I'm kind of kicking myself wit Big River. I do this every...

I'm kind of kicking myself wit Big River. I do this every time.... Re-learning the same lessons over and over.

My thesis has always been that residential will rebound -- it has to, with all the immigration, and lack of supply of housing during Covid, which still hasn't recovered even not accounting for the immigration level. BRI seems well-managed, with prudent stewards at the helm. It's a small cap, which means greater volatility, but greater potential rewards -- as an uptick in residential construction has an outsized effect on EPS. Yet I could have bought JHX or Boral or CSR and done quite nicely over the past few months. Instead, I'm sitting on a paper loss; with a stock nobody has heard of. My only salvation is that BRI is the smallest position in my portfolio. Like you, @stu1964 I will definitely be averaging down. I guess I could have bought Fletcher Building Supplies but that narrative won't allow me to wallow in self pity!

The more I hear the CEO and CFO speak the more I like (especially the CFO, who really knows this company backwards). They have a mandate to grow revenue through acquisitions, yet have chosen to pay-down debt and look, if anything, under-geared. I'm sure they've had offers over the past year. It would have been tempting to buy a Boomer's small company and bolt it on to Big River. Make it look like they're doing something. Instead, these guys choose to focus on running a profitable business, creating synergies, and day-to-day operations, rather than empire-building. I know this company is 100 years old, and was family-run before being taken over by private equity, then floated 7 years ago. I think (but could be wrong) the PE manager still owns 35% (National Nominees?). BRI has chosen to spend a million dollars upgrading I.T. and finding efficiencies. That money could have NOT been spent and used to inflate this half's earnings. Instead, the business is being run almost like it's still founder/family led, with decisions ran through a filter of what's best long-term. I like that. I like the new branding upgrade too.

I'm no chartist or technical analysis, but history shows that if one had leant-into 25-30% share price draw downs since listing and topped up, one would have done well. This is not financial advice. I intend to modestly average down, lower my average price and increase my dividend with Big River. The only thing I'm mindful of is that if the share price dropped further to $1.50, on 18 cents per share for the FY's earnings, we would be on an 8.3x forward PE multiple. Entirely possible. Then again, who knows what the future will bring.

As annoyed I am at not having bought one of the other companies mentioned, I see no reason for me to sell BRI. There's a good lesson to be learnt (probably from Buffet) about not taking one's cues about a business's worth from short-term price action in the market. Although in fairness, I doubt Buffet would be going anywhere near a cyclical building construction products business in the first place!