afternoon here in Odense - the city where the poet Hans Christian Andersen was born :

From : www.icanw.org :

New post on X about Russian gas supply to Austria by Anton Gerashchenko - I really can't help it here - it actually reads to me as an awesome user manual! :

I would like personally to add to your list : The Delusions of Crowds - Why People Go Mad in Groups - Willikam J. Bernstein. Really understanding the concept in the book likely requires you - to stay rational while reading the book! There is nothing like 'getting in' at a wrong price! It by doing so fucks up your brain, creating a virtual reality, likely telling you : 'This is not the 'real' reality, somewhere, there excist a [copt] really real reaity for me, provided by you, and when yo ask for it at your investment bank, the answer is always : 'No', based on personal discretion.' Banks are just so f**king earnings advancements creatures! - Never gong to rely on anthing!

New YouTube video by Anders Puck Nielsen about 'the digital war' [I'm not sure I understand any of its basics, nor its contents,-so, let it hereby be up to you, to judge and decide] - Please be aware: This is [to me] personally severely biased towards / against X - please make up your own personal mind about it, and take care!: Anders Puck Nielsen [November 17th 2024] : Twitter and responsible social media.

Charlie [ @dealraker ], What is it really, you're attempting / trying to provide to 'anti-sell' [Yes, you're a 'seller' of sentiment here on CoBF]? - And to who here on CoBF? - This topic is about the book by Jim Collins 'Good to great', not what you feel inclined to talk about in this topic by actual and present sentiment! - in any sector. -The book is about a proposal for a mental framework, which everyone here on CoBF personally can ditch totally, or try to apply, to various degrees, based on personal will and determination. The choice and discretion is fully at the reader! I'm not going to spend time furnishing your request with digging up anyones 'super investment performance'. [Please give me a break here.] It's not that complicated. - This is also why we have a 'Books' category available for us all here on CoBF : Try to share what you're reading, to the best of us all, based on personal personal experience, by studying and reading. With no strings attached to sharing.

Thank you for the flowers, Brett [ @Brett], I'm one of those 'Berkaholics' around here at CoBF, who really enjoys new stuff about Berkshire! This book is, to me personally, exceptional, as expressed above. What you also have alluded to in the above mentioned Redeye podcast episode, is that the verbal presentations of 'the good old days' as it was 'a game of shooting fish in a barrel', perhaps mostly here alluding to statements by late Mr. Munger [may he rest in peace], buying net-nets [also] 'back then' wasen't without challenges and problems at all. PS: Thank you for sharing all that great Buffett / Berkshire related stuff, you have shared in your LinkedIn feed recently, due to all your work related to the book, that eventually ended up about not to meet your criteria to get included in the book, for the reasons explained by you in the book! [For my fellow CoBF members : Link ]

Thank you, @Gamecock-YT, Related to Brookfield, or Apollo? [No matter who of them, or both, an awesome client to have and nurse in the stable].

@Xerxes, Yes, promotional salesmen they are, or have become. I'm thinking we observe them as DIY investors, -if we're good, or old, or both, with 1+ million in the nest egg. Their game is with multiples of billions, obviously growing fast by now, with basically [give or take], none the money their own. In this 'Wealth Solutions' business - with a margin, small and about fixed - everything earnings related, turns into talk and disccussions about volumes [Race to the bottom?] So is the dissemination of all those promotional interviews for us? I speculate : 'Not only for us', also 'for clients, or especially potential clients', to kick in new doors. That may also be why we consider them extremely repetitive over time [All promotional activity possess this property.] - - - o 0 o - - - To me, Mr. Watsa is running a totally different game - much more skin in it. - - - o 0 o - - - The fact is also, that you bump into promotional sales people wherever you go, whereever you are, or whatever you do, and you are - more or less - under influence of them constantly in life.

@Gamecock-YT, I'm personally not sure what you're alluding to here. Pardon my ignorance, and thank you in advance for your elaboration.

Charlie [ @dealraker ], I'm not sure I understand the point of your post above here related to the book. Is it about Jim Collins being promotional? Or is about about doubt about if the content of the book can be used as a basis for evolving a personal investment framework? Or something else? Edit : Isen't your personal awesome long term track record principally about this? :

I ordered and read this book in September 2023, based on Lars [ @Viking ] mentioning Jim Collins' authorship in a topic in CoBFs section for Fairfax Financial Holdings related to considerations about the quality of the company from an investment perspective. The book is based on empirical studies of a row [28] of exeptional successful listed companies for a long term period - study work in progress period of 5 years says a lot about the extent of the work underlying the book - performed not by one person, but a research team - up to the year of the release of the book - 2001, with also a stab taken on reverse engineering the causes for the exceptional success of these companies, by The really mindblowing and striking exercise is then - after reading the book - to take that particular list of companies and to try see 'where' those companies are today, - now 20+, almost 25 years later - and also to try to figure out why! The subtitle to the book is : 'Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't'. From Chapter 1, - called ' Good is the enemy of great' -, the start, - here meant as a teaser :

This is 'great' : Reuters [ November 15th 2024] : Putin tells Scholz that Russia is willing to look at energy cooperation, Kremlin says. Agreement among [just] 'businessmen', to obtain 'sustainability' among trading partners? German T2 tanks [very successful] at work in Ukraine to destroy Russian forces and gear by now? - Please give me a break! - Those who are in need of energy to survive and to get on the other side of the coming winther is Ukraine, - not Germany!

@Luke, Who are 'we' in the above post by you?

Again a new topic, embracing a whole sector, [, or you may call it an industry], as a placeholder for posts related to the sector, not individual names [tickers]. I'll along the way adjust the topic title, if it becomes prone for adjustment, ref. below about 'change'. Just for starters here, here an interview podcast with Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, already posted and commented on today in the APO topic in the Investment Ideas forum here on CoBF, which I think actually provides a true and fair view of the sector by now, from the perspective of an insider and sector participant & competitor : Norges Bank Investment Management - Nicolai Tangen - In good company [November 13th 2024] : Marc Rowan - CEO of Apollo | Podcast | In Good Company | Norges Bank Investment Management. - - - o 0 o - - - One thing that really strikes me here, is how things continue very fast to evolve, constantly and eternally changing over time, while the whole sector is growing pretty fast. Has this something to do with the last 'violent', 'volatile' - now almost - four years? The striking part to me here is Marc Rowan has actually been what I would dub 'press shy' for years [In the above interview he is mentioning it himself], while i.e. Mr. Flatt at [Canadian] Brookfield has been very 'outbound oriented', extrovert and promotional in a similar period.

New podcast episode about the book : Redeye - Nordic Growth - Investing by the Books [November 12th 2024] : Investing by the Books #64 Brett Gardner: Buffett’s Early Investments.

The Berkshire 2024 EOP Q3 13-F/HR is now available on the SEC website, and on Dataroma, for those interested.

It's OK, @Buckeye, Short term sentiment driven content here on CoBF. [So much for Germany here, with their automakers and all related to that, I'll give you that.] Now you please try to think about an universal future, without the goods and services of : ABB, Siemens and [French] Schneider? [All listed, no talk, really, about them here on CoBF, except @dealraker some time ago mentioning buying Siemens, according to my personal observations here on CoBF.]