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I'm not sure if you're being sarky or not! The obvious answer is - depends on a) how much risk they want to take and b) how they're using it as a tool in their portfolio make-up. It's arguably good to have a quality lower-risk conglomerate in any portfolio to balance with the riskier stuff. And of course, this is all idle speculation about the behaviour of elders - I suspect Druckenmiller has gone in hard this year - some of the Macro guys have cleaned up this year after 10 years of bad performance, so this seems much more his sort of environment. It made sense for him to be cautious before. And there's been other posts about the theory that Buffett is running it for the older existing investors now i.e. there's a greater focus on preservation. Again all speculation as far as I can see. I think there is a generalised idea that the older you get, psychologically there's often a greater desire to preserve what you have, than create more.

He did. It's a fair point. But personally I feel there's a difference between deciding to open two more funds, versus ten. Over ten years, I think you're allowed to change your mind a little. I am still unconvinced by the EM closed-end fund - I'm yet to see evidence that they have an edge against other EM funds. That said, the portfolio looks good now and valuations are better. It's still slightly hard to not think it's an Arisaig copycat (if you know the EM Consumer specialist outfit). And I think it must have distracted Smith. But I think the mid-cap closed-end fund could be great - it's full of good companies, it's focusing in areas and markets they know well, and there's currently nothing like it available for UK investors in terms of global quality mid-cap exposure.

This reminds me of that interview that Druckenmiller gave last year where he said, 'I'm just too conservative in my old age' (and he's a lot younger than Buffett). And also whoever said, 'You can't price a Trump tweet'. Druckenmiller echoed saying he found it hard to invest with Trump around. So with the combination of old age and Trump unpredictability, I don't blame Warren if he's not on his A game right now.

Absolutely, I was mostly being flippant. I think it's just unfortunate that many of us look for a quick 'takeaway' from each new memo, and when they're coming out so frequently, the message is getting a bit mixed. I imagine that he's doing the memos more to help himself think, but the speed of them means they're perhaps of less interest to readers than usual. But of course there can't be many times in our careers than right now when crazy new data is appearing every day which might make you reassess your position.

Yes, Smithson stock valuations do seem a bit 'hot', though there's a lot of that around at the moment! So it's a question of how much faith you put in Fundsmith to have selected stocks of sufficient quality that can justify their valuation (which as we've seen can work). My feeling is that this is a basket of high-quality stocks that would be fiddly for a UK investor to put together, but it's a case of being patient and waiting for the right entry point. That came briefly in late March when it was briefly on a 20% discount. I'm bewildered that it's on a premium again right now. Coleman - I only recently found this out, and find it fascinating, though obviously it's hard to know the complete story without knowing any relevant people directly. I note that 13Fs show that Cedar Rock still has a number of the Fundsmith US stocks in its portfolio. It's a shame that Any Brown doesn't seem to communicate much. It seems reasonable to suggest that Smith got 'religion', but I like to think that this successfully combined with his expertise in analysing company reports - his past, e.g. 'Accounting For Growth' indicates that he's not one to be fooled by companies who aren't the real deal. I've been looking at Morgan Stanley recently - generally I'm averse to institutional fund firms, but MS seem to have quite an impressive long-term team - especially with the 'Opportunity' funds.

Ha - yes I can't keep up with whether Marks is bullish or bearish this week...

Turtle Creek's historic performance was phenomenal (so good I was a little suspicious). However, a few years back, people noticed - AUM rocketed, and they closed the fund. I don't think they've done quite so well since then, so perhaps it's not working with all that extra money. The OG fund now has a lot more US cos than they used to (size again?) - I suspect that their core circle of competence was Canadian firms, and they just don't have enough edge in US companies - lack of connections etc. I have found their materials to be very interesting reading.

Corpraider - I think you pretty much nailed it there. The only thing I'd add is that I think they are never very good at explaining their thinking at a stock level. This used to frustrate me, but I've reconciled it as much of their investor base is UK retail, who don't really care about why they sold something. I often find another fund, which has sold the same stock, and bothers to articulate it. At this point I trust them enough to believe in what they're doing - though that's not to say that I don't think they'll get it wrong sometimes. Maybe Colgate was one of those. But yes, I've long felt Julian Robins is doing the bulk of the work - which is good, as he's younger. They've said from the beginning that they designed the operation to survive Smith, which is smart succession planning. And yes, Smith is entertaining, and says things about other managers that most people wouldn't (the year he put the boot in to Ackman, Loeb etc. was refreshing). Agree also on the repetition, but again I like that, I want consistency from managers - though it does mean there's only a tiny snippet of intrest each year. I'm now really curious on how the mid-cap closed-end fund will do - it's still early days, and hard to know how good the manager is.

Thanks for pointing it out, but there's actually another thread on this today from the guy who transcribed it.

Many thanks for this. Very interesting. I had a look at your site, and glad to see you're a Lindsell Train fan. I think their writings are excellent, and they have built the same 'trust' with their clients as a firm like Overlook. I wish there were more firms like this!

Thanks for this. Interesting to read. I'd still like to know, for example, how the figures looked at the end of 2018 or 2019.

