Am I the only one here who's had a rubbish first Half of the year?

[frommi]

21 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

The question that comes to mind is, based on current and projected earnings of some of these semi stocks, why shouldn't they trade at current prices?

Because there is no moat protecting these earnings. Barely any semi has a true moat. And the revenue is not recurring, when enough datacenters are built (and because chips are not the only bottleneck) the demand for chips will just stop, as it always has in history. Its a cyclical industry.

[Xerxes]

Closing the book on first half of 2026. Overall lousy compared to market index. Oh well ….

 

2026 H1 => 5.7%
2025 => 24.38%
2024 => 36.96%
2023 => 24.81%
2022 => -11.48%
2021 => 20.09%
2020 => 11.36%

 

2020-25 CAGR stands at 21%. 

 

 

 

S&P500 had a YTD gain of 10% in the same period in USD terms, double that of my gain in YTD.

[thowed]

14 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Am I the only one who's completely indifferent to anything that occurs in such a short time frame?

 

Ha - I don't think so - there are lots of tough people on here.

 

I'm completely aware of the ridiculousness of it, it's a weakness on my part, but it's been very cheering to grumble about it, and hear that I'm not the only person here who has underperformed.

[73 Reds]

15 minutes ago, frommi said:

Because there is no moat protecting these earnings. Barely any semi has a true moat. And the revenue is not recurring, when enough datacenters are built (and because chips are not the only bottleneck) the demand for chips will just stop, as it always has in history. Its a cyclical industry.

Don't most companies have little or no moat and/or operate in cyclical industries?  In the mean time, they are printing money hand over fist with no end in sight.  Who knows how long it lasts but earnings go straight to the balance sheet.  

[Gamecock-YT]

20 hours ago, thowed said:

Decent chunk of FFH, decent chunk of CSU & subsidiaries, TVK (unfortunate situation) and not trimming enough Gold & Royalties.  Recently buying Exchanges as they've continued to go down.  Not seeing the switch up at the end of March.  Ooof.

 

"You can't take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform."

 

Howard Marks is 100% right on that. To beat the market, your portfolio has to look different. David Swensen famously called this the "acceptance of uncomfortably idiosyncratic portfolios, which frequently appear downright imprudent in the eyes of conventional wisdom." Even on COBF, the herd mentality is real. Those are pretty bandwagon stocks to pick. It’s probably not a coincidence that the highest returns have been what only 1–2 people picked, not the ones where 5–6 people piled in.

 

But six months is still too short to say if you are right or wrong. A half-year is a blink of an eye, and it is nowhere near enough time for a real structural value thesis to play out. At least you can hold yourself accountable after a year, although the biggest mouths on here seem to conveniently not hold themselves to account even then.

[frommi]

3 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

Don't most companies have little or no moat and/or operate in cyclical industries?  In the mean time, they are printing money hand over fist with no end in sight.  Who knows how long it lasts but earnings go straight to the balance sheet.  

No? When you look at the current trillion dollar companies without Tesla/NVDA, you will find strong moats and recurring revenue.

[73 Reds]

Just now, frommi said:

No? When you look at the current trillion dollar companies without Tesla/NVDA, you will find strong moats and recurring revenue.

OK, but companies that earn enough billions while the getting is good may wind up being trillion dollar companies without any moat at all.    

[frommi]

1 minute ago, 73 Reds said:

OK, but companies that earn enough billions while the getting is good may wind up being trillion dollar companies without any moat at all.    

But for how long when the revenue is not sustainable? 

[73 Reds]

Just now, frommi said:

But for how long when the revenue is not sustainable? 

As I said before, who knows?  Better question is when does it end?  My guess is we are much closer to the beginning than the end.  Mind you, I'm, not talking my book.  Only stock I own that is participating are long held shares of AMAT in my retirement account and my kids' investment accounts acquired more than 10 years ago when the stock traded at $16/share.

[thowed]

20 minutes ago, Gamecock-YT said:

Even on COBF, the herd mentality is real. Those are pretty bandwagon stocks to pick.

 

Yeah, absolutely.  Though you could also argue that if we hope that the average person here is 'above-average', it's not unreasonable to have some consensus CoBF stocks, which hopefully over the longer-term will compound (as they have done historically).

 

Part of the problem (not such a bad one...) is that a reason these have become material positions is because they've gone up a lot in the past.  And so then the really tough part happens - do you trim or sell, or is that a dumb thing to do if the business is doing OK?  I still don't know.

