Just spent 4h on $TDOC $LVGO merger S-4/A (sec.gov/Archives/edgar…), carefully read first 200p, skimmed the (repetitive/formulaic) rest.

Most important stuff:

pic of pre-synergy & standalone financial assumptions for next years.

(btw: synergies are + $500mn run-rate by 2025) Means that end of 2022, ex merger synergies, one would own combined entity with $2.631bn rev that grows to $3.449bn in 2023.
31.09% growth + 17.14% EBITDA margins for 2023.

[Again, that's ex merger synergies, which are probable bc <25% customer overlap + international expansion]

Just read Amwell's ( $AMWL ) prospectus, & watched their roadshow. Assume market spirits are high for something like "telehealth software provider", but I'm not impressed. Lackluster margins, so much deficit to get to so little subscription revenue in 14 years.🤨
$LVGO way better Doesn't feel like an opportunity to me, doesn't feel like true product-market-fit. Too much effort & energy for too little outcome. Big losses, not too much revenue. So little growth considering tailwinds, imo. 587 employees in 2018 to 686 employees in 2019. After 14 years...

While there will always be people that perform even better, it's hard to judge how much risk was taken.

I own 171 companies. The performance is one thing, but the HOW makes me happy. No number can truly measure risk taken, but I sleep well because I know I've been conservative. I am managing this big ship because I'm roughly 1,111 days into investing now and more companies -> more learnings.

A lot of large companies in there, because assuming if I manage a lot of money, I want to show that I can keep up with competition no matter the size of the mcaps.

I'm still early in my investment journey, so I feel the need to prove my consistent ability to come up with the very best investment ideas based on rational analysis. My $LVGO investment represents this. I've worked alone, during a time when it was completely ignored, bought.. shares below $17 (partial >9x in <1y based on the fact that $LVGO touched >157 pre-market), own a decently sized position with an avg cost of $21.606 where I still own 78% of.

It's not a pretty way, but for me, having a low avg cost is a suitable way of showing: I do the work.

Druckenmiller's "risk-reward for equity is maybe as bad as I've seen it in my career" matters quite a bit to me considering his track record (+the fact that I'm into investing since <3y).

But his actions matter even more: He's long cloud plays.

So am I.

About selling... (1/4) If I consider selling, I need sth better to buy, imo.

While I don't feel qualified to know if WHOLE MARKET truly is expensive, when I look at e.g. $FB, $AMZN, $SFTBY, $GOOG, $MSFT, $JD, $TCEHY... What's the alternative?

Seems "good enough", so dire outlook =/= selling action.

Xiaomi thread.
$1810.HK. It's funny that Xiaomi mentions the Fortune 500, because every year I study the Fortune 2,000 list and simply think about which companies are likely to move up in their ranking. It's stupidly easy, but highly effective.

"Xiaomi is 10 years old, already number 468"->more to come?

Had two and a half intensely focused and fun days to get up to speed with Elastic ( $ESTC ). Have been reading all calls, SA articles, many dozens of Slideshare presentations, various blog posts, skimmed prospectus, 10k & DEF 14A and watched many presentations on YouTube. Elastic is highly interesting, spending time learning about it, I believe, has great ROI on your time.

Best resources:
Most useful blog post I've found is this one by @StackInvesting. softwarestackinvesting.com/elastic-estc-s… - Can recommend to check out their A+ work & to follow them on Twitter!

That's my baby.
Part-ownership in companies only.
Close to no cash.
Roughly one third in Chinese companies.
Rest mostly USA.
One thing that's unusual here is number of stocks. Sligthly ashamed to admit, but I'm gradually going into direction of Walter Schloss amounts of stocks. While I get the concept of "Slugging", I've seen too many investors buy large positions that go down >50%.

I'm maximizing "hit ratio" currently. I need lots of opportunities to answer "did I analyze this opportunity correctly and make money?" thus I own lots of companies.

Huami - $HMI, $700mn mcap.

I'll tell you about this now instead of ~Feb in my 2019 Annual Letter because I'd be sad if it starts to run earlier than that...

Very clean & simple story here.

Instead of a loss-making FitBit, we have a quite profitable Chinese smartwatch maker. Investors lost money with GoPro&FitBit.
-> Pain memory.
-> Fear of looking dumb.

Doesn't mean a Chinese company can't be profitable.

Huami just released strong 3Q results:
-> ~$30mn net income. -> ~$120mn 3Q annualized.

Cash balance grew the last two years, now to ~$240mn!

I really love this quote from Bill Ngyren (This is precisely what I do all day...):

"Yet every day, a portfolio manager has to make judgments like whether Alphabet is more attractive than Ford or whether Citigroup is a better investment than Merck." - oakmark.com/Commentary/Com… In my terminoloy this is an example of concrete thinking versus abstract thinking.

"Specialists" use abstraction whereas concrete thinkers are always back and forth between specialization and concretion.