Ann: Profit Advice- Year Ended 31 December 2016, page-34

All very hard to argue with @Jimmy_C. Also, anyone that brings Michael Pettis into an argument gets bonus points from me.

However, this is how I look at it. Compared to it's competitors, i believe that UOS has:
- Vastly superior management
- Superior execution
- Stronger balance sheet
- Vastly more excess cash (in fact most are net debt)

So I have to ask myself, if a downturn will hurt UOS, what will it do to its competitors? I would have to assume, then, that a downturn might actually be beneficial to UOS's long term future. I also sometimes ask myself, if we (the market) were not subject to anchoring bias, ie if we were not subject to the notion that "UOS always trades below NTA", and if i came across UOS for first time in the midsts of a property downturn (in Malaysia) and it was available at a substantial discount to NTA (especially on a cash adjusted basis), would i think this was a good time to acquire the business? I suspect so.

Well i can acquire it at such a discount today. So why wait?

But I certainly agree that many dangers lurk, known and unknown, and that risk should, in my opinion, be mitigated by taking a portfolio approach (Howard Marks would probably agree, but Charlie Munger perhaps less so).