Focused Compounding / Podcast 🎙/ We spend 99% of our time focused on the 1% of stocks every other fund ignores - All with $GEOFF Gannon. Not advice. DYODD.
We focus on identifying high-quality companies in pockets of the market where large pools of capital (mutual funds, pension funds, etc.) cannot or will not invest.
We have a fund for qualified investors and SMAs for everyone else.
Let's chat: Andrew
@focusedcompounding
.com
Jamie Dimon's 2022 Letter to Shareholders
On interest rates:
"When you analyze a stock, you look at many factors: earnings, cash flow, competition, margins, scenarios, consumer preferences, new technologies and so on. But the math above is immovable and affects all."
9 years later and this is still the best article on the internet
If Charlie Munger Didn’t Quit When He Was Divorced, Broke, and Burying His 9 Year Old Son, You Have No Excuse
$MSFT had a market cap of $393 billion and a P/E of 53x in 2001
If you purchased the stock in 2001 and HODL, you didn't breakeven until 2016 -- all while the fundamentals/per share figures were growing and improving
Entry multiples matter
This is one of the best "screens" I have seen for Buffett-type stock ideas
What stocks (if any) are going to be:
• 15x EPS next year
• 90% sure to have higher EPS in 5 years
• 50/50 chance of compounding at 7% a year
Name some stocks that fit this screen!
The most practical investing "book" I've ever read is unequivocally Joel Greenblatt's audited class notes from his special situations investing class at Columbia
If you’re looking for common sense advice on how to pick stocks, these are the 5 books to read:
1. The Warren Buffett Portfolio
2. One Up On Wall Street
3. Beating the Street
4. You Can Be a Stock Market Genius
5. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
What else?
Warren Buffett turned $10,000 into well over $100,000 before starting his partnership.
My best guess is that Buffett compounded his money at an annual rate of no less than 50% a year and no more than 60% a year from 1949-1954.
Here is how Warren Buffett made his first $100,000.
Buffett read Lehman's 10-K and wrote down every page number where he thought there was a red flag
"By the time I got through, I decided that we were not in a position to lend money to Lehman"
Listen to him tell the story here:
The most practical investing "book" I've ever read is unequivocally Joel Greenblatt's audited class notes from his special situations investing class at Columbia
4,953 pages of basically everything Warren Buffett has ever written publicly. This is a great resource for using CTRL + F to search for investing topics on your mind.
Peter Lynch explaining regional monopolies & why owning a boring rock pit is a safer investment than owning a jewelry business is 🤌
From One Up On Wall Street
The shorter your holding period in a stock, the more important the price you buy at (P/E, P/B, etc.) and the price you sell at (P/E, P/B, etc.)
The longer your holding period in a stock, the more important the return on capital/growth rate of the company you’ve invested in
Most people wish they could find more time to focus on investing.
Here's a framework for investing when you only have an hour a day to do it.
A thread:
$GEOFF
Charlie Munger on how to calculate the intrinsic value of a business:
"I can't give you a formulaic approach, because I don't use one....If you want a formula, you should go back to graduate school. They'll give you lots of formulas that won't work"
Buffett read Lehman's 10-K and wrote down every page number where he thought there was a red flag
"By the time I got through, I decided that we were not in a position to lend money to Lehman"
Listen to him tell the story here:
One way to check how durable an industry is likely to prove is to ask how old it is
Cement +2,000 yrs
Gambling +2,000 yrs
Restaurants +2,000 yrs
Staying at inns +2,000 yrs
Theater/entertainment +2,000 yrs
Banks +700 yrs
etc.
At the Berkshire meeting this year, Warren Buffett said:
"I was reading the other day, actually, the 1932 Annual Report of General Motors. And its one of the best annual reports I've read. Its a totally honest assessment of exactly where they were"
Earnings fell 99.9% in 1932.
If you’re looking for common sense advice on how to pick stocks, these are the 5 books to read:
1. The Warren Buffett Portfolio
2. One Up On Wall Street
3. Beating the Street
4. You Can Be a Stock Market Genius
5. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
What else?
There’s a stock that has quietly outperformed nearly all others over the past 20 yrs.
No, It's not in semiconductors or tech.
It's US Lime & Minerals, Inc, a simple producer that extracts limestone from its quarries.
And you thought watching limestone dry was boring...
Studying Henry Singleton and Teledyne should be mandatory for every public company CEO in terms of capital allocation.
From 1963 to 1990, Teledyne compounded at 20.4%, compared to the S&P's 8.0%.
He was a P/E arbitrager, using Teledyne's extremely high multiple to acquire over
From Jamie Dimon's 2022 Letter to Shareholders:
Don't underestimate the extreme importance of interest rates.
"When you analyze a stock, you look at many factors: earnings, cash flow, competition, margins, scenarios, consumer preferences, new technologies and so on. But the
One way to gauge the likely durability of an industry is to consider its age.
Cement: Over 2,000 years
Gambling: Over 2,000 years
Restaurants: Over 2,000 years
Staying at inns: Over 2,000 years
Theater/entertainment: Over 2,000 years
Banks: Over 700 years
etc.
288 pages of everything Dan Loeb
"It is time for you to step down from your role as CEO and director so that you can do what you do best: retreat to your waterfront mansion in the Hamptons where you can play tennis and hobnob with your fellow socialites"
A Chipotle worker at the cash register really just said to me “have a great Valentine’s Day!”
...while I’m eating at chipotle for dinner...
