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Thanks @Jaygo. Yes, I read the Plural presentation, very thorough, and one of the podcasts. There were some other good write-ups last year too if anyone's interested like this: https://www.fairwayresearch.com/p/terravest-industries And our dear Packer also covered it in one of his letters.

Interesting. I only had a quick look, but instinctively feel that companies like this don't tend to work. I keep looking, but always end up with bullion ETFs instead. Given the size, I imagine he may get a decent boost from others following. I may well be wrong - good luck!

As someone 'across the pond' in the UK, I'm very grateful to all of you, esp. @dr.malone for these detailed notes & presentations. Don't suppose any of you guys were the ones who presented Terravest? That and FFH have been my main purchases in the last 12 months.

@Vish_ram I think you misunderstand - I'm not predicting a downfall for US. I'm just saying that there was a 12-year period where the S&P500 was at the same level at the start and end, and so this 'could' happen again. And if it did, what might companies/sectors do better than the index? I find it interesting, because so few mutual funds have been able to beat the S&P500 in the past 15 years, so would that also be the case in the previous 15 years, and how would one overcome that. It's about trying to do research for different outcomes, just in case. I am agnostic. The US market feels hard to beat right now, as @rohitc99 says. I was just thinking about how many big Tech/TMT cos there were in Europe in 1999 (Nokia, Ericsson, Vodafone etc.) and how now ASML feels like an outlier. Amazing how that's happened in just 25 years. I think Asia did fantastically in 2000-12, though I suspect that was at least partly because you were starting from the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis, so prices were pretty low. And things have pretty much stalled there since 2013, apart from I think India and Vietnam. China obviously has been boom & bust. Incidentally, I found some old Fund Commentaries from 2010-12 earlier while having a clear-out, and reading them felt like reading something from a different century. It would be hard to begin to imagine what things are like back then. So this reminded me that 2036 will probably be nothing like we can imagine now. But I hope that one thing that won't change is that a basket of good quality companies bought at reasonable prices will still perform OK.

There's a near generation who've worked since 2009 & are used to 'stocks only going up'. But older people (or people who know their history) know that the S&P topped in 2000 and didn't make a new high until 2012 (apart from maybe a moment in 2007). So 12-year returns were FLAT excluding Dividends. And this perhaps belies the increasing feeling that most people should index. So IF this were to happen again (e.g. if things got really crazy with Crypto etc. again in the next 12/24m), I was trying to think what stocks did well in that period, as I wasn't paying much attention then. Of course, one of the main problems is that so many successful companies in 2024 didn't exist/weren't listed in 2000. Forget all the Tech (Alphabet/Facebook) but even V/MA. But I thought it might be a useful exercise to imagine. You can also slightly divide them in two i.e. those that followed the index in 2000-09, and then shot up after 2009, and the ones that sailed through 2000-03. Here are some I've come up with so far, but any others much appreciated. Unsurprisingly, Berkshire sailed through this period, returning c.100% Financials; also unsurprisingly generally did so well in 2000-08, that even with their massive crash in 08-09, followed by the bail-out meant they did pretty well. For instance Ratings: SPGI, MCO, and good insurance. Healthcare: haven't looked in detail, but classic quality like NOVO, TMO did very well. Consumer: So these are interesting, as they'd suffered in the late 90s against tech, and then came really good, at least partly helped by reducing interest rates. Could this happen again? Property: I guess this is like Financials i.e. did so well to '08, then got bailed out. Incidentally Tech: interesting to see MSFT vs CISCO vs AMZN. MSFT: pretty much followed the S&P so flat over 12 years. CISCO: tanked 75% in 2000-01, and barely recovered in next decade, down c.60% over 12 years. AMZN: insanely volatile, particuarly in the 2000-01 downturn, and 2007-08, then went up 400% from the 08 bottom to 2012! Anyway, they say that history rhymes, and while things feel slightly different now (e.g. MAG6 are insanely profitable oligopolists), one can imagine a period where companies building AI infrastructure get valued in the same way that companies building Internet infrastructure once were (or going further back, Railway infrastructure...). I know that this is a big generalisation, but hopefully just is good for some general thinking.

