dpetrescu

I admit I don’t understand it. The numbers just look so good. How can a company growing earnings 100% YOY one quarter then grow earnings 50% YOY the next quarter. And then the market takes it down 20% and gives it a valuation of a PE of 8. This just seems silly. It’s a tiny position for me. If it’s not a scam or illusion and someone does understand this company there could make a lot here. But for me I’m just in it for a little gain

It’s just 2-years and a few months for the 2027 LEAPs. Good question - IV is all that matters, it’s the true measure of options cost. Nothing else matters. BIDU options prices are pretty cheap at 33 IV. JD used to have an IV of 50, it’s now about 43 I think - lower but a little expensive.

One regret (but not really) - is not using the lessons from value investing earlier in life. Imagine a life where very early you “invest” long term on your best 5 ideas in life - relationship, music, design, learning, health, etc. And you go all in. Every day you “invest” with your limited time and effort - to gain 7% improvement in those goals every year. Compound that return over a few decades and a person could reach wonderful heights in life. Like investing - the biggest challenge is finding the punchcard things that you can invest in for life that will generate for you specifically the most happiness and/or reward. Also like investing you can just chose life “index funds”, the human basics like health, nutrition, relationships, learning, etc. and maybe later you can add synthesizers, piano, Ableton

Black Friday sale came early for Chinese tech. I started loading up on some Chinese tech LEAPs due 2027 - now some BABA remaining from last year, little PDD, and quite a bunch of BIDU and JD. I figure it would be nice if they all drop 30% near term. I could double down once, maybe get some 2028 LEAPs next year. I do realize there is a decent chance these stay stagnant for many more years and some chance 2027 LEAPs could turn out to be worth zero. Not a high conviction investment for me - more of a cheap and good chance of double with 10x possible return via LEAPs. And even if that happens, they could still potentially be undervalued after.

Ahh thanks for the link, this is so interesting. I’m in the design and construction field and Simpson has been the Bible for decades. One small house will use hundreds/thousands of clips/connectors, each worth a few dollars and each needing to pass code testing and documentation. This creates a pretty strong moat. I used to watch all the old Buffet annual meetings now on YouTube and this company fits so well - simple, strong moat, longevity, product engrained in the industry, great financials. Berkshire bought MiTek and there’s no way they went with the #2 by choice. Every once in a while we’ll get substitution requests to use MiTek which is cheaper - and it’s almost impossible. Too difficult to change out so many clips with their own loads and testing and then relate it back to the building engineering calcs. It’s an advantage by a network of thousands of small products that each requires a lot of testing/documentation. They did fall behind on commercial mass wood construction products - new market over the last decade or so. They allowed others to take a market share and are now catching up.

I hate to be the broken record on here and name the same two stocks I have every year in the last decade. But it’s the: 1. Simpson Strongtie there was a cyclone on the west coast. Codes will always require more and more structural updates. My theory is Berkshire in their wildest dreams would love to acquire this but instead settle on the far nowhere close #2 MiTek 2. Autodesk Decades long moat story still playing out 3. ok so one new thing I’m getting into Basket of Chinese Tech companies when Someone says “uninvestible” time to look closely and consider investing. They’re cheap!

wow this is the first time I’ve seen someone here invest in SSD. That’s my life long investment punchcard. Welcome to the club! any highlights from the other names you mentioned?

Bough a bunch more Simpson Strongtie. This is my forever 80% of portfolio position. Below expectations earnings - down almost 12% at the bottom today. They definitely are tied to housing starts. Love to see the PE under 20 on this

All SAAS companies haven’t truly recovered and haven’t interesting you were shorting all SAAS companies haven’t really participated in the market boom of the last couple years. definitely some valid concerns and risks. I just keep buying ADSK for the last decade plus just because of their unique competitive advantage. Just got a bunch of 2 year LEAPs art the dip this morning im sure everyone here is tired of me talking about ADSK :).

I think I agree there. I’m using Revit every day for work. I can say it still has a long very long runway - as contractors and builders adopt it. Then product manufacturers are adopting it. And owners adopt it and maintain it for maintenance, records, and future renovations expansions. And public agencies still have pre-2006 2-d Autocad standards, they’re slowly adopting it….very slowly. Surprising how slow the BIM/3d adoption is considering its old tech by now for public agencies. the curveball is AI. I can imagine AI giving Autodesk either a bigger advantage or maybe risk of taking share away from residential and small commercial firms.

How do they mess up their accounting and delay their annual report? And all this after a big earning beat. I imagine this could fall another 10% or more. Either way I’m buying - hoping to load up on another 5% drop over the next week or weeks! what do you think of long term AI risk to Autodesk?

My approach is to find a couple companies that have a strong long lasting competitive advantage in a niche market - that can increase revenues and earnings at near double digit rates every year for decades and decades and is at low risk of tech disruption. this way you can have your entire portfolio in only a couple companies for decades. And the most importing - you feel comfortable doubling down every time it’s down big. Also makes investing easy….that is, once you find these two gems

Money is a scam if it’s not towards a purpose - to bring value. For me personally as an architect - I will always put the vast majority of my wealth into cost of building a custom home. Without much regard to market value of the house, without caring much if construction cost results in higher resale value. I do agree that big houses are such a waste. I’d rather have a smaller quality custom house than a wasteful mansion. PS….as much as I look up to Charlie for his general wisdom in all things and investing. He was not a good architect - his proposed design for the California residence structure is a massive monstrosity.

Haha yea, best to invest in what you know and use!

Currently: 75%……..Simpson SSD 15%………Autodesk LEAPs 10%………Cash, Tyler TYL, BYDDF, Pinduoduo LEAPs (last couple weeks have been using PDD gains to buy ADSK), and also a few surviving Alibaba LEAPS:) I imagine in 2025 this will be about the same. Thinking of using the remaining PDD gains to get a decent Alibaba position?? Not sure yet