dealraker

My two observations over the last 30 of my 50 investing years is that there was a in depth reading niche formed from the value crowd (Outstanding Investor publication) and Buffett (annual letter) writings, that this need now is serviced by Bloomstran. Two major others performed this task in the past, both have "retired." The second observation is that at most all times 50% of the total market cap upwards to 80% (at peak times) is of stocks/securities that (in this case) Bloomstran's display of data would say is over-valuation. From time to time this over-valuation dissipates but never for long. Semper is a decent investor, better than many - but not outstanding.

The option of having new era Democrats in power is not acceptable. The option to have Trump-like's isn't acceptable either. But if Trump politics becomes unpopular we get Democrats, so we need someone who doesn't send us to socialism.

That's my entire family of businessmen; a big family in many businesses for decades.

Selling BUD. Bought on the freak-out and just kept buying on the way up. Didn't find a single person to interact with on this one.

I am looking forward to Greg Abel's letter from Berkshire. He's not sitting in the photo sessions with any politician, not many seem willing to avoid this apparent necessity. It is probably not in most CEO's best interest to be bluntly honest, Greg may offer something there. This may not be relevant, but my guess is that it is relevant.

My view isn't changing. A significant number of Americans are willing to stick with Trump only because of Mr. Market's endless upwards-to-the-right march, many of whom literally think the markets can not go down under his reign. If, or better said when, Mr. Market takes an extended plunge? Trump's unpopularity will be legendary. Secondary thought: Is this when we go hard socialist? Do many Americans swear off the markets for years? Keep in mind how much speculation dominates so many "investors" stuff. In the meantime: Buy the dip! Rates surely going down! My non-insurance HALO stuff has gone fucking crazy up- to the point of nausea. Chase it people, chase it...its running so run faster to join up! I'll add that loss of power for Trump isn't my theme. He will stay fully in control with a 25% approval rating. Executives are terrified of him, particularly big corp executives.

Blood pressures for the COBF political posters would likely go down a bit if the non-verbals could be delivered along with the words typed.

Really LOL!

I was asking for John LOL!

Greg is this THE definition of a whiny crybaby post that you so often refer to?

The perfectly obvious (that we all knew was coming): https://www.sicafletcher.com/insurance-brokers-plunge-on-ai-fears

Anybody know John Baron? And you guys question your obsession, aka enjoyment, over Donnie J??? https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/viral-clip-john-barron-angrily-212049088.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFE9HfSq7iopS5DLthk-QWLhlU2AvnVV1GpONliPJBHZoTfsk7EUV6UDPaDUEjtjqslms2QKTA6XpsuOJTrvQfE1nKH3TrV_Gv9DwJTpzo4BF-mo7FE9G0wBlQF1GkXcnwwFlNma2Ipwmhsz86WE3E4HrLeCe_reJGXansHB1xVr

We can agree on something! The alternative is not acceptable. The entire country is Trump obsessed. None of us are actually anything out of the ordinary.

The ups go hard and the downs too. If you are going to buy these things the times to buy seem somewhat generous - but only if past success rates continue.

That's me... ...and you. One is a believer, the other isn't. Cubs...now THAT's the real obsesser! He's got us both beat by a long shot!

Reds-Reds-Reds...I've enjoyed my following of Trump for decades, mostly the willingness of many to absorb themselves in the belief that he is truly magical and beyond the trappings of other human beings. His ownership of the media minds now for 50 years is really near thrilling for me to witness. The belief that Trump is continuously taking eggs from others and dropping them off in "my" or "our" basket is one for the ages. His endless victories for us seem to re-appear in un-victorious fashion, rage always is the result and new plans for success and domination show up. Today and tomorrow, someone...anyone...MUST be destroyed for their evils. Just think of last night for Trump, or any night for that matter. He is full of rage, his hate for someone consumes him. He's desperate for approval from someone, anyone will do. He will find someone to praise for their loyalty, even if that person isn't loyal at all - and likely the person he will condemn tomorrow. Last night rage consumed Donnie J. Today will be the display of whoever/whatever that was. Policy? Don't make me laugh. "Praise me...I beg you" is not policy.

Reds you defend Trump like he was your helpless 5 year old son. And you feel so strongly about Trump as if he is so defenseless and so pure in his opinions and actions towards others. You are smart otherwise and you go full blown goofball on Trump. What the hell gives? I'll post here whatever the hell I want about Trump as it is the norm for endless praise and endless criticism. Until Parsad says stop game is on dude.

Useless then refers to your endless posts here? I don't see you write that to Cubs? Hmm...

Reds you are, as is the norm, off topic. I could not possibly care less as to what the court decided.

