Durable Value Creators

Searching for high-quality, durable businesses with robust competitive advantages, runways for growth, and a history of creating value for shareholders.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

For those curious, here's the latest state of the Durable Value Creators investable universe. I was working through the physical infrastructure group when I made the initial post, but I've now officially included it. There's a couple changes to the core but largely the same ideas

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

Here's the current state of the Durable Value Creators investable universe. Spent some time recently narrowing down the focus.

Primary themes include picks & shovels of secular trends, recurring revenue, razor-razorblade model, mission-critical, and/or relatively asset-light.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@KairosPraxis $MSI has been executing well lately. Definitely a capable competitor but I think $AXON is still the superior option in it's respective product lines.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

Might be time to start looking at $AXON again?

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

McKesson has been an absolute horse the last 3-4 months. Probably ends up being one of my only good buys this year $MCK

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

This always felt like an inevitable outcome. A free and open internet feels impossible in an AI world because it upsets the balance between the role ads serve in financing the public availability of information and the incentive to actually publish that information.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

Reddit's earnings call has exposed the new reality for thousands of companies.

"AI mode does not drive traffic. Not for us and not to anybody as far as I know. It used to be a traffic driver. Now it's not." - Reddit CEO.

The reality is that AI is fundamentally changing the way that humans access the internet.

Just 24 hours prior to this statement, Google's stock erased -$480 billion on the same issue: AI is disrupting the traditional search model.

For decades, the internet operated on a simple model. Search engines directed users to websites, and those websites monetized the traffic.

AI is destroying this business model, and it's happening at an accelerating pace.

The traditional model of internet traffic is rapidly becoming outdated.

The internet has entered a new era.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

The backlog grows but what about the actual production rate? Wasn't there a report that the US burned through ~5 years worth of missile production in Iran in just 40 days? The backlog numbers don't excite me until the defense industry shows they can increase throughput. $LMT $RTX

[Fiscal.ai @Fiscal_ai]

Lockheed Martin received $55B in net new missile orders in Q3.

That's their largest quarterly backlog growth ever.

Total Missiles Backlog: $143B

$LMT

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

$GE is such a great business. I'd even go as far as saying it's a top 5 business in the world. The biggest challenge for investors today is determining what's a fair value to pay for it?

[The Transcript @TheTranscript_]

GE Aerospace CEO: "We delivered strong results this quarter as solid demand drove orders up 49%, with strength in commercial services up 23%, total revenue up 18% and EPS up 36%. We are raising our 2026 guidance across the board..."

$GE: -4.4% Today

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@johnsmiffjvye On Teledyne, mostly theme/end market overlap with other names. On Ametek, the overall shift to fewer large deals vs historical small, niche acquisitions. Ametek with theme overlap too. And in my eyes both companies are lower growth ways to play their thematic end markets.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

For those curious, here's the latest state of the Durable Value Creators investable universe. I was working through the physical infrastructure group when I made the initial post, but I've now officially included it. There's a couple changes to the core but largely the same ideas

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

Here's the current state of the Durable Value Creators investable universe. Spent some time recently narrowing down the focus.

Primary themes include picks & shovels of secular trends, recurring revenue, razor-razorblade model, mission-critical, and/or relatively asset-light.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

Anecdote: I remember there was an interview with the former CEO of Verisk $VRSK floating around a while back. I believe he did a lot of dancing around the term "monopoly" and just how entrenched their insurance data solutions were. Now contrast that with $FICO's CEO...

[Rebound Capital @rebound_capital]

We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch. We had the mortgage. We had the score. We had the one number every lender in America was too scared to close a loan without.

Thirty years. Thirty years, nobody could touch you.

You could’ve shut your mouth, raised prices bit by bit, and made as much money as anyone ever needed. It was perfect.

But no — you had to jack it 17x in five years. You and your pride and your earnings calls. You just had to squeeze every drop. You just had to be the man.

If you'd known your place and let the pennies roll in, we'd all be fine right now.

Instead, VantageScore's through the door, the FHFA's circling, and the whole industry's finally asking why they ever needed you at all.

$FICO

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@taobanker

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@simonfang83 I mean, a bunch of Chinese companies look great on paper but how do you underwrite the possibility of the CCP showing up at the CEO's door?

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

I tagged $FICO as uninvestable in my own notes months ago when Pulte kept bringing them up. It's unfortunate for the people that were lured in by the financial metrics and past performance. To me, the stock/company has entered Chinese equity (under the Chinese govt) territory...

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@invest091 In UNP's case, agreed on politics but the lack of a consumer presence might also make a difference. We aren't buying capacity with UNP, businesses are. We pay for any potential price increases indirectly. But everyone's got a FICO score and they see it when they apply for loans.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@invest091 Yeah it's tough. I tend to take a very risk-adverse approach to these situations, perhaps to the point where I'm a bit of a coward (also why I don't own V/MA). Just sucks that Pulte decided to be a black swan for the stock without adding any meaningful help for home-buyers.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

... Meaning that even if it's a good business, even if the financials are good, you can't safely buy it because the government can just decide to go after them at any time for any reason. We see China randomly decide to crack down on certain companies, now the same applies here.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

Biggest problem for Rollins $ROL imo is too much of the business (close to half?) is residential pest control services. Even without AI search risk/fears, that was always the lower quality side of the business (higher churn), plus the only real pool for left for M&A deals.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@SayNoToTrading Yep, IDEXX and Zoetis definitely contributed to those rising costs. I'm more concerned about the air gap in new puppy adoptions (based on visits) plus a forecasted "base case" of −1.29% compound annual rate for clinical visits through fiscal 2035...

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@SayNoToTrading Not saying I disagree when it comes to competition, but their margins seem to suggest otherwise. I do think the long-term trend is a little less favorable though, especially if the only real growth lever they have is in residential.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@BwieAktien Yeah. I admittedly don’t know a ton about CPP but I trust GE’s management here, I’m certainly not mad about the deal.

I just wish PCP could be freed from the shackles of BRK, it’s too critical of a business to be trapped in a conglomerate like that.

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

Oh man, read the headline fast and saw “engineered-castings”, “Precision” and “Berkshire” and thought $GE had just pulled off a blockbuster deal.

[Evan @StockMKTNewz]

GE Aerospace $GE just announced that it has agreed to acquire engineered-castings maker Consolidated Precision Products from private investment firms Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners for

$11.75 billion

[Durable Value Creators @DurableCreators]

@WillBiddy_ Never understood the desire for restaurants like Chick-fil-a to go public. Have people not seen the quality declines from other public chains, and do they not think the same wouldn't happen to Chick-fil-a?