Alex asks, “What are your thoughts about periods when overall stock market valuations look very high. Should people not buy, or should people even sell? It seems like today is a time when most valuation measures show the U.S. market at extreme highs relative to history. What are your thoughts?”
It’s time for our annual review of the blog community demographics! Actually, I hadn’t realized it since we’re busy launching the global asset management firm but a few of you sent me messages asking where it was so I wanted to take some time out to get the latest numbers up for you. The short version: Continuing the usual trend of winning, it will likely surprise no one that, since last year, you’ve managed to grow a bit older, mostly richer, and better educated. When people talk about the top of the socioeconomic bell curve, they are speaking about many of you. This community is extraordinary.
One of the major lessons I’ve tried to teach is that building your net worth comes down to two levers: Cash in and cash out. That’s it. That is the entirety of the game when you peer past the distractions and gaze into the heart of the mathematical reality. From a financial perspective, every action you take for your career or business ultimately only matters in so much as it someday serves to exert force on one of those levers so that more cash is flowing in than is flowing out, leaving a surplus. It sounds so simple but when you see things through the focus of this particular lens, you can more quickly identify the actions that are likely to have an outsized effect, both for good or bad, on net worth.
I did not realize I needed a miniature Boeing 747 in my life but I now know that I do. I could get it painted with the UPS logo for the investing cabinet which, I suppose, would need to be renamed the investing hangar. (Aaron and I don’t hold any meaningful stake in United Parcel…
I am a huge fan of the work of biographer Ron Chernow (many of you know him for writing Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., which is the best biography on the oil giant that has ever been published). Back in 2004, he wrote a biography of Alexander Hamilton. If you don’t have a copy, you should buy one and read it. My edition is marked-up, highlighted, cross-referenced, and scribbled upon. Through 800 or so pages, he lays out the story of one of America’s founding fathers.
While I picked up some shares of Johnson & Johnson stock for one of our personal accounts today and worked on the launch of the global asset management business, Aaron decided to make a stuffed pepper recipe he told me last night he wanted to try. I’m so glad he did because they are incredible. You need to make them yourself.
A few of you have expressed interest in the behind-the-scenes process of launching the global asset management business Aaron and I are establishing to provide a mechanism to take on outside funds alongside our own; a natural extension of what we’ve been doing for so many years privately…
Johnson & Johnson is one of the most successful businesses in global history but its rise to preeminence resulted in an ugly family battle that left a wake of victims behind the misbehavior of two deeply flawed brothers.
After writing the post on investing in the oil majors (if you can call it that – I’m genuinely sorry about reaching almost 6,100 words as I didn’t plan on making it so lengthy) – explaining how you’re being paid to absorb volatility over very long periods of time that other people don’t want on their…
I’ve received a significant number of requests over the past few months asking that I discuss what is happening with oil, natural gas, pipeline, and refining companies; to explain how I look at the situation and the sorts of things Aaron and I discuss when we’re allocating our own capital or the capital of those who have entrusted their assets to us. It’s a big topic with a lot of niche considerations but I want to take some time today to address the oil majors; the handful of mega-capitalization behemoths such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, ConocoPhillips / Phillips 66, and BP.