 

And yes, six months is nothing.  This topic was meant to be reasonably light-hearted, just a grumble and acknowledgement that even though I know all the rational arguments, sometimes I still struggle with it.  And I find it particularly frustrating when the 'good businesses' I own (I hope!) are underperforming while one or two sectors are rocketing up, backed by a ton of retail speculators using leverage!  I'm jealous!

[DooDiligence]

45 minutes ago, Gamecock-YT said:

"You can't take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform."

 

Howard Marks is 100% right on that. To beat the market, your portfolio has to look different. David Swensen famously called this the "acceptance of uncomfortably idiosyncratic portfolios, which frequently appear downright imprudent in the eyes of conventional wisdom." Even on COBF, the herd mentality is real. Those are pretty bandwagon stocks to pick. It’s probably not a coincidence that the highest returns have been what only 1–2 people picked, not the ones where 5–6 people piled in.

 

But six months is still too short to say if you are right or wrong. A half-year is a blink of an eye, and it is nowhere near enough time for a real structural value thesis to play out. At least you can hold yourself accountable after a year, although the biggest mouths on here seem to conveniently not hold themselves to account even then.

 

I thought I was the only one here with an "uncomfortably idiosyncratic portfolio".

Somehow, I remain relatively comfortable with this short term underperformance.

Oddly enough, days like today my portfolio frequently does the opposite of the market  1.5ish% 

[Gamecock-YT]

50 minutes ago, thowed said:

 

Yeah, absolutely.  Though you could also argue that if we hope that the average person here is 'above-average', it's not unreasonable to have some consensus CoBF stocks, which hopefully over the longer-term will compound (as they have done historically).

 

Part of the problem (not such a bad one...) is that a reason these have become material positions is because they've gone up a lot in the past.  And so then the really tough part happens - do you trim or sell, or is that a dumb thing to do if the business is doing OK?  I still don't know.

 

And yes, six months is nothing.  This topic was meant to be reasonably light-hearted, just a grumble and acknowledgement that even though I know all the rational arguments, sometimes I still struggle with it.  And I find it particularly frustrating when the 'good businesses' I own (I hope!) are underperforming while one or two sectors are rocketing up, backed by a ton of retail speculators using leverage!  I'm jealous!

 

 

The idea that the consensus here is safe because the average member is 'above-average' is the ultimate behavioral trap. Look at the annual COBF returns thread, it’s a perfect bell curve every single year. Half the forum underperforms the other half, no matter how smart everyone is. A crowded trade is still a crowded trade, even if the crowd has a high IQ.

 

Of course, that bell curve only captures the people who actually choose to post. The year-end thread always seems to be a lot quieter.

[Gamecock-YT]

22 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

 

I thought I was the only one here with an "uncomfortably idiosyncratic portfolio".

Somehow, I remain relatively comfortable with this short term underperformance.

Oddly enough, days like today my portfolio frequently does the opposite of the market  1.5ish% 

 

I'll know it is time to start selling my stocks when they start getting popular with the 'in' crowd.

[DooDiligence]

17 minutes ago, Gamecock-YT said:

 

 

The idea that the consensus here is safe because the average member is 'above-average' is the ultimate behavioral trap. Look at the annual COBF returns thread, it’s a perfect bell curve every single year. Half the forum underperforms the other half, no matter how smart everyone is. A crowded trade is still a crowded trade, even if the crowd has a high IQ.

 

Of course, that bell curve only captures the people who actually choose to post. The year-end thread always seems to be a lot quieter.

 

This forum is fertile ground for imposter syndrome.

I can't figure out if I suffer from Dunning-Kruger by thinking I have imposter syndrome.

[John Hjorth]

12 minutes ago, Gamecock-YT said:

The idea that the consensus here is safe because the average member is 'above-average' is the ultimate behavioral trap. Look at the annual COBF returns thread, it’s a perfect bell curve every single year. Half the forum underperforms the other half, no matter how smart everyone is. A crowded trade is still a crowded trade, even if the crowd has a high IQ.

 

Of course, that bell curve only captures the people who actually choose to post. The year-end thread always seems to be a lot quieter.

 

8 minutes ago, Gamecock-YT said:

I'll know it is time to start selling my stocks when they start getting popular with the 'in' crowd.

 

@Gamecock-YT,

 

There are so many valid qualifications aginst the CofB&F 'What are your <last year> return, pre tax' topic, that I'll do my best to  keep it alive, running and kicking! 

 

It is an - to me, at least - interesting exchange among CofF&B members of experiences had during the year that has passed.

[SharperDingaan]

2 hours ago, Gamecock-YT said:

 

"You can't take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform." 

Howard Marks is 100% right on that.

