* BGA is my type of company. Agricultural; rural Australia. I'd...

* BGA is my type of company. Agricultural; rural Australia. I'd love to own it but the ROE and margins seem historically anaemic and it's squeezed by large supermarkets and farmers. A price taker. Unless it was super-cheap I can't find a reason to buy it.
* I've looked at the ACDC ETF regarding battery materials. I don't understand lithium and it seems a crowded space. I own S32 and plan to buy more on pull-backs over the next few years as the decarbonisation theme is unstoppable (if you can't beat them, join them!). Copper and the other base metals have a multi-year runway ahead and easier for me to understand. Lithium is far too popular now but the sector is hot for good reason.
* NCM -- very cheap historically but I have no idea where the gold price heads from here. Investor Rick Rule says 'up'. Nobody knows. All depends on the gold price. Intelligent Investor dropped coverage of all gold stocks a few years ago because they had no idea how to predict gold demand!
* I like the uranium sector but my preferred stock (BOE) seems to be priced for much higher uranium prices, as are other uranium companies and the sector usually disappoints. I can't see world-wide net zero happening without baseload nuclear. I suspect supply/demand will cause a uranium bull run. Anything energy related is appealing due to constant year-on-year growth and time in getting approval for any type of mining projects.
* I'm a sucker for REITs (CQE, CLW and HDN) and like buying-in slowly over long periods on dips, compounding, and re-investing distributions.
* Lark -- I'd never heard of it. Dabozza's interest on Twitter caught my attention and I spent a few hours reading everying I could find. A lot seems to depend on reputation of the Lark product and tastes/preferences of consumers for whiskey some years off into the future. No CEO. They are sitting on a heap of inventory which is aging (very slowly!). I can see a take-over play in the future and profiting from that.
* Midway -- again, I read Dabozza's DD on Twitter. Timber prices falling now I recall the company was sitting on high NTA. Were they buying a port in Geelong? Selling an asset and returning money to shareholders? A share price spiking then falling back. It didn't seem like a long term investment with margin of safety. Beyond my limit expertise!
* I'm still sitting on a reasonable Woodside holding from mid-2020. Have been slowly selling down my FUEL ETF holding. Still confused about why the US market is rallying so hard. Am keen to put some of that into sold-off mid-sized quality/growth stocks buy they (and the whole market) has rallied in the assumption of hard-to-fathom interest rate cuts ahead. I have some FOMO but too cautious to deploy much cash at the moment. I still can't see the reason for this size market rebound with more rate rises ahead. I can't believe the market is pricing-in rate cuts with 8.5% inflation.
* DEL -- I am very keen with a small holding. Have spend countless hours listing to every podcast interview, reading every interview, announcement, HC post, etc. Not keen on the 50% share price haircut. First mover advantage, new industry, huge tailwinds and more work than they can handle. Maybe similar to Tassal at the very beginning of the prawn expansion. But if they can't get finance all the positives become just academic. A risky smallcap.

I'd been looking forward to reading the annual report and presentation and attending the conference call yesterday. In the end, I couldn't bring myself to either read the presentation or attend the call. A bit like Huon at the end, its results were irrelevant after the take-over was confirmed. In these situations the board with their big holdings from share options can cash-out and retire; fund manager in a bad year can book a nice profit to offset losses elsewhere; investment banks do well off consulting fees; Cooke does well off the sweat and tears of long-term holders who sat through the years of prawn-building phase; Australia loses another price agricultural asset. The retail investor with thousands/tens of thousands of dollars invested (rather than millions of dollars) gets thrown a modest take-over premium; and the benefit of that anticipated compounding out to 2030 goes to some guy in the maritime provinces of Canada. Not one person on this forum seems happy about it. And by the sound of things, nothing was said at the conference call yesterday. The previous Prime Minister with his five secret portfolios would be proud of this type of arrangement. It's not like we were sitting on a Huon-type investment with horrible numbers, where every shareholder was underwater and the take-over allowed us all to walk off into the sunset with our paper losses erased thanks to a white knight. The fact the previous offer was not even considered, yet this 5% higher offer get the 'unanimous support of the board' is pathetic. It's all completely beyond my pay grade as a small retail investor. The one thing I can control is to not sell. I refuse to sell and will hold until the very end when the shares are removed from the registry and I'm credited with the take-over proceeds. I can't see the offer not going ahead from here. I am sure the people involved know they have a green light from here and the deal will be labelled 'fair and reasonable' by the independent auditor. Who knows perhaps a higher bidder will emerge. A couple of billion dollars wouldn't be a large amount for the large Norwegian salmon companies.

Sadly, I am changing my HC sentiment to "Hold" from "Buy".