LC

Interesting ft article https://www.ft.com/content/97be3f2c-00b1-11ea-b7bc-f3fa4e77dd47

What do you mean by pure capitalism? This is like the one true scotsman. If you mean a complete laissez-faire approach, as you saw with the Standard Oil example, sometimes pure capitalism leads to monopolies. But, sometimes it leads to an optimal case: low pricing that is great for the consumer, and great profits for the business. Think Walmart for example. A handful of large players competing is a decent outcome, in the generic case: (1) They have large enough size to take advantage of economies of scale, and therefore drive costs down for the consumer. (2) But, there are still enough independent competitors to prevent price fixing. E.g. if Walmart jacks up their prices, others competition still exists. How large is optimal? I'd argue it depends on nature of the demand (market factors) and supply (characteristics of the product/service being offered): -Economies of scale are global in nature for Walmart - this allows incredible benefits and justifies a global company. -In contrast, these same economies of scale are regional for concrete/rock aggregates - this is why you see regional companies rather than global.

I may have been unclear - I was talking about price, not costs. Prices of commodities are identical (by definition, else it is not a commodity). Prices should follow the curve - the only way to improve returns is as you mention to lower costs of production. Monopolies circumvent this by improving returns by raising costs above this curve.

Buyer Beware: In Chile, you are investing into this environment Goes to show you that the relative peace and lawful society of western countries is paramount to long-term investing stability.

Yes, there are industries where the same handful (or less) of companies have essentially the same market share year after year. I've never looked at it myself, but I understand Lubrizol is/was a good example of this. But not all such industries produce outsize profits to the handful (or less) of participants. The strategies and tactics of oligopolies are complex and cartels are hard to hold together because cheating is so profitable. For another more fun example, take a look at how the hemp industry was killed by Dupont and others (https://www.hemphelps.org/why-hemp-is-illegal/). Actually, the 2018 farm bill re-legalized hemp federally, so I hope (although it probably won't happen due to local building codes) that hemp is used in more industrial settings where it does provide both cost and performance improvement in certain areas (https://www.engineering.com/BIM/ArticleID/19056/Not-Just-a-Pipe-Dream-Hemp-as-a-Building-Material.aspx) In fact, funny story is that the old generations of my family were hemp importers to the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s. After the 30s and then the 2nd great war, they moved to growing tobacco (the original "marihuana").

Another thing: commodity producers should have low ROIs. Someone who sat in a Macro-econ classroom more recently than I may be better to explain it, but their returns should match the marginal utility curve. Why? Because it's a commodity. By definition, the product is standardized and anyone can product it - there is no differentiating factor to justify increased ROIs above the marginal curve. In other words, if we can both as easily dig rocks, why should your gravel cost more than mine?

Somewhat shady? The guy pretty much invented corporate monopoly practices, or at least was one of the first to apply them industrially (pun notwithstanding). I'm not historian but from my brief reading of Wikipedia, the reporter who exposed Standard Oil's shady practices and contributed greatly to its dissolution was Ida Tarbell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell#Standard_Oil), who in the process of her research, practically invented the methods of investigative-journalism and the famous term "muckraker". Here is one such instance of Standard Oil's practices: This website has some more: https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-16-2-b-rockefeller-and-the-standard-oil-monopoly.html

The beauty of commodity businesses is that most have been around for a very long time. So you have a lot of historical data to fall back on. (For example the fracking industry to use something semi-recent) Alternatively, you can invert: Do we see large sources of untapped commodities in the US which people are unwilling to invest massive extraction capital due to no-to-low profitability? I would argue not really. To the banks - there isn't a lack of funding towards financial commodity products. More like there is an excess of funding as the returns are generally spectacular, not sub-par.

Very true. Rentech manages something like 100B so quite heavy but not all in Medallion. One of the other fascinating things is the human component. Berkshire is the product of two people. Simons/Rentech took a group of incredibly smart mathematicians, programmers, etc. (and all the neurosis that come with that) and got them to work and function together. That is one hell of a feat if you ask me.

Even longer term. It is publicly known that Rentech uses value/fundamental strategies. Simple 15 minute example: 1) Obtain credit ratings for all companies - proxy for "moat" 2) Determine trailing 1, 3, 5 year earnings/cash flows, growth rates 3) Make some exclusion/treatment rules to throw out highly volatile companies or correct for idiosyncratic events 4) Use 1)2) to build a fundamental model +/- 15% of normalized PEs and trade around that. You then combine this with other models in the firm which are estimating heatmaps of the market - i.e. expected cash inflows or outflows or some other metrics. So your +15% band expands during periods of expected inflows and your -15% band contracts during outflows. Now you've built a model to automate the fundamental investor.

