Yet Another Value Podcast - December 2025 Random Ramblings

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

Host Andrew Walker delivers his monthly random ramblings for December 2025, reflecting on a decade of "professional public-market investing". Andrew shares a developing thesis on why markets... are becoming increasingly strange, drawing parallels to evolution in sports, chess, and technology. He examines how efficiency, quant strategies, leverage, and speculative behavior have reshaped market dynamics. Andrew also walks through several investing beliefs he’s changed his mind on over the past ten years, including valuation metrics, buybacks, real estate, technical analysis, and holding periods. He closes by reflecting on lessons learned from podcast guests, risk-taking, arrogance, and the role of luck versus skill in generating outsized returns.______________________________________________________[00:00:00] Episode introduction[00:02:19] Monthly solo rambling format[00:04:14] Ten-year investing reflection[00:04:59] Markets growing increasingly strange[00:05:20] Sports and strategy analogy[00:06:45] Market efficiency reaching extremes[00:07:34] Weird situations driving returns[00:09:38] Changing minds over decade[00:10:31] Pure valuation metrics questioned[00:11:36] Buybacks losing importance[00:13:39] Hidden real estate disappointments[00:15:13] Technical analysis partial acceptance[00:16:19] Rethinking long-term holding[00:18:25] Three-year reevaluation rule[00:19:31] Risk management maturation[00:22:12] Podcast shaping investor thinking[00:24:14] Luck versus skill debate[00:26:31] Media deal commentary critique[00:28:45] Looking ahead next decade[00:29:38] Holiday wishes and closingLinks:Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimerProduction and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You're about to listen to the Another Value Podcast with your host, me, Andrew Walker. It is December 2025, December 23rd, to be specific. Today, I am recording my monthly random rambling. We're going to get there in one second. I've got about about four topics we're going to talk about. I have a general thesis on why I think the stock market is getting weirder and weirder over time. We'll dive to that. I've been, quote, unquote, investing professionally in the public markets for 10 years.
Starting point is 00:00:27 I've got kind of stuff that I've learned and thought about and change my mind. mind over the past 10 years that we're going to talk about. And then I've got a real ramble that just comes out of nowhere and I have no clue where I'm taking it on, on arrogance, expertise, risk in the public markets. I don't even know where I'm going. I say this every month in my random ramblings, but this is probably my randomest rambliness ramble yet. But I hope you enjoy it. I hope you have great holidays.
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Starting point is 00:02:11 at alpha sense.com slash yavp. That's alpha dash sense.com slash yavp. All right, hello and welcome to the yet another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. With me today, it's me. It's just me on for my monthly December 2025 ramblings. For those who don't know, once a month, I try to hop on and just ramble for 25, 30 minutes about different things on my mind. So that's what I'm going to do today. Before we get to that, you know, let me just disclose. Nothing on this podcast is investing advice.
Starting point is 00:02:43 That's always true. But again, today it's just me going on and rambling for 25 to 30 minutes. Do you really want to listen to somebody who just take 25 or 30 minutes out their day to scream like a maniac into a microphone? I certainly wouldn't. So you shouldn't either. What do I have on my mind today? Let's start.
Starting point is 00:02:58 Well, first, I had a baby, so I haven't talked to everyone since I had the baby. It's going, I don't know if well's the word. The baby is healthy, but, oh, boy, is, you know, I'll hear from my friends, oh, our baby sleeps for six hours a night. It's just so hard to wait them up to feed them. That ain't the case here, folks. I am, I'm tired. But you don't care about that.
Starting point is 00:03:17 Let's talk about what I want to talk to you about today. Oh, one more thing. I'm recording this on December 23rd. Obviously, holidays are coming up. I want to wish all of you happy holidays. You know, one of the fun things about running a podcast that I have dozens of listeners to is five or six of you have thrown me on your Christmas mailing list. And for maybe three of the five or six, I email with you every now and then.