Ha ha - agreed! The Bloomberg article sounded cool, but all we know is the results for 2020 - no sense of how much was lost before that. If you're down 95%, then making 3,612% isn't going to be quite so special.

Maybe we need to think a bit more 'out of the box' and consider hybrids i.e. workshare spaces in residential neighbourhoods - so people can escape their families, but have a short commute most of the time if they don't have meetings? Obviously lots of details to work out.

Haven't watched the 2020 yet. But I should think it'll be more of the same. The fund has had it's first real test, and has held up extremely well. You might also enjoy this: Since I did my thing above, they've launched a global mid-cap closed-end fund called Smithson. The link is to their first AGM presentation. It's early days, but there are a lot of great companies in the portfolio, and while the manager is different, it follows exactly the same methodology i.e. buy-and-hold 30 excellent quality companies. It's probably a bit hard to buy if you're not in the UK, but the portfolio might be interesting for ideas. The manager reports are a blander version of Terry Smith's, I've found so far.

Oh, hi, can we either: Move this thread to the Politics section, or Get back on to the virus, when we expect it to be fixed, effect on economy etc. Too much Trump is bad/good right now that doesn't seem especially relevant. Thanks!

Yes, I think you put the same sentiment more eloquently than me!

Can't remember him offering quite such a definitive opinion for a long time.

Minten - the news in the UK press this weekend has suggested that hospitals are struggling, 'things are going to get worse before they get better' from the UK prime minister, and that the UK could be under lockdown for 6 months. Very few people in the UK have been tested, relatively, so I feel it's hard to comment on new cases. Hopefully not all of this is true, but it doesn't fill me with hope. Hope that provides more colour.

I think ethical considerations should be on a case by case basis. I agree that we all want to defend our nations. And amazing things (e.g. the internet?) have come from military technology. But I would never touch a defence firm that made landmines.

Isn't the fundamental problem here that the biggest debtors are governments? So they want inflation to inflate away their debts. This seems one of those total common-sense no-brainers, but perhaps got forgotten somewhat as it was supposed to happen after 2009, but didn't happen. Now the stakes are even higher. And yes, it will punish savers. Separately, I'm wondering what tomorrow will bring? The bill is signed (good, though should be priced in by now) but the news from Europe (and US?) has not been so good, and suggests US has much worse to come.

Obviously this is all gross generalisations, but I feel that right-wingers tend to be more optimistic about things, and left-wingers more pessimistic. It is tricky relying on models that we don't understand. As investors, we know the old Buffett adage of preferring to be roughly right than precisely wrong, and it feels like too many people are taking the various models as gospel, when they are presumably relying on data that has limitations on its accuracy. On the other hand, if the models are used as guidelines, understanding their limitations, they're more likely to be useful. However, my feeling is that the internet (and twitter!) has reduced people's appetite for nuance...

A suggestion - can we start a new thread and reboot this? As Gregmal said, it has got a bit out of control here.

Hi Orthopa First off, I think that this thread is so big now with so many people involved that it's hard to generalise about people's thoughts. Secondly, I very much appreciate hearing your opinions with your medical background - it's really useful and interesting. Thirdly, as you say this is an investor board, and so I think people here want to talk about the ramifications this will have on their investments. I think their thoughts on the human impact is a separate issue that is less relevant here. I think you make a good point about going down a rabbit hole with other illnesses - I think it has highlighted for some of us the arbitrary value of a life, both financially and in terms of consideration. As I said, my understanding is that this thread is about the impact on investments, so I value your thoughts on infection rates, especially given your closeness to what's going on, and also the fact that they are different from a lot of what else we're hearing. Echo chambers aren't useful. As an amateur, the only common sense thing I notice is that the problem areas are the places of greatest people density and maximum domestic and international movement e.g. NYC, LA and other big capital cities, which makes total sense. NYC sounds like it's getting really bad. However if 'social distancing' works, then the situation will hopefully be much better in other parts of the country, simply because it's much easier to keep away from each other. Obviously this is a gross oversimplification. But it also doesn't tally with your belief that more people have it, but less people are getting ill. I'd be very interested to know why you think NYC and other hotspots are worse than others.

It still feels to me like the US is a week or two behind Europe. The UK and certainly London is becoming more weird by the day exponentially e.g. in how people have disappeared from the streets, restrictions being brought in, stories of people losing jobs, empty shelves in food shops etc. I have often been overly-pessimistic about the markets and lost out over the last 10 years. So I don't want to be too gloomy and miss the bottom, hoping for even lower prices. So given I feel unable to market time, I am currently dripping in, especially with closed-end funds on wider than usual discounts (and where intelligent directors are buying), and sticking to portfolios of companies with very strong balance sheets. For the stability of our societies, and people's financial securities, I hope our governments get it right soon. But it is very hard to know what they can do, other than helicopter money all over us, which in any other circumstance I would be horrified by the idea of, and obviously has its own problems it sets up for later on.

I follow some funds there. Of most interest for us non-Australian investors are the sizeable number of listed companies (i.e. closed-end funds) which must be getting to some serious discounts. Individual stocks I'm not so good at. Maybe take a look at WH Soul Pattinson, which is a family-controlled diversified holding company. From memory it had a good reputation. I think it would be lazy to say an 'Australian Berkshire', but you get the drift.