Economy Stocks thread v28: in loving memory of Rob Mafia and Brackis1

[HOLA]

I made a purchase Monday: SOC. Sable Offshore Corp.

I discovered them through Li Lu: https://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=HC

(He also sold half of his Apple holdings btw, just like Buffett).

SOC's holdings used to be owned by Exxon. After a pipeline leak, and regulatory issues in California, Exxon were forced to sell and sell cheap in recent years. Real cheap. California wanted Exxon to be compliant with their regulations, not just for Exxon's operations in California, but for all their operations worldwide. Exxon could not abide. The Santa Ynez Unit is a very valuable asset BUT California is regulation hell for Oil & Gas companies usually.

SOC is giving it go. As it stands now, they've passed a lot of the regulatory hurdles, and production is scheduled to restart in the first quarter of 2025. They haven't passed all the hurdles, however, and it's possible someone still throws a wrench in their plans. There is risk here.

SOC has the advantage in that they're focusing their efforts in California. They aren't a global behemoth like Exxon. As it stands right now, they only have a $2 billion market cap (The Santa Ynez Unit assets they purchased from Exxon, for less than $1 billion, have a Net Asset Value of $10 billion).

SOC's management is very similar to OXY's; that is, very limited capital expenditures, focusing instead on maximizing cash flows to investors. I posted this video of Mohnish Pabrai talking about it earlier in this thread, but I'll post it again:



Bought my shares at $23.85. We'll see how it goes.

 

[HOLA]

https://archive.ph/VmY9x

whenever you get buzzkilled by a paywalled article, just go to archive.ph, copy pasta the article link into the text input box. you should get an archived snapshot of the entire article

That's a useful resource; unfortunately, it doesn't always work for everything 100% of the time, though.

 

[Rob Battisti]

How the hell did you guys not beat the market?

 

[Mr Holmes]

+21% on the year. But the overwhelming majority its in Vanguard's total stock market mutual fund. Additionally I have few REITs and bonds. A tiny crypto position. My Shohei Ohtani PSA 10 rookie cards are going to take me to the moon one day.

 

[Quadtavius Tuck]

+85.22% I feel like a loser compared to the gme happening year

 

[Rob Battisti]

+85.22% I feel like a loser compared to the gme happening year

I got F’d one one bad trade this year that could have gotten me to 125%. Stupid ass me.

 

[HOLA]

I figured it out. I was up 17.97% for the year. Total return for the S&P 500 was 23.3%. Not cool.

Interestingly, my Schwab account, which is where I do my shorter-term trading and keep my recent buys in, was up 39.70%. So, my recent picks are doing well, it's just that UNP really fucked me up and I own a lot of it. LMT taking nosedive right at the end of the year didn't do me any favors either. Bad timing.

Here's my portfolio, from largest position to smallest, heading into this year:

Berkshire Hathaway
Mastercard
Union Pacific
Lockheed Martin
Trane Technologies
COSTCO
Amazon
Apple
Alphabet
Waste Management
Microsoft
United Rentals
IES Holdings
Itochu
Home Depot
Occidental Petroleum
WR Berkley
Winnebago
Chubb
Take-Two Interactive Software
Nintendo
RLI
Sable Offshore

Good luck in 2025.

 

[HOLA]

How the hell did you guys not beat the market?

Don't rub salt in the wound, bruh.

NVIDIA alone was like 25% of the market's gain. Tesla was probably a big chunk as well. I own neither.

I actually did try to do a momentum trade with NVIDIA. Set up a limit order at $1,000, pre-split. Which would be $100 now. Which it hit, but Interactive Brokers didn't fill it for me. It's now $134. Oh well.

 

[HOLA]

Started off the year with some buys:

URI at $691.66 (52 week high was $896 just 6 weeks ago. Nothing has changed. Just getting a nice discount now).

IESC at $208.83 (52 week high was $320 just 4 weeks ago. Like URI nothing has changed).

WRB at $58.06

 

[Quadtavius Tuck]

I figured it out. I was up 17.97% for the year. Total return for the S&P 500 was 23.3%. Not cool.

Interestingly, my Schwab account, which is where I do my shorter-term trading and keep my recent buys in, was up 39.70%. So, my recent picks are doing well, it's just that UNP really fucked me up and I own a lot of it. LMT taking nosedive right at the end of the year didn't do me any favors either. Bad timing.

Here's my portfolio, from largest position to smallest, heading into this year:

Berkshire Hathaway
Mastercard
Union Pacific
Lockheed Martin
Trane Technologies
COSTCO
Amazon
Apple
Alphabet
Waste Management
Microsoft
United Rentals
IES Holdings
Itochu
Home Depot
Occidental Petroleum
WR Berkley
Winnebago
Chubb
Take-Two Interactive Software
Nintendo
RLI
Sable Offshore

Good luck in 2025.

