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I attended a presentation by a Macro fund last week, and they were talking about 'Inflation Volatility' i.e. they said it'll go away, and then come back, and that will catch people out. I find this a more believable narrative.

I don't understand this chart? It says 1974-84 experience, but the x axis is 17 years. Am I missing something? I asked the author on his substack, but didn't get a reply.

I don't know how many of you know Overlook - one of the great Asian Funds over 20+ years. They are very straight Phil Fisher type investors. They were early investors in TSM and have held it all the way through. The founder of Overlook was so into it, he actually wrote a letter to Warren saying how he thought it was a great stock for him. So WEB may well have been following it for a while waiting patiently...

I have a memory that Druckenmiller said that BTC/Crypto had a high correlation with QQQ, which makes sense to me. It is tempting to start dripping in - if he's correct, it could in the longer-term just work as a levered QQQ play, plus some extra if Crypto comes back again proper.

Indian fund managers I follow seem quite positive for the next decade (having been less so for the past decade). I know the classic argument is that India is too expensive (especially compared with much of the rest of Asia). However, I spent much of the 10s being underweight the US because... it was too expensive. My feeling is that the US and India are both expensive markets as they both have a number of outstanding well-stewarded companies. Political instability? What, unlike a country where the Capitol was stormed? Or a country where they keep changing the Prime Minister? I think it's a risk in most countries these days, sadly. Separately I agree there's an argument for a good mutual fund if you can find one, especially if it's multi-cap. It's probably an obvious thing to say that I think it's harder to make a coffee-can portfolio with small-caps, as there's less certainty about their longevity. Which may mean that a small-cap subsidiary of one of the 'good' families might make sense. Of course, I may be completely wrong - it's hard to pick countries - think how many people thought Tencent & Alibaba were untouchable! But personally I'm happy to allocate part of my portfolio there.

Mr Ambani puts me right off Reliance. There are a number of great stewards in India to choose from instead. Unsurprisingly some of the best companies have crazy valuations (e.g. Britannia). I'm rusty on other valuations - but for Coffee Can you could do worse than other Consumer Staples like the Subsidiaries (Nestle India, Hindustan Unilever etc.). Marico has always been impressive, though I'm not sure about post-Harsh management. And perhaps Godrej Consumer? For conglomerates, I'd start with Mahindra and Tata - they both seem in a good place management-wise, though this needs to be monitored, and hard to say if you go for the Parent Co or pick a 'best' subsidiary. The Murugappa companies seem in a good place at the moment too. I don't know if tech is too risky for a Coffee Can approach, but Info Edge and IndiaMART would seem decent places to start.

Is this for fear of Oil collapse in a hard landing? Or just because of the heady gains you've made? I need to look at the MLPs again as apparently tax is changing again for non-US people on 1/1/23. That I am reluctant is perhaps a reflection that I have fallen too much for DMLP (I just can't find anything I like as much) though a 'Horizon Kinetics Basket' of the C-Corps & Canadians would probably do OK, if not quite a well.

Thanks for this - this is a great interview - I must re-research him. I am very on-board with his philosophy.

I'm very much trusting in Lindsell Train - who have over 20+ years been a UK Buffett-esque house with regards to identifying companies with strong brands/moats. They are now one of the largest shareholders & recently reiterated their confidence. They said they were impressed by the management taking a short-term hit this year (as stated above with increased costs), in order to keep investing for the long-term i.e. not try to massage the figures & play a short-term game. Obviously US execution is key, but they are effectively a monopolist in the UK now & the founders are still involved and major shareholders. Lindsell have more on their website.

The UK is very two-tier. FTSE100 is mostly cheap value - as Spek says, "Lots of energy, financials, mining." Shell & BP are probably pretty easy buys - the rest I'm not so sure about. Then there's the odd interesting co e.g. Ashtead, covered a fair bit on here, and pretty much a US company. Diageo. London Stock Exchange has outperformed Nasdaq over the longer-term. Rightmove is Zillow for the UK but hasn't done stupid stuff. The rest of the UK has some really impressive small caps. Fevertree could become one of the next great global brands. Abcam has divided opinion but so far has been an impressive biotech. Many of these are beloved by Lindsell Train - I recommend their literature. For small-caps, I'd recommend the thorough Annual Reports of Aberdeen UK Smaller Companies Investment Trust - the retiring manager is a legend.

