Dalio is focused on un-correlated bets,
“I strive for approximately 100 different return streams that are roughly uncorrelated to each other” Ray Dalio
Howard Marks is focused on the cycle.
The two greatest of all Munger/Buffett as you know care nothing for cycles or macroeconomics
“Charlie & I, we don’t read anything about what business is going to be — the economy is going to do, or the market’s going to do. Anytime I see some article that says, you know, these analysts say this or that about some business, it just — it doesn’t mean anything to us. You cannot get rich with a weather vane.” Warren Buffett.... but what Buffett/Munger do buy is based on is ROC ... and you rightly wrote about the negative working capital. NCK is a high cash conversion, capital light (only $250k per store in CAPEX for a new store) business. It is a compounding machine, pull up a long term ROE/ROC chart of all the 63 listed ASX retail retailer and look where NCK sits #1 at 40%+, and it is no where near reaching critical mass and will have 11 stores in NZ, with currently 1 at Hamilton.
“Over the long term, it’s hard for a stock to earn a much better return that the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns six percent on capital over forty years and you hold it for that forty years, you’re not going to make much different than a six percent return – even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns eighteen percent on capital over twenty or thirty years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you’ll end up with one hell of a result.” Charlie Munger
“The ideal business is one that earns very high returns on capital and that keeps using lots of capital at those high returns. That becomes a compounding machine.” Warren Buffett
.... Oooo and the Analysts who are all negative NCK ... no great investor cares a single dime what they think
“I don’t read analyst reports. All in all, I prefer to read “raw” financial reports and talk to industry representatives.” Warren Buffett
"A final irony of the bubble market appeared in a recent study by Risk Metrics of 89,000 stock reports issued at Wall Street's largest firms since September 1998. The study revealed that investors would have done better by ignoring analysts recommendations and buying those stocks that were least favoured. Stocks rated "hold" [Wall Street's polite code for "sell immediately" or, perhaps, more accurately, "we sold last week"] outperformed those with "strong buy” recommendations. In other words, the best strategy was to do the opposite of what highly paid stock gurus suggested." Leon Levy
“To gauge investor sentiment we use Wall Street research as a contrarian indicator, so we’re attracted to names where analyst ratings have turned broadly negative and sell ratings are in the majority” Peter Shawn
“You find that analysts and economists have big egos, which just gets in the way of making money because they can never admit that they are wrong” Michael Platt
“As for the equity research published by brokerage firms, I read little of it, and never rely on it” Guy Spier
“Bloomberg lists on a monthly basis the highest-ranked and lowest-ranked stocks by sell-side analysts. I look at the lowest ranked for buying opportunities and the highest-ranked for selling opportunities. “ Jon Jacobson,
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