Here’s an inspiring story I heard the other day. Last week, I spoke with an investor who recently inherited an investment account from their uncle. The uncle worked as a fireman, lived below his means, and invested in stocks and...
Someone who listens to the podcast emailed this question: “I’ve heard Geoff speak about not liking management with tons of stock options but preferring they have raw equity. Could you elaborate on the reasons why? Is it because they have...
Someone who listens to the podcast wrote in with this question: “…(in a recent episode) you mention that you want to know if the capital allocation has created value or not. I was wondering how you do this kind of exercise practically? Do...
On the day of this year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting, Andrew and I were in Omaha at a Willow Oak event. Willow Oak is the company that provides a lot of the administrative support functions for our fund. The event was a...
Geoff wrote about U.S. Lime back on February 18th, 2018. Focused Compounding members can read that article here: U.S. Lime (USLM): A High Longevity Stock in a Low Competition Industry U.S. Lime at the time was trading around $75 per...
I plan to use Focused Compounding as my investing journal. My “writeups” will be less structured than Geoff’s, but could serve as a starting point for members to research a new stock. My posts will literally be similar...
From time-to-time, I research a company where I think I’ll do a write-up of the stock and then discover it isn’t as interesting a situation as what I first thought. That’s the case here. Kingstone (KINS) seemed fairly cheaply priced on...
Over the last 10 years or so, Jewett-Cameron (JCTCF) has roughly quintupled its stock price while the company’s total revenue has remained basically the same. There are some interesting signs here. But, I haven’t learned enough to say...
This is a stock I talked about on a podcast with Andrew. It looked cheap based on the simple ratios you might use to decide if something’s a value stock. And the business of writing homeowner’s (and renter’s) insurance in Florida seemed...
Silvercrest Asset Management (SAMG) is an investment manager. It looks cheap if you expect it – as has been the case in the past – to do a good job of keeping its clients and keeping those clients keeping about as much money with them as...
This stock was brought to me by Andrew. He wanted to know more about the title insurance industry. ITIC is a publicly traded (it trades on NASDAQ) regional title insurer. There are four large, national title insurers that account for...
Alico (ALCO) is a landowner in Florida. The company is – or is quickly becoming – basically just an owner of citrus groves that produce oranges for use in Tropicana orange juice. The majority of the land Alico owns is still ranch land....
I’m revisiting Marcus (MCS) with an attempt to appraise the hotel side of the business. Andrew sent me some articles discussing property tax appraisal of Milwaukee hotels (including those owned by Marcus). I looked at some other property...
Investing in Trusts: Why Andrew and I Don’t Own Them, Why You Probably Won’t Want to Too – And How to Get Started if You’re Sure This is Really an Area You Want to Explore Someone asked me a question about trusts: “I was watching one of...
Marcus (MCS) is not an overlooked stock. Despite having a market cap of around $300 million – the level usually defined as the cut-off between a “micro cap” and a “small cap” stock – well over $10 million worth of this company’s stock...
Someone asked me a question about using risk-adjusted discount rates when valuing stocks. Here’s my answer. The discount rate for a stock should be the opportunity cost of putting money in it instead of something else. For your average...
Someone asked me a question about relative valuations: “There are a couple of instances when we can value the stock based on comparables. However, for me, I feel that there is something in the middle that I can’t figure out. There is a...
Someone asked me this question: “Warren Buffett had commented that Coca-Cola has a durable competitive advantage. It is one of his ‘inevitables’. I am curious what is your thought on the investment merit of a business that may not grow...
Interesting Articles from the Week: Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet: Apple now receives an estimated $8 billion to $12 billion in annual payments — up from $1 billion a year in 2014 — in exchange for building Google’s...
From a “100-bagger” type perspective, the criteria are pretty simple: 1) Is it a small stock (probably a micro-cap, definitely a small-cap)? – We’re talking <$300 million market cap probably, but certainly like...