Spooky

Just buy the VOO and set up automatic dividend reinvestment. Don't need to think about it. OR buy VOO in a tax sheltered account until maxed out and then allocate the rest to BRK in a taxable account.

Charlie keeps mentioning he would prefer if American oil companies stopped pumping oil entirely since hydrocarbons have other important uses and there is a limited supply. He mentioned this again at the AGM. I can't help but feel like this is part of the thesis that people are overlooking since it appears that there is still significant oil reserves under the Permian that are currently not easily accessible with current drilling technologies.

https://www.ft.com/content/6289bb84-01dd-4260-8b70-c9c455a159e7 Any Berkshire sleuths figure out what Buffett has been selling?

I made this since I found the juxtaposition of the two events Saturday fascinating. Love how low key and humble these two remain. All hail king Charlie!

Thanks!

Anyone have a non-paywalled link to the op ed?

Agree. Looking at the pie chart made me realize I had a lot of 1% or less positions that didn't make any sense. I decided to consolidate / simplify even more. All you need are 6-8 well selected stocks to have the benefit of diversification.

The new nifty fifty...

This is interesting and similar to me - I want to build my net worth in order to have total freedom. I'm also trying to get there with the highest probability of success possible (it's a trade off between speed vs certainty). Framing my decisions through this long term goal has been helpful. Instead of focusing on beating the market I have set a goal to compound my wealth at 10% per year. If I can do this over a long period of time then I will be very wealthy. Not having to worry about relative performance to the S&P over a short term period is also extremely advantageous.

Thanks KC, I've read these already, excellent content.

Thanks Thowed, I'll look into those materials. Another investor I've been meaning to do more research on is Tom Russo from Gardner Russo & Quinn. His performance has been exceptional and he generally has extremely long holding periods in companies like Heineken and Nestle: https://www.ivey.uwo.ca/bengrahaminvesting/resources/interviews-notes/thomas-russo/

100% agree! BRK is my second biggest position and is going to be in the 60% of my portfolio dedicated to the steady eddies. Wish I could find a BRK earlier in its life cycle.

This is where I'm trying to get to although I don't know what I will do with all my spare time :). Been thinking of taking 40% of my portfolio and allocating it to very long term Phil Fisher type growth investments and then just sitting on my ass(ets). The only problem is how do I identify these businesses that will stand the test of time.

@dealraker Great insights as always. What were the characteristics that you saw in Pepsi to be confident holding for the long term? What is your process for finding / evaluating companies to invest in generally?

Thanks for the feedback! I made a conscious decision to try and keep close to 50% in CSU starting a couple years ago to try and concentrate in my best ideas and it has been working well. My goal is to move to a portfolio described by Hagstrom in the Warren Buffett portfolio (focus investing) or similar to Nick Sleep (just a three stock portfolio, Amazon, Costco, BRK) and Charlie Munger (BRK, Costco, Li Lu). I know CSU very well since I work there and generally 50% of my bonus needs to be in shares of the company. Also, given the nature of the company (basically no debt, extremely well diversified, excellent balance sheet) I’m comfortable that this can’t go to zero. Given the growth of the company my allocation was actually getting over 50% but I was able to take my bonus in cash this year to allocate to some other ideas (which is why I have more cash than normal). This portfolio is 100% of my net worth but I’m 37 and have no debt.

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My favourite daily news are the Real Time Economics and the 10-Point email newsletters from the WSJ.

Do we actually have evidence / data that crime is on the rise in the US and that it is worse in big cities / democratic controlled regions? Or is this just perception? Sorry I haven't been following this thread closely but some of these articles were interesting but a little dated now: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-americans-are-convinced-crime-is-rising-in-the-u-s-theyre-wrong/ https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1131825858/us-crime-data-midterm-elections From the FBI's 2021 report it looks like the murder rate went up in significantly from 2019 to 2020 but it is still 30-40% lower than the 1990s (this is national data).

This is also just part of the story with the bank mortgage books which are higher credit quality mortgages - there is a whole private mortgage industry catering to people who didn't qualify for a mortgage from the bank.

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. Looks like roughly 30% of TD and BMO mortgages are longer than 30 years now due to negative amortization up from 0% a year ago. 20% of CIBC's Canadian mortgage portfolio fixed monthly payments are no longer covering interest. RBC doesn't allow negative amortization but 20% of their mortgage book is paying interest only. That's 4/6 of the big Canadian banks and the other two are likely in a similar situation. What happens next? People keep paying their mortgages indefinitely / in perpetuity hoping that interest rates come down? Essentially the banks are stopping distressed inventory from coming on the market and creating a floor in prices. Does this dam break eventually?

Constellation Software. Our main competition for acquisitions are PE firms but we have a much stronger value proposition for owner operators looking to sell their businesses. We also don't sell business ever so are in them for the long haul, not to chop and change them.

I think this is right and is related to the CHIPS act passing.

Damn, I better sell everything...

Started a position in JOE

What's he been up to?