Starting point is 00:03:37 And for maybe three of the five or six, I've never emailed you before. But I get them every year and it's kind of like the fourth or fifth year in a row. And it really tickles me. And I really enjoy following these families I've never read. So I just, I think you had another value, the yet another value empire has a great community. I want to express my heartfelt warm, which is to those of you who've added me to the mailing list or, you know, who just listen to this in general. Okay. What do I want to talk about today? I have been, quote, unquote, professionally publicly investing. Again, have you on the
Starting point is 00:04:07 air quotes because in my mind, I'm still a teenager sometimes, but I ain't a teenager anymore. If you're looking on the video, you can see the grays are really certain to come in. I've been, quote, unquote professionally publicly investing for about 10 years. Kind of been professionally investing a little bit longer than that. But, you know, this is about my 10 year anniversary. So working on, you know, annual letter, 10 year letter, all that type of stuff. And I'm just kind of using this podcast, this ramble to soft run some of the things that have been on my mind, some of the things I'm thinking about, some of the things I'm trying
Starting point is 00:04:38 to finalize on the letter. So let me start with this. Just high level outlook, you know, done this for 10 years, take a breath, look out of the next 10 years. I have a thesis. And again, I'm soft-running this. I'll write more about this. If I think it's correct, I won't write more about this ever if I think it's wrong. But I have a thesis that markets are getting weirder over time. And let me tell you how I think about that. In every sport, as things evolve, strategies go kind of to the far edges of strategy. You know, I'm a big basketball. I mention basketball all the time. About 10 years ago,
Starting point is 00:05:13 the mathematicians realized, hey, the optimal shot is either at the rim, at the free three, line we should generally get by getting at the rim or a three-pointer. Everything else is a waste. And you saw, you know, today when you play basketball, professional basketball, it's increasingly rare for any shot to come that's not directly at the rim or a three-pointer. Every other shot's inefficient. They've been gone. So we've gone to the extremes of the mathematician of basketball. And you do see like there is kind of a counter strategy where, hey, maybe if we play in the, maybe if we play in the mid-range because defenses don't even guard that anymore. But we've gone to the extremes. In chess, you know, about seven years ago, AI really starts coming for chess.
Starting point is 00:05:50 I believe it's Alpha, Go, or whatever, it takes over chess. And high-end chess games between computers seven, 10 years ago, whatever, I've got lots of articles. They stop resembling what a chess game between me and you, whether, you know, I'm just the putzer when it comes to chess. But even if you were a high-level person, high-level chess games, stop resembling what humans play. It just looks like completely different sport. And that happens over time in all sports, right? as they get advanced, they stop looking like what normal people play.
Starting point is 00:06:17 Just, again, go back to basketball. If you and I went and play, we jack up some threes and everything. But the NBA game is completely different because we can't dunk. You know, less than 1% of the people on Earth can dunk. The NBA is played above the rim. Normal people play below the room. You know, as you get special, the strategy's changed. Why am I saying that?
Starting point is 00:06:36 I think when it comes to the stock market, I think the stock market is getting, as we've entered kind of the final stages of the efficient market, I think the stock market is getting weirder and weirder. And this probably starts happening about five years ago, you know, with the SPACs and the post-COVID boom and everything. But it's fueled by zero day trading. It's fueled by levered ETS. It's fueled by the rise of retail.
Starting point is 00:06:57 All this sort of stuff. Prediction market. Everything's like blending together. But I think the stock market's getting weirder and weirder. You know, I've used the quote several times. If you come to me and said, hey, this stocks trading for a 5xpe, I think it's a buy. That would have been a great thesis in the 1960s. that this is dead on arrival.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Quants and computers have picked over that simplistic model. I think the market's getting weirder and weird over time. I think we're going to see the market continue to do weird things, whether it's big jumps, big drops, you know, spikes, I will tell you some of the leaders in the year-to-date, you know, returns category for individual stocks. I look at these companies, and it seems pretty obvious to me that the long-term path there trends to zero,
Starting point is 00:07:39 but what a run you can have in the short term. You know, there are 10 Xs over the past year, and sometimes you can get some path. dependency, but I think the fundamental alpha is gone because of computers, because all this. And I think increasingly, we're going to see we're going to see weirder situations. We're going to see weirder things happen in the stock market. I think that's where the stock market's going. I don't know if I'm crazy.
