Lots of debate on here about a housing apocalypse. What is not debated is there is a complete lack of affordable housing! I built these 3 years ago for $115k each - including land! They have been rented the entire time for $1,500 month each and the tenants have never left and won't be leaving as they just renewed for another year! The best part of building rentals is: Higher Quality Tenants Little to zero maintenance Minimal competition Last year I had a mastermind where I charged $200/month for private coaching and capped it out at 10 people - teaching anyone how to build rentals. This year I have been too busy building my own house and other rentals. BUT I packaged up all the recordings and made it a course. You get all my blueprints - I paid over $10k for this alone. All my real cost numbers ​ Interview with my builder on how to hire a builder and fire a builder ​ How to find discounted lots - each lot I've ever bought I've made at least $10k in equity using these strategies. ​ BONUS: You get 1/1 coaching for me after you go through all the videos - only available if you buy today - because it's the Marine Corps birthday! ​ ​GET THE BUILD TO RENT COURSE HERE​: exporterjim.gumroad.com/l/bu… Use discount code: USMC You get all this for $97 Next year it will be $997.

It's amazing the value that Fairfax trades at today given it's history. We are entering a capital-tight environment and Prem Watsa has excess capital. Watsa has repeatedly bought insurance businesses that looked ugly at first. Some turned into extraordinary investments. Here are 3 examples 🧵 1/ OdysseyRe / Skandia America Fairfax paid just $228M for Skandia America in 1996. Book value was about $314M. So Fairfax paid roughly 73% of book value. Then things got ugly. In 2000, Odyssey lost its S&P A- rating. The investment looked like it could have been a major mistake. But Watsa didn't panic. Fairfax continued building the business and combining it with other distressed insurance assets. By 2016, the Odyssey operations had generated approximately: • $4.6B cumulative net earnings • $876M cumulative underwriting profit • $4.2B interest/dividend income • $2.2B net investment gains • $1.6B returned to Fairfax The business had $3.8B of equity. Fast forward to today: Odyssey has approximately $8.27B of shareholders' equity and $5.96B of net premiums written. Fairfax says the broader Odyssey acquisition strategy has generated approximately $9.8B of earnings. That is an incredible outcome from a $228M starting purchase. 2/ Crum & Forster Fairfax bought C&F in 1998 for approximately $565M, followed by a $115M capital injection. Total initial commitment: roughly $680M. The underwriting wasn't pretty. Reserve problems followed. But Fairfax stuck with it. 2025: • $4.71B net premiums • 93.8% combined ratio • $3.15B statutory surplus The business went from a troubled acquisition to a major Fairfax insurance operation. 3/ Zenith National Fairfax acquired Zenith in 2010 for approximately $1.3B. The early underwriting results were ugly. This wasn't an immediate "value unlock." Fairfax had to endure years of poor results while the business was repaired. Today Zenith produces approximately: • $811M net premiums • 99.3% combined ratio • $699M statutory surplus Not every Watsa investment becomes an Odyssey. And that's the point. The lesson isn't: "Buy companies with bad earnings." It's much more subtle: Buy valuable businesses when temporary problems make the reported numbers look worse than the underlying economics. Then have the patience and capital structure to wait. Watsa's biggest advantage may not be his ability to identify cheap stocks. It may be his willingness to endure years of ugly reported results when he believes the underlying franchise is worth substantially more. That's a very different mindset from buying something simply because it has a low P/E. The question I'm increasingly interested in: What companies today look like early Fairfax acquisitions? Not necessarily "cheap stocks." Rather: • depressed earnings • valuable assets • strong balance sheet • capable management • temporary problems • insider ownership • potential for normalized earnings • price below normalized intrinsic value That's where the really interesting opportunities may be.

I still think $fico is overvalued here. No position - but I don't get it.

Was just talking about this with a CPA and a computer programmer. All of us are mid-late 40s. Feels like we are the last generation that learned to do this by hand. We all use Excel and AI now, but new college graduates wouldn't even know where to begin doing this by hand.

I voted for him. However, at this point who is defending him?

True story:

Where are all the $HONA bulls today?

For some reason no one cares about banks as AI dominates every conversation. AI will help banks tremendously with processes on operations and credit.

More people need to be talking about this! I have 2 best friends- we are all in different “parties” we’ve never had an argument of any kind and we talk about everything.

This graph shows 3-month options volatility skew for GLD (gold ETF). The blue line (right axis) = put skew: how much pricier OTM puts are vs at-the-money options. It just spiked sharply higher. Darker line (left axis) = call skew, recently lower. High put skew = traders aggressively buying downside protection/insurance. Even after gold’s big rally, the options market is pricing in more fear of a drop than upside momentum.