Friday File: Updates on Boston Omaha and Ecora
by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | March 31, 2023 4:28 pm
Real Money Portfolio updates
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Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2023/03/friday-file-updates-on-boston-omaha-and-ecora/
I have an IB account and would love to see all your international holdings in the Real Money Portfolio. I am looking to increase my international exposure.
I’m confident that many, if not most(?), who subscribe to your excellent analyses would appreciate MORE of your esoterica. Who else would like to “unleash” Travis? I think you do a superb job of explaining how you balance future potential vs risk in a nuanced way and am always more educated (and forewarned) as a result. Release the Swedish (and all other) Krakens!
Hear here!
I have sgares in the warsaw stock exchange company and in astarta ukrainian land company listed in poland.
interested in swedish norwegian and polish stocks.
Believe that you better switch to the baby bonds then the preferreds qrtep.
Substack has become a big competitor for marketwise but the shares with negative ev value seems very attractive to me.
Thank you Travis for yet another insightful and thought provoking Friday File. I for one should very much appreciate more sharing of your European interests – I think it will be easy enough for those gumshoe subscribers who aren’t interested to just scroll past any irrelevant blatherings… I created a small position in TEQ. after eventually deciphering how to do so through IBKR and felt pleased with myself afterwards, spreading my horizons (and risk). Keep up the good work, always very much appreciated.
Thanks!
Thanks! TEQ is a bit more richly valued now, it seemed to get a new wave of attention on Twitter in February, but I think it’s worth being patient. It’s rare to find humble and trustworthy leaders who love their work.
Please keep providing relevant information on Swedish – Polish and other county stocks that you have a interest in. I have a major client in Sweden so it is good to know of up and coming businesses such as Teqnion. I must admit frustration in that it is not easily to access these stocks but “none the less” enjoy your critique of such. I agree 100% on the Vasa Museum. Worth the visit
Thanks! Love the Vasa, it speaks well for the Swedes to have their most popular museum be a monument to failure.
Travis, on Boston Omaha, . . . . How are you thinking about the disruption risk to rural broadband from the fixed wireless players?
I still think that both 5G broadband and satellite internet are a real risk, but fiber is so much better that they seem confident it will remain popular.
“Seem confident it will remain popular”.
I think the allure (and risk) of these holding company investments is that investors don’t have to think hard. Let’s face it . . . It’s more fun (yeah!) to think about stuff like book value per share, or total revenue growth or balance sheet capacity/capital to put to work. It’s less fun to analyze business risk like how many subscribers they have in Rock Island, Illinois that are paying $90/month for high speed Internet, and whether they get disrupted when T-Mobile offers 200 mbps for $40/month and it is bundled with their wireless bill. Very profitable for T-Mobile and very painful for the formerly-moated quasi-monopoly rural broadband provider. The reality is that 200 mbps works for the vast majority of consumers. Rural broadband has a bulls eye on it.
Better to have Uncle Warren or his minions concerned about these fundmentals.
Another little-mentioned benefit of holding company investing is less pain from mistakes. If you invest in a broadband company and it doesn’t work, it is “your mistake”. Painful.
If the holding company does it, it is Warren Buffets’s (or his nephew in this case) mistake. A minor tweak in optics that makes loss pain displacement much more palatable to the investor.
Doesn’t matter in the end. A mistake is a mistake – just whether you admit it to yourself.
Could be, that’s how I felt about the rural broadband/fiber investments when they started making them a couple years ago… but I’ve come around to some degree. Wireless broadband via 5G is not necessarily cheap or easy to extend, good fixed wireless service requires a lot more antennae than good phone service, and broadband speed requirements are likely to grow. I could be wrong, of course (happens regularly, I’m afraid), but they’re starting to convince me it’s a good long-term investment.
Thank you for the Teqnion recommendation. I would be very happy to hear more about European stocks, though as a European I may not be a typical irregular.
I agree with others who have commented. Please add your thoughts on other companies no matter where they happen to be. it is always good to be exposed to ideas from around the world.
An Ex-US exchanges/Int’l focus would great…You could dare I say it…make it “worth your while”. Maybe tracked an aside. #International #EmergingMarkets
I would love to hear more about international opportunities. Last year I made my first foray (unless you count SHOP which I’ve had for a bit) into international stocks when I purchased stakes in Dominoes Pizza Group PLC (DOM.L), Games Workshop Group PLC (GAW.L), and Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.TO).
I’m trying to not make the mistake of diversifying for the sake of diversifying, but IF one can find high quality companies at compelling prices in international markets and thus the diversification happens as a byproduct, I don’t mind that at all.
Thanks for all the comments on the “harder to trade” international stocks I dabble in — Teqnion is by far the biggest position among those, so I’ll go ahead and include that in the Real Money Portfolio going forward and give it more regular coverage, and I’ll start trickling in some commentary on the (usually much smaller) international positions I own or am considering.