Best Ideas 2026 - Half Time Report

[phil_Buffett]

It is a good thread every year to discuss the best ideas for the year. But right now everything changes so fast, therefore it is after the first 6 month of the year a good time to think about the choices from the start of the year or to discuss new ideas which starting to get interesting in the last months. New ideas 

 

 

for me. I was very optimistic about nintendo at the start, it is still a great company but with a lot of question marks after the last months, the management is not good.

 

I bought Netflix and Microsoft the last days. Amrize still a big idea.

 

Mgm was a big idea at the start and then came the buyout proposal. 
 

Exor was a big holding, i was frustrated before and then came the Luce, i sold all.

 

in the last months i bought a few times S&P Global.

 

What are your thoughts? New ideas?

or comments on your picks from the start of 2026

[phil_Buffett]

I also like at the cheapish valuation: Dominos Pizza, Lvmh and Daikin Industries with the Elliott Involvement

[Valuebo]

I'm still very very bullish on Coupang. I believe many software names will have their moment in the sun from the levels as well. 

[phil_Buffett]

21 minutes ago, Valuebo said:

I'm still very very bullish on Coupang. I believe many software names will have their moment in the sun from the levels as well. 

Yeah Adobe and SAP looks interesting

[frommi]

CSU (+Topicus,Lumine), VEEV, Adobe, CPRT, Autotrader, Evolution AB, Hacksaw Gaming AB, KSPI, Edenred, FISV, GPN,(+JKHY,FIS,FOUR)  OTCM, Karelia Tobacco, MTY Food Group, Greggs. Thats 75% of my portfolio and all are still cheap.

Edited 8 hours ago by frommi

[gfp]

3 hours ago, phil_Buffett said:

I also like at the cheapish valuation: Dominos Pizza, Lvmh and Daikin Industries with the Elliott Involvement

 

Thanks for pointing out the Elliott presentation on Daikin - I hadn't noticed this and used to follow this industry pretty closely.  For those interested, here is a direct link to Elliott's presentation on Daikin:

https://elliottletters.com/wp-content/uploads/EN-Elliott-Management-Releases-Presentation-on-Daikin-Industries-Ltd.pdf

 

Daikin and Mitsubishi have a great quality reputation (outside of Daikin's Goodman unit which has a low-cost/bad reputation) but I worry that like in so many industries the Chinese giants Midea & Gree are just going to eat huge chunks of global marketshare on price competitiveness.  Midea and Gree are the manufacturer of an enormous amount of HVAC equipment that had other brand names on it.  There is more to the industry than Residential HVAC and mini split heat pumps but I just see Midea & Gree killing it with their contract manufacturing divisions and they are everywhere.  Price is low, quality is plenty good.

 

When Daikin bought Goodman in the US, the best part of that deal was the overnight distribution advantage they acquired.  According to Elliott they haven't done much to integrate any of those acquisitions.

 

Anyway, I like HVAC and have my EPA 608 certification and do a lot of free HVAC repairs for friends and family and it's always an industry that has interested me.  Plus its over 90 degrees F where I live so its important  

[phil_Buffett]

2 hours ago, gfp said:

 

Thanks for pointing out the Elliott presentation on Daikin - I hadn't noticed this and used to follow this industry pretty closely.  For those interested, here is a direct link to Elliott's presentation on Daikin:

https://elliottletters.com/wp-content/uploads/EN-Elliott-Management-Releases-Presentation-on-Daikin-Industries-Ltd.pdf

 

Daikin and Mitsubishi have a great quality reputation (outside of Daikin's Goodman unit which has a low-cost/bad reputation) but I worry that like in so many industries the Chinese giants Midea & Gree are just going to eat huge chunks of global marketshare on price competitiveness.  Midea and Gree are the manufacturer of an enormous amount of HVAC equipment that had other brand names on it.  There is more to the industry than Residential HVAC and mini split heat pumps but I just see Midea & Gree killing it with their contract manufacturing divisions and they are everywhere.  Price is low, quality is plenty good.

 

When Daikin bought Goodman in the US, the best part of that deal was the overnight distribution advantage they acquired.  According to Elliott they haven't done much to integrate any of those acquisitions.

 

Anyway, I like HVAC and have my EPA 608 certification and do a lot of free HVAC repairs for friends and family and it's always an industry that has interested me.  Plus its over 90 degrees F where I live so its important  

I really liked the presentation for daikin from Elliott and they bought i think almost 5% back.

[tooskinneejs]

Intuit.  Are hundreds of thousands of small business going to decide to vibe code their accounting software?

[Malmqky]

Let's see...

 

I believe my two ideas were CROX and Nintendo. One worked exceptionally well, the other needs a longer timeframe than a year unfortuantly. 

 

I like CSU, JOE, Fairfax, CPNG for the rest of the year, not to shill my portfolio too much

[phil_Buffett]

I liked Joe at the beginning of the year, and still like it

[Spekulatius]

6 hours ago, Valuebo said:

I'm still very very bullish on Coupang. I believe many software names will have their moment in the sun from the levels as well. 

With all this money from the memory chip windfall sloshing around on South Korea , I think expect to see a boom in consumer spending. Some of this should go towards Coupang.

[rogermunibond]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

With all this money from the memory chip windfall sloshing around on South Korea , I think expect to see a boom in consumer spending. Some of this should go towards Coupang.

 

Plus hasn't South Korea instigated a baby boom with their generous birth subsidies? That should be domestic consumer spend positive too.

[treasurehunt]

Here's an update on how the CoBF 2026 picks from the end of last year are doing so far.

 

The arithmetic mean of all picks is up under 3%, well behind US indexes.

 

These are the five best picks. Dividends are not included, but I doubt that makes much of a difference.

 

Security	Ticker	Proponent	Current Price In USD	Price On 12/31/2025 In USD	Return
SanDisk Corp	SNDK	kh812000	$1,988.69	$387.81	412.80%
Entravision Communications Corp	EVC	shhughes1116	$12.69	$2.93	333.11%
EQ Resources	ASX:EQR	shhughes1116	$0.193	$0.056	244.39%
Liquidia Corp	LQDA	Rainier, InofeIsOne	$73.33	$34.49	112.61%
Garrett Motion Inc	GTX	hasilp9	$35.05	$17.43	101.09%
Fortinet Inc	FTNT	Rainier	$156.53	$79.41	97.12%

 

Using an arithmetic mean of picks, the three best stock pickers are:

 

kh812000	117.30%
shhughes1116	117.20%
Longnose	75.60%

 

 

[lnofeisone]

I think there is someone far more deserving of LQDA credit than I.