You can certainly have a situation where there’s absolutely no growth in the business, and it’s a much better investment than some company that’s going to grow at very substantial rates, particularly if they’re going to need capital in order to grow. Our capital is growing, without physical growth being in the business. — Warren…
Author: J. Dubé
Hello World! The purpose of this blog is to help people become better stocks investors.
What Kind of Toll Are You Buying? The many forms of the A, and why the word alone decides nothing
If you find a company that is going to be a good company long-term, then you should hold on to it, because there is a persistency of these barriers to entry. — Chris Hohn Download the Slides Deck: The_Mechanics_of_Cash_Flow Listen to the deep-dive discussion – The Mechanics of Business Tolls A law practice and…
The Economic Duration of a Business – How fast and how long it converts and absorbs capital
Over the long term, it’s hard for a stock to earn a much better return than the business which underlies it earns. If a business earns eighteen percent on capital over twenty or thirty years, even if you pay an expensive-looking price, you’ll end up with one hell of a result. — Charlie Munger …
Investing: The Art of Converting Short Duration Into Long – From Buffett’s turn toward quality to Microsoft’s wager on a new base
For every dollar retained by the corporation, at least one dollar of market value will be created for owners. — Warren Buffett, 1984 Download the Slides Deck: Capital_Conversion Listen to the deep-dive discussion – The Physics of Converting Short Into Long Early in his career, Warren Buffett bought cheap. He acquired assets trading…
When Your Wealth Outgrows Your Life – The Two Crossroads
How you allocate your own resources can make your life turn out to be exactly as you hope — or very different from what you intend. — Clayton Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life? Download the Slides Deck: The_Two_Crossroads Listen to the deep-dive discussion – When Your Wealth Outgrows Your Life I. The…
How Long Capital Lasts, and How Hard It Works – Why a Business Can Keep Growing and Still Have Nowhere to Put Its Money
The average annual amount of capitalized expenditures that the business requires to fully maintain its long-term competitive position and its unit volume… must be a guess — and one sometimes very difficult to make. — Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter, 1986 Download the Slides Deck: Capital_Longevity_and_Reinvestment Listen to the deep-dive discussion – Why…
How Much of the Spending Actually Compounds : We Went Looking for Hidden Capital. We Found Something Else.
Thus our first lesson: businesses logically are worth far more than net tangible assets when they can be expected to produce earnings on such assets considerably in excess of market rates of return. The capitalized value of this excess return is economic Goodwill. — Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter, 1983 Download the Slides…
Why Every Compounder Reaches a Crossroads – What Success Does to a Business
If something cannot go on forever, it will stop. — Herbert Stein, former Chairman, U.S. Council of Economic Advisers Download the Slides Deck: The_Compounder_Crossroads Listen to the deep-dive discussion – The internal physics of business compounding I. The Same Label on Different Businesses Coca-Cola and PepsiCo sell drinks to the same world, ride…
The Stock You Can Sleep On: The Toll Whose Growth Is Free — and Asks No Decision
“I have to be able to sleep at night. It has to be sufficiently obvious… because what kills you as an investor is permanent loss of capital.” — Sir Chris Hohn, TCI Fund Management Download the Slides Deck: THE_FREESURFER Listen to the deep-dive discussion –How Freesurfer stocks capture free growth I. The Investor…
The Tollkeeper That Outlives Its Payers – MSCI and the Migration of a Toll
The industry needs us more. — Henry Fernandez, November 2025 Download the Slides Deck: MSCI_Toll_Structural_Cartography Listen to the deep-dive discussion – How MSCI outlives its dying customers I. The Paradox Late last year, the chief executive of MSCI sat for an interview and described his own business with unusual candor. Three quarters of the…