Thomas Chua Profile picture
Feb 27 15 tweets 6 min read
Warren Buffett 2021 letter has dropped!

Buffett's letters since his partnership years are jammed with insights.

And he taught me more than any business school ever could.

This year is no different.

Here are my key insights:
1. Buffett and Munger's investing philosophy

Their goal is to look for businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO.
2. Pick the right businesses and the stock price will take care of itself.

"...we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves."
3. Warren uses leverage...

With his insurance businesses!

So far this leverage (aka float) has:
•Cost him nothing
•Gave him a sticky source of capital

The latter is important.

A sticky source of capital allows Buffett to make long-term investments.
4. Look-through earnings

$BRK owns 5.39% of $APPL

But its share of earnings isn't fully captured on its income statement.

Only the dividends is received.

But don't forget...

There's the retained earnings which is ploughed into share buybacks & reinvestment.
5. Why Buffett loves the insurance business

Because it fits Buffett's rule for investing...

A company that can generate durable growth and it's tough for competitors to catch up with them!
6. How Buffett likes his earnings

TLDR; After ALL expenses have been accounted for.
7. THREE ways to increase $BRK value

1) Increase earnings power of wholly owned businesses or make more acquisitions
2) Buy shares of publicly listed businesses
3) Repurchase $BRK shares

More on repurchasing $BRK shares...
In Buffett's 1999 letter, he outlines the conditions required for share repurchases to be value accretive:

1) The company has available funds—cash plus sensible borrowing capacity, AND
2) Its stock is selling in the market below its intrinsic value, conservatively-calculated.
8. Why Buffett loves teaching

Buffett started teaching investing 70 years ago.

"Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts."

@heymaxkoh and I will be teaming up to teach investing.

If you are interested, let us know by dropping a 🚀 below!
@heymaxkoh 9. Career advice for university students

Seek employment in:

1) the field and
2) with the kind of people they would select....

If they had no need for money.

It's not easy. But don't give up on the quest to hunt for a job where they will no longer be "working".
@heymaxkoh 10. The upcoming $BRK meeting...

Will be a PHYSICAL one!

In Omaha on Friday, Apr 29 through Sunday, May 1.
@heymaxkoh Not enough of Buffett's wisdom?

Then check out my mega thread on ALL of Buffett's $BRK letters.

I distill his insights from 1977 to 2020 here:

@heymaxkoh This is the end of my key takeaways from Buffett's letters!

I hope you enjoyed it.

If you like this, follow me here @steadycompound

I write about investment concepts, business breakdowns and growth philosophies.
@heymaxkoh If you have enjoyed this thread, you're gonna love my newsletter where I curate 3 ideas on investing and growth philosophies.

Every week.

steadycompounding.com

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Thomas Chua

Thomas Chua Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @SteadyCompound

Feb 21
Looking at mature 3P players, $AMZN 3P marketplace margins likely command:

•Gross margins: 60%-80%
•Operating margins: 20%-30%

Here are the fees imposed on 3P players that contribute to this lucrative business.
And $AMZN 3P transactions account for more than 55% of their total volume now!

I initiated a starter position and decided to do a deep-dive into $AMZN because:

•Strong moat: scaled economics shared
•e-Commerce & cloud will continue to grow
•Profitability rapidly improving

And oh, they repurchased shares after almost a decade.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 20
Thinking of switching over from Evernote to Notion.

Folks who have compulsive note-taking syndrome, what do you think?

Please comment if there's a better alternative!
Maybe to shed more light:

-I'm currently using a tagging system in Evernote, no folders
-Being able to clip directly from Chrome & tag is important
-I mainly use Evernote for collecting notes and Google Docs for writing my thoughts
-I'm looking to combine both functions
Bonus point if you can link up your favorite productivity Youtubers who demo either Notion or other note taking software for others to up our game.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 18
At 98, Munger is as sharp as ever.

His recent 2-hour sharing at $DJCO was 🔥

Talked about $BABA, $COST, $ATVI, crypto, interest rates, envy, antitrust, the great resignation, growth vs value investing and MORE.

Here are my notes:
1. Let's get the white elephant out of the room and talk:

$BABA

Why invest in China? And why Alibaba?
To find out more about $BABA without going through 10 years of annual report, check out my deep-dive here.

More than 20,000 people have viewed it in 7 days.

steadycompounding.com/investing/Alib…
Read 20 tweets
Feb 12
You asked, I delivered.

Many of you have asked me how to value a company.

To best address this topic, I went back to basics.

Valuation by Mckinsey, Aswath Damodaran's lectures, MM papers and more.

Check out: A Primer On Valuation 👇
In this post you'll find:

• primer on stock valuation
• FREE intrinsic value calculator
• complete list of resources on mastering valuation

steadycompounding.com/investing/valu…
Highly recommend you read the primer on valuation first.

But if you want to jump straight to downloading the free intrinsic value calculator, download it here:

steadycompounding.gumroad.com/l/ivcalculator
Read 5 tweets
Feb 11
Read $PTON new CEO Barry McCarthy's email to employees.

Tough decisions were made swiftly and decisively to ensure survival.

This saga reminded me of @bhorowitz chapter on "When Things Fall Apart".

Lessons on managing crises from The Hard Thing About Hard Things:
@bhorowitz 1. Get your head right

It's hard to focus on the future during a crisis because the past will overwhelm us—but that's precisely what CEOs must do—focus on what needs to be done for the future.
@bhorowitz 2. Don't delay

Once a decision has been made to lay-off, execution should be as swift as possible.

If word leaks (if you delay), more problems will ensue.

Employees will start questioning the managers and create further agitation.
Read 10 tweets
Feb 5
Evaluating management is a difficult task.

Elizabeth Holmes raised $900m & had support from billionaires, VCs, and government officials.

Her invention promised > 200 medical tests with just a drop of blood.

It was all a ruse.

My reflection & lessons on evaluating management:
1. Never stray too far from your competence

Be aware of your circle of competence.

It is easy to give in to FOMO when you see others making a ton of money, especially in complicated & rapidly growing sectors.

Develop a discipline to invest only when you understand the product.
2. Is management beating around the bush?

Assess if management can answer difficult questions without using a bunch of fluff words.

We want management to be candid and straightforward.
Read 10 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(