Starting point is 00:07:59 I don't know if any of that makes sense. But I think where we're going to the stock market is akin to what happens in chess. It can the specialization, the normal stuff is gone and where all the returns, where all the juice where all the edges is on the weirder stuff. You know, it's people who, I don't ever want to do this, but, you know, I think there will be a lot of alpha being made by the people who follow the open door, create a cult around the stock and be early and create a cult and drag a lot of attention to it. And look, whether, you know, I'm not saying pump and dump, but open door recreates themselves, right? They get this mob army. The stock goes up 20x. They can issue equity.
Starting point is 00:08:33 They can bring in a new CEO. Like, I think stuff like that, which is clearly at the far, far edges of fundamental value and everything, I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of that. And I think investors who can adapt to that, can adapt to weird situations. I think that's where we're going to see a lot of edge going forward. Now, I'm not saying there's not room for great fundamental analysis. I think it's almost table stakes. And I think unless you're really, really great at the fundamental analysis, really on the edge of that, I don't know if there's going to be a lot of alpha just for pure.
Starting point is 00:09:02 I don't think there has been over the past five years, but I think it increasingly goes away because that side of the market is efficient. and that's table stakes. So I don't know. And look, maybe I'm pushing my own book, talking my own book here because I love weird situations. That's what I have been doing for the past 10 years. And to my chagrin, I've done, it's to my chagrin that I've done anything else and
Starting point is 00:09:21 I increasingly lean into the weird situations. That's what I do. So maybe I'm talking my own book. But that's just kind of like when I think about the past 10 years and the next 10 years going forward. That's why I kind of think about markets. And maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I didn't define it properly.
Starting point is 00:09:34 Again, this is my rough draft. I'll work on define it better. let me go to the next thing again when i look back over the past 10 years charlie munger rip uh you know i think more and more of him every day more highly of him but i do think about him more often every day i would say uh charlie munger once said you know if you go a whole year and you haven't changed your mind on anything it's a waste of a year and so i've kind of been thinking about the past 10 years and what i've changed my mind on now here's the funny thing if you change your mind on something unless you're
Starting point is 00:10:03 like taking notes and say oh i changed my mind and something like look you can change your mind on a stock and say, I used to think it was a buy and now I think it's a seller. Now I think it's all, yeah, it's pretty easy. But when you change your mind on something big, it's actually hard to remember when you've changed your mind or something. So when I first went to look, I said, oh, I haven't changed my mind on anything. And then as I really started thinking about a lot of things, I realized, oh, no, I've changed my mind a lot.
Starting point is 00:10:23 But I feel like there's a lot more. But here's some things that I've changed my mind on that I remember that I've changed my mind. I'm sure there's a lot. My first, I just say pure valuation metrics. Like, I increasingly, yes, it is nice to buy something for eight times price earnings. Yes, it is nice to buy something for price to book. I still find myself being pulled towards those metrics.
Starting point is 00:10:45 But I increasingly believe that if the core of your thesis is simply, hey, this trade's cheap on an LTM earnings multiple, you will find not only no alpha there, but probably negative alpha. Now, maybe I'm a prisoner of the moment. Maybe I'm a prisoner of the past 10 years have been really great for growth companies. But, you know, it just strikes me as if your core thesis is something that, did I use this line all the time? If your core thesis is something that can be recreated by a Yahoo finance screener in five seconds, you're probably not going to get paid for that.
Starting point is 00:11:13 Now, maybe somebody can come and tell me, I'm wrong. You know, hey, if I run a diversified basket of 50 low price to earnings companies, then I'm going to eke out a little bit of alpha. Maybe, but, you know, for the big alpha, I kind of doubt that you're finding it there. So that's one thing I've divorced my eye on. I think another big thing that I've changed is if you, I've only been doing this podcast for five years. I've been writing the blog.
Starting point is 00:11:37 I've been writing publicly on and off for the majority of the time. But I think if you came to me 10 years ago, when I look at the early investments, it was John Malone. It was levered return on equity stories, big free cash flow, lots of repurchases. And that hasn't worked.
Starting point is 00:11:53 Those investments generally have not worked out well. And I still love repurchases, but I increasingly, you know, maybe it was selection, right? because the companies that were doing big repurchases 10 years ago, five years ago, tended to be companies that had big legacy moats, lots of free cash flow, no area to reinvest, and guess what? Basically all the tech companies came and ate their lunch.
