The Earnings Bar is High for Corporate America
The Earnings Bar is High for Corporate America Stocks entered a cyclical bear market in 2022, and perhaps for good reason. Yes, interest rates were on the rise. Yes, valuations in 2021 were extended and needed to cool off. Yes, geopolitical turmoil and inflation weighed on the market’s collective mind. Yes, economists were practically unanimous…
Hardware is Eating the World
Hardware is Eating the World “While the hardware and software layers in technology are mutually dependent, the location of talent and resources across their respective ecosystems is not static.” In 2011, Marc Andreesen famously wrote that “software is eating the world”. It’s a fun article to read 13 years on. Consider just how voracious software’s…
Stock Review: Fortinet (FTNT)
Stock Review: Fortinet (FTNT) We recently added Fortinet (FTNT) to our model stock portfolio*. FTNT is a leading cybersecurity company based in the U.S. with over 700,000 customers worldwide. In 2023, they generated $1.7 billion of free cash flow on revenues of $5.3 billion. FTNT is characteristic of the businesses that we like to own: They have an incredible…
What Is Money For?
What Is Money For? Shelby Cullom Davis got his start in the stock market in the early 1940’s on the heels of the Great Depression. He bought equities on the cheap at a time when other investors had given up on the stock market and just as the United States emerged as the world’s most…
Quarterly Client Letter: Q4 2023
“I think that a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.” Charlie Munger, 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Investing in financial markets is a constant education. A year ago, a Bloomberg survey of economists forecasted a 65% probability of recession for 2023. As the year progressed, there were plenty of reasons…
Obsessing Over Interest Rates
Obsessing Over Interest Rates “The theory of interest bears a close resemblance to the theory of prices, of which, in fact, it is a special aspect. The rate of interest expresses a price in the exchange between present and future goods. Just as, in the ordinary theory of prices, the ratio of exchange of any…
You Only Have to Get Rich Once
You Only Have to Get Rich Once Charlie Munger recently appeared on the Acquired Podcast. Needless to say, we are fans of Munger and recommend listening to the full interview. The interviewers asked Charlie what advice he would give to young people today. Charlie was, unsurprisingly, quite modest in his response. He spent considerable time…
Keep It Simple
Keep It Simple “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” -Groucho Marx I was at a dinner this summer with other portfolio managers from wealth management firms in the Denver area to talk about markets and investing. When we were asked if we invest in private markets on behalf…
Rolling with the Punches
Rolling with the Punches The Federal Reserve has raised the effective Fed Funds rate over the past 18 months from 0% to 5.33%. The 10-year US Treasury Yield just hit a 15-year high around 4.30%. Mortgage rates are back above 7%. Source: YCharts via Peak Asset Management If we had known that this is…
Fool Me Twice: The U.S. Housing Market
Fool Me Twice: The U.S. Housing Market As markets internalized the risks of COVID-19 in March 2020, stock prices for home construction companies crashed (proxied here with ITB, the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF). A precipitous drop in economic activity is historically bearish for home builders; perhaps in understandable fashion, investors rushed to sell their…