QUESTION DUOPOLIES

“I always start whenever I look at any company. I've said it to you a million times. Like, first question is, are they still around in ten years? And are they earning more than they are today? I don't even quantify. Because if the answer is not I mean, not not that you can't do well if the answer is no because maybe you can pay a low enough price and you can be super clever about things. But I'm not a I'm not a smart I'm Forrest Gump.”

“That's the risk when it comes to thinking about companies you own with high margins. Jeff Bezos famously said your margin is my opportunity. If high margins are are defensible, they're wonderful. But kinda, you know, you you have painted a target on your back, and it's really big, and it's really red and white, and you're just asking for everybody out there to go, I'd like some of that.”

“Sentiment is everything in the short run. And, well, I'd actually say no. Sentiment is everything, full stop, period. Right? It's just like sometimes that sentiment is more objectively informed and more centered, you know, or on on more fundamental kind of factors, but it still just vibe it's vibes all the way down, right, at the end of the day. That's all a market is, is is some people that have a thing, and there's other people that want the thing, and then they they, you know, bid and offer prices until consensus is reached, and then trade happens.”

“Markets are a evolution. They're a process of discovery. What do people want? I don't know. The only way to know is to test. And that's what entrepreneurs do. It's what businesses do. Someone woke up the other day and said, I'll do it. Because they reckon they can make you go of it in that location. Could be the worst decision because the person who owned it before didn't think it would they found out the hard way it wasn't right because it closed down.”

“Dick Smith and Vegemite. So, you know, Australia. And so was it Kraft who took over Vegemite? And then every everyone got upset because, oh, that's a Vegemite. That's Australian. It can't be owned by her. And so Dicky set up Aussiemite. And it officially closed in 2019. And and like, you think, well, wait a second. That's Australia. But, Milton, we don't care, Dick. We just don't care.”

“When you remember what a bank is and it just it is inherently leveraged by nature. Literally, it's a fractional reserve system. There are two things that you do not like, outside of banking, no one will will blink at what what I'm saying. But if you're worried about a recession or something like that, you don't want highly leveraged companies that are very cyclical in nature. What is a bank? A highly leveraged company that is very cyclical in nature.”

“The ASX is almost back to its pre war highs, Pre war war this is. And you're saying The US market is already back to there and and above that level. Yeah. And it's kinda I think there's I think it's both justifiable and hard to justify at the same time. We'll we'll unpack that. But the the reality of the what Iran that is locking up 20% of the world's oil either by Iranian threat or US blockade or both, that threatens to create the the circumstances that may well, would absolutely to a recession if it continues long enough.”

“CSL is a great example of what happens when the story stops being made. Because CSL has been stupidly expensive for its entire well, over the last ten years. Stupidly expensive on any not not not as a share price, not as a price per share, but as a multiple of the company's earnings. And the argument always was, well, it's a quality company and people are are paying up for quality. And so every time you said I said someone said, if CSL, I'm not paying 100 times to say something. That's crazy. And for years, we were wrong. Until the the kind of generally accepted common health view breaks. The shares have fallen from 311 down to a $139.”

“Qantas comes out on, I think it was Tuesday, and said, hi. We're gonna have to spend extra $800,000,000 on fuel this year. By the way, we're also increasing fares, unsurprisingly, and we're cutting a whole lot of flights. The very next day Virgin comes out says, yeah. Yeah. We got fuel prices prop yeah. We got fuel issues too, and we're gonna cut flights to put fares up as well. When you got a duopoly and and perfect mutual self interest and game theory is a thing, of course, they're going to.”

“We should really do an app on frequent flyer points or loyalty programs at some point because they are faster. It is effectively money printing. It's like we have the ability to print our own money. Counterfeit. It's great. It was, like, just the most genius thing that anyone ever sort of came up with. It's like, well, if we print Australian dollars, that's counterfeiting. We'll go to jail. But but we can make up our own money. We'll call it frequent flyer points, and you can only spend it with us.”