Saturday, February 28, 2026

Rubbing Mistakes on Face

2025 Mistakes TEVA: Could not find a buy at $18 despite Druckenmiller presenting the clear thesis of a new business model of innovative drugs (Avojoy, Austedo, and Uzedy) supplementing the strong and stable generic/APIs. That business thrived on scale and it has been deleveraging last few years. WBD: Content was king and at single digits or $10/20billion market cap, it was bound to get a buyout offer despite fcf deteriorating to 4b from 6b. Debt load of >30b slowed me down enough HII: It was never going away with it building so much of USN ships and should have loaded up on drop earlier in the year DK: SRE was not on my radar, but the assets were too cheap even if we are at a low point of the cycle GTX: Hard to buy something at $10 when it was $6 when I first looked at it, but fcf and deleveraging was enough. Maybe some things stay here for longer and cashflows are extended with ICE not going away as quickly. Missed Gas/Electricity boom with AI: gev, vst, ceg; If I was smarter, but nuclear power plants' replacement cost and base load should have been an undervalued asset. EZPW: In July of 2021, it was at $6. It was a microcap at 300-400mm and fcf of 30mm. It is now $26 with market cap of 1.6b and 110mm of fcf. The icky business factor clouded the great business model of lending at a high rate. Counter-cyclical to a point and should have been a buy with diversification. One winner makes up for the rest of the losing portfolio.