Cod Liver Oil

Spend time with your kids: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/the-secret-to-raising-confident-children-quality-time-with-parents-21a806a6?st=q7XYL2&reflink=article_copyURL_share

Some Hershey. It's a 100 year old Buffett-like high ROIC business getting squeezed by raw input costs. Customers' stomachs are also being squeezed by GLP. Mondelez is a ready buyer who has approached them twice. How happy can the Hershey Foundation be with zero returns over the last 5 years? The CEO is retiring this year. Nice tuck in for Berkshire. Even though you have to squint to see growth at the moment, you could also make this large because of sheer quality. Like HHC pre-Ackman bid, no catalyst, just quality left for dead.

I know they are very frustrated with the share price inside JNJ. Is the talc thing existential? MMM was dragged through worse and seems to be coming out the other side pretty well. I don’t think the business is in secular stagnation (beer) or being fundamentally disrupted (ADBE possibly). Big pharma has justifiably sucked, but JNJ has some strong divisions. @73 Reds In Peter Lynchs’s words, many ways to skin a cat. My point is that the indexes often mask what is happening below the surface.

Yes, the indexes are near highs and some smart guys are carrying a lot of cash but there are a bunch of high quality companies whose stocks have sucked and may be de-risked. Some of my favorites right now: Joe, Hsy, Msge, NKE, PDD, MGM, Nsrgy, GD, LVMH, Brown-Forman. Please add yours.

I bought some PDD in honor of @Luke. The alleged growth and alleged balance sheet offset some of the China risk but none of the nausea.

@WayWardCloud I am involved with a team building an AI music/video technology. My head designer said he has shifted over the last couple of years from 100% Adobe CS to 10% now. He is primarily using Figma, Runway and Midjourney. He sees Adobe as a bloated suite of products which has superior competitors. Adobe has been a great business but I am concerned that it is legitimately being disrupted.

Covered the remaining MSTR short and got put the remaining January Nike.

Choked laughing at this. Vintage Dinar. Acid truth.

@Spekulatius what do you think of the Pesenti family? Are they aligned? Even at half NAV, this has been a dog. Is there a catalyst? I keep thinking of JOE at 1/3 NAV, well run and well aligned (except for the Bruce overhang). Why own a collection of assets with no synergies? I suppose this goes for other family run European dynastic holding companies. Cheap but hard for minorities to own in size. As you know, we own the Bollore complex in decent size but I’m agnostic.

Thank you brothers!!!!! I look forward to another great year of jostling, arguing and laughing in our ridiculous pursuit of gains. If @nwoodman ever comes to NYC, I want to walk the length of Manhattan with him!!!! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Saunter

Covering MSTR short. Buying big oil, Joe and MSGE. A quick visit to the toy store. Visiting bros with bags of Sey coffee.

@UK since your post of 3 years ago, we have bought at various times a ton of UMG, Bollore and Odet. Spot has tripled in that time period and the UMG variants have had decent but not spectacular IRR. I think you are right about the toll road and persistence but as the elephant, UMG may be suffering from incumbent syndrome, lack of motivation and half-assed innovation. Ek, in the meantime has proven he has price levers that no one spreadsheeted. What do you see happening now and the next couple of years?

Adding MSGE to the PE RE bucket.

My long for 2025 is JOE because at $47 everyone knows the overhang problem and no one knows the solution. The curtain will be pulled back in the next few months and there will be less reason not to own it. My short is MSTR at 405. All the btc skeptics have capitulated (myself included) and Saylor needs a lot more fiber in his diet. Not investment advice

Capital gains tax and taxation in general influences my investing behavior significantly. Druk and other great money runners who handle OPM evolve to be pre-tax investors and remain so even after they retire into a family office. Buffett is unique in that way. Pretax returns are what attracts capital even when you have 28% tax friction plus whatever egregious fees you can extract. Alpha becomes delta quickly. Taxes unintentionally make us better investors by moving us toward the punch card.