As I have said since this thread began, Trump is a unique personality who gets empowered doing things that harm others. It has been this way for nearly 50 years. What most can't seem to grasp is that to stay on top and in to control of the minds of the support group Trump must continue, and an intermittent unpredictable path for this works by far the best, to up the ante with actions that run all over rules, laws, and customs. Most recently some people, those who aren't thinking clearly, think Trump has gotten a bloody nose from the Supreme Court's decision. I could not possibly disagree more! This presumed defeat by the court is exactly the thing that makes Trump who he is. How will he leapfrog this miss-called setback? He's gone around threatening tariffs here and there, his main weapon of super-strutting his sloppy fat ass saggy painted up jowls around for about a year. Watch closely, Trump now desperately needs to do something more dramatic to keep his little red cap cubs close. I can assure you that every single minute of his time is filled with a rage that will sling-shot some impulsive behavior/decision that will grab the media by the balls and allow the master to dominate further! But again what you miss is that the Supreme Court just empowered Trump LOL. This is precisely the type thing that has made this man who he is in the minds of his support group. White man gunna get what's supposed to be his, nothing gunna stop it. Life is great...if you can stand it.

So you are saying that Trump may need to start multiple wars?

Marco I bought BUD recently in the Bud Light freakout in the $40's and added in the $50's. Bought HSY several times from 155 down into the $140' or so. Plan to keep both as this is a trust fund for great nieces and nephews who are literally watching the process. To think I could go so far as to try to train them to be active traders is so far beyond any endeavor I would attempt is an under-statement, something I can't fathom. I think about 1-5% of people can outperform the market and I sure don't want to mislead these young people into thinking "this is how you do it" when the odds of failure are dominate.

BRO and AJG are without a doubt somewhere at the very top of deal makers as to numbers and relative significance for going on 40 years with the very same people/families running the show. Could they mess up? Yep! How likely? Probably not very likely. But without a doubt the last deals were made at market peaks so a big issue is how they were paid for - using their own inflated stock or cash.

UK the situation today isn't one I'd not expect to happen, I'm far less certain about things than most others, I think my childhood of chaos did a great job of preparing me for all kinds of rough riding. But anyway while personally I'm just so overweighted with broker stocks that I'll not add shares I do manage two family trusts for great niece and great nephew where I added (and made comment here on COBF) to AJG a couple years ago at $185. I will add more AJG today as I have about 40% of those trusts in stocks such as BUD and HSY - stocks that have gained quite a bit of recent and I'd like to keep them no larger than they are - and the AJG is a relatively small in those accounts. During the Elliott Spitzer contingencies investigations the insurance cycle was soft pricing so you had just whammo hitting the stock prices as analysts literally hated them. But the businesses were churning along at a very reasonable progression of size and profits. Of course acquisitions were a part of this growth. We all knew the incredible premium rise era was not going to last, we just didn't know the AI slam was going to come along to hang up on the situation. Interestingly Wells keeps lowering their expected earnings - they just did for BRO - but not too much lower...but the "target" prices are falling dramatically. LOL, like I said I never used Wells for a source of whether to buy or sell, but given they were really the only firm that put a huge amount of time into understanding the brokers I did enjoy reading their stuff. They've soured on RYAN some as of yesterday, but RYAN is too new for me and I've basically not paid much attention to it as I thought it was so richly priced. I have repeatedly over time been impressed with AJG. I've been impressed both with the business and management's seemingly willingness to communicate to the upmost as to all things affecting the business. But the world isn't a perfect place as we know, the one thing I've wondered about is that for instance Patrick Gallagher holds a relatively small amount of AJG stock compared to what the Brown family owns of BRO. He's been a gradual but steady seller of stock for a long time. He only owns, as best as I can figure, about 3.5 times as much stock as I do...which I do find interesting. Spekulatius and others may do a deeper dive and find more shared than I come up with...I'm just mentally not willing and honestly capable any longer of doing the work to fully investigate. Keep in mind that with the exception of my relatively smally 401K that I'm the polar opposite of a Parsad or Viking type investor, my "overweightings" are 100% from time, NOT from allocation. So I'd not be willing, and never have been willing, to "load up" on one single stock, that's just not my nature. I'm out and about doing things unrelated to my investments and probably the most happy man on earth ---- I have no financial worries or concerns. But I do love finance and investing and it does in a super-duper way keep me young and alive, my wife (younger than me) demands that I keep active mentally and loves my participation on COBF! Down the road we go. To me it is all probabilities and to me today the AJG thing is a high probability investment even if the PE's stay where they are today and never go back to anywhere close to the recent past.

"Cleaning up" is the correct wording...for the financial gains of the the super-duper stud-muffin'.