dwy000

Iran stating matter is concluded now. We'll that was quick. Glad it didn't escalate.

it wasn't the FTC that killed iRobot it was the European regulators.

It used to be more useful when unrealized gains and losses didn't flow thru income statement but got reported on balance sheet at fair market value (so stmt of comprehensive income bridged the gap). Now that the unrealized gains/losses do go thru income statement it really has less value. If I recall, Buffett had a good discussion of its use years ago but I can't recall if it was one of the Berkshire letters or something else.

I owned GFL for a while but moved it over to WM. While GFL is ambitious and aggressive I just couldn't get comfortable with a management so intensely focused on the market and their stock price. Not only did they give quarterly projections and annual projections but they'd give 2 year EPS outlooks. And the price increases they would push thru made for some unhappy customers. The companies I've done best on are the ones that focus on their customers first and let the stock price take care of itself. And I just couldn't see that at GFL. I'm sure it will do great and I will regret that decision but it always made me a bit nervous.

I've used buyers agents when changing cities or if we didn't have time to do a proper search. But there is absolutely zero chance they are earning anywhere near the 2-3% that they end up getting. I get it for sellers who can actually put in a lot of work. But even then, in a hot market the agent can earn a massive commission for a listing that might last a week or two. What I'd really love is a commission schedule that goes up as the price goes up. For a $1m property, a trained chimp could sell it for $750k whereas a really good agent is the one who gets you $1.1m. I'd give 1-1.5% on the easy part and then increasing to pay them like 5% above a certain threshold.

There are different kinds of float that would have different values. Insurance companies float is a reserve for "what if" whereas a subscription business needs that float to cover the cogs over the life of the subscription. Then there's subscriptions without a defined product delivery schedule - like Amazon Prime. You can also consider companies like Costco and Dell to have massive float in that they have negative working capital. Id just value FCF but be very careful because for those with negative working capital or subscriptions, if growth turns flat or negative for a while you could have a really large outflow required (well beyond the revenue decline) and they need to be able to fund it.

Just listened to the call. Boy it's tough to wade through the cash vs adjusted numbers. FYI, on the broker compensation, a portion of the earnouts from businesses acquired were allocated by the sellers to people who were not "selling shareholders" (sounds like the owners gave a portion of the earnout to the rainmakers who otherwise weren't actually shareholders). As a result, they had to reallocate a portion of the earnout payments into compensation and that drove the number up to the very high levels you pointed out. It's why EBITDA margins were similar despite the higher comp number. They still have a massive amount of earnout to pay during 1Q. They've sold the wholesale business to help fund it ($34m rev business with $5 EBITDA that they sold for $59m cash) Free cash flow from operations is forecast at $165-195m for full year 2024. That will all go to earnouts I guess but those should largely be done in 2024.

Works great for happy hour.

Just FYI, you have DSGR in there twice.

Starter position in SBAC

That must be why it's referred to as an Act From God.

Im still confused. What are we trying to accomplish with random comparisons looking backward?

But what's the value of the comparison? Looking backwards for charts that beat Berkshire is pretty easy. Are you saying these stocks will do well going forward? If so why? As Buffett says, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windscreen.

that's 2 days in a row. You must have quite the position at this point.

After 14 years of stop/start/stop/start in the fiber business it looks like Google is throwing in the towel and seeking external funding for Google Fiber. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/alphabet-is-seeking-outside-investment-its-gfiber-internet-business-2024-02-06/