George Comer

@KarstResearch @SleepwellCap @DadInvest @wintermoat He was on a podcast early in 2022 before he sold his position and put it into index funds. He laid out his thesis and detailed how he was 120% long $FB and sold after the Q3 earnings call in 2021 when Zuck announced the pivot to the metaverse and then rotated 120% long into $GOOG

@SleepwellCap @DadInvest I can’t remember the details honestly. Someone said @wintermoat but that’s not who I’m thinking of I don’t think. Was a pfp of his face

Is the guy who went full port $GOOG still around? Is he still long?

@viggy_krishnan @gkamstra iirc Weschler bought DDS at something like .4x book and around 3-5x trailing earnings, but was a deep real-estate play due to Dillard’s owning the majority of their stores. While Macy’s doesn’t look to be trading anywhere near as cheaply, I wonder if it’s the same playbook

$BRK.B q1 moves. Some thoughts: 1) Selling $10b of $CVX for $GOOG seems smart 2) Fully exiting 1/3 of the positions is interesting (but I think was expected given departures) 3) buying $DAL seems bad but not surprising 4) buying $M is a huge red flag. What on earth.

“You know ads are cyclical, right?” “It’s a 10-blue-links dinosaur.” “TikTok will destroy YouTube.” “It’s an adult daycare that’s too bureaucratic to innovate.” “Privacy concerns and the death of cookies will crater its ad business.” “ChatGPT will decimate Search.” “Google will be broken up by regulators and its core businesses will be crippled in perpetuity.” “GCP is a permanent distant third that’s too late to the party and incapable of ever meaningfully challenging AWS and Azure.” “I am incomprehensibly stupid.” Giddy up.

Some loser to me in 2004 "No no if you assume those growth rates for $GOOG it'll be a bigger market cap than the GDP of almost every country in the world." Me..

@Divergent7651 You could use Gemini’s Scheduled Actions. Set a regular update and explicitly instruct Gemini to prioritize domains like usaspending.gov, federalregister.gov, and whitehouse.gov, and grants.gov for economic and infrastructure announcements.

Is there a convenient way to track United States government announcements on major economic or infrastructure projects?

Tractor Supply is currently in a ~50% drawdown due to declining sales in their Companion Animal (~25% of revenue) segment and declining foot traffic in existing stores (1% drop most-recently). To remedy these problems, management is rolling-out fresh and frozen pet food to win back high-end customers, remodeling stores and adding to stores’ garden centers to increase foot traffic, opening new distribution centers to lower shipping costs and improve margins, and announced a $400m buyback with shares trading at 14x NTM EV/EBIT vs 21x 10-yr average. Recession-resistant customer base that relies on $TSCO for feed, medicine, and tools as daily essentials that can’t easily be purchased online.

Question: What are the highest quality companies with stocks trading near multi-year lows? What should we be evaluating today that people seem to be throwing out? International companies welcome (LVMH, looking at you)!

You only need three 10-baggers in order to go from $1 million to $1 billion. $1m to $10m $10m to $100m $100m to $1bn If you’re starting with $10k, you only need five.

Keith Creel, CEO of a company that exists because regulators approved a mega-merger, would like regulators to know that mega-mergers are bad. $CP $UNP $NSC

JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956

Anyone read anything really great lately (any format)?

For a transcontinental railway to survive STB regulatory scrutiny, the merger must prove that it enhances competition. While they meet at critical gateways, UNP and NSC have virtually zero overlap with regard to routing. I believe CSX has something like almost double the amount of ports and terminals, I think UNP views NSC’s ports as higher quality and a better strategic fit. Also, CSX shareholders might disagree, but I think NSC presents a superior option to compete with long-haul trucking and the Canadian rails because NSC is better-positioned in the Northeast and Midwest.

On the topic of $UNP trying to create a transcontinental railway, any insight on why they chose $NSC over $CSX as their target? Always thought CSX was a little better overall, but maybe that's exactly why they aren't going after them? Or maybe they like NSC's rail network more?

One Up On Wall Street

I recently bought another $5,000 of Duolingo. By now almost everyone hates this stock, even most of the people in my own community hate it. Peter Lynch’s favorite stocks were ones that were fast growing, had a long runway of growth, easy to understand, not loved by Wall Street yet, and strong balance sheet. Duolingo isn’t a perfect fit, but I think that it’s much closer than most of the mega cap tech companies. And if Duolingo management is successful in their goal of growing users by over 20% this stock can compound a lot. There is of course still a big chance this one dives further down as the market hates these types of companies right now. But I have time to let the story play out.

