12 Comments
Member
503 August 3, 2024 1:00 am
Many thanks again for all that you do.
Member
22306 August 3, 2024 1:55 pm
Pretty shocking news out of Berkshire this morning -- Buffett liquidated almost a quarter of the equity portfolio, mostly by selling half of their gigantic stake in Apple.That shifts the narrative a bit -- a quarter ago, there was much more minor selling, partly for tax reasons... but then the market kept going up, Apple hit new highs again, and presumably he felt it was too risky at 30x earnings.I'm guessing that this felt like a repeat of the bubble in Coke's stock a couple decades ago -- he regretted not taking profits on that at the time... maybe as he rolls into his 94th birthday, he's thinking that he doesn't have a decade to recover from holding through a valuation peak, or just wants to not bequeath that kind of decision to his successor.More immediately, I imagine that the wholesale selling from Berkshire, which is now sitting on more than $275 billion in cash, will push other investors further into a "fear" sentiment in the days to come. Buffett still moves markets and impacts sentiment. We'll see how it plays out.
Member
8 August 3, 2024 2:31 pm
Any idea what John Doody is pushing now? I like the guy, but 2 K for his new letter is too steep for me. Gernot Reiners, CT
- Member 22306August 3, 2024 2:49 pmI heard he had gone off on his own again after Stansberry dropped his letter... but haven't looked at his ads yet, I'll check it out.
- Member 1August 5, 2024 11:15 amGSA holdovers Torex TORXF, Seabridge SA, Ascot AOTVF, and new Centerra CGAU, SSR Mining SSRM. Only doing 5 now, not 10. His research indicated that would provide better returns.
- Member 22306August 5, 2024 11:20 amInteresting, thanks. SSR really got whacked by that Turkish tailings dam collapse (which put more delays on the Hod Maden project they took over from Sandstorm Gold), and Seabridge is often a levered favorite that folks continue to hope will make a deal (I have options on that one), don't know the others offhand.
Member
63 August 4, 2024 7:56 pm
I really want to own ROKU, the product is excellent. The Cathie Wood connection gives me pause, everything she touches is punished these days by the market.The other question with ROKU is they are late to the streaming game vs NFLX,m and dont have the power of Disney or Amazon, neither are they significantly better to break the first mover advantage.Would love your thoughts Travis.
- Member 22306August 4, 2024 8:51 pmRoku had a huge advantage in beating Apple, Amazon, Google and everyone else with the best OS and best hardware, with roughly 50% market share.The problem, so far, is that monetizing that user base has only worked great when the streaming services were competing like mad for subscribers. With that competition dying down post-COVID, it's a slower and tougher slog. Don't know if they'll make it or not, but they still have leading market share, and they're getting better on advertising by opening up to other buyers (through Trade Desk, etc).Their own content is very limited and pretty cheap, but there's a risk they could pour more money into that pit, too.Im in the "hopeful but cautious" camp these days. Amazon and Alphabet came to play with better products last year, which makes it tougher.
Member
22306 August 5, 2024 9:56 am
Trade Note: Hedging That was a crazy weekend of people wondering what might happen at the open, particularly after Japan fell so hard overnight... so although I don't generally send out Trade Notes for options trades, I felt like I should let you know what I'm doing, just in case folks followed me into any of my hedging positions a week ago. You may remember that I got nervous about the market and put on a variety of short-term hedges about ten days ago, which is usually a dumb thing to do but worked out well this time... and in the first half hour of trading today I took profits on about 10-20% of my short-term hedge positions, as everyone was scrambling to get coverage against a feared crash. That's the call options on the SPXS ETF as well as the put options on the SPY ETF that I've held for much longer (at much higher cost). I have an order in to do the same with my call option on the HDGE ETF, but that might not hit because the options are extremely illiquid on that one.Don't know if this drop will turn into a 10-20% reset, or a bigger crash, or will be over in a day... but with options, when things get extreme for a moment, I don't try to have perfect timing -- I prefer to shave off a little bit of my cost of hedging when I can do so at a meaningful profit (or speculating, in the other direction). I basically just pulled back the cost of the hedges plus a little profit, so can let those hedges ride and provide better protection if we do indeed get an actual crash in the months ahead.Normally, I would let hedge positions ride during a downturn, to provide fuller protection, since they are very psychologically reassuring -- but with a wild move like we saw first thing today, the fact that most of those hedges have expirations in six weeks, and the inherent unknown that the future represents, which means the probability is still that those hedges will expire worthless, it made sense to shave off a little -- clear some profit and have some more cash to sit on for potential opportunities.More on Friday after we see how the week unfolds... try not to panic, I'm not racing to "buy the dip" on this decline, particularly when it comes to the hotter growth stocks, I'd like to see valuations reset meaningfully lower and get more corporate updates in the next couple weeks, but I'm more inclined to look for buying opportunities than to sell any of my core positions :)
- Member August 5, 2024 1:20 pmUnable to get into Fidelity for over 30 minutes to short some stocks spxs and rwm but did get in early on extended market hours at 9:00 am
Member
9 August 5, 2024 10:47 am
You're lucky! I haven't been able to log into my Schwab account this morning. Have to imagine they're getting hammered by the big boys, and have no time for the likes of me!
