Saluki

Not all heroes wear capes. This person put all the Berkshire AGM videos online and edited out a lout of the dead time, long questions and pauses and knocked off about half hour in each one. Since I like to listen at 2x speed, he or she saved me about an hour of listening time on each one.

If you love grilling, get it, you can afford it. My dad has a "quincho" which is like a covered gazebo with a special large charcoal pit for grilling, where the grill can go up and down with a winch (?). I'm sure it costs more than an Egg, and he loves it. I'm sure the people who buy these, are in two camps. People who love old school grilling and people who want to show off. I see the same phenomenom everywhere. In jiu jitsu, a common brand of uniform is Fuji (like the Honda Civic of BJJ Gis). It's $80, and people usually have several because they take a couple of days to air dry. There are several "high end" brands like Shoyoroll which are $350. And there are some minor things that people love about them (the inside of the collar is foam, not cotton, so it dries faster; it has a liner on the inside which makes it less harsh on your skin etc.). And the people who buy them either train everyday and are really good, or they are the people who have a lot of money. If you have ten Shoyorolls, that's the price of a used car. When I sold cameras, a lot of people bought Nikon SLR cameras. Some where professionals who appreciated that it had metal everywhere vs brands like Canon where the flange that attaches to lens is plastic. Other people had no business buying an SLR but they bought it because it was a signaling device. So I don't know which camp everyone is in, but if it makes your grilling experience more enjoyable, even if you are grilling alone, then go for it. I'm not the ideal customer. I used to have a charcoal BBQ and I enjoyed the process but eventually switched to propane b/c it's just so much easier. But I have friends who have smokers and will cook something for hours and I love being invited over when they do.

Telemundo has improved a lot. It went from 80/20 Univision/Telemundo to something like 40/30. For must of the competition Univision had programming (telenovelas) imported from Mexico and the longest running, most popular variety show (Sabado Gigante) in history. Telemundo tried to compete by buying programming from other latin american countries that was very country-specific and didn't catch on, or later stuff from Azteca in Mexico, which was like the wanna be Televisa. Telemundo also tried to produce Spanish versions of US TV programs, like Charlie's Angels, in the US which was expensive and never caught on. It was like they were trying a lot of different things and none of them worked because it was like a Buffet with lots of different foods but where all the food was mediocre, instead of a restaurant that only sold burgers but did it well. Eventually, Telemundo got a few things going for them. The host ofUnivision's Sabado Gigante retired, Telemundo got a hit with "Ugly Betty" and a few other shows, and the sports helped a lot. Part of the decline in Univision's market share is the growth of digital media. Unlike immigrants, US born Latinos can watch programs in English on other platforms, or use their time online with YouTube/Facebook/TikTok etc. I think the shrinking of the dominant position because of digital alternatives, and the fact that US born Latinos may prefer to watch English language programs, is something that I didn't fully appreciate until I read this book, but Televisa/Univision still looks cheap to me and I still think the parts are worth more than the whole and I'd be very happy if Univision was spun off to shareholders eventually. Hell, a tracking stock with Telemundo might be interesting to me too, at the right price.

I think it's outrageously priced, but the distinctive green color and shape is a clue. It's like the red bottoms on a woman's shoe or the little alligator on a polo shirt. You want people to know that you bought something really expensive, so that people can envy you because you are the type of person who can drop that much money on a grill.

http://openinsider.com/search?q=An Cannon ,Coleman and Lower have all sold over $1mm in the past few months too. I'm not long or short AN, but if I was I would ask "well, that's Eddie's reason for selling, but why are the other ones selling?" You may be right and it's a great company selling at a 6PE with nothing wrong with it, but digging deeper and understanding the bear case might help you avoid an unforced error. Usually the really cheap stuff has some hair on it. I've made money dumpster diving, just know what you are buying and the what the problems are. Good luck.

Eddie Lampert sold more than $20mm of AN stock in the past couple of months. One way to look at this is that the buybacks are great for current shareholders. Another way is that the insiders are using the cash register to keep the price high so they can sell out and leave you holding the bag. Which is it? I don't know. Olin has a similar look. They are buying back 26% of the shares but several insiders are selling hundreds of millions in stock. Why? STNG is buying back 20% of their shares, but I haven't seen insider selling, so I'm holding. But if I saw the company buying while insiders are selling, I would definitely want to understand why.

In my work provided retirement account, I have index funds so I like to think of my portfolio a little like what Nassim Taleb describes as a barbell. The SP500 is cap weighted so, regardless of whether you agree with the valuation of the high flyers, it is set up to capture the high fliers because they are added to the index as they start to get big. With that exposure to large cap growth on one end of the barbell like a ballast, I feel okay investing on the other end in small caps, special situations, and commodity shitcos that are dirt cheap. Overall, my risk weighting is moderate.

