Mark Leonard, founder of Constellation Software, is a modern day Outsider CEO. Leonard built Constellation following a similar corporate doctrine as Buffett did at Berkshire, though in an entirely different industry.

Ben Graham became the father of value investing by buying bad companies at phenomenal prices. On the heels of the great depression Graham would buy businesses at ridiculously low prices to tangible assets. This is how Buffett started off his investing career as well before transitioning to buying high quality businesses after around 20 years of running Graham-style partnerships.

The word “cycle” is one of the most widely used terms in economics and investing. Cycles are also one of the few things you can count on in any investment landscape and are among the most influential forces on dramatic changes in securities prices.

Most people just think of the stock market when they think of a cycle, but there are multiple different cycles working in concert that should be considered on their own and together when assessing where we as investors might stand in a market cycle.

Etsy was a darling of the pandemic-induced rally for online retailers during 2020. The stock rose roughly eight-fold from its March 2020 low to its March 2021 high. The stock, along with many other 2020 high-flyers, is now more than 35% off its all-time highs.

“How can smart people so often be wrong? They don’t do what I’m telling you to do: use a checklist to be sure you get all the main models and use them together in a multimodular way.” – Charlie Munger

Charlie Munger is a gem of a human being. I’ve yet to come across anyone that matches Munger’s broad knowledge across subjects – from physics and engineering to psychology to accounting – woven into a “latticework” of decision making. If you read Munger’s speeches or listen to him at Berkshire annual meetings, it’s not surprising he has become a billionaire and remains as sharp as ever at age 97. To top it off, he generally delivers his point without holding back on the wit and sarcasm, making learning from him all the more enjoyable.

Alimentation Couche-Tard went public in late 1999. A dollar invested in the company in January of 2000 is worth more than $100 today. Shareholders have enjoyed a total return of more than 10,000% or nearly 25% annually for 20 years. The S&P 500 has returned 7% annually over the same time period.

Despite these exceptional long-term total returns, today the stock trades at more than a 40% discount to the S&P 500. Here I’ll take a look at the business, and why such a valuation gap exists.

In investing, there are many ways to the top of the proverbial mountain. Fortunes have been made investing in equities, real estate, venture capital, private equity, and commodities. Specifically within equities, managers and individuals have succeeded by investing in statistically cheap stocks, hyper-growth stocks that seem expensive, cyclical companies, and everywhere in between. There are no rules that dictate investors adhere to one type of asset or investment all the time. This is part of what makes investing so much fun.

Not many businesses endure for 170 years. The New York Times has. After 160 years of existence, however, it looked like the business might not survive to see the next decade. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, faced with a mounting debt load, a declining legacy print business, and few answers on how to turn things around, the New York Times scrambled to reinvent itself.

We’ve received several good questions regarding Schmitt Industries and thought we’d provide an annual update given the amount of change in the business since we originally wrote up the stock last March. For a full background on the company feel free to check out that article. Here I’ll provide an update on each part of the business, and some detail on the recently acquired Ample Hills ice cream brand.