Nice work, and good timing on it.

@This2ShallPass I understand your frustration. However let's invert. It's the old problem of whether to charge fees on Share Price on NAV. When FIH launched, there was high excitement, and it traded at a fair Premium to NAV. At that point it was more in investors' interests for Performance Fee to be on NAV. So at that point, they were doing the right thing. Now at a big discount to NAV, it's better the other way round. Arguably Performance Fee on NAV is more correct, as that is more in their control, whereas the share price is not. I suppose there's a separate argument that one of the Board's jobs is to make the NAV and Price converge...

I'm not going to waste much time on an idiot like Trump, but a quick scan of the talk suggested that, as he often does, it's deliberately ambiguous so people can read what they want into it. And on Elon - I think you can respect him for the things he has achieved, especially with Space X, while thinking he says some incredibly dumb things and holds some ignorant views. What I can't stand is people who have no room for nuance. 'X is right', 'Y is wrong'. And nothing inbetween. None of you would analyse a company like that, so I don't get why you can simplify your views on politicians to such a degree. Most people get some things right & some things wrong, and they should be called out on the stuff they get wrong, regardless of whether they're 'your team'.

@Eldad I think Druckenmiller said that basically Gold had history on its side, and that it had built a lot of trust over that time. Bitcoin obviously doesn't have that. He said (I think) he wouldn't write Bitcoin off completely, and that it may have a place as well, but it was too new, and that Gold remained THE store of value. I agree. Obviously the tangible helps too, plus the useability in jewelry.

Thanks for this @brobro777. Some stats & history stuff I didn't know. The only things I think I would have added are: a) Gold's use at times of lack of confidence in governments. b) Gold's use as a store of value when governments are printing/devaluing their fiat currency.

@SafetyinNumbers Thanks for this - very interesting. I favour Royalty Cos over extractors, and this has worked OK (subject also to stock selection) with Oil, but I've found Gold Royalties harder. It looks like the Golden Age of FNV is over (on theory that it's now too big - a victim of its own success - and so finding it harder to grow (unless more copper?) Silver Wheaton seems to be the only one with decent 5 year figures, but again it's quite big now, so not sure if that can continue. I've struggled with the mid/small-caps. Some of them seems to be simple bad management problems (I can't quite work out Osisko Royalties, which some people like, and whether management problems are fixed there, or even worse). EMX seemed potentially interesting because of the FNV stake. But ultimately, over 5 years, it's been much better to own Physical than the mid/small caps. That's my current thinking, but I am no expert and always keen to learn more/have my views changed.

Yep, I don't think Gold-backed currency would be good for property developers, who presumably prefer inflation to erode their debt away. A bit like the Costco thread, with the takeaway that it may not be right to get too hung up on valuation for very high quality cos, I try to be quite agnostic on valuing gold. I find the longevity of Gold reassuring, and while I can't 'explain' it, think it's a reasonable equity diversifier for uncertain times. It doesn't feel quite as popular as in 2011, when the last big top happened, but maybe that will occur. If the Houthis got paid off/resolved, then presumably gold would come down in the short-term. Gold as a measure of faith in governments also seems reasonable, so that is very much a bull argument in many countries around the world.

Congrats. I know it was cheap, but the YTD and 1 Year performance is insane.

I've corrected! NALL? I'm a bit less down on Europe than I was - structurally it's problematic in terms of regulation, but there are still some great companies. The above 4. Hermes of course. Some Scandi compounders. A bunch of Swiss mittelstand cos. etc.

Some lovely stories here. Two key takeaways. 1) Retail investing was very different pre-internet. It's been such a seismic change, and more people than not won't remember it. There was so little information, and so you tended to go for the big, advertised mutual fund. 2) A Shares were really expensive for normal people from a certain point. I had some spare time in my studies in 2009/10, and discovered that the Berkshire letters were all on the internet. I worked my way through them, and learned so much. However I didn't buy a share for a long time, as back then it was hard to find online brokers in my country (UK) who did US stocks. And I still worry about what happens after WEB passes. However much planning you do, succession is incredibly difficult. @Williams406 Particularly enjoyed your story - you really nailed your timings!