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Posted

He purchased a significant amount of Now Inc. (DNOW) in the quarter. Distributor of consumables in energy industry. Interesting as this hasn't gotten all that cheap during the recent sell-off in energy space (particularly when compared to MRC).

Guest notorious546
Posted

He purchased a significant amount of Now Inc. (DNOW) in the quarter. Distributor of consumables in energy industry. Interesting as this hasn't gotten all that cheap during the recent sell-off in energy space (particularly when compared to MRC).

 

it's done pretty poorly since spin out. i don't think we've had a clean quarter incorporating the cost reductions. good b/s to weather the downturn in any event.

Guest Schwab711
Posted

I like Alan's picks/writing but doesn't he benefit immensely from his starting point? It's correct to say the S&P is up 9.9% in 6.5 years but depending on if you avoided financials/commodities or not, the actual performance has been much higher for most sectors and the volatility has been tremendous. Not to mention the NASDAQ/Russell 2000 returns over this time. Reason I bring it up is I finished my own lifetime results this weekend and realized it's hard to pitch my results without talking about the actual transactions I made since the S&P has rallied so far so quickly. Any outperformance, even double-digit ones, just don't seem as impressive to me without transaction history. Is this overly ideal?

 

The reason I bring it up is because Mecham's write-up on SNE seems like a lot of hope is involved. He compares SG&A at SNE to Samsung when in reality most of SNE's products are commodities and Samsung has some sales for premium electronics. What does SNE sell for a premium price? What's interesting about SNE unless you can get board seats and actually effect change? Seems extremely risky.

 

Does anyone have a year-by-year performance table for him? He's got mostly interesting companies with some real head-scratchers. Either way, he at least provides hope that true investing can still happen in this fee and risk-filled fund-world where major funds will just change names and restart operations after major losses (and they always seem to be able to re-raise money!?). It's cool to see a fund doing well and doing it right.

Posted

I like Alan's picks/writing but doesn't he benefit immensely from his starting point?

 

He cherry-picked the 6.5 year stretch for this letter but his out-performance record goes back to 1999. That is two full cycles.

 

The reason I bring it up is because Mecham's write-up on SNE seems like a lot of hope is involved. He compares SG&A at SNE to Samsung when in reality most of SNE's products are commodities and Samsung has some sales for premium electronics. What does SNE sell for a premium price? What's interesting about SNE unless you can get board seats and actually effect change? Seems extremely risky.

 

Hope isn't really required because the share price reflected the hopelessness of the situation plus the new management was already making moves to unlock value. The stock is up over 60% since he started buying so I don't share your concern.

Guest longinvestor
Posted

In his letter he mentions his "unconventional Berkshire holding". Anyone know more details about what this was?

Guessing here, but he held a 60% position in BRK

Posted

In his letter he mentions his "unconventional Berkshire holding". Anyone know more details about what this was?

Guessing here, but he held a 60% position in BRK

 

He was buying BRK on margin.

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