Durable Value Creators

Latest is out on S*bstack (link in profile). A quick overview of Badger Meter, one of my favorite companies (outside of the valuation). I think the company is a good play on water-related trends without needing to invest in capital-intensive utility companies.

Anyone else notice that the "Latest" tab under Search is completely unusable now due to spam from bots? Such a shame, it was a great place to find news, opinions, and new accounts to follow. It's incredibly frustrating what's happened to this platform in just the last year alone.

Carrier's Viessmann acquisition might end up being a big win in the long run. $CARR

I've always thought of Amphenol as the "picks and shovels for picks and shovels" in many key growth industries. Great episode (as is Part I), definitely worth a listen for an underappreciated compounder.

Do you think rails outperform the next decade? $CSX $NSC $UNP $CP $CNR

Looks like a busy earnings week judging by my portfolio and watchlist. My prediction is that the underperfomers go down and the overvalued outperformers (that I want to buy) go up, regardless of actual earnings results.

You can learn a lot about investor temperament by the way a person reacts to a critical take about a stock they own. Some act like you insulted their mother and made a threat against their life. This sort of behavior is more common in some investing circles than others.

Stryker $SYK is a name that doesn't get brought up too often. Pretty consistent long-term growth, only year of negative sales and adjusted EPS growth was 2020 (understandably so). Gross margin and ROIC trend are 2 yellow flags that jump out, but could be acquisition-related.

Copart finally back under 30x earnings. 26x ($40/share) is the historical long term average, so still somewhat expensive depending on how you look at it. $CPRT

Thoughts on business service type companies? Whether it be engineering, testing/inspection, pest control, or similar fields. Some have done quite well over the years but do they have meaningful competitive advantages and growth runways? $FIX $EME $APG $ROL $RTO $ULS $CTAS

I don't own $FICO, not planning to own FICO, agree with the premise that monopolies are bad for consumers. I'm also amazed, and a bit amused, over the time and effort spent on *potentially* saving homebuyers $5-$10 on closing costs (avg $6k) on a multi-hundred thousand $ asset.

This doesn't work, I've tried it with $AXON

Last year's (I'm late) Merck $MRK episode of Business Breakdowns is probably one of my favorite episodes, even though I'm not interested in investing in pharma companies. Great guest, lots of great conversation, learned a lot on a rather complex industry. joincolossus.com/episode/merck-…

Some numbers to think about as we look forward.

Almost 5 years of no returns for rails. $CNI flat since Aug 2020 $CSX flat since Dec 2020 $NSC flat since Jan 2021 $CP flat since Apr 2021 $UNP flat since Apr 2021