Bezos had an interesting take on the internet many years ago. He analogized it to electricity. When people got electricity into their houses, they only used it for light. Then they figured out other things they could do with it like a washing machine, then a radio, then a TV. So the internet, he said, was only in it's early innings. It's entirely possible that AI will continue to improve and do things that we can't even envision now. But like the internet, there are winners and losers. Amazon won, and arguably consumers, because by putting all the retailers online, it drove down margins and wiped out a lot of retail. So early retailers thought it was great until everyone else showed up. If you are a copyrighter or graphic designer this is scary. When Apple started using multiple fonts and automatic Kerning, the work of a lot of low level typesetters and graphic designers disappeared overnight. Instagram filters make it easier to take pictures so it's harder to be a photographer, but easier to be an influencer. Like the early internet, it may be hard to pick the winners. Where is Pets.com and where is Netscape? But like the gold rush, the people selling the picks and shovels will probably do well. So maybe not ChatGPT, but the servers (AWS, GOOG, MSFT) where the data is stored, or the chips needed to make AI work by crunching the numbers. The problem is that everyone knows this. So is it better to buy now and put it your coffee can portfolio or wait till the next tech crash like in 2000, when AMZN was selling for single digits per share?

Trimmed a little META. Facebook and Instagram are incredible sticky platforms and money makers. But I don't know anything useful about the metaverse and I don't use Twitter or Threads. If Zuckerberg thinks he can incorporate AI into his portfolio companies and make the advertising engine run better, maybe that's true, but I'm not an AI guy so I can't judge that either. I'd feel comfortable keeping about 80% of my position and deploying that sell money to areas where I have better visibility and that are more squarely in my circle of competence. And AAPL had another couple of doubles from this market cap, but I'm sure the odds of a couple of doubles are better starting from a smaller base.

I just received my copy in the mail. My thought is that Neff knocked the ball out of the park during the 70s and 80s, during a period of very high inflation. If inflation continues to be an issue, or gets worse, it might have some valuable insights into what has performed well for him, and what was his process for finding and analyzing these things. Is it better to have a company with no debt, so they don't roll over their debt into higher interest rate debt? Is it better to have a company with debt since they have locked in financing (for a time) at a lower rate? Asset light vs asset heavy? Asset heavy with little capex, like real estate, vs asset heavy with lots of capex like a refinery? Looking forward to this one.

THIS! I loved Google in the 80s, but at 120? JOE at 34 looks great to buy, at 54, not so much. VTS at 16 is a go, at 34 it's a NO. I've owned FFH since 2018 or 19 and I'd rather buy at 80% of book, but I don't have a lot of other choices, and if they are making $1.5 bln in the bond portfolio alone from rolling things over at higher interest rates, that is a huge tailwind for FFH. Among my high conviction, long term ideas, this is a good one. Some of the other cheaper stuff I'm buying are trading sardines. Some energy stuff still looks cheap, but I have a lot already. The only shares of FFH that I've sold are in my retirement account, which I threw into Fairfax India at 11. At 14, it's not as attractive. So making the best of the hands that are available, this is a pretty good bet for the medium-long term.

Makes sense, I know someone who's been trading it in his retirement account and he's made 3 "roundtrips" already where he's bought low and sold high, so he's doing better on it than I am. But as a recovering dumpster diver I've sold many times where I thought "I wouldn't buy it at these prices, so I should sell". And most people are not as cheap as me, so they keep buying and I feel like I left money on the table. I'm trying to train myself to sell at certain points (a pre-determined target price, or after earnings are out). If I sell before earnings, then I might be reacting to "mr market" which would be a mistake.

I just checked and FFH is 9% for me so I'm adding as funds become available. Out of my largest holdings (BRK, GOOG, JOE and FFH), it's the only one that still looks attractive to add to at these prices.

For those that are interested in Shipping, this is a good channel, with very few followers: https://www.youtube.com/@CapitalLinkInc You used to have to pay and travel to attend these events, but when the lockdown happened, they just posted them online for free. Some of the videos have low triple digit views so the sector is underfollowed. It's probably because they haven't made money in 10 years, but now a lot of money is being made in shipping and people are still having PTSD. My suggestion is not to binge watch, but pick a sector and then go through the videos of the conference where it's discussed. VLCCs, Product Tankers, Container Ships, Drybulk, Offshore Wind, Offshore drilling, LNG, etc.

http://openinsider.com/ I check this site every few days. It's more useful than Dataroma or the other popular sites because it will show which purchases were option exercises and which were bought using their own money. Nothing ground breaking, but if you ignore the small buys and see a large buy with an "M" for multiple next to it, that means that several insiders were buying, or one was buying on multiple days and it may warrant a further look.

Any reason you sold VTS? I'm on the fence about selling in my retirement account but figured I would wait until after the conference call in a couple of weeks. For the shares in my taxable account, I figured I would sell after 366 days to get the better tax treatment. I sold a small position that I had in Intrepid Potash for only a little more than I bought it a few months ago. There are better things to own right now and the CEO sold a couple million dollars worth, which is not a great sign.

Trimmed in my retirement account and bought a little FFH and STNG EDIT: added a little BTI in my taxable account after I sold IPI.

trimmed a little more META in my retirement account. Tomorrow the last 10% should be gone. Still keeping META in my taxable account.

