Wexboy Portfolio Prospects – Part II

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Alphabet, Applegreen, bubble thesis, Donegal Investment Group, GARP investing, Google, growth investing, KR1 plc, Kryptonite 1, portfolio allocation, portfolio performance, QEInfinity, Record plc, stock picks, stock tips, value investing

Ugh, collywobbles!

Sure, we can all breathe easier now, but still feels a little bumpy out there, eh? Though maybe you should ignore the incipient nausea…just relax & embrace the ride! ‘Cos I’m perversely encouraged by these fresh mini-bouts of panic we’ve been seeing this year. They’re a useful reminder investors still have a real wall of worry to climb here. Which is probably the most important & necessary pre-condition underwriting the durability of today’s bull market. [And yes, it’s only a bull market…when investors (esp. the man in the street) go from hoping they’ll make money, to knowing they’ll make money, that’s when we enter bubble territory]. However, we still need to see whether my macro investment thesis eventually plays out here – a thesis I express via a question:

Globally, we’re still conducting a truly unprecedented monetary (& fiscal) experiment…could we end up ultimately inflating the most incredible bubble ever?

If you think that’s ridiculous, we really don’t need to debate it here. Or rehash a complete litany of facts & figures which prove history must repeat itself – the ever-flattening US yield curve being the latest bogeyman. But I have to ask, what’s so bloody alarming about entirely average market P/E ratios…when interest rates are still anything but average?! And despite their trajectory, we’ll obviously continue to enjoy ultra-low long & short-term rates in absolute terms, while central banks (in aggregate) also continue to print money:

Yep, there’s the real boiler-room of this market – in every sense of the word – as this chart nicely demonstrates:

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So Why Not Google It..?

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$GOOG, $GOOGL, advertising, Alphabet, artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, Buffett, DeepMind, economic moat, Google, Larry Page, machine learning, mobile, network effects, search, Sergey Brin, YouTube

Last month, I posed a serious question:

‘So Why Not Buy Apple..?!’.

Just days later, we got our first hint that Buffett himself was buying Apple! Followed shortly after by that bombshell CNBC interview (here’s the transcript), where he revealed an $18 billion+ Apple investment*, the vast majority bought by him in Jan/recent months (& the rest by Todd/Ted in early-2016). What better confirmation of my assertion that value investors – even the greatest of them all, at 86 years of age – would be wise to pose such a question to themselves!?

[*Pretty sure Apple is Buffett’s largest common stock investment ever (on a cost basis). In fact, I wonder if it’s the largest stock investment ever made by a single investor (again, in terms of cost)? Sure, Todd/Ted/Charlie did provide some inspiration/feedback here, but we can be damn sure Buffett never buys anything ’til he makes his own mind up! So: Your thoughts/feedback?]

Granted, I got lucky…

Was I confident I’d see Buffett talking up an Apple position just weeks later? Um, no… [Don’t forget, Icahn announcing a multi-billion holding some years back was a huge surprise too!] And maybe I chose it specifically as the largest & most obvious/controversial value stock out there. Not to mention, the head fake I pulled: While I did summarise its attractive fundamentals/valuation, my post clearly wasn’t intended to be a detailed thesis. But hey, it was still the right question at the right time, so I’ll take the kudos!? And Buffett’s purchase now serves as great inspiration to present a genuinely compelling investment thesis here. Yeah but, just not Apple – I mean, who even needs a thesis right now when Buffett’s put so much money where his mouth is?! Instead, we’ll focus on a company which is arguably the antithesis of Apple – therefore, I ask:

So Why Not Google It..?

Wexboy – A Birthday Post!

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Argo Group, birthday, blog traffic, bloggers, Blogroll, Fifty Shades of Grey, German property, Google, Hitler video, Interactive Investor, Kim Kardashian, Livermore Investments, meme, Millenials, pdosullivan, Petroneft Resources, pretty panties, Richard Beddard, sincere thanks, Sirius Real Estate, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, Trinity Biotech, UK Value Investor, US Oil & Gas, USOP, valueandopportunity

Wexboy reached the grand old age of one last Friday! I’m so excited I might just sick up over your shoulder! So – where were the birthday wishes? The birthday cards (c’mon, they need the biz)? The birthday gifts? Most of all, where was my bloody birthday stripper?!

Not a bad little milestone to reach. I’ve heard the average blog never makes it past the first post or two, let alone hurdle that major 3-4 month hump. Welcome to the Millenial generation, I guess. Investment (& finance) blogs appear to last a little longer, but it seems like a majority of them still go dark within a year. Blogging is definitely a pretty relentless pursuit:

It demands time, sometimes a lot of it… But most people have an actual life. Blogging will ultimately fall by the wayside, unless you figure out how to embed it into your life in a way that’s personally useful, interesting & (most of all) rewarding. Of course, most web blogs offer nothing of the sort! But that’s the beauty of investment blogs (and likely explains their longer lifespan) – they actually possess the potential to be genuinely rewarding for both writer & readers.

An investment blog also demands brain power, or at least brain engagement. If you want to do it seriously, it requires copious amounts of research, fact-checking, persuasion, debate, cognitive dissonance, and contemplation. A bit like investing itself, really! Most other blogs appear to require the opposite – but perhaps that’s just my jaundiced eye? 😉 I’d certainly be desperate to disengage my brain if I was writing about the likes of Kim Kardashian, and her bikini waxing habits…