Starting point is 00:12:18 The headliner would be Netflix coming and needing all the cable networks launch, but you can go across the ward through a lot of them. So maybe it's that, but increasingly, like, you know, I used to look and say, oh, these guys have repurchased 15% of their share. shares over the past year. That is a huge buy signal. And, you know, now I'm just, I like it. I think the repurchases is much more capital-efficient return than dividends. I do like that I own the company. I own a little bit more of it every day if they're buying back shares. International market, I've mentioned this on a few recent podcasts. I love in the UK that they file
Starting point is 00:12:54 their repurchases every day. So every day I can say, hey, I own a little bit more of this company, and I can kind of track their allocation that way. But, you know, I would say repurchases over the past 10 years have become a much smaller part of my investing style. And, you know, you can only watch someone like, you know, Bed Bath and Beyond is the famous example. Buying back shares at 40 and then their death spiralishing shares at, you know, 10 cents on the dollar, literally 10 cents on the dollar in terms of the triggles value, but no, like 10 cents per share, increasing them in a death spiral, 18 months later maybe, if even that, the department stores are obviously great examples of these.
Starting point is 00:13:35 Oh, department stores, actually, off the top of my head, that's another one, real estate in the public markets. You know, when I started, I would look a lot for companies that had hidden real estate, right? Especially restaurants have them all the time. Restaurants that have been around for 50 years, have 200 chains. They are kind of owning, building their own boxes. I used to look for those a lot.
Starting point is 00:13:55 Now, a lot of the restaurants have gone because they, you know, private equity kind of came and picked them over. but all the department stores, you know, I think 10 years ago when I launched, I was really still really interested in the department storage. You know, Syrotech would have been the big one. My God, the Syriottage Theses were unbelievable when they came out, right? Like into a value investor, you had to spin off with a rights offering with hidden real estate, all this sort of stuff, disasters, across the board disasters, all the department stores,
Starting point is 00:14:23 Macy's, Coles, Nordrums. And yes, you know, you could get, if you traded them well, you could get one nice pop-up from them. I know many people have and did, but in general, you look at the 10-year charts, they've been a disaster. And this is despite them saying, you know, Macy's owns F-in Harold Square in New York City, and just none of them can figure out to monetize. And it is for the department stores, it is kind of, look, you have all this real estate ownership attached to a truly negative EV department store business. And the issue is the department store business consumes value every year, at least in my opinion, I think that's the issue.
Starting point is 00:15:01 But I've become really disillusioned with trying to find publicly traded, like kind of hidden real estate assets. So that's another one. Repurchase I already mentioned, oh, you know, technical analysis. I, 10 years ago, seven years ago, five years ago, three years ago, I was a zero out of 10 on technical analysis. I thought it was complete mumbo, jumbo, complete voodoo, all that sort of stuff. Honestly, I still do.
Starting point is 00:15:24 I don't do any of it myself. But I would say I'm kind of like a one out of 10 now. I don't do it, but I do think there is something to, especially on the short side, I think there's something to technical analysis where like, hey, and I don't do a lot of shorting, but hey, you know, the 200 day moving average or something, you probably want to be aware of that if you're shorting something just like as a rule of thumb. I do think RSI measures like relative strength measures when it comes to, particularly on the index side, when you're thinking about, hey, market's oversold, undersold, if you're
Starting point is 00:15:57 trying, thinking about when to deploy, like, kind of cash into a bottom. I think those are interesting, but I'm, you know, I was zero to ten, I would just dismiss it. And now I'll kind of be like, if you want to talk to me about very basic stuff when it comes to kind of especially risk adjusting, risk parameters, I'll entertain it. So I think that's a big evolution, you know, to go from completely dismiss saying, hey, but that's one. And then the last one that I've really evolved on, I think 10 years ago, you would ask me a value investor, what is, what is, what did they do. I would say they go and they find a company that's undervalued. They do a ton of work on it. And then they hold it. And they hold it and they hold it and they hold it and they hold it till the market agrees with them, right? Whether that's three years, five years, 10 years, 50 years,