Seriously. These guys are better than Buffett:

At about 5-10% but just temporary, I usually try to be fully invested. The point here is market timing : you think the market is going to drop (i.e. a recession is coming) and you want to move to cash. I would say, unless you have positions which you think are over-valued and want to trim, it may be more prudent to buy general market protection (SP puts).

About 10% right now. Am thinking of raising up to about 20-25%. Looks like a slowdown is coming.

It's also a plague to Amazon and Ebay. Those companies, Amazon in particular, are much better-suited to reimbursing for scams. However fraud is the definition of the cost-center. It is perennially under-allocated resources and it is most overlooked. Fraud models are somewhat helpful but it is much easier for individual scammers to one-up fraud models than it is for global companies to re-calibrate or re-develop these models and roll them out across their entire enterprise. (Reminds me of the "doping" scandal in sports in that way). It is interesting because in the case of fraud, many times the only thing maintaining an active fraud department at a global institution is regulators. I'll speak for the finance industry as that is what I know. Consumer fraud is taken as a BIG DEAL at banks not because of the cost of the transaction - that is usually a minor amount to reimburse. The problem is that when regulators see you have a series of fraud incidents, they will come down on you like an old testament plague. This incentives the banks to really get their act together. Most banks will have 5-10 fraud scores running concurrently, many are product-specific. And provide extensive training to customer-facing employees. Of course this encourages economies of scale because it is difficult to spread these costs over a small customer base. But, over millions the incremental cost per customer is almost non-existent, but it provides a great value. This is one case where regulation + industry concentration actually provides a positive cost-benefit to the customer.

Anyone interested audio gear, particularly vintage gear, should check out the audiokarma forums.

All banks forecast PD LGD EAD for their auto portfolio. PD and EAD are usually quite accurate but the problem is LGD (Severity). As you say banks must dispose of a quickly depreciating asset. These severity models are the least accurate particularly because many times there is lack of transparency into deal-level data. They are quite aware of this problem as is the FRB, usually accompanied by higher capital levels.

Here is her vision: Here’s a 100-year-old company, publicly traded, with more than 100 stores and 700 employees, in the niche market of leather crafting. But that niche of leather crafting is right in the bull’s-eye of a broader crafting / maker / artisanal movement — and that category has all kinds of reasons to be growing. We’re already the biggest national leather retailer, so we have a diverse customer base. Our core customer might be buying leather tools, leather belts, and saddles. We also have many other customers — for example, people in fashion, shoemaking, cosplay (costume play, like Comic-Con), bookbinding, and bag making. We have growing potential right now to reinvigorate both our retail and wholesale channels with greater focus and customization. Seems like an expansion strategy. Could work.

A few things to note. This is a hobbyist supply business, similar to home beer brewing, soap and candle making, all the things you'd find at the local farmer's market essentially. As such, a lot of the competition is from small, private shops and in the case of leather, ranches. There are also tanneries which have greatly consolidated (Horween is the last remaining US one I believe - could be wrong about that so pls fact check if you look). Not saying it's a bad investment, but the competition is almost solely localized, from mom & pop operations, and the market is zero growth. PS: I also throw this into the "Value Investor's 101" pile. It always screens well, and so usually younger investors reading and learning will find it and analyze it. I know because that's exactly what I did years ago :D :D

rk, thank you very much! Also, I see the "tell me a joke" thread is increasing it's presence :D :D

While we are somewhat on the topic of forum improvements, there is one item that has been bugging me for a while. When posting images using the (img)(/img) tags, many times the resulting image size is simply too large to be displayed reasonable in a browser window. So instead of actually inserting the image I would just paste the link, which opens up another browser tab. It's not a big deal, but is it possible to incorporate some scaling factor to reduce the size by X% and therefore make it comfortably visible? I'm not sure if it's even feasible but I just thought I'd mention it.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb Pretty good article on a typical AirBNB scam.

Yeah it's bad news. Looooong term you may do well here just due to the fact that it's a global beer brewer/distributor and eventually economies of scale will "will out". But I sold a few days ago at a slight loss (actually a slight gain given ~9 months of dividends). But essentially dead money. I originally under-estimated the local brewers, more specifically I under-estimated the "sunk cost" that local brewers undertake to lease & improve commercial space, and learn skillsets. They are not incentivized to leave a crowded, poor ROIC business. The major distributors therefore are stuck with irrational competition. For consumers it's great as you have a large selection and that builds a different beer-drinking behavior (i.e., brand loyalty is not a thing anymore). Just my 2 cents.

Should be interesting, thanks for the update Sanj

Wework is doubly dependent on cheap capital. It needs cheap capital to acquire and maintain its leases. And the startup companies who are Wework's customers require the same cheap capital for funding. If that situation changes I would expect a lot of pain.

The criticism of Buffett has always been: ignore what he says and pay attention to what he does. Assuming he is still mentally sharp and interested in allocating capital @ Berkshire, his lack of purchasing signals that he we are in a high tide.