Why do you have so many stonks bro

Winnebago??? Dafuq? Did you see like three van life videos and thought that would translate to stonks or something

 

[HOLA]

Why do you have so many stonks bro

Winnebago??? Dafuq? Did you see like three van life videos and thought that would translate to stonks or something

20-25 stocks in a portfolio is not that much at all. I also have about 4/5ths of it in just 3 stocks: BRK.B, MA and UNP.

As for Winnebago, it's been a great investment since about 2010, and especially during Covid, because it was a way for people to go on a vacation while keeping to themselves and not worry about getting germs from everyone else, like on a cruise.

Revenues went from $450 million in 2010 to $5 billion in 2022. Over the same time-period annual operating income went from just $500,000 to $600 million. They are flush with cash and have very little debt. Dividend is growing nicely.

The stock was less than $10 in 2010...like $6 iirc. It's $50 now but was as high as $80 in recent years.

They also have a marine segment, btw, selling boats. They bought Chris-Craft in 2018.

The higher interest rates we've had + people not doing the social distancing stuff anymore have been headwinds the last 2 or so years, but it is a really well-run company. I have no plans on selling.

 

[Pittie Petey]

How the hell did you guys not beat the market?

Cause I'm bad at this

 

[Pittie Petey]

Its my first year and Im up 5.4% all time, was up 15% not that long ago, was also down 25% before that so I guess it could be worse

 

[HOLA]

Its my first year and Im up 5.4% all time, was up 15% not that long ago, was also down 25% before that so I guess it could be worse

Don't worry too much about the results from 1 year (unless you really shit the bed and are down like 50% or something, then yikes). You can't tell much from only 1 year. You've got to make it through the peaks and troughs of an entire business cycle before you really get an accurate view of your relative performance.

My best year ever was 2008, during the Great Recession. IIRC the market was down like 40%, and I was down less than 10%. I can't remember exactly what it was without looking it up...I think I was down like 7%. Not having to climb out of that massive hole so many other people were in was such a huge advantage.

If you lose 40% of your money, you then need to get a 67% gain just to break even. If you lose 7% of your money, you only need around a 7.5% gain to break even. Avoiding the big losses is such a massive help.

Some other interesting math:

Imagine two investors. The first makes 5% each and every year.

The second loses 50% in his first year, then makes 10% every year after that - double what the first guy makes. It will still take the 2nd investor more than 16 years to catch up to the first investor, despite getting double the returns for 16 years in a row, all because he got crushed that first year.

 

[SalvadorAllende]

IDK how much did I made in 2024 but for sure investing helped to get through all the shit and tribulations about exchange rate in Argentina.

I started the year from scratch since we bought an apartment cash at the end of 2023 and I sold all my investments to do so.

Made about 274 USD buying and selling lol. I usually buy small positions 2 or 3 stocks I think there are cheap and sell them when they go up just to feel I know what I'm doing (I don't)

Then most of my money went to local companies bonds (which are still paying) and ETFs and very very conservative stuff. I'm happy if I'm up 7% yearly

 

[King Joffery]

Excellent start to 2025 after a disappointing December. I only started investing last summer and I'm up 44% overall. Is this normal? Can I expect to average about a 100% return every year?

 

[Rob Battisti]

Can I expect to average about a 100% return every year?

Yes

 

[HOLA]

Excellent start to 2025 after a disappointing December. I only started investing last summer and I'm up 44% overall. Is this normal? Can I expect to average about a 100% return every year?

lol That would be nice, but no. The statistics show most people fail to beat the market, which since 1871 has returned about 9-10% annualized. The real return would be closer to 6-7% after adjusting for inflation. That's around what you can expect unless you're really talented/ extremely lucky.

Warren Buffett is deified because he has been getting around 20% annualized with Berkshire since 1965.

 

[aerius]

Excellent start to 2025 after a disappointing December. I only started investing last summer and I'm up 44% overall. Is this normal? Can I expect to average about a 100% return every year?

You can expect whatever you want. Whether reality matches expectations is a different story.

 

[Rob Battisti]

lol That would be nice, but no. The statistics show most people fail to beat the market, which since 1871 has returned about 9-10% annualized. The real return would be closer to 6-7% after adjusting for inflation. That's around what you can expect unless you're really talented/ extremely lucky.

Warren Buffett is deified because he has been getting around 20% annualized with Berkshire since 1965.

I don’t settle for less than 25% a year. Ive gotten over 30% CAGR in the last 5 years since I’ve been investing.

I am predicting 55-70% increase this year.