@lhamtil @Pfdshares @ReustleMatt I’m sure the guys really had to twist your arm to come on the pod to discuss this one @ReustleMatt haha

Episode 33 of the @Pfdshares is a conversation with @ReustleMatt about all things Class I railroads: -how deregulation transformed the industry -what the proposed merger of UP and NS means for the industry -how could the remaining Class Is compete preferredsharespodcast.com/p/class-1-rail…

Sector dominance is normal, albeit temporary, as every dominant sector eventually cedes ground. The market has, historical speaking, reflected transformative waves of innovation. But then again, “Everything feels unprecedented when you haven’t engaged with history.” h/t @a16z

@citrini Their Other Bet focused on robotics was folded into Google in February

Google should go all in on robotics imo

While I have undoubtedly learned exceptional tidbits from other investing books, I have increasingly become a proponent of @Larryjamieson_ thought, “Buffett and Greenblatt are all you need.” But if I were to recommend a book that isn’t over-cited, I’d favor “Common Stocks and Common Sense” by Ed Wachenheim. The book is built almost entirely around case studies of investments (loss cases as well, not just winners) made by the author’s firm, which is refreshing as most investing books center around generalities and sprinkle-in case studies. While the book covers multiple sectors, it does skew toward cyclicals and “old economy” stocks. If you haven’t already listened to Ed’s appearance on Business Breakdowns covering D.R. Horton, I’d recommend listening to that first; and if you enjoy hearing his thought process, then I think you’ll find his book to be a great read.

Need some good book recommendations. Investing preferred but give me unconventional or lesser known recommendations. Non-investing is okay. Trading also welcome. Shortlist is: 1) The inner game of tennis; 2) The education of a speculator; If that gives you any indication of what I'm after. Classics are also good.

@InvestInJapan This was fantastic. Just finished listening and am eager for the next episode.

The First episode of the Made in Japan podcast is finally out. (Link in reply) We felt our interview with Philip was going to be the perfect first episode as an introduction to Japanese markets. Over the last 2 decades, he’s seen the country as a lawyer, investment banker and now an investor. He’s worked with truly the pioneers of Japanese activist investing like Yoshiaki Murakami of M&A Consulting and Seth Fischer of Oasis. Through his adventures not just in Japan but in East Asia, he has so many interesting stories to tell! We learnt ⚪︎Why Activism Struggled in the past and why that’s changing ⚪︎Why Activism, and Japan, is still a huge opportunity today ⚪︎Some of the misconceptions of Activism ⚪︎Japan’s unique business culture and how Japanese companies think about M&A ⚪︎And some of his favourite things to do in Japan! We still have alot to improve on so we’d love to hear your feedback, thoughts or suggestions if you have any!! Or even any guests that you’d want us to interview! We hope you enjoy this conversation. If you liked it and want to hear more, we would really appreciate it if you like this post, retweet, and subscribe! Thank you for your interest and support ♥️🎌 Finally a special thank you to the people around us who’s been so encouraging and supportive for this project. Ben and I still have no idea where this’ll go but we hope to bring some unique perspectives!

“I remember going to dinner at one of these big New York banquet halls where Bernie Ebbers was the guest speaker — and Ebbers was the Chairman and CEO of WorldCom. He came on stage where there was a large screen behind him, he switched it on, and it just showed this upward parabola of his share price. He stood there, paused, and then just said, ‘Any questions?’ Subsequently after that, the share price collapsed, and there would have been quite a few questions for him.” — Charles Carter, Marathon Asset Management

@ErnestWongBWM I have found NotebookLM to be the perfect sweet spot. It only accesses the primary sources I provide, while also leaving the critical thinking and decision-making entirely up to me.

Personally have increasingly been using less AI and slowing down the investment research process to read and think. Coverage of new names is slower, but finding the depth of knowledge to be far better

@UnHedgedChatter A 100-year-old company operating as the dominant market leader in a sleepy, ‘boring’ industry. Keen to read the prospectus.

FT: Autoglass owner Belron prepares €30bn Amsterdam IPO 🧐

@lhamtil Credit rating agencies Chip foundries Commodity exchanges

What are some examples of consolidated industries (ex consumer) with fragmented customer bases? So far, I've got: Railroads Industrial gases Aerospace engines

@long_equity @F_Compounders What has become pervasive, though, is management touting massive buyback programs on earnings calls as "shareholder-friendly" capital returns, when those repurchases are solely used to offset dilution by soaking up those new shares issued for employee comp

@F_Compounders Ownership is a great way to incentivise employees. It just needs to be managed properly through buybacks to prevent dilution.

Are you for or against Stock Based Compensation ?