Starting point is 00:16:39 whatever. They hold it. Now, obviously, if the, you know, if the facts change, they change their mind and sell, but they don't, if the stock price isn't working, they don't let that hit them. And I kind of come to the opinion of like, look, if you buy something and then you hold it. And I think three years is the time frame, though it might be five years. You hold it for three years and the stock doesn't do anything or it goes down. It's not that you must sell. It's not that you must be wrong, but three years is a long time. And it's probably time to start looking yourself in the mirror and saying, hey, is it me or is it them? You know, and I'll give you an example. I was and am a long time cable bowl, though I don't own much in the cable sector
Starting point is 00:17:25 anymore. You know, I think I started becoming a bull in 2016, right? So that's about 10 years ago. And for five to seven years, it really worked. In the past three years, it's been terrible. And I think the past three years, the whole time, I was looking at saying, look, competition's a little worse than I thought, but look at the cash flows, look at the asset value, all this sort of stuff. And I think the right answer was, hey, Andrew, your thesis was, you know, this stock, the market is hitting you in the face with, the thesis is wrong. The thesis has changed. And they're better investors than me noticed that the competitive threat was ramping up and
Starting point is 00:18:04 that was going to be bad for cable. And you know, the thought was it is either duopoly or monopoly and fixed wireless exchange it to it might be oligopoly in a lot of places. Now, you know, a price for everything. But I think if I had been honest with myself years ago, I could have said, hey, I invested in this on a duopoly thesis, a monopoly thesis, and that has changed. I need to step back and sell and reassess. And I didn't do that.
Starting point is 00:18:25 So that's just one that's really developed for me. But there are others, you know, stocks I've held that I bought at 50 in 2019. And in 2022, they're still trading at 50. In general, if it's been three years and it hasn't worked, my history has been you'd probably be better off selling and saying, hey, I miss something and I can go invest in other things. And maybe I'll revisit this a year from now and see how things play out. And again, I'm not saying that works for everyone.
Starting point is 00:18:50 But my history has been, I would have been better after kind of three years. of something hadn't worked saying, move on, do something new. So those are the things I've evolved on. Let's see, what things that I talked about. I said, disillusionment of free capital and repurchases. I said increasingly trailing metrics, not applicable, going from a zero out of 10 to a 1 out of 10 on technical analysis, and I call it timing out. You know, after three years saying, hey, this hasn't worked.
Starting point is 00:19:17 Let's stop saying it's the market. Let's start saying it's me and moving on. Oh, one other thing I've evolved on. My friend tweeted this. I think he listens to the podcast, so he might recognize it. Though he tweeted it about a month ago, and I liked it so much, he might have forgotten he tweeted it. You know, who can remember all of their tweets?
Starting point is 00:19:35 Who amongst us? But one thing I've thought about was, and this relates to the timing out I just talked about, but one of the ways you mature as a value investor, I think, is along risk management sides. And again, this relates to the timing out. But I think when I started, I thought, hey, value investing is you buy something at eight times earnings. And if it goes to six times earnings, you kind of suck your thumb and buy more or you hold or whatever it is. And I think mature, for me, one of the place I've matured is your value investor, the stock goes from 10 to 8.
Starting point is 00:20:10 And there's news, right? It's not just, hey, the market went down or whatever, but there's news. You need to be able to rip the Band-Aid off quicker. And I'm terrible at this. I, you know, my instinct is to defend everything I buy. My instinct is the price, I liked it at 10. I want to love it at 8. But I think it actually is value investing is maturing and saying, hey, my thesis was wrong.
Starting point is 00:20:31 I need to sell and move on. And, you know, I can always revisit or something. But in general, I found if something goes from 10 to 8, I would be better off selling than holding or buying more or anything. And I think that's maturation of value investors saying, hey, just because I bought it at 10 doesn't mean I need to love it at a date. It's time to reassess. Is the market telling me something?
Starting point is 00:20:52 Is there new information? All this sort of stuff. Again, I'm not saying just because it's down in the sale. But generally, when something moves down, about 20%, is where you probably saw some material news. And my instinct did, you know, I've been using a value frame, but I'll use events. I buy something at 10. And it's rumor trash, right?
Starting point is 00:21:08 There's a rumor that it's going to get taken out at 13, and I buy it at 10 because I say, hey, the downside's 9, the upside's 13. I really think this deal's happening. And then the deal doesn't happen. Stock trades for 9. you know, I think five years ago, three years ago, even now I'm always something like, oh, well, you know, it's come to my downside. And yes, it's not going to get taken out now.
