Stuart D

https://x.com/zx_647/status/1895799038014099872

Thanks for posting.

I’m just happy the conversation is around whether they’ve cut $60m, $6b or $60b. I much prefer this conversation vs the usual: “we spent more money on this project than any government has ever spent before.”

$154m to $1b means 29.4% per year.

Found this from a RWH transcript: William Green: And it was kind of an experiment to see how would he respond to this sort of impertinent very direct personal question. And he emailed me back, and it’s an exact quote I quoted in my book. He said, net worth as of 11/30/17 is 154 million dollars. And then he proceeds to explain in the same email what that doesn’t include and how he’s doing the accounting.

I think we’ll only know that shale has peaked when CEO’s are compensated primarily for production growth & they can’t do it. The current shareholder return focus muddies the waters.

Hmmm…. if not deceptive, it’s certainly not transparent. Thanks for joining the dots to compile the summary!

Hey Brett, I just saw your book is being reviewed on the investor’s podcast - congrats!!

One of my mates attended an Exxon Christmas party as a +1. Because he was an outsider they made him sit through a safety briefing. The safety briefing was a sermon glorifying The Exxon Way with bookends of the bathrooms & fire exit locations.

I think lower production costs means lower oil prices.

$XOM producing in the Permian for a cost of <$35/bbl. Surely this is bearish for oil prices.

It’s a fun book. The sequel was also good from memory (though it’s probably been ~5+ years since I read them).

If Elon can fire 80% of government employees my guess is that will be recessionary and puts on the SPY or QQQ might be an interesting play.

Thanks John! Much appreciated.

Thanks @John Hjorth, The investing in value creators book doesn’t seem to be available on Amazon here in Australia, but I’ve found a YouTube interview with the author to give me some insight into the concepts: I like his point [paraphrasing]: “people offered $100 today or $110 in a year will take $100 today. However when the same people were offered $100 in 10yrs or $110 in 11yrs would choose to wait the extra year.” The message being people are [more] rational when making long term decisions compared to immediate decisions. He then applies this to discounted cash flows where the calculations focus more on near term flows, while his hyperbolic DCF models focus on the longer term cash flows. Very interesting indeed. Some other gems: ”it’s deeply relaxing to buy something you never plan to sell” ”the longer you extend your time horizon, the less competitive investing becomes”

Thanks for posting!

In the past Buffet has said many times (with certainty), that at some point, be it in 5yrs or 50yrs, oil production won’t keep up with demand. At that point the price will go way up. I wonder if he still thinks that’s the likely outcome.

So greatness is extraordinary hard to achieve and even harder to maintain?

Yep! Value after hours is where I heard it - great podcast

Heard a pitch on Subaru. Trading below cash. Mid single digit PE. Shareholder returns 30-50% of income, split between dividends and buybacks.

Hahaha yeah, there’s that as well.

Yeah, nice. Growing net income, clean balance sheet, tightening market, rates moving higher. All looking positive for the warrants.

Great call out @Xerxes. They are so aggressive on the buy-backs at the moment. It would be nice if there was a little more term to their debt ($1.5-$2b maturing in 25,26,27), but then again, they do have an almost $3b cash balance against a ~$6b debt load, so liquidity shouldn't be an issue. Interesting line on the debt due within 1-yr being classified as long term: "MGM China's senior notes due within one year of the December 31, 2023 balance sheet were classified as long-term as MGM China has both the intent and ability to refinance the current maturities on a long-term basis."

The end game is rolling 5% treasuries, issuing stock when at a premium and repurchasing when trading at a discount. Close all stores. Layoff all employees. Hire roaring kitty to head up a pump and dump business unit. It’s already a meme stock, might as well make the company a 100% trolling operation.

I don’t know if it’s legal or not, but it seems kind of slimy like the pump & dump crypto adds you see on twitter. I don’t really understand why he’s doing it though. You’ve got $100m, why shine a spotlight on yourself. Upside: $100m becomes $200m. Change to your day-to-day life = zero. Downside: you spend the next few years defending yourself in court (if something goes wrong). Is it really worth it? Even if the chances of being sued are low, I just don’t get the risk reward.