Just finishing up this book which was released in paperback a couple of months ago. Very interesting read about the early days of cable and Spanish TV in the US. It focuses on Univision (started and half owned by Televisa) and Telemundo (who has been a distant second in the US until recently). I learned some things that I didn't know, like that "retransmission consent" for cable channels came about from an FCC case where Televisa sued because someone was picking up their signal and broadcasting over their cable system without paying. Interestingly, the first satellite /cable transmissions were not from US companies, they were also from Televisa. They beamed the programs to Univision's cable systems in the US where before they ferried them over from Mexico in vans every week. They innovated a lot of things that are common practices now. Univision grew immensely due to an extremely favorable deal negotiated by Televisa, because they were secretly larger owners than was permitted under US law. The Televisa founder planned on eventually taking it over so he gave them a sweetheart deal. He eventually married a US citizen and was planning on buying Univision but was double crossed when it was sold out from under him to Haim Saban, of Power Rangers fame, for $13.7 bln dollars. Lots of other double crosses in the book and people playing Telemundo and Univision against each other. If you're interested in Televisa (TV) or Telemundo (owned by Comcast), there isn't a lot of information available and this is a great source to get the history and all the players involved. And for me it's a reminder that the due diligence doesn't stop after you buy a stock. Keep digging and learning.

I know it's popular to beat up on ARKK, but I still wouldn't short it because the world is crazy. Buying an out of the money call option to limit your risk is probably the only way to do it and not lose sleep at night. People flocked to her when her pandemic picks went parabolic, but if you look at her process, not her results, it's terrifying. You should be able to identify a cogent theory not just look at the results. Because the number of data points is infinite you need to understand why something works, not just that it seems to work now, so it will work forever. Butter production in Bangladesh has a 99% correlation with SP500 moves. But you wouldn't bet on it, just like you wouldn't make decisions on the economy based on the outcome of the world series, because certain correlations occur by chance. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-24/bad-omen-for-us-economy-phillies-winning-the-world-series She liked to tout that her analysts were not accountants or finance majors as a feature not a bug. Is the reason that most active managers can't beat the index because they are accountants and finance guys, or is it because doing it is so hard that even highly numerate people have trouble because they are competing against each other and cancelling out their edges on average? If the odds of becoming a boxing champion by training in a boxing gym are miniscule, does that mean I have a better chance by recruiting fighters from the music school? I'm not long or short, just here for the entertainment. I hope you make some money on the trade.

@james22 I remember seeing that study in the book "Range." It's a great way to think about hedgehogs vs foxes and how it works in the real world. And yes, the diverse viewpoints and pattern recognition are the best way to solve problems that haven't been seen before. I think Range and The Innovator's Dilemma should be required reading for every business major.

The early Ben Graham type of thinking was heavily focused on asset value instead of income. The thinking was that income can go away a lot faster than the assets that support it. So in an asset heavy industrial world, a company with no income but valuable assets could be liquidated. The problem, which Munger identified, is that in terrible businesses it's not fun to sit around hoping that someone will buy out this company before it goes bankrupt. In the information age, the best companies (META, GOOG, MSFT, CRM) don't require a lot of assets, but they do spin off lots of cash. Margin of safety has to mean something different there (network effects, switching costs, patents, better products). And if margin of safety means something different with these types of companies, than value traps has to have a different meaning too. I don't know how to identify it though. There are asset heavy companies that the METAs and GOOGLes are built on, the fiber providers. But they exhibit commodity like tendencies. You care about bandwith and speed, not the brand name of the provider. So how much do those assets give you a margin of safety if the tech has to be upgraded constantly and the legacy facilities have environmental risks? And what about things like banking? If the government will bail out all depositers, regardless of the FDIC limit, then why does it matter where you put your money? You will deposit where they pay you the most, and borrow where they charge the least, which will race to the bottom and erode margins. I think Graham's idea of giving your stocks a timeframe to play out is a great idea, which I should incorporate. In a month it will be 3 years since I bought ATEX. I haven't sold a share since I think the licenses are much more valuable than the stock is trading at, but at some point they should be able to deliver the revenue that they were promising. When I bought SWBI, I didn't have a deadline in place, but I believed that within a year of the new factory opening, would be a good time for it look much better and sell. And with VTS I assumed that one year and a day would be a good time to sell the shares in my taxable account. Other companies I just bought because they were really cheap (TV) or the growth prospects look good, but I couldn't figure an end destination (FFH, JOE, GOOG). So if I have a timeframe for some stocks, why not others? Why not just set a date in my notes when I buy so that I don't talk myself into holding "until it comes back"? It seems to me that if many of my investing mistakes have been emotional/tempermental and not mathematical, then whatever safety rails I can incorporate with regard to process should improve the outcome.

trimmed a little META in my retirement account and bought some FFH and OXY.

It says "video unavailable". Did they pull it down?

Sold some META in my retirement account and deployed it to FFH, STNG and OXY.