Starting point is 00:21:26 But they were in play and, you know, all this upside and stuff. Let's hold. Let's wait. No, the answer there is you've got to sell. You've got to move on. I'm getting better at that. I missed it a few times. But my biggest loss has it had been when I bought something at 10 on an event.
Starting point is 00:21:40 It trades to 9 and the event's dead. And I say, hey, this was an event. Now it's a value investment. And then trades from 9 to 6 and I say, hey, this was a value investment. now it's a deep value investment, and then trades from six to three, and I say it was a deep value investment. Now it's a distressed investment.
Starting point is 00:21:53 No, just got to move on. So I think those are the ways I've evolved. Those are the things I've changed my mind gone, the risk management over time, all that. And evolving, still thinking about these thoughts, trying to write an annual letter. So if you've got thoughts on them, hey, shoot me an email.
Starting point is 00:22:07 I'd love to discuss them. Last thing I wanted to talk about. This is something, you know, one way of evolved that is investor over the past 10 years is I've started to do the podcast. And I, effing, love the podcast. I learned from everyone.
Starting point is 00:22:22 And I would say, you know, if there's the bell curve, you know, I think one of the nice thing about my podcast is I hope my bell curve shifts far to the right, right? Like the average guest, I think I hope on my podcast, and yeah, maybe I'm talking about a book, the average guest is a very above average investor, right? They're a professional investor. They're very above average. I've got great guests in my opinion. The above average guests and the best guests are just like far, far, far right deal.
Starting point is 00:22:46 And I hope every episode, because I do a lot of work for prep, I hope every episode in terms of you learning something fundamentally is like on the bell curve, kind of shipped right. But there is a left tail to my podcast. And I hope the left tail, again, is kind of truncated because of the work I do on it and the types of investor I have. But, you know, 350 podcasts, one in every 30 episodes is going to have, I guess, to, you know, I get them on and there.
Starting point is 00:23:10 I don't peer if they're dud in terms of, I don't need huge amounts of charisma on the podcast. I bring the charisma, right? I care about done in terms of the guest, just, you know, the fundamental work just wasn't there, right? And I'm not going to name any names, but of the past 300 episodes, I can think of a handful where that's the case. I learned something from every podcast,
Starting point is 00:23:31 even if it's someone who's on that left tail I'm talking about, I learn a lot because when I kind of get forced myself to talk to them for an hour, if I'm seeing big holes in Alberta thinking, I kind of have learned a lot of, I think one of the main ways I've evolved for the past five years is when I talk to people on the left till the podcast and I really have to talk to them because it's an hour I learned the holes and the errors and where I think they're missing stuff and I can apply that to my own investments.
Starting point is 00:23:55 Anyway, podcast coming back to it. I love the podcast and one of the great things is I've got great investors is where I'm going on. But there is, you know, there is a line, some of the best investors by track record, I'm not sure if they are the best investors I've talked to. And I wonder if that's because it's me seeing holes in their thinking, or if it's, hey, these guys have done so much that these guys, sorry, they've got the best record. And often it's like, it's one grand slam investment that separates kind of the people who have very good track records from unbelievable track records, right? And let's use VC, right? two VCs who are equally smart,
Starting point is 00:24:42 if one kind of got into the Facebook deal and one did not in 2009, the one who got into the Facebook deal is a legend and the one who did not in, you know, he might be okay, he might be average. But is there any different intelligence? Probably not. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:24:55 But the returns are magnified difference. In the public market, it's interesting because a lot of the return difference can be summed up to one great investment. But when you look at the investment, you wonder, hey, was this person, you know, super smart or did they get lucky, you know, am I talking to this person and there's 10 other universes and in eight of the 10 other universes, this person is done so,
Starting point is 00:25:21 right? They took this huge risk and it didn't work out for them. I don't know the answer, but the podcast is just like, it's been really interesting for me to talk to some of these people who've just hit absolute grand slams. And sometimes, you know, I'll talk to them in the moment. And then 18 months later, the stock's up six out. and it was their largest position. And I can go and listen to the podcast and I can say, hey, I mean, this person, you know, if it's your largest position
Starting point is 00:25:44 and it's up six X in 18 months, you're near as a medium-term track record, at least if not, your long-term looks pretty goddamn good. And, you know, I can look and go look at the podcast and say, hey, was this, this person was a great guess, I'm sure, but was this person a, you know, legendary investor? Or were they a good investor who was a little bit arrogant, maybe, who ignored some risks and because of that was able to hold
Starting point is 00:26:08 something up, up six, eight, 10x. I don't know the answer. I don't know the answer. I understand that a lot of that sounds negative, but it's what I'm thinking about. Like, you know, if you're going to have something that goes up 10x, often there is a risk. And is it, did it go up 10x because you identified that risk and rightfully dismissed that risk? Or did it go up 10x because you've lost over that risk and you didn't know you were taking that risk? I think it's a fascinating idea. But I am, I am hard, hard rambling. Oh, here's one. another area, again, I just ramble on these things, but here's one other area where I think about this.
