Jurgis

I agree with people suggesting indexes. If you don't want to buy SPY or Canadian index, then why not international index? (Yeah, US is gonna trounce rest of the world forever and all that. 8) ) Overall, if anyone is planning to buy-and-forget-and-hodl(sic) for 15-20 years, IMO indexes are the only choice. Even for companies like KO, BRK, MSFT, etc 15-20 year future is unknowable. It's different story if you plan to buy-and-watch-and-infrequently-sell-and-replace. Then BRK maybe. Or any other companies that you like with 5-10 year horizons. OTOH, theoretically, you could buy a selection of (strong) businesses and mostly-hodl and maybe do OK: https://www.morningstar.com/articles/960641/the-strange-and-happy-tale-of-voya-corporate-leaders-trust . It's quite possible though that it was easier to pick 10 businesses for long term in 1935 than now... 8)

Witcher so far follows books pretty closely. The complaints about the show would be mostly the complaints about the books too. Whether someone would like the show would depend on whether they would have liked the style and content of the books. In other words, try it. If you don't like it, don't watch it. 8) Personally, I somewhat liked the stories in the books covered this season. I did not like the remaining books and thus I might not like the remaining seasons if they follow the books closely.

Iron Sky Lives! Alien Nazis at the center of hollow Earth: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3038708/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 8)

Yes, there is some panic and panic-based racism. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-chinese-allowed-racism-and-fear-are-now-spreading-along-with-the-coronavirus-2020-01-29 :'(

Haven't bought from Walmart for about half year. Buying tons of stuff from Amazon. I don't price-compare often, but when I did Walmart was not cheaper/worthwhile. I usually price compare for >$100 or so purchases. Edit: as I have posted before, there were/are brands that were not available on Amazon and then I bought them on Walmart. Most of them are now either available on Amazon or gone totally. My tastes are quite idiosyncratic and I've suffered a bunch of brands forever closing/disappearing/discontinuing. #firstworldproblems

If this is true, we are looking at global meltdown, since containment is pretty clearly failing at least in China. Even assuming it doesn't fail outside China (which is doubtful), 6.5% fatality rate in China is huge and crippling.

Being in open space surrounded by colleagues is only marginally better than being surrounded by sales drones on the phones. Having things moving in your visual field all day is a distraction regardless whether they are your colleagues or inflatable dolls.

I'm gonna predict that containment within China will fail (actually has already failed IMO). I'm somewhat sure that containment outside China is also going to fail. But that's per country somewhat. I.e. Asian countries are more likely to fail than e.g. Switzerland. I'm gonna predict that specific drugs addressing the virus won't be developed anytime soon ( 3 months+ ). I'd say the vaccine - similar to flu shot - is more likely. Although probably will take couple months too. Also likely to have similar protection to flu vaccine - not guaranteed. The hope is that the fatality rate is going to be low. At flu level or lower. None of the above are deep insights. There are other people saying what I said. Just posting to have a reference in the future of what was my thinking at the current time.

I refuse to work for any company that adopts open space office (and forces people to work in said office).

Anyone knows what's currently in Rule Breaker portfolio? I believe that Netflix, Shopify and Amazon are in, based on what I heard in their podcast. AMZN and NFLX are their ancient picks - not that this disqualifies them as great picks. Apparently though Rule Breakers have way more picks than the ads seemed to imply. I found this: https://daytradereview.com/motley-fool-rule-breakers-review/ . Seems like a new recommendation every 2 weeks ::). That's way too many Rule Breakers IMO. This also explains why they can claim stratospheric returns on famous stocks: you pick 26 growth stocks a year, you have 260 stocks in 10 years >1/2 of SP500! You gonna have the 10x results on some of them ( here they also claim huge returns on BIDU, TSLA, ISRG: https://www.thestockdork.com/motley-fool-rule-breakers-review/ ). Looking at the 2016-2017 recommendation list, it's mostly known cos. Though perhaps they recommended them earlier than I looked at them. I'd have to look at my (nonexistent :) ) notes to compare. And I can't claim that I bought (substantial) positions in the winning ones. Anyway, it might be a good hunting ground, though I'm not sure I'm gonna subscribe. 8)

Anyone knows what's currently in Rule Breaker portfolio?

What does Lyft has to be with this thread? I'm designating myself as the official moderator for this thread so that it doesn't morph into something else. I was sincerely wondering if Lyft might be a company that matches this thread's title. It seems that this thread's title should be changed to "Multi-Bagger Opportunities With Realistic Positive Outcomes According to BG2008" Please carry on. I'm not gonna defend Lyft or its possible candidacy into future multibagger club. Some arguments pro and con can be found on Uber thread https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/uber-uber-technologies/ . I'm getting T-Shirts Made As We speak I'm happy that my post has suggested multi-bagger opportunity for your business. Although for environmental reasons, please send multiple T-Shirts in a single bag. You can thank me later. ;D

I hate to join the macro predictions, but China coronavirus epidemic could hit economy/markets especially in the current risk-on state.

