Category: Missives

[…] Investors should fear death like Barbie did. We call it stock market failure. These valuations won’t go up like a six-inch heel. Flats may be more fitting for thinking about stock returns going forward. The only way to fight this for stock investors is to be scrutinous about the businesses you own and what you are paying for those stocks. In the Barbie movie, Ken wandered the real world trying to make sense of things. He only came to bad conclusions and never ended up with Barbie. Stock investors could be no different in their own fantasy land.

[…] We especially like DR Horton (DHI), Simon Property Group (SPG) and Apache Petroleum (APA), as ways to get our share of the profits from a very overvalued stock market. It is a stock market that is priced under the assumption that inflation will abate. Unfortunately, the government is discouraging fossil fuel production, so get ready for high oil prices for a long time. Throw in labor demanding higher wages and you get both cost-push and demand-pull inflation like what we saw in the 1970s. As inflation becomes a decade-long problem, we believe you will see growth stock price-to-earnings multiples contract over time.

We love to be the optimist at the bottom in the stock market or in a major sector. When we started our strategy in 2007-2008, we were very lonely bulls. Even though the market bottomed in March of 2009, it took four or five years for investors to have any sustained confidence in stocks. By being optimistic we gained an edge over most stock-picking firms. […]

Entropy, which is a measure of disorder, is present in every aspect of our world. At a high level, it just means all things trend toward disorder.

Over the last twelve-plus years it’s been fascinating to watch the Federal Reserve struggle to defy the laws of nature through unconventional monetary policy and in the process, we believe, decrease the stability of the system. […]

We love the stock market, but there is one job in the industry we would never want to have. Most investment and mutual fund companies have a stock market strategist. This is the person who gathers statistics on the stock market, reviews the charts, tracks sentiment indicators, and attempts to guide investors on what might do well over the next six to twelve months. […]

[…] Mr. Market knows that low ROE produces low multiples and high ROE produces high multiples. He’s just very manic when he is jaded. We are seeking high-return businesses that are mispriced. By God’s grace, there are a lot of jaded investors and a lot of mispricing in this space. We’re sorry that Mr. Market is jaded. The right business managers can take us places. These companies are lonely now and (in comparison) we love it. We are sorry that investors are jaded.

[…] We at Smead Capital Management have our faults, but we never “choose to forget” what has happened in past stock market cycles. For this reason, we are very over-weighted in energy and very under-weighted in the glam tech sectors which have totally dominated the first half of 2023 and the last 12 years in the stock market. “Memories may be beautiful and yet” we believe that forgetting what has happened in analogous situations is a ticket to stock market failure!

Charlie Munger says, “Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at.” The stock market is always loaded with stocks you don’t own that produce spectacular returns. If you aren’t practicing a successful investing discipline, it is especially tempting to envy those who are benefiting from the latest euphoria. […]

One month ago, I was privileged to speak at the London Value Investor Conference (LVIC). Fortunately for us, Ben Inker, co-head of asset allocation at Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO), kicked off the session with a presentation arguing that deep value stocks were historically attractive relative to all forms of growth stocks, and very compelling versus quality value stocks. Imagine how pleased we were to have strong academic/empirical evidence for the argument we made in Omaha at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Value Investor Conference. Our talk argued that this is a Ben Graham (hunt for deep value) moment, not a Charlie Munger (pay up for wide moat quality) moment. […]

In October 2008, Warren Buffett penned an op-ed in The New York Times titled, “Buy American. I am.” Warren argued that though things looked terrible, he was buying stocks personally. He was selling government bonds he held to buy these securities. He argued how poorly cash would do at that time and in the foreseeable future.

Fast forward to today when Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) sits on $130.62 billion in cash. It’s not deploying capital very quickly via Warren, Charlie Munger, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler to investments, let alone stocks. There is one thing that has burned a hole in Warren’s pocket though: OXY. […]