Starting point is 00:26:43 You know, right now, Paramount Netflix are trying to buy Warner Brothers. There's a bidding war there, and I'm very long, Warner Brothers as a full disclosure. I am now seeing a lot of media investors and media commentators commenting on the Paramount Warner Brothers Netflix bidding more. And I think it's comical. You know, these guys, many of them are very smart media. But when I hear them talk about the event of Warner of the Biddymore at Warner Brothers, I find it comical some of the how wrong some of the things they are saying on.
Starting point is 00:27:19 You know, if you do a vet for a living, you know the beats and drums of some of these. And it's just like crazy how wrong these smart people are. And you see this and you say, hey, when I see them coming into a domain that I think I know a lot about and they're just completely wrong on the mechanics of a tender or anything, you know, how do I think about that when they're so wrong in this when I'm in their field? Is this just, hey, you know, it's the shoe button, that's Burke thinking they know everything. Is this something else? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:27:46 I mean, Twitter. I remember this happened a lot with Twitter when Elon was trying to buy them. You'd see very smart people opying on legal things. You'd be like, you have no idea what you're talking about. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I know how, you know, kind of the contract law works on a job basis. And you hear opinions, you'd be like, you have no idea what you're talking about. And this would go to, I mean, I remember the Delaware judge who said Elon would be able to get out of the Twitter buy for a billion dollars to be like, do you not know what specific performance in a contract is? So it's just another thought where, you know, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:28:20 It's just interesting. Is it, are they such experts in their field and it's arrogance that they can come to another field? Does it show shortcomings in their current field? I don't know. Anyway, I'm rambling. I can feel myself rambling. You can probably hear me saying, man, should I be talking about this? Am I making any sense?
Starting point is 00:28:35 I don't know. But this was my monthly random Rimbals for December 2025, 10 years as a quote-unquote professional investor. I still learning, I, you know, I just think about myself 10 years ago and how stupid I was. You know, I'm sure I just mentioned arrogance and not knowing what you're knowing. Think about how dumb I was and how much of a better investor I am now. And, you know, my goal, my goal, my overarching thesis is I'm better today than I was 10 years for now.
Starting point is 00:29:02 And in 10 years, when I've got a lot more gray on my head, I'll. I'll look back at this random ramble. I was like, God, damn, that guy 10 years ago, he was so dumb. He didn't know what he was talking about. I'm so much better than I am. I'm so much better today than I was 10 years ago. And I just hope, you know, the great thing about, as I've said about investing, the great thing about it is you don't peak until probably your mid to late 40s, and I've got 10 years
Starting point is 00:29:24 from there. And hopefully I'm kind of just hitting my stride. And that's the great thing when it compares to, I can't, I get sore when I lift nowadays. I can't row like I used to. But the great thing I would investor is you've got a much longer career. and much longer time for him to build on everything. So I'm looking forward to the next 10 years. I hope you're looking forward to doing the next 10 years with me.
Starting point is 00:29:43 I'm going to stop myself from rambling and my rambling there. Wish you happy holidays. Wish you happy New Year's. We've got some great podcast coming up in January. Looking forward to those. Looking forward to rambling in January with you. And I will see you in the new year. A quick disclaimer.
Starting point is 00:29:56 Nothing on this podcast should be considered an investment advice. Guests or the hosts may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast. Please do your own work and consult a financial. advisor. Thanks.

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