What does Lyft has to be with this thread? I'm designating myself as the official moderator for this thread so that it doesn't morph into something else. I was sincerely wondering if Lyft might be a company that matches this thread's title. It seems that this thread's title should be changed to "Multi-Bagger Opportunities With Realistic Positive Outcomes According to BG2008" Please carry on. I'm not gonna defend Lyft or its possible candidacy into future multibagger club. Some arguments pro and con can be found on Uber thread https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/uber-uber-technologies/ .

I went to read up on Lyft. I ended up in Twilight Zone Comedy Central: https://investor.lyft.com/ Was thys lyfted from We corporate docs? ::)

A company that produces no money can still be very valuable. The trivial example is a company that acquires appreciating asset that does not throw off cash. Its value still rises as the asset's value rises. Coming closer to E&Ps, if a company acquires land with potential oil reservoir, drills couple wells and discovers the oil, they have not made any money, but they are worth more than before they discovered the oil. Now, the real life is more complicated. No company just acquires the land, drills for oil, discovers the oil and sells itself. Usually it starts producing the oil - so producing some cash - but then plowing it into discovering more oil. If done well, the FCF still might be zero - "All the capital is just plowed back into the ground" like you say - but the company's value might be rising as it has more reserves. OTOH, due to capex, low oil prices, etc., it's possible that the value of the company actually drops even as it discovers more oil. Practically every E&P CEO expects (or at least pretends to expect) that plowing money into the ground is gonna grow the company. Depending on exploration results, oil prices, etc., these expectations might be right or totally wrong. Anyway, yes, E&Ps are usually not FCF gushers and are not valued per FCF. This is all very simplified.

+1 8)

Not true if they are trying to extract max possible price. Even if it sells itself at $2M (for example), it won't sell itself if they gonna try to get $3M. If timing is not an issue and they want max price, they should overprice it and then wait. But that's definitely not a setup RE agents like. They want fast sale for lower price - their profit is fast turnaround and more sales. So yeah maybe FSBO or really find an agent who's fine sitting on a house for half year+. There are more questions: do they want to overprice it at 1.1 immediate sale price? 1.2? 1.5? 2x? Are they fine to wait half year? Year? What if there's a recession and they won't sell? Is that fine? Not? In some of these cases realtor will still be best solution. Actually even in some cases of high overpricing and long wait realtor still makes sense - these $10M/20M mansions that sit on market for years do not sell themselves "by owner". But it would take specific realtor. Anyway, good luck. 8)

Sorry, I have no input on Calumet. Maybe to generalize, that's not an area/situation where I invest. Good luck.

The difficult part is predicting multi-baggers going forward rather than listing them going backward. 8) But you knew that. 8) My latest/current multibaggers (eyeballed by looking for >200% return): AAPL, SHOP, SPCEWS :P If I had to go with value stock that could go up 3X+, I'd say YY. But hey it's Chinese internet co, so there. IMO currently market is pricing most growth/steady-compounder companies pretty optimistically. You still might get a multibagger within >10 year timeframe, but likely with not great annual return. There are always opportunities in small/micro/foreign stocks. The difficulty is figuring out which ones are the real ones. 8)

Yes. https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/EVRA:LN

Tracy Britt Cool. This company is why she left BRK. It's her investment vehicle. I'm pretty sure she's not just gonna sit and collect director's fees. Now, there's a reasonable question whether even she can do well with cash in current business/market environment. And whether she's as good as she thinks she is.

20% over book is pretty clearly because of the people who run this. And this can persist long time. Compare to BOMN. I wonder how successful they gonna be in acquiring good business(es). So far the track of such companies is not very good. Partially because prices of good businesses are high. (See BOMN again). I'd probably buy a tracking position, but this is a PFIC now and I don't have tax deferred account with direct access to London. Anyone knows if EVREF is a ticker for this co or old ticker for some other company called this name? BTW, racemize is the best at running these experiments, but here's something I did on a napkin: Assume 10 years investment. Assume you either buy this at 1.2 book or a Buffett partnership fee structure (0%, 25% >6%) at 1 book. Assume 10%/15%/20% annual ROE/returns with P/B going to 1 at the 10th year. This underperforms at 10%, ties at 15%, outperforms at 20%. Since I'd say it's unlikely to return >15%, investor is better off buying a Buffett partnership fee structure investment. ;) However, if this acquires a good business, the P/B is unlikely to go to 1, so there's that. 8)

OT: I think Wait-But-Why had an interesting post about calculating maximums of things you can do before you die. Even assuming pretty generous numbers, the total number of books you can read before you die is not that high. Seriously crimps bookworm aspirations... I am sure I currently have more books than I'll be able to read before I die. Unless immortality happens on schedule. Go singularity!

AAPL might not be cheap on the absolute level anymore, especially if you assume steady or declining sales/profits. If sales/profits grow, then it might do OK from current price. For tax deferred accounts, I am not sure if it's worth selling although I can see the reason why people would sell. For taxable accounts - and for BRK - IMO selling creates a huge tax headwind for performance. If we talk about taxable accounts, I totally understand Buffett's suggestion to never sell, since taxes are gonna handicap you a lot making it so much harder to outperform. So BRK should definitely not sell AAPL (oh wait Todd or Ted sold already, so too late 8) ). (BTW, similar headwind applies to people who invest into funds with Buffett-partnership fee model. Actually it's like paying tax every year...)