T Poon

“Preparation. Discipline. Patience. Decisiveness.” Thoughts on #ValueInvesting #HumanNature #Wisdom

[T Poon @TPoon12]

Study Human Nature, and this will bring you to learn about history, art, economics, psychology, spirituality, philosophy, ethics, science, technology.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

This trade (or investment meant) is BASED!

Due diligence required - for that is the hurdle for others. 👍🏻

[Business Nerd @Business_Nerd_]

Bill Ackman made one of the best investments of his career in 4 hours while eating breakfast at a Brooklyn diner.

It was the financial crisis. A Reuters headline crossed his BlackBerry: Citigroup was acquiring the Wachovia banking subsidiaries for $2 in Citigroup stock.

Most people would have moved on. Ackman asked a different question.

"Hmm, this is interesting. What happens to the holding company?"

He went upstairs to the office, cracked open Wachovia's 1,000-page 10-K, and got to work with a colleague, Mick McGuire. What he discovered changed everything.

Of that 1,000-page filing, roughly 900 pages covered the banking subsidiary being sold to Citi. Fewer than 100 pages described what remained, the holding company that Citi was walking away from.

And what Citi was walking away from was extraordinary.

The holding company still held cash. It held Wachovia Securities. It held A.G. Edwards, a firm Wachovia had paid $6–7 billion for just six months earlier. It held Evergreen Asset Management. And because Citi was booking a $27 billion loss on the subsidiary sale, the holding company could carry that loss back to recover cash taxes already paid. A massive tax refund in the making.

Then there was the liability side. In this case, was almost no liability at all.

"It also had a liability called non-cumulative perpetual preferred stock, which if you ever want to have a liability in your life, this is the single greatest liability to have. It's a form of equity where you never have to pay a dividend, and when you don't pay them, they don't accumulate. And the worst case is they get a couple directors on the board, and you say hi to them each meeting."

After 4 hours of work, Ackman and McGuire had their number: the holding company was worth at least $11 to $14 per share.

The stock opened after its halt at $1.84.

"We bought 42% of the volume for the next 4 days."

Shortly after, Wells Fargo stepped in with a topping bid of $7 in Wells Fargo stock, a deal that required no government assistance. The trade was done.

Media: Investor Talk

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@iancassel Indeed.
This is the Way!

[T Poon @TPoon12]

Congratulations!
First thing first is to understand your money.
What are your personal financial goals?
Have you together written them down?
Ask lots of questions, and seek them out.

Master the “personal” first - what you hope to achieve in your retirement first:

To this end, consider reading the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. A fabulous book on the mindsets of personal finance. Once the mindset is strong, the path on the journey to financial freedom becomes more resilient to weather the storms.

Good luck!

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@amandaorson Great book! Really well done in its conciseness and clarity of what made John D so formidable.

Have a copy myself.

The audio CD is a great way to access it a bit cheaper ($25-40)

[T Poon @TPoon12]

Based.
Literally！

[Learn Something @cooltechtipz]

AI Data Center Networking.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@eastoftahoe @pensfan27 @RosannaInvests @KHerriage Yeah. The OP wants us to go back to Financial Panics of
1819
1837
1857
1873
1893
1907… laughing, not laughing.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@jaredrhod GOAT. 🐐

People seriously appreciate you. Mad respect!

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@dmbkparker Ha!
G-Shock forever!
Just upgraded this week from my ole’ faithful to a solar powered atomic adjust variant. 😆

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@frekythedumbguy @jaredrhod Watch his videos. It’s in there.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@iancassel True dat! The ability to bear psychological pain is a key feature, as is the conviction to persist so long as you like how the business is doing, regardless of overinflated or deflated prices.

Yet opportunities (and I have lived it) will always be there.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@girdley @iancassel So true! My goodness, is that true.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@jaredrhod @nickisanders Totally. It pays to be respectful but not obsequious.
Win-win, right? Amazing how neural networks work, both biological and silicon-based!

[T Poon @TPoon12]

Recently dropped demo from Jared on YT:

https://t.co/icgR96IwlB

[T Poon @TPoon12]

THIS. At this time. Now.
Absolute Legend. 🔥

[Jared Rhodenizer @jaredrhod]

The key to getting AI to actually generate revenue in your business.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

Haha.

True. However, I’ll put forth Buffett and Munger’s broad definition of value investing…

Quality investing, growth investing, compounding investing IS value investing = they all fall into getting something highly valuable today that is still “undervalued” and will be worth much more in the future. 🙂

Getting FCF growth per share at a price a savvy business owner-operator would buy the whole company for is value to me!

[T Poon @TPoon12]

Larry Ellison doesn’t do surgery, actually.

As a physician, I will posit with high degree of certainty that autonomous agentic complex surgeries are a long way off.

Surgery is not just about hand-eye coordination:
- It’s about tactile feedback and knowing the soft touch of tissue and how it responds to cutting, suturing, cautery, clipping, tugging, and ligation.
-it’s about judgement, experience, and taking responsibility often under circumstances of incomplete information,
- it’s about recognizing dangers before wading into it,
-it’s about knowing when to stop or proceed with further resection,
-it’s about recognizing anatomy that doesn’t look like any anatomy you’ve come across because of scaring and adhesions.
-it’s about pre and post operative care.
-it’s about sitting down with patients weighing the risks, benefits, and alternatives of some of the most important decisions of their lives… and them trusting you.
-and a lot more.

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@iancassel Yep.

$PGR

$CVX

[T Poon @TPoon12]

@patrick_oshag What a wonderful interview!

Amazing!

[T Poon @TPoon12]

Apprehension = objective evidence

Won’t be punished = supposition

If you criticize based on supposition, then we’ve all lost as a society.

And yet…
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."