I broadly agree, though if I had to choose one Euro country, I would tend to choose Switzerland - it may be a cycle again for Mittelstand Industrials, and many good managers.

I take your point - I suppose it depends whether you think that everyone is into Gold/Silver, Oil Yield & Property yet. I'd argue that it's only a loud minority of internet geeks/investors who are doing that so far, & in that sense perhaps we're more in the 70s with this stuff to become more popular, before we get to the early-80s bottom. I don't know - I really want to be more optimistic - but it feels like we've had so many years of liquidity injections, with terrible capital misallocation, and there's more to unwind.

We are getting to the stage, when I would recommend people re-read some of the posts on here from February and March 2009, just to remind themselves on what it's like near a really epic bottom. Obviously each bottom is caused by something different, but things rhyme. One of my takeaways was how some stuff was UNBELIEVABLY cheap, and so people kept buying, and then... it would go down again. While the cracks are starting to show (especially in the UK), it doesn't feel that there is that level of madness yet. Of course, I hope there won't be (partly for the general state of things, partly because I'm fully invested). Good luck to all!

So I mainly research & select funds, but I want to expand the old circle of competence in this environment & have the option of buying Puts etc. for protection. I passed CFA Level 1 ages ago & can't remember much about the Options stuff there. Should I just re-read my notes? Or is there a good book/website for learning stuff that explains it simply for busy people, so I don't buy outrageously overpriced Puts etc. Many thanks for your help.

Which sounds great, except she forgot to add, 'IF they can afford it'....

He has a bunch of small-cap investments in the UK & Japan. 13Fs can be misleading.

Things are quite different in Europe also. Vonovia, which is generally considered one of the high quality, blue chip German Residential companies (also in Sweden) has collapsed, and seems pretty cheap just on replacement value. Overall I am not keen on Europe, but this seems kind of a no-brainer.

I have great respect for you, SD, & seem to recall that you were teaching a Crypto course - so know what you're talking about. I suppose longer term of course there's a chance that V/MA will be disrupted. But my feeling is that it will happen very gradually, allowing a window to adjust as necessary. But I can't see it happening it in the short to medium-term, so happy to hold for now.

I'm no expert, but my understanding is that the infrastructure that V/MA have built over the years is almost impossible to replicate - would certainly take vast, vast time & money. This is why everyone else piggybacks on them. If you dig around, it's not heard to learn all about this. But personally I hope that people keep believing they can be disrupted, so I can buy more shares at a vaguely reasonable valuation (given they are by no means cheap). I started last year when everyone thought they were toast because of Square/Blockchain.

DMLP, plus some BRK & a bit of UAN.

Thank you. I feel like this was an uncontroversial opinion at the time, but it feels like it's been completely forgotten in terms of extrapolating valuation. When I'm looking at certain stuff, I'm trying to almost ignore the past 2 years, as it feels much more 'different' - I feel like the longer-term patterns up to March 2020 give a better sense for considering the future.

Saw this on VXX in a second, so may be more updates, but worth being aware of: https://www.ft.com/content/386df3ee-4b9d-45c5-9ae1-d5dffb2a822e As a pretty 'basic' investor, I would love to have an ETF that I could use for protection, as I still don't really feel confident enough with Options. But I've looked at them on-and-off for years, and never found one that does what it's supposed to. They're all a bit black-box, so you're never sure WHY they're not working. It's a bit different, but in the UK I've been using BHMG for general protection. It's a liquid, closed-end feeder to a classic Macro fund, has very good downside protection & tends to go up consistently if lumpily. Slow & steady. Has done exactly what I hoped it would this year (& the latest factsheet shows that almost all its gains this year come from Rates).

Yep, also on the Hermes 'waiting-list', so to speak. The only one not mentioned here is Moncler, which I don't know much about, but a few investors I respect have added recently. And maybe, Prada (HK listing) alongside Burberry may be a good one for China come-back, though more concentrated brand risk..

Off the top of my head, you might want to look at Experian, which is like the Equifax of the UK. Can't remember the valuation, but like most things UK, it is basically pretty much as good as Equifax but significantly cheaper. And Rightmove is pretty great, is the significant leader in the online real estate oligopoly.

Yes, these O&G/Commodity guys are pretty pleased with themselves right now - they're the new SaaS Tech bros, god help us....