- Member 66August 5, 2024 11:00 amFidelity website is having problems also.
- Member 22306August 5, 2024 11:06 amOuch. Haven't had trouble with Fidelity or Interactive Brokers today, personally, but I guess that's another sign of how quickly the herd can turn to "panic" mode.Broad market seems to be settling down a little now, we'll see how the week goes.
- Member 494August 6, 2024 2:53 pmI had a nice buying spree execute right at the opening bell, Monday morning. I hope that doesn't turn out to be dumb! But they were all long standing limit orders, at preferred prices - thought out in advance...
- Member 46August 18, 2024 6:08 pmLikewise, had several long standing GTC limit orders kick in (including NVDA at $98, which actually tirggered at $92). Also placed a few levered ETF positions to play a bounce. So far, so good. And lastly, added SVXY, which moves inverse to the VIX. When the VIX pops over 30, it generally does not hold those elevated levels long. And that has been the case again.
Member
15 August 5, 2024 10:59 am
Hello Travis wanna stay very much In Topic here, but please, let me drop a very dumb question .... What exactly is "core position" for you, now? Which one? The classics, like Brk, Mkl and Google? the top10's? or simply, all those "yes" on the "would buy more at current prices" column ? thx
- Member 22306August 5, 2024 11:18 amThat's a good question, partly because I don't use that term "core" very often, I guess it slipped in.I'd say the core positions are those where I hold large allocations but would still be willing to hold through a 50% market decline, assuming no real fundamental change to the way the company operates -- Berkshire, Alphabet, Markel, Brown & Brown, Brookfield, Exor, Amazon. Royal Gold, Chubb, Hershey, Huntington Ingalls, W.R. Berkley, maybe Kinsale and Teqnion, are the ones where I have a meaningful position and high long-term conviction at the moment, stocks where I would not be inclined to "take profits" even if the valuation were a bit too high for a while. Some others are too new for me to have that comfort level or the position is too small for me to say it's a "core" with a straight face. The Trade Desk and NVIDIA are large positions, but also stocks that often trade at extreme valuations that are tough to stomach (well over 20-30X sales), so I've taken profits from time to time in both, and it would take pretty extreme declines to tempt me to buy.That's how I think of those holdings. Sorry for throwing that "core" term in there without any clarity.And out of curiosity, I just ran a column in my portfolio spreadsheet to alert me to if things get way out of whack on the valuation front for my holdings, essentially a "preferred buy price minus 20%" level, to give me more margin of safety if we see a meaningful drop in broad market valuation multiples -- none of my positions are very close to that point yet, just FYI. I'm hopeful that if we have a more severe downturn I'll be mindful enough to buy more of some of my best companies, or to add very high quality companies that I don't currently own, but a 5-10% correction probably won't be enough to get me to full on "greedy".
- Member 34August 6, 2024 12:47 pmTravis - Happy birthday. I'm interested in your including HII as a core holding, even after pointing out its lack of growth and trimming earlier this year. I suppose, if nothing else, HII is stable.
- Member 22306August 6, 2024 2:19 pmI lowered my "buyable" price for HII, but haven't sold any. They will be a bit growth challenged for the next year or so, but I think we have pretty good visibility on what they'll earn over the next 20 years. Can't say that about many companies.
Member
August 6, 2024 5:25 pm
What about MITEK?
- Member 22306August 7, 2024 11:19 amHaven't dug into MITK in a while, it's in the Lock Box so I am mostly just waiting to see if they've really gotten their act together on the accounting side, and if they can grow the key identity verification business. It's been relatively reassuring over the past couple quarters, they report again tomorrow.This one was teased by Altucher last week (https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/james-altuchers-microcap-millionaire/reveal-altuchers-five-microcap-superstocks/), and by the Motley Fool late last year, but not getting tons of attention otherwise.