...by myself...
...on Valentine’s Day... 🤪😂
I've been seeing more tweets lately about people feeling the stress of 2020. This is my favorite article to read when I need some inspiration
If Charlie Munger Didn’t Quit When He Was Divorced, Broke, and Burying His 9 Year Old Son, You Have No Excuse
Some interesting thoughts and charts from Apollo on interest rates, inflation, and the economy:
The Fed Will Not Cut Rates in 2024
The market came into 2023 expecting a recession.
The market went into 2024 expecting six Fed cuts.
The reality is that the US economy is simply
These 3 lectures Warren Buffett gave to Notre Dame in 1991 are 🔥
The screenshot is him explaining his 1966 investment in Disney
"It was incredible. You didn’t have to be a genius to know that the Walt Disney company was worth more than $80 million"
Out of everything I've posted on investing, I think this quote is the most important. If you want to improve as an investor read this and then read it as many times as it takes until it's imprinted on your brain. I have this on my office wall
"I dont know" by Allan Mecham
This story about Michael Jordan is 🔥🔥
Jordan went inside the other team's locker room pregame to tell them to “lace them up, it’s gonna be a long night”
….Then drops 60
Jordan was a soul taker
Watch this clip
I love this Charlie Munger quote:
"I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines.
They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up."
Consistency is powerful.
These 3 lectures Warren Buffett gave to Notre Dame students in 1991 are great -- especially explaining his Disney investment
"It was incredible. You didn’t have to be a genius to know that the Walt Disney company was worth more than $80 million"
Warren Buffett turned $10,000 into well over $100,000 before starting his partnership.
My best guess is that he compounded his money at an annual rate of no less than 50% a year and no more than 60% a year from 1949-1954.
Here is how Warren Buffett made his first $100,000.
A mindblowing stat that came out of Buffett's annual letter to shareholders was that GEICO did $238,288 of business in 1937 -- its first full year of operation
Last year they did $35 billion in business
That's a 15.22% CAGR over 84 years
Operating Leverage: A Framework for Anticipating Changes in Earnings
@mjmauboussin
breaks down the relationship between changes in sales and profit generation
I see again and again how powerful this can be in the microcap world
You should not invest in a company if you do not understand the competitive landscape it operates in.
My mind immediately goes to competition when analyzing a new company + industry.
Here are 10 checklist items you can start with
A thread:
$GEOFF
BILL RUANE’S FOUR RULES OF SMART INVESTING
1. Buy Good Businesses
2. Buy Businesses with Pricing Flexibility
3. Buy Net Cash Generators
4. Buy Stock at Modest Prices
Charlie Munger's Investing Checklist from Poor Charlie’s Almanack (my favorite book)
"In the end, it comes down to Charlie’s most basic guiding principles, his fundamental philosophy of life:
Preparation. Discipline. Patience. Decisiveness"
Almost 19 years ago, Norbert Lou wrote up $NVR on VIC - pitching the stock at $143 per share
$NVR trades at $4,000 today
That's a CAGR of 19%
...His writeup was 816 words long
I spoke with someone today who recently inherited an investment account from an uncle
His uncle worked as a fireman, lived below his means, and invested his entire adult life. He lived to 94 years old
The account value is $5m
An interview with Joel Greenblatt recently dropped.
Topics covered:
• Risk-free rate in 2023
• Are we in a 'normal' environment?
• Value vs. growth in the last decade
• Cash flow vs. EBIT
• The UK market
• Spinoffs
• Conglomerates
Your greatest asset as an investor is the ability to think about what a company could look like 5 years out, instead of next quarter like 99% of market participants
A lot of investment research can be analysis paralysis
Here's the first 8 things to look at when researching a stock to give you a good foundation for understanding the business
A Thread:
$GEOFF
Below is a link to a document called the Gannon Compilation, where I centralized Geoff's writings from 2005 to the present in one easy-to-navigate file.
2,725 pages and 1,200,526 words going back almost 20 years.
👇👇
I'm creating a document of everything $GEOFF has ever written on investing in one document so people can Ctrl-F whatever topic they want.
I'm only 6 years in and the document is already 560 pages with 244,986 words... 😅
11 more years to go.
This Munger quote is legendary. I was part of the groupie crowd that stayed after the Daily Journal meeting in 2017 to hear him say this. The company was Tenneco, which was a little automotive supply company that traded at like a $40m market cap and generated some $150m in CFFO
I'm creating a document of everything $GEOFF has ever written on investing in one document so people can Ctrl-F whatever topic they want.
I'm only 6 years in and the document is already 560 pages with 244,986 words... 😅
11 more years to go.
Here's mine:
Buying stocks that are undervalued by 20-30% is a lot riskier than people think because a lot is already baked in the current price.
The real returns in investing come from an inflection in the business or industry that accelerates or sets the business on a
"I want a company that’s simple. They don’t have to make seven brilliant decisions every six months to keep going. There’s something inherent in this business that can keep it going for five, 10, 15 years and I can understand it."
- Peter Lynch
What company comes to mind?
A way to fail in investing is thinking you owe yourself buying a stock just because you’ve researched it using a lot of your time, effort, attention, etc.
Dry research wells are a part of investing. They aren’t a waste of your time. They are a cost of finding the gushers.
Happy Sunday! Here's some content from the week:
1) Seth Klarman on where to find investment opportunities
2) 312 pages of Joel Greenblatt's Special Situation Investing Class at Columbia is still the best investing content on the internet -