 

Our portfolio is almost certain to not resemble anyone else's, and we can attest that Marks is bang on the money .

The problem is ability to hang onto the gains ... as you are the outlier, and there are no comparables. While there are techniques to getting around it, you need to invent/refine them yourself, and most often it's via systematic removal of chips on the table.

 

There is also a need to remain flexible; successfully unwind a pair trade, and your portfolio will both look very different, and have spun off a significant block of cash. The resultant weightings may not be what you had in mind, and what happens with that cash matters. Fortunately, with Canada's infrastructure build out, we have one of the best places in the world to deploy it.  

 

Assuming continued infrastructure investment, over time we will essentially be building a Brookfield, that both pays a better dividend, and is more o/g versus real estate weighted; eventually, we will hold Brookfield directly. The solution to always 'drawing' in retirement, is 'building'.

 

Good luck!

 

SD

Edited 6 hours ago by SharperDingaan

[Sinbius]

About : "You can't take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform." 

 

I have the impression that people mainly interpret that in picking obscure stock or unpopular stock....

 

You can buy very popular blue chip stocks that everybody and his mum have and outperform...most fund managers/investors are "too much" diversified and with short time horizon...

 

How many people have outperformed owning the most popular stocks...?...just holding for a very long time...

 

Underperforming is a problem only if you are an employee...of course you fell better when you overperform and print money (...even if rationally you should not be...but we are human...).

 

 

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Sinbius

[John Hjorth]

I'm up 0.73 per cent 2026H1 [YTD] and it's awesome [- while pretty constantly reinvesting dividends], -at the end [late] of March I was down minus 9.61 per cent.

 

All while none of these focal points matter at all, - long term.

[Eldad]

The other thing is the guy that is making millions on the chip stocks is also likely the guy who will lose 100k gambling on a football game or cheat on his wife and lose half of everything. 
 

Also, the guy that is dollar cost averaging the index is learning nothing about business and could sell out to pay off his mortgage or whatever Dave Ramsey tells him to do if SPY is down say 3 years in a row in the future.
 

It’s a marathon. 

[RichardGibbons]

5 hours ago, DooDiligence said:

I can't figure out if I suffer from Dunning-Kruger by thinking I have imposter syndrome.

 

This is one of my favourite throw-away lines I've heard this year...

[DooDiligence]

48 minutes ago, RichardGibbons said:

 

This is one of my favourite throw-away lines I've heard this year...

 

Just doing my part to advance the plot. Hopefully this doesn't foreshadow a tragic end to my portfolio.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Biggest holdings are Fairfax, Fairfax India, Exor, Bitcoin, Prosus & Alibaba, and Molina Healthcare. 

 

All have been miserable to flat YTD. 

 

My small names have done well, but not well enough to offset the drag from the big ones. 

 

Am like -7 to -9% YTD pending which days I check. 

[Spekulatius]

8 hours ago, frommi said:

Because there is no moat protecting these earnings. Barely any semi has a true moat. And the revenue is not recurring, when enough datacenters are built (and because chips are not the only bottleneck) the demand for chips will just stop, as it always has in history. Its a cyclical industry.

I don’t think that’s correct. There are moats in semiconductor chips but not as much in commodity sectors like Memory.

Memory is an example of a mostly commodity business where pricing went through the roof due to an unprecedented shortage caused by and investment boom,

 

I actually don’t think NVDA is a bubble here. Sure it could decline but 59% if we get a demand lull for data center and AI chips but I think this market will be much bigger 5 or 10 years down the road. So ss long as NVDA remains the top dog, their revenue will be much higher too, as will earnings even if you consider that they likely give back some of their obscene margins.

Edited 1 hour ago by Spekulatius

[Eldad]

4 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

 

Just doing my part to advance the plot. Hopefully this doesn't foreshadow a tragic end to my portfolio.

A great parody of the investment psychology people. When I here that stuff I turn it off. 
 

Maybe this goes in the blue collar sayings thread but like the country singer says you have got to stand for something or you will fall for anything. 
 

Like BRO. Great stock. Great business. Great track record. Valuation cut in half for lots of smart sounding reasons of the moment. You are better off being stupid on that one and just buying a lot. 120 IQ thinking vs 150. I know a lot of people here hate Graham but the essence of winning is still doing the opposite and just buying good stuff because people hate it. If you start going down your bias checklist you are finished. 

[DooDiligence]

12 minutes ago, Eldad said:

You are better off being stupid on that one and just buying a lot. 

 

Dude, have you seen my portfolio?

You absolutely nailed my strategy.